“The seemingly random way various races in different regions usually had different affinities had long baffled those researchers who sought a pattern in them, in the hopes of finding out what influenced certain affinities to show up more often than others.

Some cases were easier to understand than others, like how the merfolk were predominantly of the water affinity, and seldom had the fire affinity. Researchers took this to mean that their living environment and the deity they worship affected their development in some ways, as merfolk worships Remidis in general.

Yet the hypothesis that the worshiped deities played a role fell apart when one looked at other races, like say the orcs and goblins of the northern regions of Alcidea. The orcs most commonly worshiped Aistrofuri and Pesca as their ‘Father Sky’ and ‘Mother Earth’, yet amongst them, life and water affinities were just as common as wind or earth. Similarly, no explanation was found on why the northern orcs had the most common occurrence of blood mages out of all races everywhere.

In the case of the goblins, they primarily worship Vitalis and Tohrmut, often under various different names and tribal idols. Yet the most prominent affinities amongst them were of earth and water. Mud affinity was particularly common amongst the northern goblins, as were mist and rot. Unlike their neighbors, and despite frequent intermarriage, goblin blood mages were nearly unheard of.

Another case that demanded attention involved the Al-Shan Archipelago, where unlike literally everywhere else in the world, space affinity maged were abundant. Where space affinity mages were relatively rare elsewhere, Al-Shan had so many they had turned to renting their excess mages to other nations of late. Why this was so? Nobody knows. Many researchers had even moved there after the Civil War ended to try to find out, only to come up with nothing.” - From the final term papers of Leigh Wainwrought, Sociology Student in the Levain Institute for Higher Learning, circa 691 FP.

Cal returned to Paradise along with the rest of her group later that week, a few days after her visit to the Royal Palace. Unlike the well-guarded gates she saw in most nations, the teleportation gate in the Kingdom Down Under was situated more like how the Elves simply built the gate by the hub of their Ether Road.

The central district of the dwarven Kingdom was similarly located on a mana vein, albeit one nowhere near as large or extensive as the one in the Great Emerald Forest, and the dwarves simply tapped straight into it to fuel their gate. Along with the elves of the Great Emerald Forest and the inhabitants of the Lichdom of Ptolodecca, they were currently the largest trading partners of Paradise, and made frequent use of the gate for commercial purposes.

Other nations with the gates had begun to take approaches to increase their own volume of trade, by building larger gates for example, and there were even talks of having a gate network more like the ether road, just on an international level, though the difficulties involved with it had so far stalled progress.

Most nations simply lacked either the mages or mana crystals to sustain the gate’s operation on a larger scale, or had nowhere near enough space affinity mages to maintain their gates. Al-Shan had notably stepped up to fill the later gap, as they began to “rent” out their space mages in recent years. Cal even saw two people with the telltale features of the Huan people found only in Al-Shan working on the dwarven Kingdom’s gates, likely examples of such “rental” mages.

They even greeted her back - in her native tongue - when she gave them the usual words of greeting, as well as an exaggerated bow. Cal sighed as she knew she could pretty much forget about anonymity if there were people from her homeland present.

When they stepped through the gate and into the hub in Paradise, the room now had ten gates where there used to be eight. She had heard that talks were ongoing with Knallzog to create a gate in Knallgant, and it seemed like the construction had finished during her recent travels. The other gate was noticeably smaller in size, and from the label before it, she learned that it led to Gal-Morogh in the north, a new spoke in the hub that was Paradise.

The air was colder than usual even for late autumn in Paradise, and when she looked up, she realized why. It had begun to snow earlier this year, and the barrier around the city kept the snowfall from falling into the city.

Her party quickly separated and went their own way. Cal herself visited Aideen first to drop off the order of Ales and meads the unliving woman had ordered - an amount so vast Cal was still surprised it only lasted Aideen a mere half a decade on average - and was thanked for her troubles.

It was honestly not that much trouble since it happened to be along her way anyway, and Cal herself had taken the chance to get a few barrels of Orloff’s personal brew for herself. Some she kept for her own consumption, but a few barrels she had intended as souvenirs.

Similarly, she had bought various things from both the elven forest and the dwarven kingdom as souvenirs. Fine elven handiworks and the mellow elven wines said to be good for calming nerves and helping its drinker sleep well occupied her storage, along with finely made dwarven weapons done in the Al-Shan style, as well as composite bow masterfully crafted by both an elven bowyer who happened to be visiting the Kingdom Down Under and a master smith who specialized in crossbows, both people Orloff had introduced her to.

Cal knew that Xain had taken to archery, and had often asked Salicia to come over from Paradise to tutor him, and had thought it would make a fine gift for him, even if he had several fine bows in Al-Shan. The style of bow was a new one, its construction a mix of precious hardwood and adamant steel, which gave it a far greater force even with a shorter pull.