What they found inside the young girl was again nothing like what they had been expecting. Her main element was clearly space, but there was also something else. Another element that held the barest hints of divinity. Whoever this girl was, her parents, or as was more likely, her entire race, descended from some fallen gods long ago.

Generations past, they would have been demi-gods. Now there was barely enough divinity left to be recognized.

It was interesting, but not what they had come here to see. However, it did explain some things about the girl and her bears. No matter what she might like to pretend, giving life to inanimate objects, was not a normal ability.

The two moved towards the star-filled space, reminiscent of a night sky, and touched it. Once more, Charles sent a trickle of his mana inside the core, letting it fill more of the space before pulling it back. He hoped that made for an even stronger connection if they were even on the right track.

He glanced at the sliver of divinity hiding behind her core and hesitated. Charlotte followed his eyes and gave him a slow nod.

Charles didn’t want to do much. He simply wanted to strengthen her divinity a little, not a lot. Not enough to make her a demi-god, but something that would help the girl in her life, regardless. Myriam had liked the cute little bears, maybe he could them in some way.

He touched the sliver and quickly injected an infinitesimal amount of his divinity into it. Instantly, the sliver doubled in size and stabilized there. His small amount of divine energy was much more pure than the fallen god whose line she and her brother came from.

Seeing the mistake he had made, he took a portion of it back until he was confident he hadn’t screwed up.

Turning around, he smiled at his sister and together they left Zara’s inner-space behind.

Once more, he dismissed the message screen that appeared when he opened his eyes. With the brief look he had taken, it had been enough to see it was nothing but more jumbled nonsense. Besides, he had grown attuned to his powers and body enough to know that the spatial element had indeed evolved.

It was like Gaia had said before, the concepts behind the creation of the space element were different enough from his own that it had been all but guaranteed. The element he had gotten from Bob was called ‘Spatial’, and he could tell that was still its name, it hadn’t changed. However, the concept behind its meaning had changed to include more… of everything. Before, it had simply been the concept of traveling using spatial doors. Now, it included the idea of space and different dimensions within itself.

It had become just so much more.

The original concept Bob had passed to him had been so limiting, and he had never even realized it until now. It was no wonder he hadn’t been able to reach his parents. It was lucky that he had been able to reach Alli on Alaria. If the Goddess had hidden her away in a higher or lower dimension, then he likely wouldn’t have been able to.

The spell as it was could cross certain sub-dimensions but nothing more.

He didn’t know if this new change would be enough to find their parents, but thought it was close.

“Zack?” Charlotte asked.

He nodded. “We might as well.”

“Alright, but I’ll take care of giving him some extra this time.” She whispered as they walked over to the sleeping boy.

“You make it sound so dirty,” Charles muttered before he pulled them into the meditation.

Zack’s core was remarkably similar to his younger sister’s. The sliver of divinity was also noticeably smaller with him, but the field of stars was almost the same. The only difference was that the constellation inside him were moving constantly around.

Quickly, they repeated the same process they had already done twice before. Then Charlotte gave him enough divinity to match his sister, and they retreated. The entire painless procedure lasted no more than a few minutes this time.

Charles grinned at the new spell he had learned, along with the benefits everything else had brought to his ‘Zero Door’ spell. “I learned a new spell. What about you?”

“Blink?” Charlotte questioned, hiding a grin of her own.

“Yup, I’ll have to play around with that one later. It also looks like all of this brought the requirements for ‘Zero Door’ down a bit more. I can now use it six times a day, not including my home doors. I can also create a special door that crosses dimensions, but doing that uses all available slots for the day.”

Which meant the earliest they would be able to even attempt to rescue their parents would be the next day. Even then, they would still be gone for another day, at least.

She snapped her eyes up. “It can cross dimensions?” She slapped her forehead. “Ugh, of course! Why didn’t I think of it? You mentioned before when you died, and Bob brought Kira and Alli with you that it was to a higher dimension.”

She spun around in self-disgust. “How could I have missed something so obvious?”

He shrugged. “I didn’t think it was so obvious. I had no idea how the spell worked. So, why would you?”

“So, what do you think? Did all this help?” Gaia asked, intruding on their conversation.

“I think so, but I certainly won’t say no to those insights you promised.”

“Very well,” Gaia snapped a well-manicured finger, and a rush of information entered both their minds.

The two rocked back on their heels, the burst of insightful information into the way of portals and dimensions a little too much for them to take in. Unlike spells and everything else associated with the system, simple information without an anchor was harder to pass on. It would take their minds the rest of the day at least to finish parsing the knowledge and place it where it needed to go.

For a normal human with lower stats the process would take even longer.

Only then would they see the effects from any supposed insights.

“There you go. Now would you make sure you can find the connections for these three so we can send them home soon? I still have to give them their prizes for helping me first, but that will only take a day or two to finish making.”

Charles held back the growl from the base of his throat. He had wanted to try out the new version of the spell the next day, but he owed Gaia for giving them this opportunity.

He took a moment to calm himself before closing his eyes and focusing on the threads. Everything was clearer now, with each connection clearly defined instead of being outlined by the haze that had been there before.

He noticed that if he focused on someone’s particular thread, additional threads would form showing their own connections. He tried Myriam’s and found her strongest connection by far was to Alli, then to him and Kira, followed by Kory, Krystal, Kate, Beth, and Inara. Any threads that appeared after that were incredibly faint.

If she had any surviving blood-related family, then she didn’t know them or care about them.

Moving on, he began searching for people he didn’t know as well, but had stronger connections than an absolute stranger from a town would. It was among these that he hoped would be where he’d find the two siblings.

It would take a lot longer to find them otherwise.

It helped that the number of people that fit into that middle ground for him was relatively few. They existed, but not in a large number. Which is why, a couple of minutes later, he had found the connections for Zack and Zara. He was still missing the one for Tessa, but he only needed one of them to make a doorway to their homeworld in any case.

Charles grabbed both connections and shifted them closer to a location where he would be able to find them again without searching. Then, with that done, he opened his eyes and smiled.

“I found them! Now, as long as the spell works the way it’s supposed to, I should be able to create a gateway home for them.”

Gaia smiled happily. “Finally, I’m almost done with these three and their annoying system. The stupid thing just keeps badgering me constantly!” She cried out before regaining a smidgen of self-awareness. “Regardless, I’ll be glad to have one less thing I need to worry about. Then once they are gone, you can go and rescue your parents, and I can worry about fixing everything you all have broken. It will be delightful.”

She utterly failed at hiding the bitterness from her voice.

“Well, I’m sure you can figure out a way to take it out on the fallen gods while you’re at it. Higher experience requirements per level, or a lower-level cap for them, if there even is one. Maybe both.” Charles offered, pulling Charlotte toward the professor, who was still pretending to be invisible.

“Hmm, those aren’t bad suggestions. I might just do that.” She twirled a strand of hair that was slowly changing colors around her finger. “Now that you have the ability to travel between dimensions, I might need you to go and bring my sister here for a visit. Oh, what did her human mate end up calling her? Cassandra was it? So much better than what the people were originally calling her, Pandora, I think?”