Riches and Bitches: I have a gate to an isekai and leveling-up system!

Chapter 309: What Earth lacked

"I want to know everything."

All the way up to this point, all my knowledge regarding aura and the ranks one could achieve by practicing it was a tapestry of clues, hints, and guesses. A series of different theorems I ironed out to make them fit reality and, by extension, reflect its potential limits.

In the end, though, I knew nothing.

What made someone an ascender? Did all the human ascenders in the imperial army overcome the rebirth process just like I did, or was I a special case even in this regard? And even if… then what about supremes?

And what was this entire aura to begin with?

I continued to stack those questions and leave them with nothing more but a guess for an answer for so long, now that it came to actually posing those questions…

'What am I even supposed to begin with?'

I rested my back against the trunk of one of the huge trees surrounding the small clearing.

"Let's start with the simple stuff," I muttered while enduring a sense of strange resignation. "What is aura?"

Madam visibly focused as I finally reached the point of actively asking my questions. Yet, the very moment the first of them left my mouth, Fay's mom's face turned sour.

"Ugh…" she groaned while throwing her head to the back. "It's the same kind of question as asking what air is…"

"The air as we know and breathe it is actually just a layer of residual hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and various other elements that fell within the gravity well of the planet we are on, forming a so-called atmosphere. In other words, it's just a bunch of gases mixed up in proportions turning said mix into a fuel for most of the living organisms."

As soon as Madam tried to flatten my question to ask about the unknown basics, I turned the discussion around with fancily packaged words for what even grade-schoolers on earth knew.

"As it just so happens, what all the animals, humans include, breathe in and breathe out is the complete opposite of the fuel and the exhaust, creating a robust balance that keeps the air breathable for both flora and fauna."

I crossed my arms on my chest while Fay, as always merely an inch away from my side, shook her head and sighed out.

"What?"

As the only one out of the three of us who didn't get to see the wonders of science with her own two eyes, Madam stumbled for a bit.

"Wait, gravity well? Gasses? Proportions?" Madam shook her head again only to end up lowering it as she pinned her eyes on the ground. "What do all those words even mean?"

"Gravity is one of the four fundamental forces that govern all within the universe, the four forces that compound into the reality as we know it."

I took a deep breath, holding up the tension of the moment for just a little bit longer before finally discharging it with a long sigh of my own.

"Or at least, that's the case back in my world. Hence why I'm curious about aura, for it's a part of physics that I've only discovered in this world. Something that doesn't fit the picture of how the world works at all. And judging how I can breathe, see, or walk in your world…"

I shook my shoulders.

"I would say those two worlds have to be extremely similar."

Madam gave me a long, near inquisitive look… But ultimately opted to take some more time to process my words rather than speaking her doubts out loud right away.

"Why would those fundamental forces…" Madam hesitated for a second, taking just one more moment to refine what words she was going to use. "Why would they affect how you breathe or move?"

I took a deep breath, taking my own time to process Madam's question and figure out not only the proper answer but also the right words to explain it.

"Everything in our world works according to those four fundamental forces. It's the force of gravity, electromagnetism, and…" I hesitated for a second, struggling to remember the other two. "And I think strong and weak nuclear forces.

"But while those are the only forces that actually exist when they are compounded to a scale big enough, they create an illusion of other forces. Just like a human thrown into water would either struggle to stay afloat or sink down, there are some bugs that can move over the water's surface as if it were something solid.

Or how you can fill a cup to the brim with water… and then add just a little more of it, without spilling."

I shook my head and then my shoulders.

"There are only four fundamental forces. A force of gravity that makes things with mass attract other things with mass. The electromagnetism that I won't even pretend I'm smart enough to explain. And the two nuclear forces that I won't even pretend to understand…"

"But didn't you say that aura existed back in your world?" Madam asked, throwing my entire point for a spin. "If it worked in your world, then it means it either goes against those laws you mentioned… Or is actually a part of them, in ways your people have yet to discover, isn't it?"

I squinted my eyes and looked at Fay's mom, a strange sense of uncertainty filling me up.

But as tough to counter as those words were, they made up for one hell of a great wake-up call. A wake-up call for me to stop treating Madam as someone stupid, less inteligent, less capable of figuring things out… only because she didn't have the same background knowledge that I did.

'I guess that's the difference between wisdom and smarts,' I thought, taking a deep breath to calm myself down and finally accept the simple reality.

The reality of how this discussion wasn't a fight, an oxford debate that I had to win no matter what.

This was merely a moment for us to share what we knew so that we could better understand the things we had no clue about before.

"That's a good point you brought up," upon my realization, I admitted with no further resistance or hesitation. "But I find it hard to believe that the scores of scientist that tried so hard their entire lives to figure out the inner workings of the universe as we know it miss something capable of…"

I didn't finish my words.

For some reason, I felt as if I were to put my worries into words, they would become real and bring down the entirety of this heretic world that made the earth's physical rules merely a joke, a shadow of an incomplete picture.

"That…" Madam's face tensed up for a second, only for her to turn silent right away and avert her eyes.

I didn't press her. There was no point in doing so. This, despite how I ended up as the one answering all the questions thus far, was all about having Madam explain the things I took my guesses about for granted. '

"I believe I can explain how this could all happen…" Madam muttered, her voice severely lacking in the confidence department.

"Do go on," I encouraged, even going as far as to indicate with my hand at the woman to continue.

"Putting the topic of aura aside, for now, let's talk about the ranks."

Madam took a deep breath before jumping up from the tree's stump she was sitting at and starting to pace around the clearing.

"In the first place, the ranks describe the way in which one can use aura. Mortal, an unawakened human, can only use it as an external tool, relying on external sources of power like magic stones or spiritual treasures. But an ascended human is someone capable of internalizing and thus commanding their own aura, just like you can command your own arm or breath."

I squinted my eyes when hearing the comparison, but decided against speaking up and breaking Madam's flow.

For now, it was for the best to wait and see where she was taking this topic.

"Then, we have the promoted ascenders, as people who learned how to expand their influence over aura and start employing the world's aura to do their bidding instead. Still, as powerful of an ability as it is, it's still extremely limited. A mere imitation, a shadow of the powers that supreme wield."

Madam took a deep breath.

"Supremes are those who moved beyond the point of internalizing mana, achieving the level where they are so able to manipulate and influence the world's mana, their own internalized core becomes nothing more but a…" Madam hesitated for a second, "a valve? A glorified trigger? A limiter?"

I was already aware that whatever it was that allowed the three of us… no, the humans of the earth to converse with the humans of this world, had its limits. There were times when I saw someone failing to understand the word of the other side, especially when said word simply didn't have its own version in the other language.

But for the very first time, right now, I saw someone struggling to pass the meaning of what they had in mind so hard, they had to start throwing various words at the issue, hoping that at least one of them would stick.

"Okay, I get it," I muttered, lowering my chin as I absorbed all that Madam said and took a moment to process it. "But how is that related to…"

"It's the lack of the first ascenders," Madam revealed what was likely supposed to make me go, "Oh, I get it!" yet failed to do so.

"Listen, most of the ascenders of the current era exist because a different ascender helped them to perceive aura in the first place. But if there were no ascenders in your world, then they could not pass those teachings down. In other words, you lacked the… starting point for the knowledge about aura to spread throughout your world!"

Now that made a little bit more sense… but only begged the obvious question.

"If that's the case, then where did the first ascenders come to this world? If they can only be made by other ascenders…"

"It's simple," Madam shook her head. "Perilous situations, grave events, and apocalyptic moments can lead to one developing the sense for aura all on their own. That kind of people used to have a special name, but…"

Madam suddenly hesitated only to end up cutting her words short and looking away.

'I guess I shouldn't pressure this topic, should I?' I realized, pressing my lips into a thin line before taking a deep breath.

"I know you are not aware of my world's history, but you can trust me, we did have a fair share of apocalyptic events," I pointed out. "From great battles where hundreds of thousands of people died, through disasters that consume equally as many people… We even dropped a bomb harnessing the power of the sun itself down on two cities, just to bring about a swifter end to a war…"

Madam raised her eyes and gave me a stern, serious look.

"I believe those… those were traumatic events for many," she admitted, even going as far as to lower her head in respect of all the fallen I've mentioned. "But those things… They lack one thing."

Madam stopped her pacing and turned to face me directly… yet still took her time to finally speak up.

"What they lack, is the percentage of the world's population affected by the same emotion that continued to stubbornly plague most of the species for several years without stop or end," Madam revealed something that I believed would potentially be one of the many keys I needed to open the lock over the secrets this world hid.

"Only this collective desperation, shared, burning desire for revenge could create an existence that goes above. An existence that goes beyond."

Madam pursed her lips and leaned her head to the back before whispering.

"An existence that ascends above and beyond the limits that shackled the humanity of that time."