At some point, John had no reason to do anything but ask Mandlen directly. After all, John himself was already known as a Transmigrator to everyone who mattered. There was nothing to expose.

  Direct questions could still have a little bit of leadup. John covered initial greetings and eventually the discussion turned to cultivation, as it usually would. “You have displayed great talent along with insightful perspectives. There are various ways that could happen, of course, but they are aligned in such a way that I must ask… have you lived a life before this one?” John paused for a moment, judging the man’s response. Not angry or confused. “You are aware I came from another world. I’m not sure if that’s the case for you.”

  After waiting for a few more moments, Mandlen nodded. “You have it right. I have lived before in this world. Then I perished and was born anew. Quite unexpected, really.”

  John nodded. “I’m sure it was for you. Yet you would have perhaps heard some rumors of verified instances within this world. On Earth, our only mentions of reincarnation were… unreliable.” As far as people who actually claimed to remember things from past lives, they had all been crazy. Reincarnation without memories… well, it hardly counted in John’s eyes. It was also nearly impossible to test. “If you’re willing, where did you live before?”

  Mandlen smiled slightly. “Before I ended up in the Viridia Wildlands, I was actually in the Shimmering Islands.”

  “Ah. You didn’t go far at all, did you.” As far as John understood, reincarnation placed people randomly. Though there really wasn’t enough data to say anything conclusively. “Were you trying to overcome former enemies?”

  “Earth suited me more,” Mandlen said simply.

  “I see. If you wish to speak more on this topic, we have gathered a number of individuals between our two continents. We intend to combine our knowledge on the topic to see if we can learn something of value.” John shrugged, “You don’t have to come, though.”

  The man considered for a few moments. “I think I will. It could be interesting.”

  -----

  There was no one in the room below the late Consolidated Soul Phase. John wasn’t exactly surprised, given the assumption that talent was somehow connected to the forms of rebirth. However, he had somewhat hoped there were younger people that had been found. He also thought they might more easily reveal themselves due to their spikes in talent, but apparently Aldara hadn’t found any… lately. Of those around her, however, most had been found decades prior.

  Of the various individuals Aldara had gathered, three immediately stood out to John. In any other context, two of them would have simply been glossed over… but he couldn’t help but pay special attention to a pair of twins. Then there was one of the weakest. Four elements at the Consolidated Soul Phase- he seemed to be following Aldara’s path. A cycle of six elements, though he was yet to experience the most difficult stages.

  Before they got into anything real, people introduced themselves. John also mentioned those absent like Renato and Deirdre, indicating they wished they could be present. As far as he knew, that wasn’t incorrect.

  “Ida.” “Kori.” The two twins introduced themselves simultaneously. One had three fire totems and two light. The other, three air and again two light totems. Yet looking at them, he couldn’t help but envision a single tri-element cultivator. Fascinating. Aldara had found something truly unusual.

  The man on the path of the full cycle was called Uhuru. His eyes flicked between all of those present repeatedly, but he didn’t say much more than his name upon his initial introduction.

  Saying the others were less important was incorrect, but John was mainly interested in their overall stories than the individuals. At least at the moment.

  “There are a few important details I think it will be easy to observe,” Aldara commented. “First, all of us who are reincarnated- born into new bodies no other soul was known to possess- have come from this very world. How quickly after our death our rebirth came varied significantly. I personally only had a very short duration in between lives.”

  John nodded. “And I imagine it would be quite impossible to measure the time for Transmigrators. Unless others were far more conscious than myself?” He looked around. “I have no memory of an intervening time, and no access to Earth so I can measure.”

  Everyone shook their heads, including the one who was old. He was one of the second individuals in the Consolidated Soul Phase, but considering he took over an already aging body John thought he was doing great. Though maybe his cultivation hadn’t reset. Deirdre’s didn’t, for example.

  “I remember nothing,” the twins said at the same time. John thought they should have said we. Unless they were… one person? No, that was a bit of an extreme leap. Twins could be weird even on Earth. “I simply died. Then I was here with Ida/Kori.” Here, each said the other’s name.

  “I must ask,” John said. “Were you twins before?”

  “Yes. We died together. And so did these bodies,” they gestured. “A cultivation deviation.”

  “That seems quite common for Transmigrators,” John said. “Though I suppose there aren’t that many ways to get a mostly intact body that is at the same time devoid of a soul.” He could experiment, but John doubted any of the thoughts he had would be anything close to ethical. So he wouldn’t. “Are you from Earth?”

  They shook their heads. “No. We are from Nyxaeru. It mostly means blue.”

  “Earth is just ground,” John said, using the local word.

  There was no reason for people who inhabited a single world to come up with particularly grand names. Something functional was best. Just ‘the world’ was sufficient. Or ‘the planet’, once they understood it as such. John presumed everyone came from a planet… but if they had different universal rules maybe they wouldn’t actually have planets as he thought of them. Though to get people, there had to be some similarities.

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  Aldara began to explain some of the things they were aware of. “You will find that each of those who transmigrated to our continent came from the same world. Most likely.”

  “Most likely?” John raised an eyebrow.

  “The world was not globalized,” Aldara explained. “However…”

  “We shared the same moon,” the twins said. “Each of us could describe its shape and texture in the same manner.” They turned towards some of the others. “Our words were not the same, though.”

  Aldara nodded. “It took some time to figure that out. I wouldn’t have even assumed that was the case, except… for you,” she gestured to John, Steve, and Sitora. “We actually didn’t know until after you and I became reacquainted.”

  John pondered. “Does each continent have a planet attuned to it?”

  “Some of them came from nearby islands,” Aldara commented. “But that doesn’t really prove or disprove anything. It would merely depend on what definition of continent you use. Certainly, a broad geographical region fits.” She paused for a moment. “I was able to offer resources for those who lived two lives to reveal themselves, after I announced myself. Many were cautious and slow to approach. Perhaps some are even still.”

  “I might be able to ask others to reveal themselves,” John commented. “Are there any other interesting tidbits?”

  “We must confer on that. Each of your reincarnated individuals had some cultivation before their death, did they not?”

  John looked to Mandlen. He was the one in question of the three John knew.

  “Yes, that’s right. Though… not necessarily particularly much.”

  There was something about what the man said… he was being cautious. Truthful, but John was certain there was something more. Hopefully, he would share more if it would be helpful to the rest.

  Aldara prompted him. “How much would you say ‘not much’ was?”

  “Spiritual Collection Phase,” Mandlen shared.

  “That’s a surprise,” Aldara commented. “I would have expected Soul Expansion Phase at a minimum. That seems to be the common line for the others.”

  Mandlen shrugged.

  After a few hours of discussion, John learned much about the other world. It had been in something like a stone age. No known supernatural elements. And just in case there was something weird going on, they compared moons. John wasn’t great at remembering precisely how Earth’s moon looked, but he was close enough. If these others had been on Earth in ancient history with a different pattern of impact marks, he wouldn’t have known. Except their moon was red, so… that was clear enough.

  “We’ll have to see if we can find any Transmigrators from…” John didn’t know anywhere that would be cooperative. “The western islands, maybe. They might be willing to speak to me.” There should be a significant gap between them and the Empire of Elements around the backside of the planet. John would have to get specific calculations to be certain, though. “Maybe we can circumnavigate the globe and find some others. But north and south seem… unlikely to cooperate.”

  Aldara nodded. “I wouldn’t share any information with the Sovereign Primacy.”

  “How far do they stretch out here? I have those maps you copied, but not on me.” They had shared what they could about potential threats. Together, they probably had a good guess at how far the group stretched east to west, at least. John just hadn’t bothered with matching up their east side with the Empire of Elements. It was just there.

  “Vaguely halfway,” Aldara said.

  John made a face. “Then the area they cover more than matches either of us. Though they seem to be mostly islands… as far as we’ve encountered.”

  “We heard of larger landmasses,” Aldara explained. “Though they were generally tight lipped.”

  The topic had drifted quite far from reincarnation and transmigration now, but they had covered most of what they could. John wondered why people from other worlds never ended up in new bodies. However, it did appear that Transmigration was far from random. Or they’d run into the most massive coincidence of all time with the twins. Having two people transmigrate into dead twins was startling enough, but having them be twins as well was something else.

  If they were siblings, or random people who died in the same time and place? Well, it would still be suggestive. Though what it would actually mean was something else entirely.

  Otherwise, it appeared people reincarnated into new bodies. John wondered if it happened more than once. Again, he wasn’t counting what he suspected was the ‘normal’ process, if there was one. That would be a soul inhabiting a new body and losing all memories. Tracking that sort of thing would be nearly impossible, doubly so for someone who didn’t remember their previous life themself.

  -----

  John met far too many people over the coming days. Everyone wanted to meet the other Exalted Soul Phase cultivator, and sadly he didn’t have the heart to refuse them. Whatever he felt about Aldara, he didn’t want to cause any instability in her lands. He met everyone she allowed and was polite. He made no promises. Any details on trade would come through Viriato or specific elemental regions.

  And he wouldn’t be marrying any of them or their daughters. John saw Aldara giving him a look during some of the extremely foolish comments along those lines. It either indicated that he shouldn't kill them… or that she’d look away if he did. Technically, it could be both.

  Casual stupidity from people he had no connection to was fairly easy to ignore. Some people were probably unaware that he was recently widowed. They might have simply thought he was single. Or maybe they didn’t care, because a powerful cultivator having multiple wives wasn’t unheard of.

  Even if he was looking, though, he wouldn’t have considered random people he’d never met before. Direct could be good, but there was directness and then there was skipping a large number of necessary steps.

  Not that more dedicated attempts would have gotten anywhere. John was convinced he was going to remain single for the rest of his life. Though considering how terribly long that might be he wasn’t going to guarantee it. He hadn’t intended to fall in love with Astrid. It had just happened.

  He’d worked to fall in love with Matayal since they were going to be married anyway. It hadn’t actually been that hard. She was a wonderful woman.

  Politically, it would probably be a great move to marry Aldara. Eventually. But that wasn’t going to happen. That sounded like a good way to hurt himself at the very minimum, and he didn’t doubt he could end up hurting others even more with such foolishness.