Dual Realm Exchange System

Damian followed Ophelia through the rear corridors of the Adventurer’s Guild with the growing suspicion that Janet had somehow tricked him into unpaid labor.

That suspicion became considerably stronger when Ophelia produced a key, opened an inconspicuous side door, and led him through a covered passage connecting the Adventurer’s Guild complex to the Magic Shop.

"You know, Janet looked suspiciously happy when I agreed to this," Damian remarked with narrowed eyes.

"She often looks like that when causing problems," Ophelia replied sleepily.

"That was not reassuring."

"It wasn’t meant to be."

Damian gave the back of her green-haired head a long look.

Right...

He had forgotten that beneath Ophelia’s permanently exhausted expression was a woman who could be surprisingly ruthless whenever research entered the conversation.

The public Magic Shop was already closing for the evening, but Ophelia did not lead him toward the counters.

Instead, they went upstairs, then upstairs again, and then, through a magically sealed door.

Damian stopped.

Beyond it was not a normal chamber, but a laboratory.

A serious laboratory at that.

Shelves covered three walls from floor to ceiling, carrying bottles of blood, preserved monster organs, magical crystals, powdered minerals, enchanted metals and substances Damian couldn’t grasp even with <Truesight>.

Several worktables were crowded with precision instruments, crystal lenses hung above a large examination platform, copper wires connected silver plates to Mana Crystals embedded inside the floor, while a collection of rune-covered needles rested beside what looked disturbingly like a magical centrifuge.

The fourth wall was dominated by books on a shelf, almost all of them research journals... and there were hundreds of them!

Damian walked closer, noting that most were handwritten.

"Did you write all of these?" He asked with curiosity.

"Yes."

"All of them?"

"Yes."

Damian looked back at her in shock while Ophelia yawned tiredly.

The contradiction was becoming increasingly disturbing.

This woman looked as though maintaining consciousness was an optional hobby, yet her private workspace possessed enough research material to qualify as a small academic department.

Then Damian noticed something else.

Several books were much older than the others, and their covers carried the same crest.

It was of a silver tower beneath three green stars, and one particularly thick volume had been left open.

Damian’s Valorian language proficiency translated the heading automatically.

[Linus Ducal Archives — Hereditary Soul Phenomena.]

He glanced at Ophelia.

She had already begun arranging equipment and apparently did not notice.

Damian knew enough politics to recognize the implication.

A ducal archive was not something ordinary people casually possessed.

What he did not know was that Ophelia Linus had once grown up surrounded by them.

.....................

The Linus Family was one of the great noble houses of the neighboring Rastia Kingdom.

For generations, they had produced military commanders, court Mages, governors and advisers to the royal family.

Ophelia had been born into wealth few people in Rosewood Town would ever personally witness.

Her childhood room had been larger than the entire ground floor of the Magic Shop, she had tutors before she could properly read, and her first magical focus had been handcrafted by a Master Enchanter.

When her magical talent awakened, the family celebrated for exactly three days.

On the fourth, a physician noticed something was wrong.

Ophelia’s soul was too strong.

Her SPI had climbed far beyond what her physical Attributes could safely support.

A powerful soul normally strengthened a person’s magical potential and resistance to spiritual attacks.

In Ophelia’s case, it was more like placing the furnace of a battleship inside a wooden cottage.

The furnace worked perfectly, but the cottage did not.

When she was awake and active, her soul pressed constantly against her flesh.

Her heart worked harder, her nervous system consumed more energy, and her body accumulated tiny injuries faster than it could naturally repair them.

The stronger her Spirit became, the worse the imbalance grew.

Thankfully, sleep slowed everything as mental activity decreased and mana circulation settled.

The pressure her soul exerted upon the body weakened enough for natural recovery to partially catch up.

So Ophelia slept.

She slept in carriages.

She slept behind shop counters.

She slept during meetings.

She had once fallen asleep during a royal banquet and awakened with her forehead inside a dessert.

People eventually decided she was lazy.

Ophelia preferred that.

"Poor Lady Ophelia."

"The Duke’s sleepy daughter."

"What a waste of talent."

Those were much kinder whispers than the truth.

Her lifespan was running out.

Of course, the Linus Family had thrown a huge amount of money at the problem.

High Priests examined her, Master Mages studied her soul, and Alchemists filled entire cabinets with body-strengthening medicine.

She underwent purification, mana restructuring, soul harmonization, bloodline examinations and enough experimental treatment that, by adolescence, Ophelia could identify most medical potions by smell alone.

Nothing fixed the fundamental problem.

Strengthening her body helped briefly, but then her soul grew stronger alongside it.

Suppressing her Spirit caused backlash while sealing portions of the soul damaged her magical foundation.

One celebrated healer had suggested removing her near-natural-born achievement of the Mage Class entirely.

The procedure nearly killed her.

Eventually, the doctors stopped promising cures, then they stopped offering treatments.

Finally, they began offering estimates.

Ten years, sometimes seven, and at worst, five, all depending upon how active she remained.

So Ophelia did something entirely reasonable.

She became obsessed.

If conventional knowledge couldn’t save her, she would learn enough to find something unconventional.

The sleepy noble daughter disappeared into laboratories, studying anatomy, magic, alchemy, historical Otherworlders, racial adaptation, soul-body interaction, and even foreign magical systems.

Anything that might contain a loophole.

Her family tolerated it at first, then supported it, then begged her to rest.

Eventually, Ophelia herself became tired.

She became tired of hoping for a cure.

Rosewood Town was supposed to be temporary.

It was a newly developed frontier town where she could work in a Magic Shop, conduct whatever research still interested her, and sleep away enough of each day that her remaining years stretched a little further.

She had honestly not seriously expected to solve her condition anymore.

Then, the Four Valkyries carried an unconscious Otherworlder through the Guild doors.

A man whose body contained foreign biology, a man whose Class integrated with him despite his origins, and a man whose initial SPI stat was higher than all others, around four times some of his physical stats.

And now, apparently, a man who had risen from Level 1 to Level 6 in less than a week.

Ophelia had not smiled much lately, and Janet had noticed immediately when she almost did.

.....................

Damian remained blissfully unaware of all this.

His current concern was the shockingly well-equipped examination table.

"No, no way!"

Ophelia blinked slowly. "I haven’t said anything."

"You’re looking at that table."

"Yes."

"While holding restraints."

"They stabilize movement."

"They are leather straps."

"Leather stabilizes movement."

Damian pointed at her. "This is exactly why Janet was smiling."

Ophelia considered that. "...probably."

"Unbelievable!" Damian threw his hands up.

She placed the restraints aside. "Fine. Please sit."

Damian cautiously sat and Ophelia instantly became a different person.

The lethargy did not disappear, exactly.

Instead, it became irrelevant.

Her hands moved with practiced efficiency as she positioned three floating crystals around Damian’s head.

"First, baseline measurements."

"What are you measuring?"

"Everything."

"That is not a measurement category."

"It is now."

A crystal flashed.

[Physical Structure Scan.]

Another rotated.

[Mana Resonance Scan.]

The third suddenly emitted a high-pitched whine.

Damian frowned.

"Is it supposed to do that?"

"No."

Ophelia slapped it.

The crystal stopped whining.

Damian stared.

"You repaired magical research equipment by hitting it."

"It respected authority."

"You’re insane."

"Possibly."

The next twenty minutes somehow became worse.

Ophelia measured his height, then arm span, then finger length, and then pupil dilation.

Next came his heartbeat before and after channeling Mana through his hand.

She collected one strand of hair, then another.

"Why two?"

"Redundancy."

"They came from the same head."

"One might be stupid."

Damian looked at her, and Ophelia looked back.

Damian eventually decided he had no response.

Then came blood tests.

"Absolutely not a bucketful!"

"I wasn’t going to take a bucket."

"You looked disappointed while saying that."

"Twenty milliliters."

"Five."

"Fifteen."

"Seven."

"Twelve."

"Eight."

"Ten."

Damian narrowed his eyes.

"Fine."

Ophelia prepared the needle.

Damian paused.

"Wait. Did you just negotiate my blood like a market merchant?"

"Yes."

"That feels medically unethical."

"You agreed."

"I was outmaneuvered!"

"Skill issue."

Damian nearly fell off the table.

"You cannot say ’skill issue’ after stealing my blood!"

Ophelia’s mouth twitched.

There, for barely half a second, a smile appeared!

Damian pointed immediately. "I saw that!"

"No, you saw nothing."

"You smiled!"

"It’s hallucination caused by blood loss."

"You took ten milliliters!"

"I know, not nearly enough for research."

...this woman was evil!

The research continued.

Ophelia tested his Mana frequency against standard Human samples.

Damian was normal... mostly.

She then compared his Mana frequency against historical Otherworlder samples.

Huh... Strange.

She made him activate <Mage Hand> while three instruments recorded the spell.

"Voco!"

The spectral hand appeared, and Ophelia circled it.

"Again."

Damian dismissed it.

"Voco!"

Again.

"Again."

"Why?"

"Consistency."

"Voco!"

Again.

"Again."

Damian slowly lowered his staff.

"Ophelia."

"Yes?"

"If you say ’again’ one more time, I am going to use this Mage Hand to throw you out the window."

She glanced toward the window.

"Maximum lifting capacity insufficient."

"That isn’t the point!"

She wrote something down.

Damian leaned over.

[Subject becomes irritable after repeated spellcasting.]

"You needed research to discover that?!"

"Yes."

The afternoon became a war between scientific curiosity and Damian’s patience.

Ophelia tested his reaction to Mana Crystals.

Nothing unusual.

She tested whether Otherworlder blood responded differently to common healing reagents.

Barely.

She had him hold enchanted metals, touch elemental crystals, and attempt meditation inside three different magical formations.

Next, she made him breathe into a glass container.

"Why do you need my breath?"

"Analysis."

"Of what?"

"Breath."

Damian closed his eyes.

At one point, Ophelia placed a measuring band around his skull.

Damian finally objected.

"My head did not grow after transmigration."

"Need baseline."

"For what?"

"Future head growth."

"PEOPLE’S HEADS DON’T JUST GROW!"

"Not with that attitude."

Damian stared at her in disbelief.

He was beginning to understand why this woman had hundreds of journals.

She researched things because the possibility of not knowing offended her personally.

And yet, beneath the absurdity, Damian noticed something.

Every time an instrument returned an unusual result, Ophelia woke up a little more.

Her eyes sharpened, her shoulders straightened, and the sleepy haze vanished.

Unfortunately, the final result would prove irrelevant to whatever she was secretly searching for, and the energy drained away again.

Damian did not understand the pattern, but he did recognize the disappointment.

Hours passed, and eventually, Ophelia reviewed several sheets of data while Damian lay across the examination table questioning every decision that had brought him here.

"Are we done?"

"No."

Damian groaned.

"Most primary samples are collected."

"Most?"

"Hair, blood, saliva, breath, Mana signature, magical resonance, skin cells, nail sample—"

"You took part of my nail?!"

"You weren’t using it."

"That is not how ownership works!"

Ophelia ignored him and checked another box.

Then she paused, as her eyes moved down the page.

For the first time in several minutes, she looked genuinely uncertain.

Damian noticed immediately. "What is it this time?"

"I need a final biological sample." Ophelia admitted.

His eyes narrowed. "What biological sample?"

Ophelia looked at him, then at the form, then back at him again, her expression remaining perfectly clinical.

"I need your semen."

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