"Well, yes. The fact that you have a name for it does establish some likely hypothesis."

"Well, he means that he's slightly less clueless. Uh, what is lumen then? We don't have it."

"It looks fairly magical, hey, Martin, doesn't it look fairly magical?"

"Yyyeah. Pretty sure I can't do that."

Itaruko: looks confused. "… Are you sure?"

"Well, if it isn't magic what is it?"

"I haven't actually studied it? There are scientists who've looked into it, though, and it's obviously, you know, a thing that actually functions and responds if you poke it in certain ways? Scientific method, form hypotheses and predictions and stuff, that works with it, it's not mysteriously separate like the term 'magic' suggests?"

"That doesn't sound that different from our kind of magic, actually, its rules are hard to understand from physics stand point, but there are rules and consistency."

"Well, first thing first, how does lumen work? It's something everyone can do? Does it spend energy? Does it apparently create energy?"

"It's a thing that everyone I know of can do, at least, and it's generally known as a thing people can do, uh, it probably uses energy to emit the light, conservation of energy and all, but it's not like it uses much – people don't die from using lumen too long or anything weird like that? People have varying abilities to use it, though – kids are generally worse than adults, Luna are generally better than Rhunes or Thamari, people who put effort in to try to get better are overall better, that sort of thing…?"

"But it is a known fact that it follows conservation of energy or just speculated to do so?"

"It's a known fact that conservation of energy is, to our knowledge, inviolable? It's not like people go around pointing at every particular instance of something that could violate it and broadcasting to the world, 'no, this doesn't violate it', so I'd assume it doesn't violate it, there probably would have been some headline or something, but nobody's actually specifically told me as such?"

"It could just be the case that no one figured out a way to measure it and assumed it worked like everything else."

"How do you use it? It's some kind of mental action?"

"… Yes, but then so is moving my arm? It's– uh," he frowns. "It's kinda hard to explain. Like, um, grabbing the air and twisting it?"

"Well, there could be some internal organ involved, your clothes aren't that much anatomy revealing."

"Ha," he says. "No, my lack of clothes doesn't reveal any of my internal organs, and I doubt the external stuff it does cover is involved."

"Ok, now I am curious. Is there a part of the brain specifically responsible for lumen? What are lumen's limits? Can animals do it?"

"I have not heard of there being a part dedicated to lumen, no, again, like I don't think there's a part dedicated to each arm or to moving facial muscles, or if there is it's not something I've learned about in enough detail to tell you? Animals can't, as far as I know, do it – that would be slightly horrifying – and um, limits are kind of hard to describe? It's… basically a light blob, it's usually the color of your eyes, you can change it and get a bigger size and different shape with practice but it's kinda difficult?"

"I wonder if it's an ambient effect, Milliways supports those," Fenris turns to Martin, "do you mind if we test it with your world?"

"Uh, sure?" he says. "How does that work, will the door go to my world if we want it to, or…?"

"The door will lead to your world if you are the one holding it. I just want to see if Itaruko can lumen while inside your world. It should be safe to do that test in our world, specially to a non-human, but no reason to risk it."

He nods and goes over the door to hold it!

"Do I actually have to stand in his world, or should I just try making it there from in here?"

"I think you should stand in his world, probably, Milliways' ambient effect won't affect you then. I am assuming it will work like the translation effect, which also ceases while the person is standing on the other side of the door. We tested that earlier."

He nods and goes through the door, then creates the same globe as before, this time in Martin's world.