When Turael awoke he was in his bed, sunlight creeping through the gaps in his shutter.

The sunlight was weak but Turael could see with this level of light.

He thought about his dream as he got up and went through the housing the walls of vines and thick branches illuminated by the gentle glow of the sunflowers, magical plants that produced a light for several metres in diameter, while they were marvellous plants many never used them as torches due to how people usually slept before the sun went down.

Turael travelled through many interconnected passages and stairwells of wood and leaves before reaching a pair of large arched doors easily large enough to allow 10-12 people to walk through them.

Turael gently pushed one of the doors open, all the way until he turned to the wall and said "hold onto this please." the plant life obeyed curling a branch over the door to prevent it from shutting, the other door was pulled open and another branch held it in place.

Entering the kitchen he put on the apron and gloves for working in the kitchen and began to cut vegetables and meats.

The reason for the protective equipment for that manner is due to the fuel for the fire used in cooking, aptly named flare stalks.

These 2-3 metre long rods are a magical plant which catches fire quickly and burns hot for several minutes.

they apparently once grew in an area where forest fires were common and as such the plants in the area could either be fire resistant or would need to grow very quickly in the rich ash left by the fires.

Thusly flare stalks were the latter of the two being a quick growing fuel that naturally converted magic into the fire element, though it is said that flare stalks are absolutely useless as staff material due to the ease of lighting them, since a poorly cast spell would light your staff on fire.

These trivia had no meaning to Turael, he couldn't cast magic and more importantly he had a job to do.

Setting the stalks into the fire pit, he pulled out the flint and steel striking the flint once before the flare stalks flared up.

He pulled and pushed the gargantuan pot over the flames, connected to the ceiling by thick rods of metal held by yet more vines.

Dumping buckets of ingredients into the pot and even asking the plants themselves to help where they can, he eventually filled the massive food vessel with material to cook, the smell wafting throughout the large arched space, which itself was filled with rows and rows of tables and chairs.

Turael had once tried to count how many could fit within this space, but stopped once he reached 100 and had finished the first row.

Several hours later when the light became stronger many people entered the room, took a bowl of food that was waiting and went to a seat to eat their fill, the chefs and attendants to the housing unit thanked Turael for beginning the process before taking over and letting the youth go to eat.

As a dark elf he was humanoid in shape of course all sentient races were mostly humanoid, but out of all the races maybe beside the Rockmen and the dwarves the dark elves were the most feared.

Back in the time before the united states were established every sentient race was fighting for their own survival the dark elves extinguished themselves as a rugged survivalist species, besides the obvious dark skinned appearance, the dark elves featured several things which usually put other races on edge, for one all five limbs were equally strong that being arms, legs and tail.

Prehensile in nature it was a maneuvering limb, almost entirely muscle with a rough fur on it to maintain good traction in wet conditions.

the arms were unnaturally strengthened beyond what was normally required. due to the dark elf's tendency to absorb ambient mana they were dependant on mana rich areas to survive unless the dark elf is young, in such cases they have yet to develop the organs required to process mana.

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The legs being longer than the arms and the Dark elf being bipedal in nature meant that these were always going to support the creature.

The only anomaly is the feet which are hand-like in structure allowing for great movements in directions other races can't even do.

Turael, as one of this species, spectacularly fit and muscular.

But since he was underage it couldn't have been from consuming ambient mana, it was pure effort.

After the breakfast period Turael walked back to his room to retrieve several slates before running over to his classroom.

A revolutionary movement caused public education to be taken semi-seriously since 20-30 years ago, not that it particularly rewards those who do what is necessary, but those who excel in any regard tend to be given preferential treatment in the different positions within the city.

Turael handed the slates over to the human teacher who was waiting on the students to arrive.

" Ah, Turael, barely saw you come in." and as the human's gaze passed over the slates he chuckled "I get that you like carving over using paper, but please just put them on my desk, you should know by now that I can't lift a stack that large."

"Ah, sorry Renat, I had a long night." Turael replied while placing the tiles onto the desk, the wood protesting over the weight.

As Turael mulled over whether he should attempt the switch to paper Renat spoke up.

"also are you going to participate in the study over at Yeva'an's lab? I'm certain we could cook up some results." With a small amount of excitement coming from the human's question.

"No, I won't, I dislike Yeva'an's usual methods, they are... very painful." Turael replied his voice deep and smooth to answer the teacher's excitement.

"Alright, fine, it is your choice after all, besides it seems the rest of your classmates have arrived in the meantime." Renat said, a little disappointed.

A few other students gave their pages of parchment over to the waiting human, before taking a seat and talking or finding a comfortable position and mimicking sleep.

before Renat spoke up "I hope everyone had done the assigned study, it actually had some useful question in relation to the exam you are having today!" His voice ablaze with expectation of several failures this time.

Turael yawned, Renat was a rather unassuming person, although he had a sadist streak in him, the thin man had no malice for the students aside from the occasional person who completely disregarded their work to play around.

Admittedly very rare people though.

Turael struggled with the exam, not due to slacking on his studies, but because of the fragility of his writing medium. he did however still finish the test with full marks.

Then it was a history lesson, this lesson was more or less the sleep break in the day, the teacher would ramble on in his soft tones and the students would collapse one by one, leaving Turael engrossed in the lesson.

It is though the there was once one race who split into the six races that occupy the united nation we live in, the humans who through surprising adaptability, survived the years after the cataclysm with the least gifts of all, all humans will gain traits in environments, human in a desert, they hold water really well through various physical changes either holding a great deal of water or not letting it go or maybe another way.

Human in a swamp, feet get webbed, skin gets a mucus layer, so on.

Then there was the elves, masters of nature and range. Ask any elf and they will tell you that they see little motes of light who they ask to perform these actions, is it true more than likely yes because every elf says the same thing. elves were born with plant-like growths instead of hair or fur, long ears for hearing and great eyesight for seeing predators on the great plains, and from another race they learnt to make bows, though the race who taught them is forgotten.

And as the first underground race the dwarves changed to be smaller, denser and better at all things mining and crafting.

They generally only have hair on their head if any at all, since their houses are so warm. their eyes adapted to see through darkness, though it is more a sensation of vibrations in the air and ground since they can't particularly see through darkness.

Their adaptations led to the most powerful and technical civilisation until the united nation performed the uniting.

The lesson ended with bells ringing to signal free time for the students.

Turael left for the combat grounds and quickly arrived to practice forms before challenging several guards to spar.

The weapons weighed the same as real arms and the armor was weighted and plated so simulate real armor.

The difficult part was the dark elf dashing around the guards hitting with swords, hammers, spears and everything inbetween.

Turael however refused to grade his performance very well.

As his 10th opponent approached it was Gustan bek the Quartman Captain.