Hi. My name is Kazuya Hiiro. I’m sort of the main character of this messed up story you’d be reading. Why you feel the need to read it, I don’t know… but hey.

It’s my story, and despite how weird it gets, how sad it gets… the amazing times make up for it in my opinion. But that isn’t the point of a story, is it?

A story is meant to convey a lesson, to show an idea, to explain what happened during a certain time, to show the imagination of the person telling it… well in my case…

I guess I just don’t want my story to be forgotten.

With that being said, I guess we should start with some background information, as the story might not make sense without it.

At the beginning of this story, I lived in Western Europe; more specifically I lived in Germany.

Now my name designates me as a Japanese person, but… well, that explanation will come shortly, but I lived in Germany. The reason I lived there, was because I had received a scholarship to a prestigious High School, Elem High…

By the way, that’s a stretched out ‘e’ sound in the beginning. ‘ee-Lem’ of sorts. Why it was pronounced like that, I don’t know.

But yeah, Elem High, it was a prestigious school, one of many across the world, but it was particularly famous for having the most alumni in the greatest profession… or the worst, depending on your view.

See, Elem High acted like a normal school… the exception being that all the students were Sages.

Sages are… well, most people don’t really know what they are. But Sage’s look human; they have the same biology as a human, they can even have children with humans.

But we can do things that normal humans can’t. Yes, we. I am a Sage.

Sages were beings who would gain abilities around their twelfth birthday, said abilities revolve around the Elements.

Now, Sages could control and, to an extent, generate Elements that they awakened to on their twelfth birthday, and it was at first terrifying for most people, as these children began to force the earth out from beneath them, create whirlpools and more.

It was a troublesome time, when Sage’s were discriminated, that I’m glad to not have been born into… but Sages weren’t the only beings to appear during our long history.

This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

Mystic Beasts is what some of the other beings were generally referred to, due to their strange nature, but otherwise they weren’t really ‘mystic’ at all.

Mystic Beasts were, as implied, the animal equivalent of Sages, animals which mutated to control small amounts of an Element.

Unlike Sages, they couldn’t do much with their control, but their bodies were tougher and stronger, balancing the equation…

These Beasts would then either live in seclusion, or in most cases, attack cities and towns, and while normal weapons worked on some of them, with others problems occurred…

Then, a Sage spoke out, giving an option to the world… why not let Sages battle these Beasts and keep them out of cities?

This way, the Sages could train their abilities, be acknowledged by normal people and at the same time the cities would be safe.

Three birds with one stone in a sense.

It was a while later before we found out that Mystic Beasts weren’t the only irregularity in the world, as humans weren’t the only sentient beings.

The others were known as the Fae Races, with there being a known total of eight, but an estimated total of ten… recognize that number?

It’s the same number of Elements we Sage’s can use.

Each Fae Race had one Element that they were the undisputed master of, and while at first, people considered that we might be able to live in harmony…

Then the Fae Wars occurred and well, humans gave up on that idea. Due to that war, humans were now confronted by the reality that humans weren’t as tough as they’d like to be.

The Fae stayed separated from the humans, and humans feared the Fae despite winning the war. Add in Mystic Beasts, and humans had much to fear.

So with all of this, Sages rose, and were now associated with protection and supreme strength, people to have faith in.

Many little facets about the Sages got discovered over time, such as, birth rates of Sages, guess work on which Element a child will awaken to, whether or not a human and Sage would have a Sage child, all sorts of stuff really.

There was a lot we didn’t know about Sages, there’s a lot we still don’t know, but there was no doubt Sages were being loved by the time the twenty first century rolled around, Water Sages solved the water shortages before they could even happen, the Wood and Earth Sages solved farming issues, and so much more.

As for me, I am a Sage, as mentioned previously. When my twelfth birthday rolled around, it was kind of obvious I’d be a Sage, both of my parents were, my father a Lightning Element Sage, and my mother an Earth Element Sage…

Apparently it was strange that they ended up together, but hey, I don’t quite understand love, and I’m pretty sure something like the Element you use doesn’t really affect that.

But still, I knew I’d be a Sage from the moment I knew what they were… well, when my twelfth birthday rolled around, I was correct in that I’d become a Sage…

I just got the Element wrong… my personality was apparently one fitted mostly to Light and Water Element users, my birthday set me up to be a Fire Element user and my birth year set me up for Air, so I also added Lightning and a few others that I could be…

Then again, no matter what Element I got, I’d be happy with it, that’s truly what I believed… but…

…I don’t think I prepared myself for my Element… or rather, when I learnt that my Element was, my first reaction my twelve year old mind could come up with was…

“Dad, what is Essence?” Oh, how I had my work cut out for me…