Chapter 1
Rodger Odastovic had many ideas what could have happened after death. Eternal Paradise, Hell, Reincarnation or simply nothing. In none of his musings was he naked in a pile of blood and gore, in a room full of glowing runes with a Dragonman staring at him in curiosity.
Dying after getting hit by a truck and now this?! Rodger was at his wits end. Resigning yourself to your death, only to awaken a moment later in a fully intact body was not an experience he was in any way prepared for. He decided to calm himself down by taking in his entire surroundings, and promptly turned his head to the left.
The strange cross between badger and raven was too much for him to take, shocking him so hard his emotions burst like a bubble, leaving him extremely drained. With a defeated look, Rodger addressed the only person in the room that did not seem ´confused by the situation.
“What is going on?”
The drake blinked a few times in surprise at being talked to, but promptly caught himself and threw out his chest slightly while standing a bit straighter. With a smirk, he began explaining.
“Using this formation, I drew your deceased souls from your world and had them reconstruct your body using the materials I prepared. Unfortunately, even I am not capable of predicting every possible complication, which resulted in a bit of a mix up… your souls, that is. Two fused, and then very slightly mixed with your soul before I could stop it.”
The badger-raven-cross, which might exactly be what that strange creature was, stared uncomprehending at the human beside it, intrigued by the strange connection he felt to it. Said human did not feel that connection, once again shocked by what was happening. He started inspecting his body, but after finding nothing unusual aside from hard and sharp finger and toe nails, and breathed a sigh of relief.
“Whatever changes I went through, they do not seem all that drastic. And I mean, you saved me from death after all, so I can hardly get mad at you because I underwent a few changes.” While he had no way to be certain that he was telling the truth, there was also no gain to be distrustful towards him.
“But why did you do that? Resurrecting strangers from another world does not seem like an efficient use of resources.” As long as he was not expected to be some hero who saves the world from doom, or some kind of guinea pig, Rodger was prepared to do whatever was expected of him. Mostly.
“I understand your confusion. Being summoned and resurrected by a drake of my, Vividren Woodscales’, stature despite having no relations to me is rather strange. But you may be a stranger to me, but not just any stranger! You have been summoned here because of your potential! The potential to become a mage! By succeeding in summoning you, I have proven that it is possible to summon potential, recently deceased mages to our world and can now start preparing for a summoning on a grander scale.”
“Couldn’t you just have summoned living people with potential? I’m grateful you didn’t, but wouldn’t doing so expand your pool of candidates?”
“That’s obvious. Kidnapping people from their home is morally apprehensible, and would not incline them to cooperate with us. Additionally, it is guaranteed that their body is in a perfect state, as it will be reconstructed here.”
Satisfied with the answer he got, Rodger was about the ask about magic, when he once again realized he was naked. “Before we go on, please give me something to wear. It’s getting rather chilly like this.”
Vividren pointed at a small pile of cloth and moved a cloak over to Rodger with a flick of his finger. He moved to catch it, but a big furry paw intercepted it. The badger-raven took the cloak, and tied it around his waist. Both drake and human looked at the beast with stupefaction for several moments, before Rodger motioned for Vividren to throw him another one. The second cloak was not intercepted, and he gratefully put it on.
“Now that both of you are clothed, would you please follow me? I will determine what kind of potential you have.” Waiting only for a short moment for an answer, Vividren turned around as soon as Rodger started walking in his direction. The badger-raven followed after him.
Vividren led them to a smaller room with a large orb on a pedestal, seemingly connected to a crystal screen by an array of runes. He whispered a few words Rodger didn’t quite catch and the orb, runes and screen started glowing.
“Put your hand on the orb and wait for a moment something appears on the screen.”
Rodger rushed towards the orb and placed his hand on it in anticipation. The orb flashed for a moment, but nothing else happened. Even after several seconds, nothing more happened.
Vividren looked thoughtful for a moment, before his eyes lit up in recognition. “Take your hand of the orb for now. I think I know what’s wrong, but I still have to test something.”
He looked at the badger-raven. “You there. Place your paw on the orb in his stead.” He pointed at the orb to make clear what he was saying, and the beast seemed to get what he was trying to tell it and put it into action. The orb flashed exactly as it did before, and both human and beast looked at the Mage in askance.
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“Just place your hand above its paw.”
Rodger did just that, and this time the orb flashed brilliantly and numbers and symbols started appearing on the screen.
A black nine appeared on the bottom left of the screen, and a white one on the top left. After leaving a Colum empty, a flame, a lightning bolt and a rock appeared, followed by another empty column and an ice crystal. The last part of the screen remained empty.
Beneath all symbol appeared two numbers each, except for the rock. Only one number appeared there, almost in the middle of the screen. The numbers in the row of the black nine were all higher than the numbers in the row of the white one, and upon closer inspection, Rodger realized that the bigger numbers were exactly the double of the numbers above them. Those numbers were 4,38 for the flame, 2,57 for the lightning bolt, 3,72 for the rock and 3,25 for the ice crystal.
Spoiler: Spoiler
https://imgur.com/3uesefb
The Screen would look somewhat like this.
“I might have a hunch on what this all means, but please explain what the screen is showing us. And why it only worked when we both touched the orb at the same time.”
“When your souls touched during the summoning, you established a basic soul link between each other. This united your affinity and connection to the elemental planes. But I’ll explain what that entails later, as this is far more interesting.” He gestured at the screen.
“First: the big nine and one. This shows your negative harmonic connection to the Planes of Energy. This means that you have powerful connection to the Negative Plane and a slight connection to the Positive Plane; and as result additionally a connection to the so called “Neutral Plane”, which is the place where the two Planes intersect.”
“The symbols show which Elemental Affinities you possess, which would be fire, lightning, earth and ice. Your Elemental Affinities are independent from your connection to the Planes of Energy, but certainly Influenced by them. With connection to two Planes of Energy, you will be able to use two elements per Affinity. Since your connection between the Planes has such huge disparity in strength, the positive elements will only ever be half of your positive elements.”
“Your fire affinity results in fire and soul, lightning affinity in lightning and destruction, and ice affinity in water and ice. Earth affinity is always a dual element, and thus both earth and metal possess the same strength and are not distinguished. Your affinities for all elements are high, but the fire affinity of over 4 is incredible. Everything above 4 is rare for a starting affinity, which makes you quite a lucky catch.”
Vividren paused to let Rodger digest the information for a moment, so that he could ask questions. Without the screen, he might not have understood everything he was told, but that screen gave him enough help. Which would probably be the reason this screen displays the information so simple. It’s better to keep it easy for newbies after all.
“What does it mean exactly to have a high affinity? A strong connection to the Planes of Energy? How does it translate into reality exactly? And what does it mean for us to be soul linked?” He gestured to the badger-raven who had been strangely attentive for an animal.
“That’s simple. The higher elemental affinity you have, the stronger the power and the control over your spells of that element is. And the strength of the connection to the Planes of Energy equals the speed at which you can increase your affinity and intake elemental mana.”
He stood a little taller and cleared his voice. “Now to your Soul Link. It simply means you count as a single entity, mage wise. When your affinity increases, his affinity increases and reverse. The same goes for the magic you accumulate. But that advantage is canceled by the fact that you have to work twice as hard to increase your affinity, and have to accumulate twice as much magic. Does that answer all your questions?”
“No question about magic, at the moment. But what’s going to happen to us now?” He was fairly certain that he would be taught magic, as he was brought here for his potential, but not in which capacity.
“I’ll be recording the results of the summoning ceremony, and report the results to the master of the mage tower. And you two will remain at the tower, and receive personal tutoring from me. I originally planned to send you to the General classes at the lower floors of the tower, but the chance to study something as rare as a soul link does not come often. Wouldn’t want other mages to steal you away, you see. You will also have to meet the master, but that can wait. I’ll lead you two to your provisional chambers, where you will rest for the night. Let’s go! Every second I have not made my report is a second less I can sleep!”
Now that Vividren mentioned it, Rodger realized how exhausted he looked. Sunken shoulders, droopy eyes and a slightly hunched pose were not how someone looked when he was full of energy. That might be why it was always so obvious when Vividren stood straighter.
The drake hurried through the floor and down the stairs, leading them past many doors, some of which had light shining through. Occasionally, they walked past opened doors, and Rodger saw three different races of people: drakes, humans and smaller statured people with rugged greyish skin and thick beards. He decided to dub these people dwarves, for obvious reasons.
“Here it is. There should be a variety of clothes inside the drawers, so choose what fits. Remain here during the night, and don’t wander off too far when you wake up. That’ll be all. Goodnight.”
Before Rodger could say anything, Vividren stormed off with surprising speed, leaving him alone with the badger-raven.
“Normally I’d refrain from sharing the room with an animal that could maim me in my sleep, but I somehow have the feeling you would not do that. You do seem remarkably non-animalistic and we have that soul link thingy. Now that I’m concentrating on you, I have this weird feeling I know what you are thinking, to a degree. It’s the same for you, right?” The badger-raven nodded.
“To make things easier for you, let’s give you a name. And let’s give your species a name, seeing as you are the first of its kind.” The beast nodded again, this time with more vigor.
“Your most obvious feature are your entirely black fur and feathers, in addition to the black eyes. So from today on, you are a Heoltor. That means darkness, I think. Dunno what language.” Seeing as the beast shrugged, Rodger took it as a confirmation.
“As for a name… Let’s go with Arche. Means “origin” in Greek, and you are the first of your kind.” The heoltor nodded and nuzzled his head against Rodgers.
“My name is Rodger Odastovic. I look forward to working with you, Arche.”