It has been two years. In that time, his body had grown to be equal to that of a four-year-old. He assumed that he would also be more mentally mature than his age as well, but of course, he is already a fully functioning adult, in the mind area anyways. He was still all butterfingers when it came to anything intricate, his coordination was out of whack, and he was not very strong, even for a four-year-old.
Zelhaut was lying in the blessed area with the blue grass, staring at the clouds in the sky pass overhead. He got confirmation that this area was blessed by a subordinate God of the God of light, Reasd, from the new lessons that he had started taking to prepare children for the world. All the main affinities had a God and various subordinate gods under the main six. The six main mana affinities were Light, Dark, Fire, Water, Air, and Earth. Those six affinities had various combinations that produced differing affinities. Except that the opposite affinities can not be combined without a third affinity that is either light or dark. These opposite affinities are water and fire, then, air and earth. An example would be if you had fire and water affinities, you would not be able to combine them. But if you had the fire, water, and light affinities, you would be able to create the reflection affinity.
This is what he had been learning about in class. Of course, the light and dark affinities can not be combined unless one has every main element. A very rare occurrence, that happens once every 1000 years or so.
He very much hoped to be the next one. The hero who has all the affinity combined to create, the creation affinity. Of course, he does not know what that affinity does exactly, but it sounded very cool.
Macho soon came walking into the blessed area, signaling with his hands to gather together and leave. He was wearing a robe with the God of lights symbol on it, a circle with a smaller circle inside of it touching the edge of the big circle at the top. He would have expected a sun, but heck, this is a fantasy world, what can you do. Macho also had silver hair that he had in a ponytail.
“We will be starting lessons shortly, everyone gather together so that we may leave”
Macho had a very deep voice, perfectly fitting his macho appearance. His real name was Maelstront, but he never called him that. He will always be Macho to him.
“What a glorious day it is today, Macho.”
He got a cuff on the head for calling him Macho, but it was all fun and games.
They began walking towards the classroom in the church. Yes, it seems that this is an orphanage and a church. He could have guessed when he found out that the growth area was blessed. The only stone building in the village, along with an old wooden floor.
Walking on the creaky floorboards, Macho was at the front, and trailing behind him were the two wonder kids. Remember the two who had had better cribs than him, yeah, that was them. They looked to be two years older than him, so they were both three-year-olds but had the body and mentality of a six-year-old. With crimson hair and brown eyes, they both had robust physiques for six-year-olds. Apparently, from the gossip he had heard as a baby when he began to grasp the language, these two were children of a hero. Some time ago, there was a beast wreaking havoc in the countryside. This village was very small, with about a population of two hundred or so. This “hero” as they call him, though I doubt he was a real hero, defeated the beast. They partied in the village afterward and bed a woman who gave birth to these two. Though she died in childbirth.
Now, why he doubted it was a hero was because, why would the kingdom send out its best soldier to protect such a small village? And what kind of hero beds a woman then never comes back, and completely abandons his kids? That is not what a hero should be. Heroes may bed many women, but they should always take care of all their children.
But the village remained ignorant and thought that these two children would go onto do amazing things. It was a brother-sister pair, named Lily and Jack. They were very spoiled by the church, given the nicest toys, the good desks in class, it was very aggravating. Especially when they came to rub his face in it, always looking down at him for being born to a couple of travelers. Travelers were not respected, they drifted from village to city, always asking for handouts when life was tough enough as it is.
This world was very cruel, what they taught in class was all based on survival. What to eat, what not to eat, fighting, mana, all critical survival skills if you want to be able to fight off beasts. This world was mostly unexplored, the majority of land belonged to the wilderness, not to the civilized races.
This world was known as Solund, and from what he had been able to guess, judging on geography lessons and just looking at how vast the horizon is, he would say this planet is at least five times bigger than earth. And it was beautiful. The lush greenery, the tall trees, everything was just bigger. The night sky was filled with moons, he had been told that there are seventeen orbiting this planet. He had only seen nine so far, and they came in many sizes and colors. The most noticeable moons are a huge blue one that is so close you can see the craters without a telescope, and then the slightly smaller green one that is always close to the blue one. Plus, an asteroid belt that people could see during the daytime, it was like they were living on Saturn, so cool. Without the deadly gas part.
Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.
They finished their walk to the classroom filled with desks and chairs made out of wood. A stained glass window depicted some god in the back of the room, letting the evening light stream in. They all sat down in their assigned seats, Lily and Jack at the front, himself at the back.
“ Alright class, who can tell me where we left off from yesterday?”
Macho started the class with a question.
Zelhaut shot his hand up, eager to answer.
“Yes, Zelhaut?”
“We left off on mana usage and how skills use it to power themselves.”
“ Ah yes, we were learning about the magic of magic.”
The whole class laughed at that joke, Macho was always a good joke teller. He continued to tell the whole class about how physical classes contained skills, and to use those skills one had to power them with mana. Macho then explained magical classes and how they directly manipulated the mana to achieve more wondrous effects.
He wondered what class branch he would want, magical or physical? He would have to go with magical. There is no magic on earth, and swinging swords around has been done before. He wanted something new and exciting, therefore, he would probably choose the magical branch of classes.
Maybe he would be an Arcanist, using symbols to channel his mana, or maybe just a normal Mage, drawing magic circles in the air and charging them with mana to fire a spell. So many choices, Wizard, Sorcerer, Shaman, Enchanter. Or maybe a Golemnist? No, that is much too mana intensive. Making a golem requires the person to constantly be powering them, of course, there are ways to get around that by inserting a magic crystal or stone, into the mana construct. But that isn’t permanent, mana stones are processed mana crystals, and even they don’t last much longer than the mana crystals do.
No, he will be a Sorcerer. They apply magical effects to objects, usually trinkets, and use them to rapid-fire spells. They are different from an Enchanter, in that once they use the item once and channel mana through it, it will be destroyed. While Enchanters make lasting objects that can channel mana. Of course, Enchantments take a long time, so you cant mass produce and the item will still eventually be destroyed. Sorcery meanwhile, is fast and versatile, better suited to someone going on an adventure.
The class was finished, so he began heading towards his bed to get some sleep when he was interrupted by Lily and Jack with a couple of their cronies, other kids from the village who came to take classes at the church. Lily leaned forward and whispered in his ear.
“Maelstront won’t always be around to protect you twerp, just you wait. One day you’ll be beaten within an inch of your life.”
Needless to say, the two wonder kids did not like him very much. He was always able to answer the questions that they failed to give, so he guessed there was some jealousy from their side. He was a mature adult, so he could overlook their behavior but beat within an inch of his life? Where did these kids learn to be so threatening?
“Please excuse me.”
He went for the safe approach, not engaging. Jack spit after him as he left. He dodged, gracefully if you ignored the spit on the back of his neck.
The bad boy squad got out of his way after that. Yes, that is what he will call them now, the bad boy squad. They couldn’t beat him up within a church without a priest or cleric noticing, so they had no choice but to let him pass.
As he was walking down the hall past stained glass windows towards his room he began thinking about what was going to happen when he turned ten. At that age, he would physically be fifteen years old. The blessed area only works until the physical age of ten, so everyone would be double their age when they finished going there.
He was very excited about that day. Every ten years, a magician comes from the capital to test everyone who is over the age of ten for their mana affinity. He was hoping to win the lottery with this one. It would be great if he could get a rare mana affinity. Then he could move to the capital and begin his new life as a hero.
This kingdom was called Sertrace. He lived in a village called Zola, bordering the forest where the kingdom’s border ends. Sertrace was not the smallest of kingdoms, but all the smaller ones had joined together to form empires larger than Sertrace, so they were the weakest kingdom. Zola itself had mostly wooden houses with only the church made of stone and only had a meter and a half fence surrounding the perimeter.
They were on the Undra continent, which was mostly unexplored. There were six continents in total, with three of them being completely unexplored. He was not sure who was on those continents, his teacher never mentioned who lived there.
Humans were not the only civilized race on this planet. Elves and Dwarves were more common than other races, but there existed a multitude of intelligent races. Centaurs, Giants, Gnomes, Beast men, Halflings, and others. Sertrace was a kingdom composed of mostly humans and other races were often spit upon by people of the country. His whole village despised other races, but he already had an opinion before getting reincarnated. He used to have a thing for elves, who doesn't, so he was excited to meet some other races and immerse himself into their culture. Too bad this kingdom only accepts humans, it sucked.
He now laid in bed thinking about meeting elves and dwarves when he had a dark thought.
Deficient affinities were weird. They were not connected at all to the six main elemental affinities tree and existed anyways. Deficient affinities had useless or dangerous effects when used. The dangerous ones resulted in death every time. He had heard about one deficient affinity called reality. You may think that sounds pretty powerful, but from what he had heard from the priests gossiping it was the most freaky affinity ever. If you used this affinity you would disappear without a trace, just gone. No sound or light flash, you would just disappear and never be heard from again.
Then there’s a deficient affinity called Blight. It is not very dangerous, it just cuts of the magic effect that people cast and stops the mana flow. No, it is not that dangerous, the scary part is that it is transmittable like a disease and turns people into monsters.
Scary stuff, but those deficient affinities are very rare, what are the chances that he would have one? All he can do is wait for the magician to arrive to test affinities, then he’ll know for sure.