Osk looked at his son Bokan with a proud expression. Bokan was just 6 months old, and yet already the signs of magic working on his body and mind were clearly at play. The 6th month old looked like a normal 3 year old, and spoke with the diction of at least a 12 year old. While that was not impressive in and of itself, he had also learned how to write as well as he could speak, and his reading skills were very impressive.

The Magishield family were a well renowned family for their knowledge and enchantments. While they were not as powerful as the Magifires to their north, nor as resistant to magic as the Trollhides to the west, they were still a powerful and influential magic using clan amongst what remained of humanity, the final empire. Of course, Bokan knew there was an entire planet of humans from whence he came, but that was not known to Osk.

Humanity were specialists, and in every field they excelled. However, their specialist nature often lead to them needing skills from other classes to balance them. For instance, someone who was a natural mage such as Bokan could, theoretically, grow their intelligence, wisdom and willpower collectively far faster than their other stats. However, he would be stunted in trying to improve his other stats, such as his charisma or strength.

Skills could be learnt through various means, and allowed a creature to achieve seemingly supernatural feats. A human warrior might train their entire life with the sword, but if a mage who has never held a sword before manages to somehow pick up a skill that permits them to wield a sword, and the human warrior had never picked up that skill, the human mage would far out perform them with the sword.

However, the potential of the warrior would still be undeniably greater. A mage may be able to get a swordsmanship skill, but they would never be able to evolve it to the next stage, whereas a warrior could do so if they managed to evolve their class.

Different specialisms obviously held different advantages and interacted with the person in question differently. Someone who could advance their stamina stat would get tougher and be able to heal from previously lethal wounds. There were even some cases of them growing smaller, back-up organs in the case of the loss of crucial organs, such as their brain and heart, making it necessary to destroy their entire body, an exceedingly difficult feat, in order to keep them dead.

While all stats were connected to magic, the 3 most closely connected were intelligence, wisdom and willpower. Intelligence grew someone's capacity for magic, which was their raw magic strength. Wisdom grew someone's control over magic, allowing them to use what strength they had more precisely and efficiently. Willpower allowed someone to regenerate up to their maximum amount of mana faster, and gave them a better resistance to both magic cast on them, and the cost of magic they may cause themselves to suffer.

High intelligence gives a high learning rate, high wisdom gives a longer lifespan, and high willpower works to give the person an almost ephemeral quality, reducing the damage they take from physical and magical attacks and increasing their charisma. It was generally thought that high intelligence and high wisdom was the best combination, however a high willpower was necessary if a mage wanted to be able to do more than study magic for a couple centuries before dying.

One sign of a child with particularly high wisdom was accelerated growth in their early years, and the learning rate spoke for itself. In terms of willpower, they had no way of testing it yet that didn't involve doing things that Osk was unwilling to put Bokan through. Still, his advance was impressive, even beyond impressive considering the books Bokan was attempting to read.

At a mere 6 months old, he was insisting upon going through various books about the foundations of magic and the history of the continent! Although obviously understanding none of it, the number of words he was able to demonstrate an understanding of when asked was impressive, hardly surprising considering he was rarely seen without a dictionary.

What Osk did not realize, however, was the fact that of course Bokan was understanding much of what he was reading, and was growing more and more concerned.

"So dragons are immortal and endlessly grow stronger unless killed by violent means, elves are able to become creatures known as radiants that are immune to physical attack and terrifyingly powerful magically speaking, orcs repopulate incredibly quickly and have a hardy population capable of turning just about any environment into a massive city from which they can send ceaseless hordes of warriors, and humans have archetypes, which haven't been seen in over a thousand years" he summarized his findings in a small note book. His knowledge from his life as Fabien allowing him to write in code simply by writing in the language he used to speak, which did not exist on this world. "These archetypes are 22 humans who are capable of incredible things, although accounts on what they were actually able to achieve are quite vague." it seemed that a massive war had broken out and the humans had been shattered, along with their entire force of archetypes, previously highly revered leaders of their society, being completely wiped out, along with the first dragon and every radiant the elves had.

The orcs hadn't lost anything special but had very nearly been hunted down to extinction, and even to this day their numbers have hardly recovered. The so called "last empire" seemed to have more been founded by a group of deserters who were trying to hide out the rest of the war. It was largely thanks to them that there were so few orcs and dragons on the continent.

Strangely, there were no records on anything outside this continent, at least not that he had found. Although he firmly believed the vast majority of the boasting about the ancient empire of humans to be complete fiction (space travel without magic? What would even have been the point of developing that? The population sizes they claimed for their cities were also preposterous, no number of farms would be able to feed a city of half a billion people, which they referred to as a "small outpost"!), it was clear that a major war had occurred and what remained was a fairly chaotic situation wherein any of the major races could seize an advantage.

What he had learned about magic was interesting, although only some basic facts were available. The stone he was forced to touch was called a soul stone, so named due to the fact that each soul tended to only get one stone, it was immensely difficult to replace yours if you lost it. Furthermore, it grew with its master, and allowed the person who wielded it to learn things about themself, such as their statistics and skills, and even worked as a tool to alter a person using magic in the direction of their choice.

In reality, it was just a conduit for his soul and body to be closely connected enough for them to change one another in accordance with their masters will, with some user interface features added. There was a limited number of these things and no one still living knew the original source of them, but it would be a long time before they would run out.

One weakness they had was that, in order to properly work, the conduit needed sufficient energy from its master. For a newborn, bonding to a soul stone was safe as most newborns hadn't had any opportunity to grow their mana reservoir, however this was not the case for Bokan, thus resulting in his rather torturous experience. Once he had reached a certain level of power, using the soul stone would be as easy as breathing, but for now it was going to be impossible for him to see his status.

There were 3 different major specializations for a human, and each could be further broken down into 7 more possibilities. Of course, most humans weren't specialized, but unspecialized humans lacked the power required to represent humanity against the other 3 core races. The ratios were roughly as follows:

90% of humanity was unspecialized

6% of humanity was specialized towards their bodies, the associated statistics being strength, dexterity and stamina. These were all called under the term "warriors".

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3% of humanity was specialized towards their souls, the associated statistics being intelligence, wisdom and willpower. These were all called under the phrase "magic users".

1% of humanity was specialized towards their control over others, the associated statistics being charisma, manipulation and poise. These were all called under the phrase "rulers".

Typically, a ruler class person was either killed at birth or given a high position of authority. Their ability to control others a powerful and useful weapon.

Magic users provided enchanted weapons, armor and buildings, and some were powerful spellcasters who would give a tactical advantage on a battle field.

Warriors had the potential to become a super human of terrifying qualities, some able to kill with a flick of their wrist and air pressure alone.

All of these specialists were important and worked together in order to survive against the other races. They had the ability to accept a sub-class alongside their main class, and even were able to spend some free points from each level on any stats they want. It was typically unwise to only pursue the path of a pure mage or pure warrior, as it would leave you weak to the intrigue of others. For instance, a pure mage might be able to level a castle from afar, but would be mind controlled by a pure ruler, who could be killed from the shadows by a warrior with an assassin profession. Balance was needed in order to be secure.

Bokan had no interest in security, he had seen the consequences of being sensible in a world where might makes right. He focused his days on study, improving his skills in mathematics, reading, writing, history, politics and above all magic every day. His relationship with his parents was distant, not due to a lack of interest from their side but simply because there was no time, his mother was a ruler who needed to advise the patriarch of the family, and his father was a magic user who was continually needed for fortifying the defenses and producing enchanted goods to sell to their neighboring lands. In all this time, Bokan did not leave the fortress and rarely ever left the library.

This continued until his 5th birthday.

By the time he had turned 5, Bokan looked more like an 18 year old, and his mildly magic-enhanced mind had improved beyond what he had been during the end of his life as Fabien.

It was customary for parents to begin to take a more active role in their child's education and development at the age of 5, preparing them for the future ahead of them. In Bokan's case, this meant preparing for the tower. Although he had read on average 100 pages in the library since he was 6 months old, the only thing he knew about the "tower" was that it was a place magic users were sent to early on in order to cultivate their powers and prepare them for their lives ahead. What that translated to was that they got brainwashed by powerful ruler classes into being subservient workers for the rest of their lives, however it was undeniable that a tower-educated mage was far more powerful than a privately tutored one in 99% of cases.

The typical age of admittance was 25, by which point it was expected for the magic user to be able to use their soul stone. Being able to use their soul stone before the age of 30 was actually the entrance exam, and anyone who passed it was permitted to join the tower, even including elves. Of course, that rarely ever happened, since humans grew their raw magical strength far faster than elves did, on a level equaled only by dragons, and no dragon would deign to join any human institution.

Another reason for the age limit of 30, was because it was often quite difficult to brainwash people as deeply as they intended to brainwash the powerful mages of the kingdom if they grew beyond that age. Every year of age from the moment they first successfully bond to a soul stone, all of their stats naturally increase in accordance to their natural talents. A rogue tower mage would be a terror that no one wished to have to face.

The tower had two things that were hard to find elsewhere, one was deep knowledge of magic and the other was mages who weren't compelled by the rulers to continually slave away every moment of their day studying and enchanting. Instead, the knowledge they had was taught by mages who were compelled to teach, with many of those considered too powerful to be permitted to leave the confined of the tower being restricted to staying there and teaching future students. This allowed for skills that normally would have to be purchased from the soul stone using a skill point to instead be learned naturally, thus increasing the maximum power potential of the empires budding mages.

Bokan had spent over 5 years continually raising his magic power by practicing, releasing unformed magic into the air in beautiful shapes. His magic sense, developed within the womb, was extremely abnormally good, and he found out that most mages could not even tell that the walls that burned with magic to his eyes were even enchanted unless they were told.

This sense had helped Bokan to control his magic even better, and his power had grown to a level that sometimes, even other mages would sense a faint presence of magic around him.

Normally, mages could only discern magic cast in the form of spells. Just as sword fighting was a skill for a warrior, spells were the equivalent for magic users, and stories were the equivalent for rulers. The history of the continent strongly highlighted the power of various high level spells, but even so they could rarely overcome a significant difference in level with weaker spells. A mage with a level 10 fire spell would be able to throw better fireballs than a mage with a level 1 fireball spell, even though the fireball spell was a tier 4 spell, and fire was only tier 2. To make matters even more amazing, that level 10 fire spell would cost less than a level 1 fire spell, as it would have grown more efficient, and it could be used for far more things than just fireballs. It would even benefit any future fire related spells the mage might have.

All in all, in magic, a strong breath would tear down a weak house.

Bokan's skill in controlling magic had already reached the level that normally would allow him to join the elven academy, if he were an elf. His magical strength was slightly behind what was typically required for the tower, however with his efficient use of magic from his excellent control, and his ability to bear a far greater level of magic deprivation from his growing willpower, he was ready to try use his soul stone.

So, late one night, alone in his bedroom, he sat with the bright blue stone on his upturned palm. The door was locked and he put the thick leather of his shoe between his teeth to stop any screaming he might otherwise do. Next to him were several bottles of wine, ready to be drunk if necessary. While screaming as a young child was expected, an 18 year old body screaming at the top of its lungs would result in a great deal more concern, and so he needed to make preparations.

Thus far, he had accepted the pain, knowing the pain of being helpless to defend ones loved ones to be far greater. So, he gritted his teeth, and got to work. Slowly, he arranged in his mind a path for the magic to follow, a complicated set of twists and turns as multiple strands of magic would push into the stone, through the paths of least resistance and back into his body again, looking like a magical fountain.

Then, he tore the magic from his reservoir and pushed, his steady hand guiding and prodding it along in the most efficient manner possible while his willpower ignored the threatening burn once again upon his periphery.

The magic began to go through the stone, which glowed with a soft blue light, contrasted to the red that began to cloud his vision as the feeling of burning grew greater. Once again, the thought of how strange it was to burn alive yet smell no smoke occurred to him, but he thrust it aside and focused on his task.

The magic cleared the half way point of the soul stone, and its radiance now lit up the room. His small windows would reveal to anyone below that he was performing magic, but it was light at night and none of the patrols would dare come to arrest him, what with him being a part of the direct line. Had his class of been ruler, he would be the direct heir to the Magishield household.

His entire body felt as though it should have already disintegrated, and yet his capacity for pain, expanded by his willpower, had grown such that he continued grimly, pushing further and further to achieve his will. If he could just learn to wield his soul stone, he could begin his training at the tower. The earlier he started, the more his potential would be, and to start at the age of 5 would mark him out as the youngest recorded magic use to activate a soul stone, by several years.

Finally, the magic emerged from the top of the stone, now he simply needed to re-attach it to his body. Pulling more deeply of his power than he ever had before, he tried something new, he pushed against the fire itself, grasping at it, pulling it into his reservoir and channeling it through to complete his magic.

It was a simple reversion of the principles of enchanting he had read, rather than taking energy from within him and imbuing it into something around him, he took the energy around him and imbued it into his spell. Handling the pain it caused, on the other hand, was absolutely not simple.

As the spell completed, the light from the stone coalesced into a projection, which he shone onto his wall. Noticing he had bitten through the leather in his mouth, he shakily drank deeply of the wine, spilling over himself and his bed but he felt it helped slightly with the pain. Exhausted, and knowing the spell wouldn't collapse until he intentionally released it, he fell into a deep and fitful sleep.