The Stage Is Set

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Rakia

That was the name of the continent now serving as my ‘birthplace.’

The first thing I’d started looking into ever since I attained the ability to walk on my own was my location.

Where was I?

The answer to that question was conveniently embedded into Oliver’s bookshelf. Since I attained full control over this vessel a year ago, I’d begun silently reading a few of these books once the sun had faded. As hard as it was to collect them all, the payoff was well worth it and thankfully, the language here wasn’t very different from what the humans in my old world had been using.

After a few weeks of repeating the process, it had become abundantly clear that this place was definitely a different world. Rakia was supposedly one of the most prosperous continents to ever exist, and just like the rest of the world humans weren’t the dominant species here, a far cry from what I’d been calling the norm.

Going by the books, there were numerous races here that I'd never heard about or even thought could possibly exist – Elves, dwarves, dragons, monsters, Nereids, Vampires.....all of these things were now a real possibility, but from everything I’ve read the most interesting case I came across by far spoke about something you’d be hard pressed to find even in a fantasy.

Deities.

Apparently, beings above the mortal order freely roamed this world. The reason for this was solely due to the fact that superior beings here operated in a completely different way than those of my old world. Back in Eden, the Celestials weren’t deities, but they were in fact superior to humans, which also meant that they weren’t allowed to freely roam the mortal world.

Celestials were procreated in a similar manner to humans, but the difference was a Celestial could only be born if the forebears had existed for at least five hundred years, and even then, it was still a very arduous process and that was why they were so few in number.

However, things were different here. Deities were apparently the manifestation of large collectives of belief and not the result of ancestral lineage. They would manifest if a given concept had garnered enough faith over centuries to even millennia, but this too seemed to be just as arduous a process as it was for the Celestials because if that faith waned or was disrupted for a long enough time period then the entire thing would result in nothing but failure.

Despite those crushing odds, six deities apparently ruled over this entire continent. Supposedly they were the saviors of this land, and those six figures were the ones leading the majority of its population and that included mortals that also possessed formidable magical abilities in their own right.

Surprisingly, not all six of those deities ruled their own nations and some of them even preferred to be left alone in obscurity, that was the approach lesser deities supposedly took. Choosing to either isolate themselves or offer protection to the citizens of small villages and towns, receiving offerings as their reward.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

“Heh - Heh....”

Despite the chaotic nature of the current situation, I somehow found myself smiling at the thought of what lay ahead, the gesture came to me so naturally it almost made me forget that it had been impossible for me to pull off only four years ago.

I couldn’t help but wonder what these so – called deities were like........

Rakia had six prominent nations, Ekin was the human domain and it’s capital city of Orna was supposedly ruled over by a deity. That was just about as much as I could gather regarding the layout of these nations, I still had a lot to learn but it would have to wait until later, my focus was now on magic.

I’d been slowly accumulating its natural essence over the years, and I could tell that when it came to absorbing magic, my proficiency was steadily increasing. Although mana flourished in the atmosphere, it was surprisingly hard to absorb it if your life force wasn’t potent enough. In other words, mana was attracted to the very essence of souls and seeing as my soul was weakened right now the process wasn’t going as smoothly as I’d hoped.

To be able to use magic, you needed to ‘awaken’ your ‘core.’ This core was the center of the body’s energy circulation and was also the vessel that housed your very soul, though not many people seemed to know about that last part. In order to awaken your core, the first thing you needed to do was absorb magical energy into your body, and after it travels to your core you temper it through breathing techniques and meditation.

The concept was similar to a forge, your soul was a flickering ember burning at the center of your core, and you needed to absorb and temper mana in order to intensify its heat and get it to a level where those flickering embers could transform into a self-sustaining inferno.

From what I’d learned, this process didn’t seem to be an absolute necessity since mana was naturally attracted to the essence of souls, the majority of people who awakened to magic did so with little to no effort. That was why the average age for awakening here was around ten years old.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have that kind of time, the earlier you started to refine your core the stronger it would get and the larger your mana pool would be. My only option was to keep absorbing mana and tempering it with my own stagnant life force day after day.

After subconsciously scanning the dusty pages of the well-aged tome in front of me for only a few short minutes, I heard the solemn step of footsteps approaching from behind me.

“Mother?”

“E-EH!?” Julia abruptly froze in place, still standing on one leg, she was surprisingly good at maintaining her balance.

“L-Liam how did you know I was sneaking up behind you?”

“It was....the floor.”

“T-the floor? I barely made any noise you know....and here I was trying to surprise you.”

Correcting her posture, the expression she wore now seemed somewhat dejected for some reason. Closing the scholarly scribe, I turned to face her with the cheerful expression I’d gotten so used to mimicking.

“Can I.......come with you?”

Julia’s expression slowly began contorting into something much more mellow, her cheeks slowly being dyed with a hint of red.

“Mhm, let’s go.” After placing the text back on the bookshelf, I took the slender hand she’d extended towards me, I’d held it countless times before but despite that, the feeling I got always managed to surprise me in the end.

It was surprisingly......warm.