Novaris. Quattur. 904. AGC.

The first months of their new life were filled with learning many things.

First, it covered things they had already learned but in greater detail. There was the era known as the Foundation Era. At the orphanage, they simply glossed over this, as children didn’t have much use for the information aside from the fact that it began when the World Crystal finished creating their world.

In the church, however, the priestess had given them some tomes that spoke of how the Foundation Era was essentially the time before the gods. It was a time of prosperity before the planet began getting shaken by all sorts of problems. Overall, the era was the start of their planet, the time the planet was explored, and new things like magic were discovered.

There were two main things to know about the Foundation Era outside of the prosperity and the fact that no gods had been around yet. These two things were that, at that point in time, the planet was effectively isolated from the universe at large. The other thing to know is that most knowledge and history from that era, whether magical or not, is extremely rare.

The cause for the rarity is rather straightforward, as seen by looking at the planet's history. Everything has gone rather badly after the event that started the Era of Unending Strife and gave Novaris its moon.

It began with a search for knowledge as the planet went into a frenzy while trying to learn anything and everything about magic, life, and just the universe in general. The search was inspired due to fear of the unknown and what could possibly strike the planet next. At first, the search did bring peace as learning came to the forefront.

Everyone, everywhere, wanted more knowledge. Sadly, at some point, the search for knowledge for knowledge's sake turned to greed. The kings that once funded research and learning turned to use that knowledge to conquer and expand. However, there had always been wars, and it was nothing out of the ordinary as war still pushed magic and technology ever forward.

One of the main things that came from the Era of Unending Strife was the gods—in a time of knowledge, war, and fear of the unknown, civilization turned to something that could always calm them down.

Worship.

They began worshiping all sorts of things, and through that worship came the gods. The orphanage didn’t really go into much detail about the god business, at least not more than letting the children know that Zefree was their benefactor.

So Jasmine and Arelion came to learn how the gods truly manifested. It turns out they didn’t just randomly come into existence—well, at least not entirely.

Essentially, they learned that for a god to manifest, there must be faith and worship. Only after enough people worship and gain faith in an aspect of reality does the real magic happen.

The World Crystal notices the intent of the masses and uses its vast power to accumulate the intent and faith. After accumulating it, the World Crystal gives it consciousness based on the intent and faith accumulated. Doing so brings a new god into existence. Then, after gaining consciousness, the god would go about whatever it is they embodied. The gods gained a personality based on the intent they were made of and would seek to spread their faith. However, the gods were actual beings and did grow in experience or could even manifest new aspects.

Another thing they learned was that even though the World Crystal created the gods, they did not serve it. The World Crystal was an entity of the universe. Its job was to create a world and ensure that certain universal rules were followed—rules that bind itself as much as they bind the gods.

These were the rules of reality, and only a few of the god's chosen clergy actually know what they entail. However, even then some were clearly obvious, like the fact clergy had free will or how gods couldn’t manifest in physical reality without mortal assistance.

The whole godly topic angered Jasmine and Arelion a bit. Sure, there were good gods, but there were also bad ones, which is why it is argued whether the gods were truly blessings or not. Though, in truth, those arguments were from older times, and looking at their world now, it can be said with certainty that as bad as the darker gods are, it is definitely great to have the good ones when facing something like an Eldritch God.

That was another topic they had learned more about at the church. At the orphanage, they were basically just told that a long time ago, a creature from the Astral came and “ate” their moon. The story was also a spooky story used to keep troublemakers in check. The caretakers would tell the kids that if they didn’t act right, an Eldritch God was going to come and eat them. That particular strategy worked on many children, but to the caretaker's disappointment, it had not worked on Rose.

In fact, it had been quite the opposite as Rose would just run around with a wooden stick, screaming how she was going to be a Paladin! And that she wasn’t scared of the Eldritch God. In fact, she dared for it to fight her head-on.

Anyway, the siblings learned that the god taking the moon was another one of the things that really put some weight behind the name of the current era. As even five centuries later, the thing was still up there planning and plotting, something that Luxana hoped to change sooner rather than later.

The next issue of the Unending Strife Era came around a century or so after the Eldritch God took their moon, and it is probably the reason why it has taken so long to kick it out of the moon.

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The issue is known as the Realm Invasion.

In the orphanage, they were simply told that the invasion was when a bunch of portals opened from the Realms, and monsters came to invade the world. However, eventually, the world recovered and pushed them back. Now, that was true, but it was also very broad.

A more detailed recollection of events follows a world shaken by the Eldritch God, as they find never-before-seen aberrations invading their world. So, with the world focused on that particular Astral invasion, no one noticed the growing influence seeping into the planet from the Realms.

Slowly, all sorts of cults began growing in power worldwide while staying hidden under the shadow of the Eldritch God. Then, almost as if they were coordinating, they all struck simultaneously as they opened massive portals to all the Realms. And through the portals came all sorts of monsters, elementals, and other humanoid armies.

Then, due to the power and sheer numbers brought by the invasion, many kingdoms and civilizations all over the world collapsed. Naturally, war ensued as two of the world's continents fell into chaos. These continents were Alphis and Betis, which were filled with tribes, small kingdoms, or city-states that could not put up much of a resistance.

Luckily, the Wild Continent was unconquerable as it was already filled with all sorts of monstrosities that pushed back any invasion there. Another continent that was fine was the Desolate Continent, whose odd mana and magical functions made it all but impossible to open large portals or make mass summons. Then, finally, was the Dragon Fang Continent, which, after the Realm Invasion, became known as the Shattered Fang Continent.

This continent is the continent that Lezi is currently a part of. This continent was also considered the center of civilization in the world. In fact, it is still considered the center of civilization on the planet.

Now, as the naming transition points out, the continent also suffered due to the Realm Invasion, as its southern half was shattered and was mostly sunk. However, being the center of civilization caused those fleeing from the other continents to head to the Shattered Fang, making the continent the last bastion of the world. And through blood and magic, Novarians held until they established themselves within the continent.

This establishment came to be known as The Novarian Alliance. Sadly, the alliance didn’t last long, and soon after pushing back the invaders from the continent, it broke apart. One part became the new Novarian Alliance held together by the pantheon of seven, while the other became the Magus Empire.

However, even though the alliance did fall apart, its two remnant forces did not stop their original quest. Both the Alliance and the Empire are the two beacons of power in the world, and through their struggle, the Realm invaders have been pushed back to Alphis and Betis, where the fighting still goes on.

From there on, their study became more of what they already knew as the topics were from more recent history. This mainly covered how the Alliance and Empire established colonies in the two continents and how the colonies grew and expanded, eventually allowing civilization to expand and grow on its own. It also covered the founding of other kingdoms in the world, such as their current kingdom, Lezi.

Arelion and Jasmine also learned about the different Realms and their inhabitants and how fighting is still mainly done to push back demons from the Abyss and devils from the Hells, with the occasional skirmish with various elementals or their humanoid counterparts.

Now, through their study lessons, Jasmine and Arelion also trained by doing some light exercises to slowly awaken their bodies. At first, they were confused as to what Ravnica meant by awakening their bodies, but they soon learned that as well.

Novaris. Septer (July). 904. AGC.

They learned that half of the work to become rankers was already done. Apparently, their little trick to remove Setiel’s assassin from life was actually helpful.

However, the precursor to the lesson that taught them about how they were halfway to being rankers was something that they had been asking for a while: their history.

Ravnica had simply sat down with them one day and told them it was time for them to learn more about their past.

First, they learned that Luxana's grudge against the Eldritch God was so deep that it leaked through her connection with her clergy or celestials, causing them to hate the entity even more than most. This explained why Jasmine felt disgusted and disliked any topic that mentioned the Eldritch Deity or its aberrations.

For Arelion, however, he felt nothing. Setiel disliked the Eldritch God as she was included in moon worship, but she disliked it because it dared to invade “her planet.” They also learn that Setiel did not mind the entity as much due to how much the Eldritch God angered Luxana. So, to the dark goddess, an enemy of an enemy was an ally of sorts, but not really. It was more like an enemy that pisses off my enemy makes them kind of okay.

Either way, having learned of Luxana’s hate, they moved on to the goddess's experiments.

It began with the rest of the gods as they all tried to find hybrids to fix the problem celestials had, something they also learned of. However, after many failed attempts, most gods gave up on the experiments, but Luxana just couldn’t.

The goddess's first real experiment was around 831 AGC. This experiment turned into a failure of sorts.

The goddess had given too much of her essence to babes in their mothers' wombs, causing them to turn into actual celestials. The whole incident was a nightmare, as the babies were born at B Rank due to being mostly celestial in nature. This issue caused many mothers to die while giving birth and was viewed as a failure for the most part.

These babies eventually grew out of their flesh-bound mortality and, by 16 years of age, had essentially grown to their full celestial potential, bringing them to A Rank and ascending them to their true celestial status. These babies were named Moon Angels because they sprouted silver wings when they reached A Rank.

Sadly, though the Moon Angels were powerful, they were not what Luxana needed.

So, the goddess kept experimenting, and that's where many of the Moon Touched mortals came from.

Luxana attempted one of the previous experiments that the gods had tried but with more expanded methods. She tried a variety of babies. She mixed many celestials with all sorts of mortals, from blessed clergy to Moon Angels to fully formed celestials born from her magic directly. She even tested already mixed hybrids that had celestial traits but no powers. She also tried goblins, orcs, centaurs, dragonkin, and beast kins. The goddess did not hold back at all and kept a record of everything.

Then, finally, through the knowledge gained from her experiments, she found the right combination to create the key that would bring down the Eldritch God.