Darren lay over his desk while lighting the last candle on the chandelier placed with thought and care over it, checking for the last time that everything was on the right spot, overlooking and checking elements from an imaginary list with a nod of satisfaction with his arms crossed.
He was a young man of peculiar aspect, some less polite would call him unfashionable, with his black hair completely messy and short. His facial features where slim and sharp, with a few days unshaved beard. He was wearing a black shirt with rectangular neck and long sleeves and plain straight grey pants, clothes that highlighted his excessively slim structure, a sad result of his malnutrition and a constant lack of care for his self health. His eyes where of a dark brown, round like little dark spots in his face.
"Snacks, check. Candles, check. Emergency lantern, check. Ink strategically positioned to avoid incidents, check. Note pad, check. Pen, check. And at last, the most important"
think to himself, nodding with his head and stopping to give emphasis on the book that was using the central core of the many things carefully placed on his desk. It was an old book, with darkened pages for the dust of the years and bound in leather. In the cover it reads "Introduction to magic and treaty about Mana" with shinning silver letters unaffected by the past of time, giving the illusion that: even if the book itself fell to the degradation of the centuries, those words would prevail on the place where the book once stood on it's totality.
Darren wouldn't be surprise if said illusion where the effect of some sort of enchantment, placed by the author as an statement of his masterly over magic. After all, in the great scheme of things, the existence of magic was a resent discovery and many of it's possibilities and effects over matter where still a mystery.
Books and informs about amateur mages and their discoveries pop up all the time. Darren have studied a lot about the subject, discovering that the great majority of said examples where nothing more than straight plagiarism of previous more talented mages or insignificant foundings with no potential to transcend. However, in this world, where knowledge was jealously hidden, find the truly interesting discoveries was a difficult task.
Darren himself taked pride of owning the biggest collection on his personal library. He have spent his life looking for books and studies, having a whole section of history, another of legends and myths, religious treaties, engineering, magic, enchantments and so on. All of them have been read by him and a very good bunch memorized word to word. At the age of 22 he himself wrote a book titled "introduction to universal history" where he made a general study and his own conclusions about the mayor historical events to this date, with the objective of ease the task for any history fanatic such as himself was long ago.
The book on his desk however, was a completely different matter, it was a literary jewel which number of copies was extremely scarce, those who have one guarded it in safe boxes and the other half where schemers who tried to sell the name of the book with pages from others of similar subject. It was a lifetime of work to just find an authentic copy and at the same time, numerous days of cold and hunger to be able to pay for it. But finally, after all his struggle, he made it. He has a true copy of "introduction to magic and treaty about Mana" on his hands. Wrote by Elias Moonlight, the very first man to find the element known as "Mana" and pioneer on the study of magic and it's applications.
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All mages and researchers owe all their discoveries to this man and everything had started with this book, more than 50 years ago. Just this one book was enough to push a revolution on the technology advancements and the improvement of the life quality in the whole kingdom, as well as mayor changes in the social structure and behavior. As a history researcher, he was able to notice how sudden and abrupt was the change with only one man and one book. The moment to read it have to be perfect, and with this objective in mind he spent several hours to make sure everything was on it's place and to not be interrupted for the next three days.
That last part was not difficult, Darren was a man of few friends. More accurate would say he has no friends at all, after all he spent most of his life looking for books, and once he felt somewhat satisfied with his personal library, he decided to give it a try to social interactions once, only once. In that one attempt to social life, he discovered three things: first, peoples didn't like the "know it all" kind. Second, social interaction wasn't the same as described in books. And last, he felt more comfortable reading than interacting with anything with a face.
After feeling satisfied, he finally decided to sit and read it, passing pages with an awful amount of care to not break or harm the book in question.
"Introduction to magic and treaty about Mana.
Chapter 1: elemental history and the discovery of a new element.
Before we begin, lest talk about history, keeping in mind the prime objective of a better understanding of what exactly is that i chose to call as Mana and the implications of such discovery.
As is told in the history records, the world was at it's beginning, devoid of all form or substance, nothing more than a dark fog of emptiness inhabited solely by winged creatures of great power known as dragons. The dragons where the holders of the elements which now form the earth and with that power, they give form and substance to the world, giving life to all the creatures in it, saving some of the most noble elements for a few.
All living creatures in this world, including humans, born in this world under the seal of one element, giving them power and control over it. It is natural to think that every person can be measured and judged only by the element with which is born. Some are suitable for war and violence, such as iron, while others less fortunate are born under a more insignificant element, such as phosphorus and argon, which makes them weaker in comparison. And then there are those who were gifted by the elements granted by the dragons themselves, such as silver and gold, people who are born with a great and ominous power and an even greater life expectancy, from whom are very few left, limited only to the royal family. This is due to the events of little more than a hundred years ago, known as "The tyranny of the dragon slayer"
According to the records, a man who's name is now unknown stumbled across a powerful and dangerous discovery. He discover that by killing a dragon, a man could steal it's power over the elements, giving him a terrible strength. Moved by his ambition and thirst for power, this man drive the ancient dragons to their extinction and rule over mankind with hundreds of years of tyranny, pursuing and eliminating anyone who could oppose him, till one single woman dare to face him and raise a revolution against the dragon slayer. This woman was then known as Lucrecia, the silvermaiden. This woman defeat the dragon slayer in battle and bring once again pace to out kingdom. Or at least that is what history books tell.
With peace, came leisure, and with leisure, comes meditation.
Me, as perhaps many of those who are now reading this word, was born without an element, an anomaly in this world till now unexplained. Our land was driven by war for many centuries, whatever if it was the conflicts between noble families, confrontations with another kingdoms or the tyranny of a supreme overlord and it's consequential revolution. Under the menace of death, our kind use to have little time to anything except trying to stay alive, powerless and defenseless in the face of those blessed with the power and strength of their elemental seals. This was the harsh and cruel reality of our kin over the millennia. But with the unification of the kingdom and the peace bestow upon us for our silver queen, we have been granted with the time and tranquility necessary to think, and with that, i have made a discovery that will for ever change the history of our race"