The Final Frontier
By:Arahito
Chapter 5
Karoril was sitting in Brach’s library in the section for mana manipulation. He had gone through half the library looking for information about the mana orb. He had gained numerous skills by reading all those books, but soon he had deleted most of them again, because they were of no use to him. The only two skill he had kept were called ‘Mana Meditation’, which boosted his Mana Regeneration by 200% when he meditated for 30 seconds, and ‘Item Identification’. Besides skills he had also gained a lot of stats in intelligence and wisdom. If he would only find a way to recharge the mana orb he would be a fairly strong level 1 mage when he left the city.
Karoril sighed and put the book with the title ‘Mana in Architecture – How to build physically impossible buildings’ aside. It was a book about the possibilities in architecture when infusing material with mana to shape houses in ways that would not be possible by the laws of nature. Karoril was looking for something along the line, but unfortunately the book didn’t mention the method how to infuse mana into various materials. He reached for the next book on the pile to his right, where he stacked the books he had not read yet.
‘Haachoooo’
The sudden sneeze by the librarian who had been sneaking between the book shelves right behind Karoril made him jerk, hitting the stack of books and ultimately scattering them all over the floor. Karoril recovered from the shock, sighed again and started picking up the books. The title of the last book he reached for read: ‘King Blainn’s phoenix armor – the source of endless power’. Intrigued by the title Karoril sat down, opened the book and started to read.
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In the year 5617 after the dwarfs’ creation King Beldas’ son Blainn was born. During that time Beldas’ kingdom Dorîn was at war with his cousin Dûhno’s kingdom Aren. Their kingdoms were located next to each other and the natural border was a mountain range. A year before Blainn’s birth Beldas’s man had found a mithril deposit in the mountains, which also contained fragments of helium. Up to date not even 10 carts of helium have been mined on the whole continent. The dwarfs back then immediately grasped the immense luck they had to find such an incredible fortune. They started mining the ore as soon as possible, but Dûhno had gotten wind of the mine in the mountains and claimed it to be on his territory.
As neither of the two dwarfs seemed to give in, a battle took place at the mine, which both kingdoms claimed. The battle, which was later called ‘Battle of the Mine’ and the eponym of the emerging war, ended with a draw between the two forces. As Blainn grew up the conflict exacerbated and became an all-out war between the two dwarven kingdoms. When Blainn reached the age of 20 he was a strong and sturdy dwarf, accustomed to the axe and a respected young warrior among his father’s troops. During a fierce battle on the top of the highest mountain, the Aiaragula, Blainn commanded his troops to a crushing victory and was able to secure the mine against Aren.
The dwarfs of Durîn started mining the ore of the mine and came to great wealth, while Dûhno was angrily dwelling in his kingdom gathering forces and preparing a counterattack so big, that Durîn would be swept away. After two years of ceasefire Dûhno began his assault. He sent assassins to murder Beldas and deprived the kingdom of Durîn of his king. As the dwarfs were still grieving about their loss an army of 100 000 warriors of Aren raided the lands of Durîn.
It was in their darkest hour that Blainn took the place of his deceased father and set bounds to Dûhno’s men. But Durîn’s lands had been ravaged and the enemy was still superior in number. In his despair Blainn called out to every ruler of Versailles to help his people survive and prevent a genocide. Of all people it was the high elfs that came to the rescue of Durîn’s people. They didn’t send any troops, but one single person. The one who had come to rescue Durîn was the druid Flumen. He bestowed Blainn, the king of Durîn with a power so great, that it changed the history of the dwarfs in Versailles. Flumen infused the power of a phoenix in Blainn’s armor and he fueled it with the magical power of every dwarf of Durîn.
When Dûhno’s men attacked, Blainn stood at the front of the battlefield and fought without fatigue for several days. He was able to do that because the armor provided him with a seemingly never ending energy supply. Whenever Blainn was hit by an arrow, a sword or a spear the power of the phoenix incinerated it and left Blainn unharmed. With that power Blainn was able to singlehandedly defeat Durîn’s army and unite the two kingdoms Durîn and Aren to one kingdom which is today known as Thor. So the ‘Battle of the Mine’ ended with the ‘Slaughter of the Phoenix’. After Blainn’s death his armor was buried with him. It is said that during all the fights Blainn fought in his life the armor’s power was exhausted and finally depleted completely.
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Karoril closed the book. He was full of spirits. Finally he had a hint as to where to look. He jumped up and hurried to the librarian. “Excuse me, sir. I am looking for a book about Flumen, a high elf druid.”
“I am sorry, I have never heard anything about such a person. Actually I also have never heard about a high elf who became a druid at all. If there is any information about him in this library, you might find it in the section about nature affine magic, also called the druid corner. It’s on the second floor in the northeastern corner. “
“Thank you very much, sir.” Karoril replied and rushed to the druid corner. As he was approaching the section, where he hoped to find the information he had been searching for the last week, a message window popped up. It was a whisper from Shendar:
"Hi Karoril, Celeste and I both finished our training. We are now making preparations for hunting. How much did you progress? Were you able to find out how to recharge the mana orb?"
Karoril answered him quickly, before he started inspecting the books on the shelves in the druid corner: “I think I am hot on the trail. I’ll let you know if I know more.”
A few hours later Karoril had once again made a stack of books, which might bring him closer to the secrets of Flumen, the druid. He was already halfway through the pile, when he opened the book ‘Strengthening of Nature’. The book contained a lot of information regarding different mana types you could find in nature. On the last pages it explained how a magic affine person could infuse mana in objects and living things and boost its properties.
You learned a new skill: Mana Infusion
Mana Infusion Beginner Level 1 .0%
You can infuse your mana in non-living objects and store it there. You can extract the stored mana if you are close to the medium. Will unlock additional features as proficiency rises.
‘Hah, that must be it’ Karoril thought to himself eagerly ‘I have to test it.’ He looked around, but there was no one on the library’s floor except him. He opened his inventory and took out the mana orb he had stolen from the archmage. It was a blue, transparent sphere from the size of a tennis ball. When he had seen the orb for the first time he had thought that it was a huge sapphire, which was the reason why he took it in the first place. Later he remembered a sign he had seen next to the orb, that said ‘mana orb’.
Now that he had time to inspect the orb thoroughly, he noticed a small whirl inside it, which was moving slowly and taking different shapes. Fascinated Karoril started moving the orb. As he was turning and twisting it the whirl reacted and started moving faster. The whirl grew to a vortex and expanded to the edges of the orb. Karoril was moving the orb faster and faster trying to amplify the twirl. Then suddenly a streak reached out of the orb and edged its way towards Karoril’s head. He jumped with fright and the orb dropped on the floor.
When he had calmed down he peaked at the orb again, but the whirl was gone and it looked just like any other gem. ‘Weird’ Karoril thought and shrugged his shoulders. He picked up the orb again and said “Mana Infusion”. His mana bar started dropping. Karoril tried to stop the infusion by will and his mana bar didn’t decrease any further. Then he tried to infuse his mana by will and the drain continued. ‘Great, so that means I don’t have to say it out loud everytime.’ When his mana bar was empty, he focused on the mana orb and sensed a faint power within it, which had not been there before. Karoril tested whether he could seize the power in the orb without speaking. Suddenly he felt a power, which roughly equaled the power he could generate with a full mana bar. The corner’s of his lips rose.
The next hours he spend with infusing his mana into the orb and meditating to speed up his regeneration. After around 15000 infused mana points Karoril reached his limit. Although his mana bar was full again, he couldn’t infuse any more mana. Either there was a limit as to how much he could infuse into an object based on his proficiency or based on the object itself. He would find our sooner or later. Karoril opened his friends list and selected Shendar and sent him a whisper: ‘I am ready, let us go hunt some monsters. Let’s meet at the east gate.’ Then he stood up and descended to the entrance hall and left the library.
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