Mana, qi, äther, or prana. The energy that came to our world in the Great Cataclysm has many names, and depending on the region or the people's belief, there may be other names, but in the end the name doesn’t matter. In the Holy Kingdom, we use the term essence. Every three-year-old knows what essence is, but most don’t know of the past, and the sacrifice of our ancestors. They were the ones that fought unimaginable horrors and risked their lives to get the information they take for granted. The same goes for the walls that were build upon countless corpses, that alone have such a vast history that they are worth studying, but are continually ignored by all.
My profession is frowned upon by many, and most call me a fool for digging up a past that goes even beyond the First Age. Some call me a lunatic, going as far as accusing me of heresy!
But it does not matter. As long as I breathe, I will write down everything I know, hoping to find a worthy successor one day. A successor that can appreciate the sacrifice of our ancestors. Someone who can look past the walls of the city we call capital.
They all live in the present, ever trying to keep surviving, as it was drilled into our society for centuries. Trying to find ways trough trial and error, but I believe the answers are all along hidden in the past, and it’s century old secrets. I know that they exist, after all I witnessed ‘them’ with my own eyes…
Notes from ‘History of Althera’ - Ethan Quinn
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Jim woke up unusually late and was at first confused by his surroundings, he was still half asleep. Yawning his tiredness away, he tried to sit up, only to feel a stinging pain from his chest shoot through his whole body. Feeling the pain, he finally remembered what happened the day before and why he slept so long.
There really was something wrong with Clay’s curiosity. If he didn’t force him to stop at some point, he would have been beaten black and blue all night long. But still there was a wide smile on Jim’s face and a feeling of accomplishment beside the stinging sensation of the pain.
He not only was able to do something Clay couldn’t, but they found some very valuable information through their experiments, if you can call being beaten up an experiment.
The point was that they now knew that aura could not only be used for sensing other auras, but also to protect yourself. Clay was actually pretty close with his initial assumption about aura, which at this point didn’t surprise Jim the least. Hell, this lunatic can write a book about aura with all the theories flying around his head.
The gaze Clay had when he finally found out that aura could be used as a shield still sent shivers down the spine of Jim. He couldn’t even imagine how many thoughts went through the head of his at that moment.
Luckily he wasn’t forced to listen to any of his theories and was just used for further ‘experiments’ which really was just Clay throwing punches at his stomach at varying strength and aura distances. Why did he agree to that again? Jim couldn’t quite recall it.
Thinking about the punches, the pain surged up again, which was his signal to burn a little of his energy, oh right, he almost forgot that they finally had a name for that. He burned some of his essence to quicken the healing process of his body.
He still recalled how tiring it was for Clay to teach him how to control the amount of essence used when strengthening the body after he learned from their sparring matches that he had no control over the amount of essence whatsoever.
Now that he thought about it, that was probably the reason why he misunderstood the principle of hiding one’s aura, they were just too focused on the control of essence than anything else. Not to mention that Clay had little time since he returned, as he was occupied with teaching everyone at the church to the best of his abilities.
Anyway, it didn’t matter anymore. Jim had to focus on the present. This shield from aura was very strong and worked very mysteriously. It didn’t stop attacks in a literal way like a real shield, but it absorbed the energy of an attack.
The closer the aura was to his body, the higher the energy drained from an attack. At first, they only tested it with punches and there the force was considerably reduced after passing through his aura and finally landing on his stomach.
It wasn’t like the punch suddenly got slower before the attack landed, instead the force that landed on him was way lower than what it was supposed to be. It was a rather strange feeling to prepare for a certain amount of damage only to receive less than expected.
This reduction applied not only to punches but everything that hit him, be it a thrown stone, punch, kick, a hit with a stick or just a push. No matter what, the force that landed at the end on Jim’s body got reduced.
After talking to Clay, he also learned from him that there wasn’t any perceivable resistance. If Clay took a punch at full speed, and it connected, it just felt weaker than it was supposed to. It was if, from one moment to the next, the energy of the punch just got drained away.
It also didn’t matter where the impact was, the stomach, head, leg or even foot, the reduction was always the same. Especially interesting was it when Clay took out a torch to test if this shield could also work on something like heat rather than force.
They had countless tests, and at the end they were sure that this shield really reduced every form of energy that could harm the body. At least that was true for kinetic- and heat energy, and in their current situation they didn’t really need more.
As awesome as this shield was, it had a lot of drawbacks. First of, all was the amount of essence that this shield needed to regenerate, not to be overlooked. Every time when the shield reduced the force of something, it got weaker.
This meant that every time he absorbed the energy of something, he needed time to gather the steadily released essence from his body to strengthen the shield again. Clay explained that it should be possible to quicken the regeneration by pushing more essence out, but Jim couldn’t do that.
Clay tried to help by describing how he did it, but that made it only worse. He said that he always imagined that his essence flowed similar to blood through his veins and that when he strengthened his body this essence gets burned to generate the energy that's needed. Jim was supposed to feel this produced energy and instead of letting it naturally flow through his body, he should push it out, but he had no idea how to do that.
Hell, he had problems with just burning essence to generally strengthen his body, let alone control it to be pushed outwards. Clay was apparently doing that long ago to widen the range of his own aura. If he only used the naturally released essence, his aura would only reach a distance of about a dozen meters and that was too small to properly scout your surroundings.
But the biggest problem was to be able to hold the aura in place, while fighting. Pushing his aura this close took Jim full concentration, and besides simple tasks like walking, he couldn’t do much. Fighting while maintaining his aura so close to his body seemed impossible.
Jim would have to train it into an instinct that didn’t require much thought. Similar to the use of his strengthening, it should happen naturally. But it was a lot harder to influence your aura than just burning essence.
Clay told him that he held his aura in a radius of five meters when fighting, as this was the distance he could hold without thinking much about it. Jim on the other hand was better at holding it closer and was comfortable at a range of about a meter, but that was still way too big to function as a proper shield.
The breaking point for the aura to have any effect seemed to be at half a meter, and that alone was taxing. The closest he could push would be around a dozen centimeters, but in a fight, half a meter was the utmost limit for now.
Thinking about all of this, Jim’s head began to hurt, and he decided that he would think about that problem another time. He was too inexperienced to try and use that shield in a real battle anyway, and there was no time to waste. Today was the final day of preparation before they would finally make their way to safety.
Besides, it was strangely silent. The plateau wasn’t big, and it should by about noon, a time when it was normally buzzing with activity. Going out, he took a quick look around and immediately found everyone of the group in eerie silence.
Jake seemed to be the most nervous, as his leg wouldn’t stop shaking. Chris and Dennis seemed to be doing the usual, which were drawing and carving respectively.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
Clay seemed to be meditating near the cliff where he sat most of the time, pondering about one of his countless questions. Max was standing a bit away from the group, gazing over the vast forest, seemingly lost in thoughts.
Strangely, Max, who in the past as their class representative helped many and was liked by most, was in their small group the odd one out. It must have been hard on him, being so long away from civilization and other people, he wasn’t proud to admit it, but everyone else wasn’t necessarily… social, which included himself.
Jim could feel it, there was something in the air, something he didn’t feel for quite a while - tension. It felt almost tenable. Everyone in their own way was preparing themselves. They survived long enough to fully understand in what danger they were about to embark.
Since the world went to shit almost five months passed and truth be told for Jim it all felt like a blur, when he tried to recall what or when certain events happened. Over this time he killed countless beasts, but only a few stuck to him…
The first ever beast he faced, the spider, than the raven and following it Lukas… Taking a moment, Jim took a deep breath. Yes, more than the beasts he survived he should remember those who didn’t, so that their sacrifice should never be forgotten.
Lukas, Emma… Solaire. For their sake he, no, they had to keep going, keep surviving. The next beasts may be the most fearsome they ever faced, as their numbers seem endless and victory hopeless.
Even if they somehow managed to get past the ants, what then? They all knew in their heart that everyone was long gone, and their only hope would be to follow their direction through a forest that may have already been swarmed by the endless legion of the ants.
They see them each and every day, be it morning or night, the rustling of their legs being something they long blended out. In the forest they were hard to spot, but the occasional hushing shadow or the small clearance in the thicket of the leaves showed that they were everywhere, no matter the direction.
The truth was that they were scared. How could they not be? Fear was after all the thing that kept them alive to this day. This may be their last battle, but they would make sure to not go down without a fight, not after all the hardship they went through to get here.
The plan for this journey was in the making since they stranded on this godforsaken mountain and no matter how, they thought about it or in which perspective they looked at the problem, they only had one path ahead, a path leading directly through the ants.
In reality, their plan was simple, and their hope lied in the effect of surprise. The goal was to reach the burned patch of forest from Solaire to avoid the densest part of the ants, and then run through the forest in the hope to not stumble over too many ants.
They observed them for weeks and not for even a second weren’t they able to see at least a worker ant squirming around the foot of the mountain relentlessly continuing their work, without even showing a hint of fatigue. In fact, they never saw an ant eat or sleep even once. By now, they should wonder if they are even out of blood and flesh.
As amusing as this theory was, they knew that the ants had flesh, as it was their main source of nutrients. Be it breakfast, lunch, dinner or just as a snack, they ate it at every possible moment. Alone, the thought of their slippery, pale white flesh caused Jim’s stomach to turn upside down and be hit with severe nausea.
Shaking his head, Jim went over to Jake. From everyone, he seemed to be the most restless, which was understandable if you consider his lack of battle experience and the close to none life and death situations he had to face.
“Hey, how are you doing?” Hearing the question, Jake stopped the shaking of his leg and, lifted his head, which was buried under his hands. “I feel… nervous, anxious, restless, exited… The list goes on for quite a while, I didn’t expect to feel all of this suddenly. Just yesterday, I was still doing fine.”
Patting his shoulder, Jim sat down beside Jake. “That is the purest form of instincts taking over. The instinct to survive and the countless emotions that accompany it.”
“I guess so.”
“Look, Jake, I wish that I could say that everything will be fine, but I can’t lie to you. Not now, not here and especially not in the face of the dangerous battle before us, but just let me promise you one thing - I will try my absolute best to get us both out of here.”
Looking over the horizon for a moment, Jake suddenly smiled. “Thanks, Jim, I needed that. We went through so much already, what are a few insects in comparison to that, right?”
Hearing this, Jim copied the smile of Jake naturally, before standing up and patting him on the shoulder before going over to the meditating Clay.
When Jim was about three meters before Clay, he wanted to call out for him, but stopped himself. By now he should have long been noticed. When he learned one thing about Clay over the past weeks, then, that an ambush of him was impossible, as long as he had his aura up.
Wait, doesn’t he have his aura up? Focusing completely on his sense, Jim tried to feel the aura emanating from Clay, and after a while he was able to feel it clinging tighter to his body than usual.
There was still almost half a meter left, before Clay’s aura would touch his skin, but it was at this moment that he opened his eyes and was momentarily startled by Jim, who was standing so close.
Similar to the vanishing ripple caused by a stone thrown into the sea, Clay’s expression calmed. “Is something the matter?”
“No, not really, I just wanted to have a final talk before we are really moving out. Did you just try to form an aura shield?” Jim asked with interest.
“Yeah, had to at least give it a try after yesterday, but it’s strange. In comparison to pushing my aura out, I find pulling it closer to me so much harder,” replied Clay with unfocused eyes.
“Isn’t that normal? We are all unique, so it makes sense that everyone has different strengths and weaknesses, even if we are talking about some supernatural magic,” replied Jim with a shrug as he sat down.
“You are probably right.”
There was a moment of silence before Jim asked, “We have really everything packed, right?”
“Yes, I checked multiple times. There isn’t much to our possession anyway. Our most valuable asset are our weapons, and those have seen better days, but there is nothing we can do about that,” replied Clay calmly.
“What do you think, are we prepared?”
“No. There is nothing that could prepare us for the upcoming battle. We don’t even know the numbers of the enemy, but to say we are outnumbered would be the understatement of the year,” replied Clay with a chuckle.
“Hehe, that’s true…” replied Jim before he suddenly asked,” Can you promise me something?”
Confused, Clay asked, “What promise so suddenly?”
“It’s just that in the case that I’m not able to return, could you look after Jake, but especially my sister, Mia?”
“That’s a lot to ask…” responded Clay, while thinking for a moment, “But there isn’t much else for me to do anyway, besides making sure that Chris too survives this. I can’t promise you that I will sacrifice my own life if it comes down to it, but I will try my best to look after them if you answer my question.”
“That is enough for me, ask your question,” Jim replied with relief.
“Why me?”
Startled by the simple question, that was unusual for the normally long and extensive questions, Clay normally thought about Jim needed some time to find an answer. “To speak the truth, I’m not sure myself, but if I had to name something it would be your reliability. In the past I always thought you were arrogant, by avoiding everyone, but as it turns out you are just a bit socially awkward. When you tried to save Lukas, when you came back to warn us about the ants, when you gave us all your information, when we fought together or when you helped Evelin escape. You seem cold from the outside and are often silent, but I believe you have your heart at the right spot.”
When Clay heard the part with Evelin, his eyes widened before he smiled. “So you realized after all. I guess I shouldn’t have explained the concept of hiding your aura so detailed if I wanted to keep that a secret.”
Nodding, Jim explained, “At first I thought it might just have slipped my mind with everything that was going on, but then I began to think further. You are clever, even more so than you would admit, and a simple mistake like withholding such important information would never happen accidentally. I thought over each of our conversation about aura and what you taught the others and even if you mentioned it accidentally sometimes, you never explained it in detail, and you did so for good reason. Your aura sense is the technique that caused you to stay alive to this day, but it would practically become useless if everyone knew how to hide their aura, isn’t that so?”
Raising his hands in defeat, Clay said, “You yourself seem to be cleverer than you want to admit. Yes, I intentionally hid the information about hiding aura and I also was the one that used this technique to free Evelin, so what are you going to do now?”
“Nothing of course. Neither the knowledge of hiding aura, nor the prevention of Evelin’s execution, was something that harmed us. If I think about Evelin’s methods, I still grow furious and the picture of Emma turning into this abomination because of Evelin causes my stomach to turn upside down, but I couldn’t bring myself to kill Evelin for that. I stand by my belief that your heart is in the right spot and from everyone here I think you are the one that could actually survive in this new world,” replied Jim with determination.
Slightly surprised by all of this, Clay said, “I think you have a little warped perception of me. In truth, I just do what I want and think is right. I mean, I left you because I just didn’t want to bother myself with so many people, and even my return was only because I know what threat these ants impose to not only me but the whole country and I don’t want to run for the rest of my lives from ants. But you are right with one thing; I do keep my promises.”
Standing up, Jim smiled and gave Clay an acknowledging nod. That mindset was why he chose Clay over everyone else. He may not be as good at fighting like Max, or as fearless as Dennis, but he thought differently than any other person he had met. This unique perspective on things is what causes Jim to believe that if someone could protect and help Mia, it would be him.
Jim of course didn’t plan on dying any time soon, and in truth he just wanted to lay a good foundation between Clay and himself so that he could help him later on to find a solution for his sister, but just in case, he made that promise.
Following Jim’s example, Clay too stood up saying, “If there isn’t anything else, I will go and get some rest, which you should too, tomorrow is the big day after all.”
Jim looked after Clay who was going into their hut before he suddenly turned around and said, “Please don’t do anything stupid tomorrow. Even if I made that promise, it sounds like a lot of work and really annoying, so don’t die on me.” Having said that, he vanished behind the door and into the hut.
Hearing this, Jim couldn’t help himself but smile. He definitely made the right decision.