FM Chapter 5

Remember this is an original novel written by Addis of ExR. This is not a translation.

Chapter Five

“You’re finally awake.” A soft voice reached Kai’s ears. Groaning as pain flared through every muscle, Kai grimaced. Old Man Jaelen noticed this and reached out with his Element to breathe life into the muscles that hadn’t moved in months.

Jaelen had almost yelled in excitement when he had seen the young man awaken. However, he hid in his excitement as soon as he saw the boy’s eyes. The boy’s right eye was as blue as the day lit skies and his left one was as green as the forests. He had never seen anyone with two different colored eyes before and it made him pause. But, thinking about the legends that he had heard from his master about those with special colored eyes, he kept his thought to himself.

“How are you feeling?” Jaelen asked as his Element continued to heal the stiffness in the boy’s legs. ANother groan escaped Kai and he shifted his legs until he was able to bend then, moving them for the first time.

“I’m okay,” the boy’s voice came out raspy from unuse. He then coughed several times. Worried, Jaelen handed the boy a glass of water and watched as he drank it slowly, moistening his throat with the soft liquid.

“Where am I?” Kai asked, his eyes sparkling with intelligence. Jaelen was astonished, the boy wasn’t from here?

“You don’t remember anything?”

“I only remember my name.” Kai said truthfully. He could only remember bright lights, it was as if every memory he had from his life before had disappeared within the last seven months. Sighing, the Kai closed his eyes and thought back to the lights he had been dealing with for almost a year. Something hit him at that moment, he realized that was all he remembered. Everything else but the brightly lit moons was a blur. The only thing he could remember was his name.

Kai didn’t panic though, he felt as though he had been brought to this place because he had been searching for it. Hadn’t he?

“What’s your name?” Jaelen asked the boy.

“Kai,” was the soft answer.

Jaelen sighed. This young man’s hair had once had streaks of black in it, but over the time he had been unconscious, his hair had turned a greyish white that sparkled even in the dark. His eyes just added to the mystery but did not seem out of place on his boyish face. Deciding that it was best for this boy to learn Jaelen began from the basics of the world.

Before this world was born, there was a time that was called the Era of Chaos. The Era of Chaos spanned across hundreds of thousands of years and was the only era from the start of time. It gave birth to gods and demons, all of which controlled tremendous power and were almost immortal.

Amongst the passage of time, limitless races appeared on the continent. Until one day when a battle occurred and even the deities, demons, and ancient beast kings participated.

That battle shook the sun and moon and even ripped apart earth, finally dragging in the Chaos Gods into the battle. These three Gods used prohibited power and created a destructive windstorm that shattered the continent.

The world didn’t end after the continent shattered. Instead, this gigantic continent was split into thousands of pieces and each piece flew through time and space to become its own separate world. The deities, demons, humans and beast kings all chose their own world thus creating the universe as everyone knew it.

The world where Kai was now was referred to as Aitheria. One could travel to the other worlds as long as they were able to cultivate to a high enough level. This would mean one would at least need to be a Divine Lord. The reason for this was because anyone under that realm would have their bodies restricted as the Element’s within their core would literally start shutting their systems down.

Kai realized through this what exactly the moons he had seen before were. Listening to the different realms and the way to travel around this world, Kai began to infer himself exactly what level he was at, but he did not realize exactly how extremely uncommon it was for him to be at the level he was at.

“The clan lord wishes to speak with you. I’ll bring him in the morning, for now, rest.” Jaelen smiled as he saw Kai’s eyes begin to droop.

Although his body had not moved in the last seven months, Kai’s mind had been active the entire time. Having an exhausted mind took longer to heal than an exhausted body. On top of everything, Kai’s memory had disappeared causing a fracture within his soul that was not easily healed.

As Old man Jaelen left, Kai lost himself in the space within his soul. The six Elements were like bright moons that dazzled everything in their paths. Slowly, Kai reached out and combined all six Elements, sweat appearing on his face as they finally merged into one. They became the largest light in that entire world, like a bright clear marble with thousands of bright colors hidden within.

~~~
“The oddest thing about you,” Hidel voiced as soon as he met with Kai for the first time, “is that you don’t smell like a beast.” He breathed in deeply, scenting the air. Kai watched as Hidel moved closer to him.

He felt a shiver go down his spine with the bigger man leaned in and stuck his nose into Kai’s ashen hair. He felt his heart heart stop within his chest as Hidel stepped away. He shook his head. “Not a beast, and yet, a beast.”

“Is it because he’s not eighteen?” Jaelen asked with an eyebrow raised.

Thinking this might be why, Hidel asked, “When’s your birthday?”

“June twenty third.”

Since Hidel had no concept of Earth’s months, he fielded to ask another question. “How old are you?”

“Eighteen.”

“What’s your form?” Hidel asked. Confused, Kai raised his eyebrows at the two older men.

Seeing his expression showing confusion, Hidel decided to stop questioning him. Even though he had the slight scent of a beast, he really seemed to not be one. But with his cultivation leaping so far in a short span of time, what race was he exactly?

There were thousands of questions Hidel wanted to ask, but he would get nowhere even if he were to ask them. Sighing, Hidel turned to Jaelen.

“Do you think he is well enough to test his aptitude?”

Testing ones Elemental aptitude was a process that was usually done when one was still a child. This meant before they reached the age of thirteen. Most ten year olds would travel across the empires to go to select Elemental Schools. These schools tested the ability of any new student. Just like the different levels of cultivation, there were different levels of Elemental aptitude. Even if one had a low cultivation, but had a high Elemental aptitude, they could become the foundation of a strong empire. Due to this, many empires created schools to teach the prodigies of each generation hoping to reel in any promising figures before they matured.

Most Elemental schools has what was called a Scrying Stone. These stones were born from the earth and were made after thousands of years naturally by the Earth Elementals. These types of stones were not rare, but the bigger the stone was, the more complete the aptitude tests would be.

All families outside of the empires had small Scrying Stones to test their younger generations. If they deemed the child to have a high aptitude, they would send the child to take the full test within the closest school. The reason the families did this was so that they would not bring embarrassment to their village when a child showed no aptitude. The children that failed would then become the backbone of the villages doing such tasks as farming, smithing, cooking etc.

The only issue with Scrying Stones was that if one’s soul was damaged, such as Kai’s, the test might be inconclusive or false. Only with the more ancient Scrying Stones would they then be able to grasp the true aptitude of those with soul scars.

It took a few seconds for Old Man Jaelen to answer Hidel. He was worried that the test might not be correct because of his memory loss. However, he had a high cultivation which should have stabilized the soul scar and would make it easier to test his aptitude even if the result came out negative.

Slowly, Old Man Jaelen nodded, “There should be no issues, but since he is eighteen, in order to go to one of the Empire’s Academies, his test would need to be extremely astonishing.”

Most Empire Academies only accepted the younger generation when they were between the ages of ten to twenty. But, the high the age of the child, the harder it was to get into the school. Time was important to the Empire’s and they believed that if they could not reach a certain level by a specific age, then that child was still useless. Only those who were like dragons among the carp would be given any attention by the Elders.

Clan Lord Hidel knew that Kai’s age was a disadvantage for him, but he had a feeling that this young boy was far more mysterious than any of them could believe. If his aptitude was low, Hidel planned to just let he boy live in the village carefree, however, if his aptitude was high, he knew that he would spare no costs to get this boy to the best Academy within the providence.

Surrounding Vahna Village were four different Empires. The Empire to the North was called Canetis Empire. This Empire was surrounded by lush forests and many elves lived within the trees. Though there were many different ways to divide each part of Canetis, the forests had, for thousands of years, been run by the elves. The Elven Kingdom was divided into four separate kingdoms. The Fourth Kingdom, which was the closest to Vahna, was ruled by the Elven King Oziel and had been ruled by his ancestors since the creation of the Elven Kingdom. Oziel and his Kingdom guarded against any evil that the Swamp, to the east, may birth. Those with the Elements of Light and Earth would normally find themselves drawn to the North.

To the East of Vahna, at the edge of the mountains, was the Eko Empire with it’s swamps and the seas of darkness. The beings that had no designated part of the world lived in this Empire, they were unicorns, dragons and other creatures. The East was an unruly land where those without a car would take up land wherever they saw fit. Darkness and Fire Elements were abundant in the East.

To the South of Vahna were the seas and beaches, this Empire was known as Mare Empire. Anyone who was affiliated with the Water Elements would find themselves drawn to this Empire. This was a very wharf styled Empire that focussed on fishing and being one with water.

And last, but not least was the Northwest, the dwarves and giants dwelled in the mountains and caves. To the Northeast, the swamps where the kelpies and redcaps existed. These two were not run by Empires, but by clusters of villages. The flatlands were run by the Ludum Empire, which was the Empire that Vahna VIllage was under. Ludum Empire had four major Academies, on in the Capital and three others within the major cities.

The one Hidel wished Kai to be able to go to if his aptitude was high, was the Pelles Academy. This was the Academy within the capital of Ludum Empire. It boasted thousands of teachers and held the best ranking of prodigies out of the other Academies in every Empire. There was one main reason why Hidel wished Kai to go there. This was due to the fact that if a small village, such as Vahna, were to send a gifted student to study within that prestigious Academy, then Hidel would be rewarded with enough gold to last the village years.

With this greedy thought in mind, Hidel soon returned to Kai’s room on the second floor with a Scrying Stone.