Awarang, a small elven town in Gretharea Kingdom, 47 Gearro 3982 Twelve years had already passed since I was reborn in this world. Many things happened in these years. I was now a twelve-year-old boy of an elven race, an einjafaeth, a dusk elf. For me, that was a heck lucky roll of dice. Dusk elves were the most human-like elven sub-race in appearance. It meant that they could be skinny, fat, muscular, tall, short, bearded, bald, blonde… Simply speaking, in term of appearance, body-shape, skin complexion, hair color, and the likes, this sub-race of elves had almost as many varieties as what humans had. Unlike leamfaeth (night elves) who were all dark-skinned and slim, or syanfaeth (day elves) who were all beardless and fair-skinned, or jaarfaeth (dawn elves) who all had curly hair and were as short as dwarves; dusk elves, from the appearance, could only be identified from their long pointed ears. Different from other types of elves too, dusk elves prefered to live in towns and cities. They still in a way loved nature, but they didn’t really reject technology, nor behave as detached as other elves. This meant that dusk elves, compared to other elves, got along much better with other races. Anyway, as a dusk elf, I had raven-black hair and light brown complexion. I had a somewhat masculine facial musculature, which was not really prominent yet, since it was hidden by my still childish fat. I knew that this childish feature of mine would disappear in about two to three years, but it was… really annoying actually. (Sigh!) I had never imagined that being a child was a really hard thing to do. Oh well, at least I knew that I would have a really-really long young adult period of time. Dusk elf had a general lifespan of 300 years, in which almost ninety percent of it would be spent in young-adult period of time. It meant that I could stay twenty for more than two hundred years. Cool, huh? But, that was assuming that I did not fall into accident, get killed, or get inflicted by deadly diseases. Speaking of deadly diseases, my parents and elder brother were victims to those… (Sigh!) They were great family members. I could have had a wonderful, peaceful life surrounded by loving family members… the one thing that I yearned much in my previous life. I knew I should have chosen Sanctuary [Household] in the starting configuration, before I was reborn here. If only I… Argh! Damnit! I knew that regretting what had happened would not change anything but… I couldn’t help it. Stupid me! Seven years ago, a deadly magical plague broke out and killed more than three hundred people in this town. My parents and elder brother were three of those victims… I could survive, completely unharmed, probably because of the effect of Sanctuary [Self] I had chosen in the starting configuration. I could somehow know that I had been protected from harm. It had expired though. I felt that the effect disappeared once I turned twelve. Well, for most races in this world, people were considered of age when they turn twelve. For dusk elves, it was even more significant, since children could only acquire a name after they turned twelve. It was an interesting part of their culture actually. The concept was that children under twelve could not be held responsible for anything they did. Instead, their parents or guardians should be the one that took the responsibility. So, they were still named after their parents or guardians. Once they passed twelve of age, they picked their own name and were then considered responsible for whatever they would do. When my parents were still alive, I was called the second-son-of-Ginkhar-and-Smiuna. Ginkhar, which in elven language meant Wind Claw, was my father’s name. Smiuna, which meant Blooming Flower, was my mother’s name. After my parents and elder brother passed away, I was called the nephew-of-Kerbruan. Kerbruan, or Grim Bear, was my uncle’s name. He took care of me after the death of my parents. My uncle was a blacksmith. In appearance, he truly represented his name… huge, muscular, hairy, and gloomy. He was not a very loving… ideal uncle, but he was decent enough. He treated me like a landlord treated his tenant. As long as I paid the rent (like by cleaning my own room, washing the dishes, taking out trashes, and helping in his workshop during the rush hour) and followed the rules (such as: not damaging precious objects, stealing, or fighting weaker children), I was free to do whatever I liked. I didn’t really mind being treated like that. It was fair enough. Besides, I knew my forever-bachelor uncle was not very good in interpersonal communication. He treated everyone the same, in his weird grumpy way. It was alright though. I was pretty sure that it would be really creepy if he started to behave like a nice, loving uncle. Anyway, today was the day I could acquire a name. And that was what I was about to do. That was the reason I came here. I carefully looked at the small temple in front of me, the jaarquilk, the Temple of Dawn. This was where I could gain a name. At first, I assumed that I needed to go to einjaquilk, the Temple of Dusk, since I was a dusk elf, but that was wrong. Any elf would need to go to the Temple of Dawn to celebrate birth and acquire a name; to the Temple of Day to acquire magic specialization, obtain a class and get married; to the Temple of Dusk to retire and attend funeral ceremony; and to the Temple of Night to pay respect to the dead relatives. After hesitating for a few seconds, I entered the temple. There was only a small room with beautifully carved wooden altar within this temple, and there was only one other person inside, the priest. He was sitting in a relaxed manner behind the altar. “Welcome, Child! I suppose you want to earn your name, don’t you?” The priest stood up and greeted me in his warm, patient voice. I nodded wordlessly while observing him quickly. He looked like an old man in his eighties, so his real age was probably close to three hundred years old. He was wearing a necklace of sun. He was probably the follower of the Sun God, Asorya. It was quite reasonable, since I knew that the Blessing of the Sun was very beneficial for priests. The religious belief of the elves was actually pretty… complicated. Basically, elves believed in one almighty God, whom they called Eowa, the Source. However, there were also deities, a hundred and twenty eight gods and goddesses with small letter “g”. Elves didn’t actually worship the deities, but they followed them… er… kind of prayed to the Source through them and acted in accordance to their teaching. It seemed that the deities were somehow empowered by the prayers that went through them and the supportive actions of their followers within their domain, so in return they granted blessings to their followers. Each deity had his or her own domain though, so the advantage of the blessing given was different depending on the chosen deity. Every elf could freely choose a single deity to follow in their life. It was possible, and very likely, that in a family, each member had different deity to follow. The choice could be done anytime, anywhere. However, once they chose a deity to follow, they could not choose a different one. Elves could abandon or be abandoned by their chosen deity though. It could happen once they went against the principle of the deity’s domain. Well, in my case… I hadn’t chosen my deity yet. I might choose one later when I acquired a permanent class, like how my uncle chose to follow Volkane, the God of Craft, after he acquired his blacksmith class to receive the Blessing of the Forge which was very beneficial to his blacksmithing trade. “Move closer and put your hands on the altar, Child.” The old priest urged me to come to the altar. I obediently moved closer and placed my hands on the wooden altar. The priest smiled warmly and placed his right hand close to my forehead, almost touching it. I knew it was a kind of required ceremony, but I still felt a little uncomfortable. “A pure prayer to the Almighty Source, by dynamic movement of natural force, from the path taken by his internal flame, grant this blooming child a fitting name!” Light shone from the priest’s hand as he ended the chant, and my consciousness was transported to… whatever it was. Everything around me was black, completely black, as if I was teleported to a deep pit where light could not penetrate. Then, tiny lights started appearing around me, moving around in undetermined paths, just like wandering fireflies. I knew what they were. I heard my mom told my elder brother about this when he was about to choose his name. These lights were the coonange, the name wisps, which were generated from my memories. I was supposed to pick one of the names contained within these lights as my name. I touched one of the lights. "Dunaklana."’ A soft voice, which was very similar to my mother’s voice, rang in my mind. Dunaklana, the other world traveler eh? It must have been taken from my past life. It was a nice name. But I could not choose it. There would be endless questions asked by many elves should I choose it. I touched another light. “Learplaon.” Learplaon? The wild runner? This must have come from my daily physical exercise. Well, since three years ago, I had been doing a kind of parkour, free-running, around a part of the town everyday, early in the morning and right before sunset. It was challenging enough since this town was an elven town, which meant that there were lots of natural obstacles within it, such as huge trees, great boulders, rocky paths, and wild thorny bushes. There was actually an informal society of dusk elves who did these free-running things in which I was one of the members. And no, I was not the youngest nor the best. I was pretty capable, just a little below average… rank 36 out of 61 members. I knew that meant that I still needed a lot of practice, but I was still twelve, still very young. It was quite an accomplishment for me to get to the position I was in right now. In my past life, I preferred exercising my mind rather than my body. But in this second life, I was determined to be stronger in both mind and physique since I realized that this world was not safe, not safe at all. So, it was not really surprising that I had done a lot of physical practice ever since I could move my body. I'd spent almost all my free time doing things to get stronger in mind, spirit, and body. I didn't really interact much with other children. I was adult inside after all. Anyway, Laerplaon was too un-cool name for me. I touched another one. ‘Wayjackena.’ What the heck? Wayjackena? Wisdom? How in the hell did I manage to earn that name? Was it because I spent much of my time inside the town’s library when I was not exercising my body? But, shouldn’t reading increase my intelligence instead of wisdom? Oh, whatever. That name was not really a choice for me. It might be ironic but it was pretty much obvious. No wise person would call himself, or herself, wise. That was obviously unwise. I spent several minutes checking the other name wisps. There were several silly names which only those with poor aesthetic sense would choose. There were also several cool names but they were much too attention-grabbing. I was looking for a simple name which was cool enough but not too eye-catching, or… er… ear-catching, since I strictly followed three laws of survival I’d created myself: keep getting stronger, be vigilant at all time, and avoid unnecessary exposure. In the end, the name I chose for myself was ‘Khael’ which, depending on the context, could either mean thorn or tusk. I absolutely had no idea how I managed to get this name. I had sometimes been prickled by thorns of wild bushes during my practice and I had an excellent knife made of unknown monster tusk, a birth gift from my father… But somehow, I didn’t think that those things were the reasons I earned the name. Well… Why would I even think about it? The name was cool but not too fancy… and it was close enough to my past name, Mikael. And it was close enough to the name of the great superhero from twentieth century fictions, Kal-El, the great Superman whose fame never expired even up to the twenty third century where I used to live. I wondered how many movies and games about him I had ever seen and played… I knew that there were three hundred at the very least. Oh, well… “Khael,” I said… in a loud enough voice to be heard by anyone within five meter radius. And the moment I said that, the darkness around me disappeared. My consciousness returned to the small room inside the Temple of Dawn. “Khael eh? Interesting,” said the old priest with curious smile. “Bear it a little bit more, Khael. The name will be branded in your mind, spirit, and body. It is rather painful, but it won’t be long. Ready?” I nodded wordlessly. The priest smiled warmly and started his magical chant again… “A pure prayer to the Almighty Source, by dynamic movement of natural force, the name has been chosen, responsibility will be taken, for the name will echo loudly, within the mind, spirit, and body!” Right after the priest’s chant ended, a soaring pain exploded all over my body. And it seemed that the pain was extended into my mind and my soul… I bit my lips tightly in an attempt to stop screaming. But it was… so… damn… painful… Fortunately, the pain lasted not more than ten seconds. It ended right before I could not stop myself from screaming. I breathed heavily, as if I was just finishing a long arduous physical practice. “Khael… Your name has been branded within your mind, all over your spirit, and on your body,” the old priest pointed at my chest. “Now you take responsibility of whatever you do, my dear Khael.” Even without opening my clothes and looking at the mirror, I knew that I acquired a magical tattoo in my chest. It was the elven rune of my name, Khael (ڷ), which was pretty similar to a fancy version of capital letter “J”. Every adult elf had this name tattoo. Mine was pretty simple. Others might be very complicated, depending on their choice of name. Luckily, magical name tattoo was not mere decoration. The tattoo greatly enhanced the physical balance of the owner. That was one of the reasons why adult elves were well known for their acrobatic movement.

The tattoo also signified the ownership of a name, which would automatically lock the option of other unnamed elves to choose the same name, until the death of the tattoo owner. So, unlike other races, there would never be two living elves with the same name. And anyway, elves did not have family names, so it would be quite a headache for outsiders to know the family relationship of adult elves.