The Eldar Race remains hidden in the deep forests of the South, where no one returns. They have nothing in common with the Elves and half-Elves, which millennia of the human rule have changed, and even if there is the Renessan Elf Kingdom in Imir, any Elf entering the mysterious lands of the South will disappear forever like the other species.

There is only speculation about this mysterious Eldar race, there is talk of an entire Empire, powerful and vengeful, ready to descend upon poor Imir with a legacy of thousands of years of hatred.

In reality, it is more likely that the Eldar are a myth, if no one returns from the southern forests it is probably because of the particularly powerful monsters that exist in these primordial forests. That there was even an Elf Empire, or Eldar if you like, in the distant past is a joke that probably comes from the time of the Halam Empire when the oppressed Elf population was looking for a saviour. That the rumours that the so-called Eldar are the cause of the fall of the Halam Empire are only the fabrication of a race, formerly enslaved, in search of an identity.

In this book, we will unravel the history of the Elves from the past to the present. From their time as a small mountain tribe to their subjugation by the Halam Empire to their revolt and the founding of Renessans following the fall of the Halam Empire to the present day.

Preface to the History of the Elves, by Minotuis Decortacus, Grand Historian of Irin, Possessor of the Domus Cross, High Scholar, Honorary Member of the Magisterium.

When he woke up Mat went through the same routine as the day before, his wounds, his equipment, then his sword, and then finally he would take care of his basic needs. With no food left Mat hesitated between going hunting now or later.

He decided to start by throwing away the remains of yesterday's spider, which had become inedible, and to take the opportunity to see if there was any trace of easy prey. Unfortunately, he was not as same lucky as yesterday to be attacked by his food. Not bothering to look any further Mat returned to his lair.

Deciding to check if anything was interesting to learn from the last remaining stone tablets and parchment.

Yesterday he had been surprised to find that despite their age the scrolls were still intact, they hadn't turned to dust when they had picked them up, sure they were a bit old, the age quite visible in their dull colour but they were still quite legible. It was amazing considering they were left out in the open like that.

Now that he thought about it, given the easy access despite the roots that covered part of the door, Mat had not noticed the presence of any rodents or pests, or even a larger beast that would have made this old ruin its den.

He doubted that the presence of spiders prevented the fauna from claiming this little corner of safety for themselves, did the barrier prevents animals and monsters from entering the corridors of this ruin? If so, why him? Perhaps Mat was too wary, but he didn't like the feeling this situation gave him, even if it was beneficial to him.

He decided to leave his thoughts hidden in the back of his mind for the moment, he would come back to them when he had more information on the matter. If someone was trying to manipulate him he would eventually find out.

Concentrating on the task he had set himself Mat approached the central table of the stone table room. Quickly he noticed that there were still many of the same reports he had seen earlier, perhaps with more global information. Some of the scrolls mentioned even more than strategies for specific battle zones, there was information on strategy and policy on the entire nation. It was here that Mat learned that it was not alone that the Eldar were fighting against human invasions.

The Eldar had several races subject to their empire, Mat didn't like the sound of that, but the information wasn't comprehensive enough for him to know if it sounded as bad as he thought. The Eldars of his time did not practice slavery he had only met the Eldars so far unless he counted the fish-faced monsters he had fought as intelligent the only inhabitants of the Emerald Kingdom were Eldars. Of course, he hadn't exactly toured the country, but seeing how xenophobic they were was part and parcel of what he'd seen, and that, wouldn't allow them to live with any species other than their own. Of course, he was human, and they had a personal grudge against humans.

Was it possible that their broken empire was an imperialist empire that regarded other species as second-class citizens, even slaves? Mat realised that he was making a lot of inferences, but if their current culture had evolved from the ashes of their empire, perhaps their contempt for humanity was not only the result of their defeat by the human hordes but nationalism and speciesism already present in their culture.

Anyway, this information, if not relevant to him, had the merit of letting him know that there were other thinking species and that they lived on the territories of the former Eldar empire. Mat knew that there were other thinking species, Rhogar being a catch-all word for a group of people and primitive races from the south. At least, according to the Eldars. But the information provided gave Mat a less monolithic idea of what the ancient Eldars and their empire were like.

There were references to a particular species that had allied itself with humanity, unfortunately, it was not mentioned, the only sentence the parchment revealed that had made Mat assume this was: "Those damned fish in the west have turned against us, let Ouros take them!"

Another was explicit, there were Kingdoms, and individual Dwarf clans to the north-east and the Eldar were happy with their current neutrality, even if they expected to be attacked by them at any time. This information was thousands of years old, so it was certainly not relevant today, but this part of the world was not populated only by Eldar in the past, as he had thought at first. He didn't know where the humans came from, apparently from the west, but the land in question was never mentioned, nor the reason for the humans' coming, other than to conquer. If such information existed it was not deemed relevant to their war effort, and therefore not present in this command centre.

There was one piece of information that particularly interested Mat, the Towers at that time were active, the Eldar were glad not to have to deal with the southern barbarians. Nevertheless, they regretted not being able to withdraw more troops from their lands in the deep east, there were savage peoples there who regularly attacked Eldar lands, a note stated that these lands would have already been subjugated if they hadn't had to concentrate their force on humans. Whether this was true or not was not important to Mat.

Some of the stone tablets mentioned the springs, and how important it was to protect them. There were places where the powers in all their forms were stronger and there were what they called Beings were the guardians, under the law of the Eldar empire. Many of these Beings turned against the Eldars when they felt their sovereignty over the region was weakening, and the parchment spoke of the need to monitor those still under their rule. There was even a method of sensing these power nodes, at the request of one particular Eldar who wanted to confirm the presence of a recently tied knot. This was of great interest to Mat, although he didn't know how he could use this information, if he could find one of these power nodes perhaps he had a way to conquer them for himself. Even if the presence of these guardians looked ominous.

As he read another scroll Mat's hand shook.

It was a long scroll with slightly different writing from what he had read of the Eldar, attached to the scroll was an ominous note that urged the destruction of the scroll. But the information it contained was everything Mat wanted.

It was a manual, a manual for learning a form of magic, everything was explained in it. How to unlock the magic, how to learn it, how to use it, and some of the spells that could be used.

Mat gently put the scroll down, he needed to calm down, this was all too practical. Perhaps this magic wasn't usable by him, the scroll said that you had to have a certain talent, a powerful prism and above all a particular affinity to use this magic. That was a lot of constraints, which made it difficult to use, but Mat knew that his situation was special. The Eldar had revealed it to them when they arrived in Irvanon, their prism was extended, broken in some ways, lacking the stability that a normal prism had. This was the reason they had allowed them to learn to weave, even though it was a power already limited in access for the Eldars who had been practising it for millennia. Moreover, even if Mat complained about his mastery, all his group had learned it with relative ease, except Lucas who had fallen into a coma.

As a result, Mat did not doubt that he could learn magic in addition to Weaving.

Emerging calmly from the ruin Mat observed the canopy and the spider webs in the sky, always keeping an eye on his surroundings in case a new spider had the idea to attack him. Suddenly inspired, or perhaps by instinct, Mat began to use the method explained for locating power nodes.

It was relatively simple, all he had to do was concentrate a certain weave at eye level and push his prism to perceive the Tapestry of the World, then he just had to observe and see if the colour was particularly strong in a given area.

Mat returned to his den in silence, for a long minute he walked, once back in the stone room he looked at the parchment on the central table.

He was played, he was sure of it, there was too much coincidence for it to be otherwise. Not only was there a scroll that explained the workings of magic, specific magic, but he was in the perfect place to practice it.

Using the weave Mat immediately saw that he was under a power node. This meant that the cobwebs above him did not belong to a particularly powerful monster, but was the domain of a Being, a Guardian. And it was a node of power whose colour was specifically dedicated to the scroll whose magic was explained. And when magic was learned, used, practised near a power node close to the colour of that magic the beneficial effects for its power, and its learning was increased tenfold.

This disturbed Mat, perhaps terrified him, though he would never admit it to himself. It wasn't that he was being manipulated, no, that just made him angry. And then it was already the case with his arrival in this world, and his current situation with the Emerald Kingdom. No, it wasn't that. It was that this situation had been set up a very long time ago. There were too many clues that pushed this situation as existing long before his arrival here, and by here, he meant this world. The old scrolls, the ruins, the roots hiding this place, the appearance of a node of power suited to this magic many millennia ago. Maybe it was all a coincidence, maybe it had nothing to do with him, but Mat was far too paranoid to believe that.

Mat took the scroll back, finally, he had decided. Who cares if someone pushed him into this, he'd decide to deal with whatever problems it would cause when they came, but for now he needed power. He wouldn't let Jonah and Leila get ahead of him.

Sitting down on the floor, scrolls laid out before him, he followed the instructions. According to what was written he had to convert his prism to the colour of this magic, and that could take months, even weeks for the most talented to succeed. Fortunately for Mat, it was a method he already knew, it corresponded to what the Eldar had taught him.

An untrained prism was devoid of colour, it just looked like shapeless glass to those who would have taken the time to look at the prism of an average person, well, it was a misnomer to say that. It wouldn't even be possible to perceive the prism of an average person correctly. No, if you looked at a person's prism and you could see their prism and it was visible enough to look like shapeless glass, then it meant that they were capable of learning Weaving. All Eldar were assessed in this way in their early teens when the prism had taken its most stable form and was easiest to manipulate afterwards.

Once the learning of the Weaving started the prism gained its first colours, namely red, yellow and blue. Mat was there. Such colours could be kept for the lifetime of the Weaver, they were powerful in themselves, and more than enough. This was what a generalist was, if a Weaver wanted to specialise in a particular area then he had to change the colour of his prism and make the colour the most dominant until it was unique to that colour for those who went to the end of that speciality. This mainly concerned External Weavers, and once committed to a path there was no turning back.

An Internal Weaver, or Augmenter, kept the three primary colours, the more he used it the more the colours took up space until they took up the whole space of the prism.

The choice of the colour of the prism was not the only choice, when an Eldar chose the path of an Internal or External Weaver he also had to change the shape of his prism, to fit the path he had chosen.

The humans in Mat's group were special, their prisms had no shape, it was extended, and therefore much more malleable. This is also why Jonah and Aurora could easily use the Internal and External Weave. It was possible for an Eldar as well, but the appearance of such a talent was rare, and certainly not with the ease that the two humans had.

Even though Mat was not as talented as them, and was unable to use external weaving he was like them, not subject to the limitations that a normal prism had.

Now, using magic was very similar to choosing the type of Weaver one wanted to be, at least in terms of his first step, which was the prism as well. Mages, unlike Weavers, were specialists in their own right, and to access their magic they had to choose their colour from the beginning of their training. Although it was possible to use different colours like the Weavers to use spells and powers from different schools of magic.

But whereas the Weavers used an organic learning system, with the primary colours first blending into the specialist colour, the mages or wizards imposed their colour from the start.

This was the fundamental difference between a Weaver and a Wizard. A Weaver needed to understand the world around him, to see how it worked, and by using the threads that made up the tapestry of the world go in the direction the Weaver wanted. For a mage, it was all about the will to dominate.

Mat observed his prism, the three colours that made it up. He concentrated his will so that his prism would take the shape and colour he wanted. He concentrated hard until his prism throbbed with pain, he pushed his will against the threads of the world tapestry, he imposed his will so that they would obey him, he demanded that they take the colour and the shape he wanted. Mat looked at the tapestry of the world, his will against it, the tapestry of the world looked back at him and Mat tore it.

His prism moved as if it were a wheel entering the rut provided for it Mat felt complete. Closing his eyes in pain, his forehead dripping with sweat, Mat breathed out softly. The effort he had made to impose his will on the world was difficult, but also so good that despite the pain he could feel inside Mat smiled. He smiled with pure happiness, the feeling of power was so different from using the Weave. For the first time since he had learned of the existence of these powers, he felt that he had finally found what was right for him.

The Weave was a good tool, powerful, he could do a lot with it, even in his untrained hands. It made him stronger, faster, more powerful, but in the end, it was only a tool, a means to an end. This, what he had felt with magic was different, it was as if he was one with the world, and had become its master.

Mat opened his eyes slowly, the pain that pulsed through his prism still present but less strong, more bearable. Lowering his eyes Mat was almost surprised not to see a huge hole in the middle of his chest, the pain was so great.

He got up slowly, stumbling a little, and helped himself to the stone table. Then gradually, stumbling, he went into the room of his private fountain. He approached the back of the room before kneeling, then dipping his head into the cold water.

Matting his head under the water let the coldness of the fountain clear his head. Pulling his head out of the water, shaking his head, throwing droplets of water all around him Mat smiled. Then he laughed, a deep laugh that started from his belly and went up to his chest where the laughter echoed through his body before coming out of his throat and mouth with force and power. Mat was happy.

For a long minute, he kept the smile on his face, finally noticing his face in the water he brought a hand to his face. He needed to shave.

Deciding to be more serious Mat sat down on one of the benches in the fountain room. He had only done the first step, now that he had started on the path of magic, he still had a lot to do. First, he had to learn the spells and other tricks on the scroll, then he had to see if there were ways for him to get closer to the node of power. Now that he had this new colour in his prism, he could feel the presence of the node more acutely. And even if his presence here already allowed him to enjoy its proximity, the closer he got the better it would be for him and his new magic.

He would have to find a way to deal with that spiders, and more importantly, see if it was possible to defeat the Being who had made them his domain. It could be extremely dangerous, even deadly, but Mat would have a whole new arsenal of magic at his disposal. And although it was unlikely that he could defeat a Being who had long dominated his domain, Mat was eager to try. Chess itself was a learning experience, and he didn't want to be cautious, no, he even intended to do the opposite.

The pain has become reasonable, Mat concentrated on observing his prism, and at last, he saw it. The three primary colours were still there, fortunately, Mat could on what he was able to do with the Internal Weave and he wanted to continue to be able to. But now there was a new colour present, not related to the other three, this one was black, the shadow domain.