Chapter 25

The rest of the week passed leisurely, as both Cyrus and Daelyn had to get accustomed to each other’s presence. They had far from expected that they would be living together in such a short amount of time, and they certainly hadn’t expected the circumstances in which it happened.

Well, Daelyn hadn’t expected the circumstances. After they had left the playdate, he had only thought about the more positive outcomes, and he had never expected this.

While they did live together, Daelyn was worried about Cyrus. He was worried that Cyrus might hold him responsible for the events that had transpired, he was worried that living with him wasn’t any different from living with his family, and he was worried about Cyrus’ mother.

Daelyn hoped that Avary was okay. Despite her hostile stance against humans, Daelyn had heard that she had treasured Cyrus, and he had seen her beg for Lyvia to save his life. Daelyn hoped that she was okay, as he did not want Cyrus to live without a mother. Daelyn had felt some detachment to his parents because he is an adopted child, he loves them, and he would never see them as anything else than his parents, but he had a nagging feeling form time to time. A feeling that they weren’t truly his parents, that his real parents had abandoned him, and he hated that feeling. He truly hated it.

He didn’t want Cyrus to feel the same feeling, as he wouldn’t wish the same uncertainty on anyone else.

As he was about to voice his worries to Cyrus, as he was about to try and come to terms with what happened, he couldn’t speak, because Cyrus did. They were sitting at the table, as they were eating dinner in silence. He broke the silence, with a sincere and calm voice.

“Everyone, I was banished from my family and my home, but I found my new home here. So, can I ask you one thing, will you become my family? The past week that I have lived here has been a blessing to me in comparison to my old home, but I felt a nagging feeling that you might not accept me, so hereby I ask you if you will take me in. I may not be very strong, and…”

Before he could continue his rant, Lyvia had already embraced him. She held him in her arms, pulled him close, and let her warmth flow over to him.

With a sweet and soft voice, she said: “What do you mean, you’re already our son. You have been banished by that household, and we have taken you in. We love you for who you are, so you should never be afraid of being yourself here, right?”

She turned towards Daelyn and Grey sitting at the end of the table, and they both replied with a smile on their face: “Yup!”

Cyrus saw the smiles on their faces, and heard their answers. He suddenly felt his cheeks become wet, as more and more water streamed down them, he realized he was crying. He felt the emotions hit him once more, he wasn’t sad anymore, he was happy. He found a new home and a new family, a family that accepted him, and a home that sheltered him.

As the tears streamed down his face, he formed a smile, a smile that notified every one of the people sitting at the table of his happiness, of his joy, and his love for them.

As his tears trickled down his face, so did the days trickle by. There were only six days remaining until Daelyn was going to be taught by Orthrus, and despite his effort, Orthrus wouldn’t teach Cyrus. When he was asked why, Orthrus simply stated: “I don’t have enough time to teach two students.”

While this had brought some disappointment, the remaining week was far from a disappointment.

They had played almost every morning with the four of them. Ania and Ayda were quite surprised to see Cyrus, but they didn’t fret about it. The more the merrier, they thought. Cyrus did help with changing their views of humans, because he was so close to Daelyn. The two of them became very close over the span of such a short time, as they indulged in conversation about varying topics. They talked about almost everything, from the mana theorem they knew, to household topics, to the cleaning they were assigned to do.

They had talked to much, yet they still hadn’t gotten bored of each other’s company.

The playtime with Ania and Ayda was fun, as they could do a lot more with the four of them, than with the two of them. It was also quite easy, since you have two pairs consisting of two people of similar stature, since Daelyn and Ania were of similar stature, and Ayda and Cyrus were. This was because of the growth difference between humans and dark elves.

This difference had already made for some amusing situations, as either Daelyn or Cyrus used their stature to their advantage. Daelyn holding something too high for Cyrus to grab, and Cyrus putting things too low for Daelyn to easily catch.

The difference in growth had amazed them, and they had done some research about it, and the information they had found was quite surprising. It seems that because of the longer lifespan of dark elves, they mature slower than humans. While it wasn’t a lot slower, there was still a notable difference, as humans normally take 18 years to reach full maturity, dark elves would take 25. Humans develop their core at the age of five, and dark elves develop theirs normally at the age of seven.

While it was interesting to read about this, Cyrus only became more agitated as they researched the topic more and more, as he realized that it would take a very long time to be as tall as Daelyn. He became a bit agitated, and he became even more agitated as Daelyn started teasing him with it. Earning Daelyn cries of: “You’ll regret it when I’m taller you!”

As they shared this information with Ania and Ayda, they were also a bit flabbergasted that it would take even longer for them to fully mature. They were both a bit stumped at this, as they had not realized that Daelyn would be mature before they would be. When Daelyn would be full grown at the age of eighteen, they would still be in puberty, comparable to his physical maturity at the age of fourteen.

During the week, this was one of the only times when the difference in races became painfully clear between the four. While the difference became clear, they did not mind it. They had accepted Daelyn as their friend, and they would not change their thoughts on the matter.

While it was interesting finding out all of this information about humans and dark elves, the girls quickly became bored as the two boys were almost reading the day away. They had to forcefully drag them away from their books, and incite them play with them. The boys voiced their complaints, but they were quickly silenced by glares coming from both of the girls.

Ania still thought that it was kind of stupid to do these kinds of things, but she was starting to enjoy it by the third day, and so she did not mind.

The days trickled by as the children played in the mornings, and Daelyn and Cyrus visited Orthrus in the afternoon.

While they weren’t allowed to see what he was preparing, they were allowed to read the books that were there. Gob normally had a few books for them to indulge in, and with those books, they read the afternoons away. Gob was amazed at the speed at which they devoured the books he had prepared for them, and as he tried to supply them with more and more, he could only fear for the future as he most likely wouldn’t be able to keep up with these two boys. They were reading such complicated books at such a young age, it was astounding for the goblin who had never seen such enthusiastic children.

The boys had received a lot of books from Gob concerning beasts and monsters, basic information on a lot of different types of magic, and some geography.

They were quite surprised at the information, as they had not expected it to be so much.

There were a lot of different beasts and monsters, a lot. The six volumes they had perused through only contained some of the more basic types of monsters, and animals. They were quite shocked at this, as they had not expected there to be so many different monsters and animals in the world.

As they read through the volumes, they became more and more irritated as the creatures noted in the book were sometimes named animals, and sometimes monster, and couldn’t figure out why. That was, until they asked Gob. He just looked at them with a stupid expression, before saying: “Did you read the glossary?”

The two boys had irritated expressions on their faces as they had asked Gob this, and their expressions turned sour quite quickly as they heard the goblin’s proposal.

They quickly grabbed the book, and there it was. According to the glossary, the difference between animals and monsters were if they had formed a core. An animal could be strong without a core, but it could hardly trump a monster of the same level. The difference was magic, and the efficiency in absorbing it. For example, an animal would absorb the mana of the animal or monster it killed to progress the formations of its core, while a monster would absorb mana until it reached the threshold, and finally levelled up.

This was quite surprising, as it seemed like normal animals and more primitive sentient species like goblins, could develop a core over time, but also could absorb enough mana to create one. It was unknown how they did this, but Daelyn had a suspicion. However, he had no way of confirming that suspicion, so he didn’t fret about it, for now.

While reading about the different kinds of animals and monster in the world was interesting, it did not hold a candle at reading about magic. Daelyn had been explicitly forbidden from using his magic, until the lessons started, and as such, he could only read about it.

They were quite surprised at the different types of magic, and mana. It seemed that there were four different types of mana, and a far larger amount of different types of magic.

The four different kinds of mana consisted of pure or normal mana, which was used for elemental magics, space magic, time magic, nature magic, spirit magic, and chanting, the second type of mana was dark mana, which was mostly used for things like necromancy and rot magic, the third type of mana was blood mana, which only had two paths of progression, and that was either blood mage or blood warlock, and the fourth type of mana, was holy magic.

They were quite interested in all four types, but holy magic piqued their interest, since it was the most interesting one. Holy magic was seen as both an affinity and a type of mana, since it had some inherent properties that would indicate that it is a different type of mana, and some properties that indicated that it should be categorized as an affinity. The most interesting property of holy magic was that it interfered with foreign energies. ‘Foreign energies’ is the collective name used for the large amount of energies that reside in this plane of existence that aren’t inherit to it.

They were surprised at this, and quickly asked Gob about energies that weren’t inherit to this plane of existence, Gob gave them a one thousand page book.

It was titled ‘The history of the universe’, they thanked Gob for it, but they just wanted to learn about the different planes of existence.

“Thanks Gob, but we just wanted to know about the different types of existence, and why there are different energies on those different planes.”

The goblin sighed, before saying with a defeated voice: “You know, it isn’t easy to do my work when you two are here. Well, anyway, I will just tell you two. Remember every word I said, I’m not going to repeat. To understand the different planes, we need to understand the energies they hold, and where those energies came from. It all started with the creation of the universe, first there was nothing, and then there was a very, very large explosion. There was an enormous amount of energy released, which either started to form matter, or it became magical energy. However, as both the matter and the magical energies were present, they interfered with each other, and caused things to go bad. The teeny tiny parts of the universe could not form together, as the different types of energies clashed with each other. An example of this are demonic and heavenly energies. If they ever meet, they will inevitably clash.”

Gob took a deep breath, before he continued: “As the energies continued raging around the universe, it was clear that it couldn’t continue like this. So, the different planes of existence were formed. It is unclear if the different planes of existence were forged by some kind of entity, or by a force of the universe itself, but they were formed, and each of them contained their own magical energy. This allowed the energies in the different universes to become less chaotic, and it enabled the teeny tiny bits to actually form larger bits of matter, which you and I are made of.”

As the goblin finally finished the story, he looked exhausted. While Gob was indeed exhausted, the curiosity of the boys was far from sated. Cyrus was the first to voice his hunger for knowledge, with a calm yet eager tone: “Then what do they mean that it can interfere with other types of energy?”

Gob sighed, before muttering something about ‘never getting work done’, and finally said: “Pure mana does not interfere with that foreign energies, since it is the most neutral type of mana. Mana with affinity aspects bound to them will interfere with foreign energies on a very small scale, blood and dark mana both reject foreign energies, and holy magic, or holy mana, will devour foreign energies. If it ever comes in contact with a foreign energy, it will try to devour it, and it will almost always succeed, unless the holy mana is overwhelmed by the foreign energy. Holy mages are normally the best at combating beings from other worlds, as their magic literally devours the energies of foreign beings.”

While Cyrus had been given some food for thought, Daelyn was starving, and quickly asked: “But, what is holy mana really? I mean I get elemental magic, and dark and blood mana to some extent, but what is holy mana, or magic?”

Gob began to become irritated, and said with an agitated tone: “I don’t doubt they talk about it in that book, I answered your question, now scram.”

The two boys took the quite obvious hint, and decided to try and sate their lust for knowledge in the books that they had been granted.

Daelyn’s question was kind of answered in one of the books. Holy mana, or magic, seemed to be a type of magic based on the gods of this world. Holy magic isn’t connected to one god, but a holy mage is. Holy magic is more of a type of mana or affinity, that enables the mage to create a strong connection with a god, either through prayer, or by increasing the influence of the god. For example, a holy mage which follows the god of war, loves to fight in large battles, as his god feasts upon the power that such a thing radiates, and it gives the holy mage powers if they please their god. It also seems that the gods didn’t know of the start of the universe, as they had testified themselves that they had no idea who or what had formed the planes of existence.

It was unclear where holy magic came from, but it was hypothesized that the gods had a hand in creating it, as they wanted to shape champions to take on their roles in the world. While this seemed plausible, it hadn’t been supported with evidence, and so it wasn’t clear if this was true.

As the boys had gotten a rather clear picture of holy magic, they noticed that they had spent the whole afternoon researching it, and hadn’t even touched any of the geography books Gob had gathered for them.

They realized that they had too little time to really get into the geography of this world, and so decided that researching the remaining types of mana was a bit more interesting.

They had a bit of differing opinions on what to read, and they decided that they would research their own topics.

Daelyn dived in to the research of blood and dark mana, which was very, very prevalent in the collection Orthrus had amassed, and Cyrus decided to research the arcane arts, and arcane magic.

Daelyn had quite an interesting read, as he took several books from the writers ‘Alfred Lumenhof’, and ‘Hans Lumenhof’. Daelyn thought that it was a coincidence at first, but he was pleasantly surprised to find out that they were two brothers who respectfully had dark mana and blood mana. The works complimented each other, and were very interesting to read.

Dark mana and blood mana, are quite peculiar. They both have inherent properties which belong to them only, and both clash with each other if they were to meet. The first book was from Alfred about dark mana.

Dark mana is born from emotions of hatred, and desperation. Dark mana doesn’t have affinities like pure mana, it has different uses. For example, a necromancer can also use rot magic, but they normally specialize in one type to advance their craft. Besides that, the utilisations of dark magic are mostly used by either controlling minions, or bonding with another being through force. This is mostly because dark mana can overpower another being’s power, it can interact with souls on a very basic level, it can bind souls to the mage’s mana core, and it can’t really interact pure mana, which is a problem for dark mages, a big one.

While it can interact with pure mana, they will always clash when they meet, and so a dark mage can’t send out attacks like an elemental mage can, because the dark mana would be quickly dispersed by the pure mana in the air. While there are forms of dark magic that can do the same as elemental magics, the only type that can be used inside of a pure mana area, is auramancy. Auramancy seems to create a field of dark mana, and the dark mage can assault the beings inside of that field either with mental attacks, or by materializing dark mana and using it as a weapon. The latter is a far more advanced form however.

While dark mana has many utilisations and different paths to take, blood mana only has two path that a mage can take, the path of a blood mage, or a blood warlock. A blood mage uses his mana to influence the blood of other beings. The difference between a blood mage and a water mage influencing blood, is the fact that blood mages can influence the mana that is in that blood, while water mages could only imbue the blood with their mana, causing the blood to become diluted from the added water. As blood mage can use the blood and the mana nestled in it, they can change the structure of another being’s body. This is hard, but is has been done before, as they have managed to crystallize blood in another creatures body. This is quite interesting, as it means that blood mages only have to influence the blood of their enemies, to smite even more. They are a force to be reckoned on the battle field, as they can use their magic to grind through the enemy lines.

While blood mages use other’s blood, blood warlocks normally use their own blood. Blood mages normally use other’s blood, and their own in only the most dire situations, because using their own would only deplete their health, and it wouldn’t increase the power of their magic, so they normally abstain from using their own. Blood warlocks however, use their own blood only. They break their core, and let the mana flow through their veins. The mana signature is imprinted upon the blood, and the blood becomes laden with the mana from the core. A blood warlock can use his energy laden blood to cast large area of effect spells, that boast a lot of power, but at a very high cost. Blood warlocks use the blood to multiply the efficacy of the mana in that blood. The larger spells blood warlocks have can kill the caster if they aren’t handled with upmost care.

As Daelyn finally looked up from his book, he saw Cyrus standing there. Cyrus had his arms crossed as he stood on the stone floor, while the dim lighting accented his pose, it seemed like he was only a dark elf shaped object with its arms crossed. He said with an impatient tone: “You know we should have been home a long time ago, right?”

With that one sentence, Daelyn ended his search for knowledge for the day, as upsetting his mother was the last thing he wanted to do.

She sometimes resembled a barbarian more than anything. He quickly gave the books back to Gob, as the goblin was very adamant about keeping everything organized, and then sped off towards home. He was thankful that Cyrus had waited for him, as he wouldn’t have to take the full blame for his stupidity. He couldn’t help but form a foolish grin on his face as he directed it towards his newfound friend, earning a questioning look from him.

As the two boys continued their research on their respective topics of interesting, the week quickly went by, and the day arrived when Orthrus was finally ready. The lessons would start, and only Daelyn would be included.

Daelyn would embark on his journey for power, and Cyrus wouldn’t be able to keep up with him, for now.