Fel had spent the last hour tinkering with his power armour, adjusting the valves and power enhancers. Siyla looked over his shoulder, fascinated with his work. There was no concept of power armour in the underground. All the advanced equipment relied on runes and formations, not mechanical engineering. This system wasn’t necessarily inferior to human technology, it just functioned differently.

‘How did you learn to do this?’

Fel puffed up his chest, ‘I was a mech pilot in the army, not only are we required to be able to use our power armour, we have to know it like the back of our hand! Especially an evolved power armour pilot like me, we’re expected to be on long missions, sometimes weeks at a time, performing maintenance like this is basic stuff’

He didn’t mention that without Siyla’s intervention, his power armour wouldn’t have been half as functional, little better than ancient, medieval armour.

‘Siyla, would you like to learn about power armour?’

He received vigorous nodding in reply.

Days passed and Fel had patched up his power armour as best as he could. Silya absorbed Fel’s teachings like a sponge and had even created basic mechanical parts. They weren’t on par with standard power armour parts, being more on the level of a spring gun, but even that was impressive.

After all, she had to create all the parts from scratch, although she absorbed them back into her body once she finished up with them. When Fel asked why she did that, she gave him a weird look and said she didn’t have an infinite amount of metal.

‘Where did you live before you came here?’

‘Mmm, I lived in the capital city of the United Front, the nation formed by the colonists of the New World’

‘Ah sorry. My people are new to this world and came from far, far away, all the way from the stars’

‘So you lived on the surface? I thought the war destroyed it?’

‘War? Well, you’re right about it being destroyed, it’s a shit-hole. Wasteland as far as the eye can see with sandstorms that can lift even tanks! Not to mention that the place is crawling with monsters.’

‘How do you live there then?’ Siyla made herself comfortable, stretching out on the bed, holding a bag of metal scraps, munching on them like popcorn.

‘Well, according to the records, the original colonists had to live in sealed shelters, growing their plants indoors, but they made the area habitable. Apparently, it was really hard to live back then. They landed on a peninsula so they could purify the sea water but food was always a problem. It still kinda is. We now live outside but our buildings are made of thick steel and everything’s dusty’

‘So it isn’t a nice place?’

‘It wasn’t bad, we had indoor parks that were nice. The worst part was the military service. Everyone had to serve 5 years in the military from 17 years of age to resist the monster hordes. We always warred against them for land, I worked my arse off to become a mech pilot, it’s much safer than being a normal soldier. My parents celebrated that, wonder how they’re doing … Anyway, I’ve been talking about myself for ages, what about you?’

‘My life isn’t that interesting.’

‘Ehh? I’m sure it is, cmon’

‘Well, the dryads kidnapped my parents. I was born in the village. Never left it, no idea what’s out there.’

‘Ah’

‘They kept us as servants to clean up the place and stuff’

‘I’m sure that there were a few happy memories’

‘There was that time when the dryads found an adamantine sword on an adventure’s corpse. The dryad’s don’t need metal, so they gave it to us. It was delicious’

Before Fel could respond, a dryad opened the door and walked right up to Fel, handing him a ring made of intertwined bands of gold, ‘Here’s the spacial ring, you have two days to sort everything out’

He shoved a piece of paper into Fel’s hand and walked off, slamming the door behind him.

'Pleasant guy. I thought we got to stay for a week'

'They don’t like other people… the dryads I mean. They’re only doing this because of the debt'

Fel’s curiosity was perked, ‘What debt?’

'When the surface was destroyed, millions of refugees fled to the underground. They would've kicked the dryad's off their land if it wasn’t for the golden one, but he didn’t do it for free. In return, the dryad’s swore that they would safe-keep a few items for his successor, that’s the ring’

'Ah, so it wasn’t out of their good will'

'You’re an idiot for thinking that'

'It’s called sarcasm. Anyway, why are you here? I thought the dryads hated outsiders'

'The golden one asked that they would give his successor a protector for his journey. That’s me'

'Ah, so the whole kidnapping thing… sorry’

'It’s… not like you had a hand in it or anything'

Silence descended, save for the clinking of Siyla’s metal marbles.

Fel turned back to his table and examined the paper the dryad gave him. It was a manual on how to use the spacial ring. Several minutes later, he had activated the ring. An image of a menu appeared in his mind. It had 6 categories: weapons, armour and clothing, food, tools, magical equipment, materials and miscellaneous.

In the top right corner was the volume of the storage space and of how much had been used while at the top left was the amount of money he had. A million gold pieces and ten thousand crystal coins. How much that was worth, Fel had no idea. When he asked Siyla she reminded him that she had been in the forest all of her life, even Aerl was lost. He said that crystal cards were used back in his time.

The rest of the ring contained hundreds of steel weapons and armours, ten changes of clothes, a year's worth of rations packed in tight boxes, a few racks of runic weapons and armours and, to the relief of Fel, a humongous pile of all sorts of metals. His supply of scraps was running short.

Fel took a few assorted metal nuggets and tossed them into a basket, giving it to Siyla. The gift was well received, she said she was getting sick of the scraps. If only she knew that those ‘scraps’ were bits of superalloy worth an apartment for every ten kilograms.

Fel sat by his desk, 'Aerl, can I read 'Being a Magus?'

'Would you like to start at page one?'

'Nah'

A leather book appeared in his mind and flipped open to the first page revealing a domineering line in the Celestial language.

'A magus stand above all others. No matter how much Qi a warrior accumulates, no matter how accurate an archer becomes, none can stand in the way of the Magus'

Fel turned the page.

'Natural energy is ever present, all-encompassing. There is a myriad of attributes, each distinct and unique. We mages manipulate this energy to our benefit'

An inky circle filled the rest of the page. Without thinking, Fel mentally touched the circle. The circle lit up with a bright blue glow and then faded into the page like nothing had ever happened. Moments later, rows of text appeared on the page, much to the relief of Fel who was cursing himself for his stupidity.

Fel Evenstar

Level: 1 (42% - Initial)

Affinities: Energy (9)

Life Expectancy: 200 years

Innate Abilities:

1. Pure Energy Body

The possessors of this constitution will have a high affinity with the energy attribute but cannot have affinities with any other attributes. Pure energy allows for the mage to advance faster than attributed mages however, they will have weaker capabilities than attributed mages.

2. Parivartana Lines

Parivartana lines can convert pure energy to other attributes at a small cost.

Attributes Available:

-Fire

-Lightning

-Divinity

-Force

Fel felt enlightened. No wonder he could only see light blue energy points. He also realised how important the golden lines were, without them he would hardly be able to do anything, you can’t do that much with just energy after all. But, while the book was pessimistic about being a pure energy mage, Fel knew this occupation had far more potential than the book had ever thought possible.

Although pure energy might not have the greatest raw power or some mysterious ability, it could do something none of the other attributes could. Charge power armour. Humanity always had trouble with finding a suitable energy source for power armour. They had resorted to mining rare fuels in distant planets and in the case of humans of the New World, take advantage of the natural energy in the air.

These solutions were functional but expensive with a need for extensive infrastructure. Although the discovery of natural energy was a boon to humanity, it was still in its early stages of development and energy stones could only provide a limited amount of energy.

By using himself as a source of energy he could charge power armour without the need for a charging station or monster cores. He had already dabbled in this with his own, modified, power armour, however, he now placed a lot more importance on its future development.

If what the book said was true, power armour was his only way to stand toe to toe with the people of this strange new world. Although he could rely on his parivartana lines, the conversion would waste energy and be harder to control than the real deal, it would stab him in the back later on.

Today was the day of the deadline. In the last four days, Fel had been practising with his parivartana lines, becoming somewhat proficient in the attributes of the four available attributes. At first, he thought they were useless to him, but he realised that, with these attributes, he could create a myriad of new equipment for his power armour.

Right now he could only make minor tweaks to his power armour, without a proper workshop he wouldn't be able to repair his power armour properly, his current set-up just wasn't up to his standards.

Siyla on the other hand, sat in the corner as usual. She corrected his mistakes when he practised with his energy manipulations and took part in idle conversations. They were still awkward with each other, they didn't have a common conversation topic and Fel wasn't about to spill that he was a human, not a 'golden one' or whatever.

A dryad came to the room to escort them from the village. Fel donned his power armour and walked out of the room with Siyla. As they left the village, the world twisted around them before snapping back into place. They seemed to of have crossed a barrier of some sort.

The dryad halted and tossed a compass to Fel, ‘Go south-west until you exit the forest, there should be a town at the border, from there on you can find your way,’

He turned around and walked to the village, ‘Also, you can chuck out the map, it’s over 2000 years old. Don’t get eaten by monsters!’ the barrier twisted around him, snapping back into place as he passed it. He disappeared, as if he never existed in the first place.

‘Siyla, what did he mean by the last bit?’

‘If I remember correctly, the forest is rife with vicious beasts’

‘Anything more detailed?’

‘Your guess is as good as mine’

Fel and Siyla trekked down a narrow through the moonlit forest, dry, grey leaves crackling at their feet, exposing the ashy earth underneath. The forest was silent. So silent it was almost eerie. Fel was holding a heavy pollaxe he had retrieved from the spacial ring.

It was one of the few weapons that had the right proportions to his power armour and didn’t seem to require much skill to wield. Fel was a lot more adept with firearms rather than melee combat, his main melee weapon was the Energy Sabre, something that didn’t require much skill to wield.

A sleek shadow shot out from behind an ashen tree, hurtling towards Fel. Fel kicked his suit into action and swung out his pollaxe, crushing into the shadow’s side, sending it flying over to Siyla. She side-stepped the incoming shadow and stomped up to Fel.

The shadow crashed into the ground behind her, sending out a cloud of ashen earth. The clearing dust revealed the mangled body of an obsidian-black snake. Its body was as thick as a mans torso and its skull had caved in, leaking gooey brain matter, decorated by shattered bone-fragments.

‘Your skill with the pollaxe is pitiful! If I had been even a little slower that snake would've smashed into me!’

Fel felt miffed from these wrongful accusations, ‘Well sorry for that. It’s not like it’s the first time I’ve ever used one or anything. Also, you didn't seem to have much trouble dodging that...’

‘Hmpf, look at your pollaxe’

Fel glanced at his pollaxe and noticed that a wispy shadow clung to its head, corroding the heavy metal. With a quick thought, he directed some lightning energy into it, purging the corrosive energy.

‘Ah, yes, I guess you wouldn’t want a face-full of that’

Just before Siyla was about to retort, her face turned dead serious. She splayed out her wings and congealed a white bow while staring intently at the trees behind Fel. Sensing the situation, Fel retreated to Siyla’s side, exchanging his damaged pollaxe with a shiny javelin.

Siyla knocked an arrow, ‘We'll continue with this later.’ Fel wasn’t inclined to disagree.

A great, hulking panther stalked out from the trees, it's bulging muscles rippled under its dark, velvet fur. Standing four metres tall, the panther stared the duo down, gazing hungrily at the dead snake behind them. They would’ve loved to let the panther have its fill, if only it wasn’t on the only path through the forest. Who knew what lurked in the dark undergrowth. Their only way forward was to fight the panther.

Fel took the initiative, hurling the javelin at the panther, accelerating it further with a blast of force energy. However, just before it sunk into the panther’s flesh, a thin, ashen barrier appeared. The javelin crashed into the barrier, causing it to distort wildly as it resisted the blow, just barely deflecting the deadly javelin.

Before the panther could take a step forwards, Siyla launched a hail of metal needles at the panther. Half of the needles shattered when they collided with the barrier, yet the rest somehow slipped past, burrowing into the panther’s flesh.

Howling in rage, the panther leapt forwards towards the duo, but it was at this moment that Siyla let loose her arrow. It flew at the panther’s eye, punching through the barrier and drilling through its eye, all the way through to its brain.

Yet the panther did not stop and continued to charge towards the duo, relying on its instincts alone. Fel summoned a long-headed boar spear and planted it in the ground. The panther’s barrier had collapsed, it no longer had the power to keep it running.

Brainlessly, the panther impaled itself upon the boar spear, the long shaft reaching down into its gullet. Although the panther tried to snap at Fel in its final death throes, the spear held fast. Eventually, the panther bled out, still skewered on the spear. He yanked hard on the pole-arm, its long shaft slid silent out from the panther's body. A wispy shadow clung to the spear, slowly corroding it.

Siyla, as obsessed with cleanliness as always, waved her hand and conjured a gust of wind, cleansing Fel’s bloody spear. Fel purified the spear and dumped it into his ring. He retrieved a two-handed Scandinavian axe and casually swung it onto his shoulder.

‘Now, let’s go on shall we?’

Siyla crackled her knuckles, ‘We still have something to do, don’t we?’

Sweat flowed in droves down Fel’s face, he was screwed.