Eons ago, Orb’s landscape was not that of sky and land or earth and water. Made up of countless gem stones, the world was occupied by two ancient gods, a cold, dead world that floated through space aimlessly, with no star to call its own.

Tiadall, the Epochal Boundary.

Pabar, the Eternal Presence.

These two gods fought each other, as too many parts of their nature were in conflict, and their struggle continued on for what seemed to be forever. But eventually, Pabar struck down Tiadall, wearing down the latter by virtue of its Eternal nature.

But as Tiadall slipped into death, it destroyed the definitional boundaries that divided the two ancient gods, and reconstructed them anew to create twelve separate masses of power, Bounded Presences with distinct dominions and powers. The largest two became the sky and the land, and the brightest two became the sun and the moon.

The other masses gained sentience and became gods, their function modelled after whatever Bounded Presence they were created from.

Liamar, the god of fire and ruination.

Conrah, the god of water and life.

Rahwei, the god of earth and animals.

Thasvia, the goddess of wind and light.

Aldnath, the dragon of time and fate.

Hereward, the sentinel of space and creation.

These six elemental gods worked together to create a world fit to accommodate the last two masses of power, from which they sensed the possibilities of truly intelligent life. Eventually, from the first of the two inert masses of power, the first few humans and beastfolk appeared. Guided and taught by the presences within their birth source, mankind and beastfolk grew in numbers, working together to create living spaces for the good of all.

But everything changed when the second mass of power activated a hundred and ten thousand years ago. As it turned out, Tiadall’s dying act was not perfect, resulting in a Bounded Presence that contained the warlike nature of Tiadall and the Eternal nature of Pabar. The day that demons came forth from the second mass of power eventually came to be known as the Blighted Night, as war soon erupted, with the bloodthirsty demons massacring entire settlements in the span of two months. As the balance of war continued to shift, as suffering escalated, the first mass of power that had created man and beast gained form from their desperate prayers.

Anren, the Human God, joined the war. But even his presence in the frontlines failed to stem the demonic races, who were by all accounts nearly immortal. Desperate, he conferred with the six elemental gods, who were beginning to feel concerned with the current state of affairs.

“The rest,” said Instructor Marie, “is history. Eventually, Hereward, the sentinel of space, decided to summon intelligent beings from other, more advanced worlds. His reasoning was that advanced worlds constrained their lifeforms more through complex laws, and therefore even the weakest of lives there are unbelievably strong in the undeveloped Orb.”

She drank from an opened bottle of water and continued. “The Cardinal Champions are the result. They swept through the demonic armies by overwhelming the Eternal nature of their adversaries, and would have wiped out the entire Demon race had the second source of life not awakened. The Demon God, whose name is still unknown to us, created a new mass of land and teleported every demon it could there in the closing hours of the war…what we know as the Wildlands of today.”

Gaius looked at his hand, and clenched it. He didn’t feel particularly stronger than he had been on Earth, which didn’t add up to what the instructor had said. Was it because he occupied someone’s body, and didn’t bring his over?

Doubts filled his head. “Ma’am, are there any other gods, other than the ones you just went through?”

“It’s you again, Gaius. Good question,” she replied. “There has been debate as to whether the familiar spirits — souls of people chosen by a god to serve them — that each god has at their side counts as gods or not. But by and large, the consensus is that they do not count as gods.”

Gaius frowned. In that case, who was that god who had summoned his soul, only to ignore him for what seemed like days on end? Was it the same one who had summoned the Constellation heroes or was it a different one? And if it’s the latter, who was he then?

His head started to pound.

“-aius. Gaius, are you alright?”

He looked up and saw a look of concern on Instructor Marie’s face. “I’m fine, Ma’am. It’s just that I was…overwhelmed by the truth.”

She smiled sympathetically. “I know what you mean. It’s hard to accept that there are beings so mighty when you first learn of them. Even today, a lot of people believe that the Cardinal Champions and the elemental gods are simply myths. It’s been a sore point of contention for the Holy Temple in the Central Continent, especially where humans of the other Continents are concerned.”

“I-I see, ma’am. Thank you for answering my question.”

“Think nothing of it.” She took out a pocket watch and looked at it. “Now, we don’t have much time left for today, so I’ll yield whatever remains to Instructor Aziz.”

“Thank you.” Instructor Aziz walked to the front. “Read the handout, and then decide based on it whether you want to train under me. If you’re still undecided, I will be coming over in the cooking class three hours from now, so you can find me there.”

Nodding in thanks to the person beside him, Gaius poured through the roll of parchment. On it was details about Instructor Aziz’s class.

He licked his lips as he went through the details. Archery, SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape), unarmed combat, dagger techniques…it went without saying that Gaius found a great deal of these skills useful if he were to leave this place.

Even if he had to bring a little child in tow.

His other classmates were clearly undecided, however. He couldn’t blame them either. The pamphlet was not shy about the training details. To illustrate, by the second week, students would be made to face off against wolves, and by the fourth week, take part in combat drills against standing militia.

What really took the cake was that participants would have to live in a separate area. Most of the students here were children who either came with their equally homeless parents, or orphans. The former was the group most unlikely to join such a training.

Not like it matters to me, anyway. Gaius got up and walked over to Instructor Aziz, who looked at him with a piercing gaze. “You’re interested, boy?”

“Yes. I want to sign up.”

“Decisive, aren’t you?” The soldier handed him a small book, bound in what seemed like leather. “Read through this by tonight. We begin tomorrow. Report at 6 a.m. in front of this place. There’s no need to bring any luggage along.”

“Yes, Instructor.”

Gaius narrowed his eyes. Brown skin, with the name Aziz. It’s like he came from the Malay Archipelago.

Putting the irrelevant thought out of his mind, he left the tent. He had a book to read.