“What…? What is wrong with you? Why won’t you ever make sense?” Gasalam exclaimed with a scrunched up face. He then turned around, looking every which way, looking for some kind of error in the scenery that would prove that all of this was a dream. Some trees perhaps? Trees in a place like this would be a big joke.

Alas, he saw nothing but more scorched black rocks, more smoke and more boiling red liquid. Hm? Wait!

‘Haha! I knew it! This place looks just so realistic so I just accepted it, but isn’t all of this fake? Black mountains that are releasing smoke at the top, slow-moving but hot water. Hey, It’s not even transparent! I feel like an idiot!’

He scrambled to his feet with triumph and looked at the man who called himself ‘E’ with a gloating look. But then he thought about something and got back down, laid back and closed his eyes.

It was harder to go to sleep whenever his mind was too active, and normally, he woke up from his lucid dreams whenever he started accidentally thinking about things in reality. But that didn’t seem to be the case here. No matter how much he urged himself to wake up, telling himself that this was a dream, it never worked, much to his chagrin. Doing this, even if not on purpose, had always destroyed his good dreams, but now when he actually wanted to wake up, it was no longer working? As a matter of fact, the more he tried, the more it seemed like he was doing the contrary, because maybe, just maybe… this was reality.

So, since he refused to accept that, he wanted to try something else. He would lie down and empty his mind, and hopefully, the dream would soon lose sense like every other of his dreams and he’d find himself in a different scenery. A more pleasant scenery. Maybe he’d dream about reclaiming his glory as a respected 1st Generation Elf again? Heh. Not that he neeeeeded respect from those hypocrites. Still, the dream was nice. But again, forget those losers. He would never need them!

Nevertheless, he kept imagining scenes of Elves and Fae surrounding him, their faces not shaping scorn and despise but instead love and reverence.

“You know-”

“Ah!” Gasalam yelped and shot up as the voice of an unknown man interrupted his thoughts. But when he caught sight of the speaker, he realised that he DID know the man. It was the damn Grand Elder, and they were STILL in this strange dream land!

“Wow.” The man spoke. What was his name again?

“To think you would forget this quickly. Even the Twin Stars of the North weren’t this bad. But I suppose it can’t be helped. Your age and consequently your brain is inferior. But still, wow. I imagine that if I were to appear before a child, they wouldn’t even see me. Haha, maybe I’ll test it some time.”

The man casually spoke with his hands behind his back and a smile on his face, talking random rubbish as always.

‘Dammit, if this is not a dream, then an illusion? Did this guy cast an illusion on me? But what would a Grand Elder like him want with me?’ Gasalam thought with mounting worry. The image of his being sealed away in this place for the rest of his life appeared in his mind and his heart nearly stopped.

‘Are they done being afraid of me? Do they now want to banish me to a place like this?! Is it over for me?! No!!!’ The fear within him grew.

“W-what do you want?!” He yelled out, taking a step back.

The man gave a short sigh. “Honestly, I look so holy and dazzling, on purpose mind you. And yet still, everyone who I speak with always seems to think I’m a horrifying monster? Aii~ the woes of being too strong. What did the pitiful me do to deserve this?” He shook his head with a sad look in his eyes as if it was a great shame.

“You-”

“Okay, okay. I don’t have much time either so all jokes to the left.” The man said before he turned around and faced the biggest Volcano in the centre.

“I brought you here because I want to give you an opportunity. An opportunity to gain a power that no other Elf has. And let me tell you, if you can grasp it, not only will you get your life back, but you will also rise far above what you could have possibly achieved before, obtaining the adoration and ‘reverence’ of many Elves and Fae alike.”

“I don’t need it! I don’t need anyone! And I definitely don’t need that adoration from people like YOU LOT!” Gasalam growled, trying to irk the man with his ferocity that he knew other Elves and Fae disliked.

Unfortunately, the man simply chuckled as if his words were as insignificant as the wind.

“Explosiveness so uncharacteristic of an Elf… Hahaha, perfect~” The man laughed. He then looked up to the sky as if contemplating about something, then looked back at him with noticeably brighter eyes. “You know, since I did cause you a lot of trouble to get you to this point, I might as well throw in an extra gift.”

“I said I don’t wan-” Gasalam started

“My first gift to you is this lava here. Elves are creatures that have an innate affinity with all nature. Well, not ‘all’ per say. A single Elf can only have 1 or 2, or maybe even a few more affinities if they’re super lucky, but that’s not the point. So long as the planet grows it, the Elves can, theoretically, control it. They just need to have its specific affinity.

But unfortunately, growing up in a huge forest and developing a culture that obsesses over only rocks, trees, and water has somewhat crippled their potential. They have ignored the powers of lightning, fire and lava.

The first 2 are more chemical reactions than things grown by the planet, so it's understandable that those who don’t focus on it will have a harder time obtaining its insights, and you guys have probably never seen lava before so it’s also understandable that no one has ever obtained its blessing. There’s also the problem with personalities and so forth, and it's really quite sad. Such potential but no one to use it. Very unfortunate. And that’s why we are going to change that, starting with you.

It’s for this very reason that I forced you to nearly become Wrath so buckle up boy, it's time to claim your destiny.”