Short summary of the last chapter:
A voice rang out in his mind, clear and pristine, yet deep and full of power.
“Do you wish for power, One that holds the Ancient’s Blood?”
Voice was angry at the scene before him, so he ignored the voice for now. He made a new plan for the future. First off he was going to own some sort of land. After that he would either start a village or a guild. Then he was going to eradicate all slavers.
He remembered that his older character still held the book the strange god gave him. He would put that to good use.
While he was thinking this over, he heard the voice again.
“Ancient One, I can give you the power you so desperately seek. You are the first in so long.” The voice actually sounded a bit lonely.
Alright creepy voice, what do you want. Voice didn’t want to say anything out loud, just in case someone was tricking him, or he really was going crazy.
The voice seemed to glow with warmth. “You have already begun on your journey, the one the Ancients called ‘The Path to Magical Discovery’. I can help you complete it. With my help you will be able to completely control the fabric of magic, just as the Ancients used to.”
While this seemed like a good thing, Voice was suspicious. Nothing came for free. And what do you get out of this?
The voice stopped for a moment, as if thinking about its answer. “I get nothing. When an Ancient dies, they help the next generation by giving them guidance on the Path. Of course the Ancients could only help their direct descendants.”
So does that mean you’re my ancestor?
It seemed possible, and given the context of the conversation it seemed probable. “Yes, I am. You are the first one with the blood of the True Elves, in many generations. You may refer to me as ancestor.”
Voice thought to himself, I guess the split forced the elves to for two different races, and neither had enough true blood to be given this vision.
Even though it was a personal thought, his ancestor replied, it is exactly as you have said. The first thing someone on the path would do is learn the history of his people. So I will teach you all that I remember after so long.”
The story took an entire day to complete. In the beginning the Elder Gods created the world. They then created the many races of Solun into existence. The most magically gifted was the Elves. The blood of Elves ran thick with magic, they could use any magic below god class without much effort. Even the youngest and weakest would be on par with high class mages of the current time.
The Elves always sought more power, they eventually garnered enough power to pose an actual threat to the gods. Then the gods created many elementals, fairies, and beings with pieces of divinity. The Elves had learned the perfect, and most forbidden of spells. They had learned to connect the minds of all Elves.
The minds were still independent, but they would know what all other Elves were thinking or feeling. The further away the mind of the other Elf was, the easier it was to ignore or block. The Elves waged war on the Elder Gods. The war was bloody, and horrible. Such atrocities happened you would have thought it was the end of the world, which it nearly was. Eventually, in a bid for power, Davros temped the Elves.
He had made Demons, and he offered to breed them with the Elves. The Elves would gain power, and Davros would have control over them. They would give up the ability to cast light magic, but become more powerful with darkness. Only about 3/8 of the Elves agreed to this. Even though they all shared memories, and could read each other’s minds, some were just greedier than others. Those were the ones that were willing to throw away their freedoms for power. Eventually they even learned a trick to handling fire magic.
Seeing this the other gods also made offers. 3/8 of the Elves took Gaia up on her offer to breed with the nymphs of nature. They were granted a better ability to sense life within the wilderness; they could also hide themselves better, through Gaia’s benevolence. They would lose most of their magic, but would have rare magic only those that followed Gaia could learn.
The remaining Elves, only about 1/8, had to find someone to align themselves with. They could not hope to fight the war with so few. They had been on even footing with the gods before, but now they would be slaughtered.
Mar saw this, and took pity on them. She offered a deal. If they would no longer wage war, or kill innocents, she would allow them to breed with her angels. This would gain more power over light, and keep about half of their original power.
This was the best offer they could hope for, so they agreed. She also tasked them with teaching the other races magic. Normally only those that followed a god could learn magic, and only the magic that god saw fit to give them. With her High Elves, she made sure the power of magic was far more evenly split.
That’s when Ancestor (that’s what we are calling the voice now) lost the ability to guide the new generation. For the next few decades the Dark Elves waged war upon the world, and the only thing the Ancestors could do was watch in sadness. The Dark Elves constantly tried to destroy, or conquer the world. It wasn’t actually clear which. They would destroy entire villages at once.
After several years of fighting the entire world banded together to wipe out the Dark Elves. When all of the Dark Elf Warriors had been killed the humans and dwarfs wanted to kill the young and infirm. The High Elves felt obligated to protect the now vulnerable, Dark Elves. These Dark Elves had not actually done anything wrong.
They prayed to Mar when they realized that the humans and dwarves were going to obliterate all of them. She agreed to help, but only if the High Elves gave up a portion of their power to her. They agreed, since it was the right thing to do.
The Dark Elves stopped waging wars after that, but they were always resentful towards the other races. The Wood Elves did not participate in the wars, unless the forests were directly attacked.
With that the explanation was over. Voice thought for a moment. How do the Elven races feel about inter breeding?
Ancestor answered, “Interbreeding between the Elven races was very rare, it was even rarer than mating with humans. If two of the races bred together, neither god would have power over them.”
Voice thought this over. Does this mean I’m free from all three gods?
Ancestor chuckled. “Yes, that is exactly what it means. However this also means you may be hunted by them. They will all remember how the Elves of old almost conquered them. They will try to rid the world of you in most cases, even though one Ancient could never hope to beat a god. Now we will set the training pace by your will. Just know that it will never go down, only up.”
Voice smirked. He didn’t know if he would be able to actually go through with the training, but the harder the training the more the rewards.
I want training as hard as I can possibly take.
-You are now 16 years old. You have spent the last 7 years being trained by Ancestor. You are now fluent in: Ancient Elven, Dark Elven, High Elven, Wood Elven, and Human. For dedication during your training you have gained: 3 int, 3 wis, 3 str, 3 end, 4 vit. You have also lost ten luck, because Ancestor believes luck is a tool of those without power of their own future.–
The past seven years flashed before Voice’s eyes. Ancestor had told him that normally Ancients would only learn four types of magic, but Ancestor would make sure Voice learned all of them. Voice was sitting in the forest meditating. He was sitting in a shallow lake. He stood atop a cliff while exercising. He was completely buried in dirt, only his mouth free. He sat near a large fire, feeling its breath. He was in a giant metal box. He was surrounded by crystals of light. He was surrounded by crystals of darkness.
The images started flashing even faster. The longer the images flashed the more intense his training had become. He recognized himself sitting on a bed of hot coals. He was fully submerged in water.
Voice started questioning why Ancestor would try to kill him. Suddenly he heard the familiar voice. “Oh good, you’re up. Well hop to it. We are going to develop your unique magic, even if it kills you.”
After seeing the training he had been through Voice didn’t doubt that last part. Ancestor continued. “You need to decide what you want your unique magic to be. Most other races have a coming of age ceremony where they get taught some new skill or ability. BAH. You will be better! And remember you must use at least two types of magic.”
Voice had a little trouble keeping up with the speed of things this time, but he tried his best to think of a cool magic. Flight would be cool, but it only uses wind.
Voice started thinking of fire breathing which could be fire augmented with wind, then he started thinking about abilities dragons might have. Then he started going through lists of mythical creatures.
AH! GOT IT!
Voice imagined his skin burning. He felt the searing heat, and massive pain, as his skin caught fire. He did notice that the pain wasn’t even half as bad as he was expecting. Instantly he started using healing magic on himself. While the healing magic was active he lost all feeling of pain. He smiled at his work.
Ancestor was impressed. “Even though you cannot cast normal spells you managed to cast a lower mid-level fire-light spell. Hm, that’s pretty good. Normally it would take someone at mid-level a couple of days to perfect it.”
During Ancestor’s speech Voice had been forced to let the flames die out. He could only maintain it for four seconds if he included his mana regen rate. He still managed to create a small flame on a tree though.
Ancestor stopped speaking when the magic died out. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?” The voice rang loudly through his head. “YOU BETTER KEEP YOURSELF COATED!”
Voice tried to coat himself in the flame again, but couldn’t muster up the magic. After seeing him fail Ancestor continued. “Alright then. You have until your magic fully regenerates to think up a new spell.”
Voice had already though of a few spells. He imagined his hand submerged in a ball of water. He remembered the feel, the look, even the smell of the water. At the same time as he the water started expanding around his hand he summoned up a wind to guide the water off of his hand, and onto the fire he had started.
The fire didn’t seem to be growing, just staying there. When the watery wind hit the fire it began to sizzle, until it finally sputtered out.
“Good, now let’s teach you how to disguise yourself as a human, so you can walk around the world without fear.”
He was in a white area. He remained there even when he got the next, expected, speech.
-You are now 20 years old. You have spent the last 4 years mastering your class with whatever help Ancestor could provide. You are now a level eight Force Mage. You can use any of the eight types of magic. Through your other realm travels you know there is a ninth hidden type of magic. You have spent many many hours learning the skill: Meditation. You have learned the art of disguise. –
-You have been determined to have previously played DIVE. Your character will have all bonuses from growing up added to it. Your race has changed, the previous bonuses for race have been exchanged for your new races racial abilities.-
Voice found himself in the middle of the forest. He was bombarded by notification screens.
[Btw the system said that in parenthesis]
He opened his skills menu. He could only stare in anger as he read some of the descriptions. His critical strike could only be used once per action. It even went on to say that an action included the entirety of making a potion. Furthermore, all effects that added potency were cumulative instead of compounded. The worst part was that the dried ingredients and potion he used to up the power of his potions wouldn’t be effected by the second round of potion making.
(The reason his potions were so freakishly op was that the critical hit percentage bonus was multiplied instead of added. So instead of (base 100% + 100% + 360% + 15%...) [these are all of his bonuses] for a total of 6.1 times, it was (base 100% + 100%) then (200% + 720%) then (920% + 138%)… . Then he would dry the potion, which made it twice as potent, and use that as an ingredient to boost the next potion. Then all of that got multiplied by the compounded amount as well.)
All in all his potions would now only have about 11.64 times more power, and only if he made them in Susan’s lab. It had been a big oversight to add each bonus after calculating the last one, but it didn’t hurt anyone. He didn’t know why they had to go and change it.
Voice sighed as he began to walk. He had come to expect this game to try to screw him over. It didn’t matter though, he now had an immediate goal. He was going to bring back his people, and he knew just how to do that. First he would make a name for himself. He was already on that road. Secondly he would set up a safe haven for all Ancient Elves. He would start this as soon as he found a good spot. And third, once he gained enough power and prestige he would start to selectively breed all of the modern elves.
Voice started walking towards the setting sun. From his brief glimpses of his past he knew there was a river that way. A few hours after he had started walking in the forest he received a message.
*Hi Voice! This is Susan. I just collected all of the information you needed for the guild. You have to have to have five gold, at least three people, a piece of land large enough to hold the guild, and a building on that land, big enough to hold all of your guildmembers.*
Voice almost kicked himself.
Shit! I totally forgot to create the guild. Not that I could have anyway.
Voice whistled when he looked over how much money it would cost to make it. He wouldn’t be able to get that much for a while. He looked through his inventory. Luckily he still had all of his old stuff, including 32 entire rolls of OP bandages. He smiled as he saw that they still healed 5k per bandage roll. He didn’t want to use them himself. He would have to do something extra special with them.
He might even try to sell them. No doubt that would get him the needed amount of money to start a guild. After a few more hours of wandering the forest Voice started to wonder if the river even existed. He decided to ask Ancestor. This would also serve as a test to see if he kept Ancestor.
Ancestor, which way is the river?
…
He was answered by silence. It wasn’t the silence of emptiness, it was the silence of someone ignoring a person in need.
Whatever asshole Voice thought to himself. He immediately felt a sharp pain in his mind. He was brought to his knees. I’m sorry! I’M SORRY! Even with the pain down to 25% Voice felt as if his head was splintering into a thousand tiny pieces.
Voice sat on the ground and tried to think of how he could get to the city. He glanced at his map, only to see it being scrambled. Figures Voice felt an ominous tingling in his mind, so quickly apologized. The tingling died down and he began to concentrate on the task at hand.
He read inspect to make sure it was the same as before. It was, but apparently the ability to sense Mana Crystals was a subskill of Mana Sight. Though you could only get it by obtaining a super rare type of Mana Crystal. He toggled inspect on. He sat and looked around, while mainly paying attention to mana sight. He figured that if there were living beings in the river they would use water magic.
He had learned during his training that different types of mana permeated the air, or ground. If one follows the mana long enough, one would find the source. He calmly looked for the water signature. As his training had developed he had learned to distinguish the different types of mana from each other.
The forest had a dense green mana permeating the air. The trees, and all the plants created a vast ocean of nature mana. He calmly searched for any water mana in the air. As he did Ancestor talked to him.
“I… I’m sorry. I haven’t been able to connect to you since you first entered the city. You lost the battle because I wasn’t there to guide you.”
Ancestor sounded depressed, which surprised Voice. He debated whether or not to joke around, but decided not to. It’s not your fault, if I relied on you during that excursion it would have been your victory, not mine. I take full responsibility for my loss. Ancestor seemed to glow slightly when Voice said that.
“Thank you. I know you are just being kind, but that perfectly encompasses my ideal for the Ancients. Since you did fail we will start training even harder from now on. I’ve looked through everything you have done since I lost the ability to see you. While I am impressed with how you dealt with the gods you could have done better. Not needing to eat is great, but for an extremely accomplished nature mage food becomes unnecessary.”
Voice could only smile. It’s not like Ancestor would believe Voice really WAS human until now. Voice found a thin wisp of water mana. He smiled as he stood from his position and started following the trail.
After only a few minutes he noticed the thin wisp of water magic turned into a tendril. After about fifteen minutes total he had made it to the river. His inspect skill had been skyrocketing in experience since he saw so much information.
The stream gurgled and splashed joyfully as it flowed. The river was really just a large stream flowing between the trees. It wasn’t wide, but it was very deep. Voice could travel across the river in about ten steps, if he could reach the bottom that is.
Voice sat at the edge of the playful river. He opened the book he obtained in the realm of the Elder Gods. When he did Ancestor commented. “AH! I remember now! That book was written by one of the first Ancient Elves. He separated himself from the Origins, the name of the first Ancient Elves. He created that book series to pass his knowledge on to those he found worthy.”
Voice was intrigued. He might even be able to use his lineage as bargaining chip of some sort. Voice read the first words in the book.
‘In a time before time…’
He shifted into a new realm. When he regained his ability to concentrate he noticed that this world was different than the one he went to last time.
He was in an open field. The grass in the field was a healthy green, and came up to his knees. The field seemed to go on forever. He saw no mountains, not trees, nothing to distinguish any part of the world. The only thing that seemed to be different was the sky. The clouds lazily crawled over the blue sky.
Voice sat in the strangely comforting grass. He could only just see over the top of the grass. He sat and meditated. If something is supposed to happen it will happen without me worrying about it. As he meditated he noticed several strands of mana. Most of them were nature mana, but one was fire, and one was water.
He decided to go to the water source. He got up and began to follow it. The mana link quickly started to enlarge. After a few seconds of following it, the mana wisp became small again. This repeated several times. He asked Ancestor for help, but was greeted by a lack of existence in his mind.
Sigh, I guess I have to do this myself.
He continued to follow the water mana. When he got to the point where it was thicker than the surrounding mana, he used water magic. He imagined water surrounding his hand, which seemed to grasp for the thickest point on the water mana chain. He had a flash of memory. His master had told him he could cast magic that wasn’t directed on himself, but he could not manage to do it.
When the water formed into a ball a rift opened. He was sucked in. Suddenly he was surrounded by water. He couldn’t swim up as the currents seemed to oppose whichever way he swam. What is worse is they seemed to apply triple the amount of force. Even his magic would push against him, instead of propelling him.
He started to run out of air. He was getting frantic. He remembered his boon from Undine, but couldn’t cast it thanks to Davros’ curse.
Just as he was about to fall into oblivion he saw a large bubble of air flow in front of him. He took a chance and sucked in some of the bubble. He felt a huge rush of air enter his lungs. He almost breathed a sigh of relief, but the fear of dying kept him from that.
He tried to swim upwards, but the currents again pushed him backwards. He started running out of air. He exhaled a small amount, and felt a large bubble come up from his feet. The bubble propelled him slightly as it encircled his body.
He quickly refilled his lungs with fresh air. The bubble flowed upwards, leaving Voice just slightly above where he was before. He held his breath, expecting the bubbles to keep coming. The next bubble came exactly 20 seconds after the one before it.
With his immediate death threat taken care of he started devising a way to get out of this place. One plan was just waiting it out. It seemed like the best choice since he did get pushed slightly forward whenever he was encompassed in a bubble. That would take who knows how long to reach the top of the water, if it even existed.
He went for a slightly faster approach. He tried swimming downwards. Now it might not sound hard, but swimming downwards while you are facing up is actually difficult. Whenever he would stroke his arms or legs he could feel himself being pushed upwards.
He smiled. He tilted himself left (went right) until he was facing the bottom of the body of water. He swam with all of his might to get to the bottom. He even added in air magic and water magic to push him further. It was pretty complicated to do three things at once, but they were all simple things. His swimming wasn’t what one would call refined, or ‘swimming’ but it did get the desired results.
He was rocketed upwards. After several seconds he shot through the surface of the water. He reversed his wind magic, and stopped his water magic. He flew even higher into the sky. After expelling half of his mana he stopped. He stood up and survived his surroundings. He was about a hundred feet in the air.
He looked at his mana. Since he was stationary he figured the shoes were consuming a massive amount of mana per second. He was half right. The shoes were taking up 6.8 mana per second. On top of his 3.2 mana/sec regen speed he realized that the shoes would stop his fall for only 10 mana per second.
That was a pretty good deal for keeping one’s self from falling to one’s death. He started to channel more mana into his shoes. He wanted to see if they could elevate him. Once he was adding in a total of 15 mana per second his noticed a tiny amount of upward velocity.
Afraid that he was going run out of mana he stopped the elevation. He had 305 mana left. He forced the shoes to take less mana. He slowly started drifting downwards. When he only put a total of 7.2 mana per second he was dropping about half as quickly as he did in the Ether Realm. The only way Voice could reason it out was some sort of bell curve, the more mana you put in the more it took to see a change.
He started meditating. The gentle flow of air did not hinder his ability. His mana regen was now 16.4, with this much he could easily stay stationary. Although he could not fly. Not only would he need at least 20 mana regen per second to be able to go in a direction he wanted, he would also have to be able to meditate while traveling in the air. Not really a thing most people could do. Not until he got 200 wisdom at least.
With his metal debuffer he only had 11.4 mana per second that he could use. After about five minutes of meditating he had finally restored his mana. Geez that took forever. Well at least now I can go on to the next part of my plan.
He stood rigid. He inspected the air for mana. Specifically he was looking for wind mana. The biggest source came from his shows. He sighed and concentrated more. He was losing 6.8 mana per second to keep in the air while using inspect.
He couldn’t see any wind mana, except for his shoes. He started to get worried. What if my shoes somehow absorb the wind mana in the air. Reluctantly he released the magic on his shoes. As he fell he noticed thin wisps of wind mana starting to blossom. FUCK!
He quickly memorized the location of one of the wind mana strings. He started pumping mana into his shoes. He had his eyes closed to preserve the memory of where the mana string was. As he slowed he put exactly enough mana into his shoes to force himself into a stop.
He again meditated until he had full mana. At least I can get to the next place. Once his mana was back he lazily drifted over to where the wind mana was. He released the mana going to the shoes for half of a second.
He cursed. The wind mana he had seen had drifted away! He tried to catch up to it by releasing and starting the mana flow to his shoes. Every time he released the mana channel going through his shoes the wind mana would float further away.
He got pissed. If this fucking thing wouldn’t let him win the way he was trying…
He used his Sense. He focused all five uses on trying to locater where the wind mana would be. He used the first on, saw the general area, then went to it. He used the second one, saw a more precise area, then went to that. He did this until he was sure of where the collection of wind mana would appear.
Once he was as sure as he could be he released the mana flow to his shoes, and made as much high force wind swirl around his body as possible. He could only get a perfect picture of it blowing from one side, so he faced the mana vein.
The vein popped up almost exactly where his Sense told him it would. His heavy gust of wind tore open the tiny node of mana. He was blown inside by a gale force wind from behind.
Voice appeared on some sort of cloud. He was amazed as he looked around. There was an actual city in the clouds! They had buildings, made of cloud and wind, so tall they would make the architects back on earth cry in shame.
After a brief survey of the area around where he was, Voice noticed several humanoids. There were three big differences in these people versus the people he saw most of the time. The first difference was that they had no real bodies. At least not one he could see. The reason he knew these ‘people’ were humanoid was that they had wisps of wind constantly flowing around their bodies.
The second difference was the fact that these beings didn’t walk. The glided towards him without their invisible feet even touching the ground. The third and, in Voice’s opinion, most important: they looked pissed. Their invisible bodies were held in a way much like bullies in a school might walk if they saw the object of their ‘affections’. The only really visible part of the bodies were they ominous red glowing eyes.
One of the beings lifted his hand. It looked as if the wind itself had been sliced. The slice was heading right towards Voice. He had just enough time to encase himself in an earthen barrier before it hit.
Spoiler :
A voice rang out in his mind, clear and pristine, yet deep and full of power.
“Do you wish for power, One that holds the Ancient’s Blood?”
Voice was angry at the scene before him, so he ignored the voice for now. He made a new plan for the future. First off he was going to own some sort of land. After that he would either start a village or a guild. Then he was going to eradicate all slavers.
He remembered that his older character still held the book the strange god gave him. He would put that to good use.
While he was thinking this over, he heard the voice again.
“Ancient One, I can give you the power you so desperately seek. You are the first in so long.” The voice actually sounded a bit lonely.
Alright creepy voice, what do you want. Voice didn’t want to say anything out loud, just in case someone was tricking him, or he really was going crazy.
The voice seemed to glow with warmth. “You have already begun on your journey, the one the Ancients called ‘The Path to Magical Discovery’. I can help you complete it. With my help you will be able to completely control the fabric of magic, just as the Ancients used to.”
While this seemed like a good thing, Voice was suspicious. Nothing came for free. And what do you get out of this?
The voice stopped for a moment, as if thinking about its answer. “I get nothing. When an Ancient dies, they help the next generation by giving them guidance on the Path. Of course the Ancients could only help their direct descendants.”
So does that mean you’re my ancestor?
It seemed possible, and given the context of the conversation it seemed probable. “Yes, I am. You are the first one with the blood of the True Elves, in many generations. You may refer to me as ancestor.”
Voice thought to himself, I guess the split forced the elves to for two different races, and neither had enough true blood to be given this vision.
Even though it was a personal thought, his ancestor replied, it is exactly as you have said. The first thing someone on the path would do is learn the history of his people. So I will teach you all that I remember after so long.”
The story took an entire day to complete. In the beginning the Elder Gods created the world. They then created the many races of Solun into existence. The most magically gifted was the Elves. The blood of Elves ran thick with magic, they could use any magic below god class without much effort. Even the youngest and weakest would be on par with high class mages of the current time.
The Elves always sought more power, they eventually garnered enough power to pose an actual threat to the gods. Then the gods created many elementals, fairies, and beings with pieces of divinity. The Elves had learned the perfect, and most forbidden of spells. They had learned to connect the minds of all Elves.
The minds were still independent, but they would know what all other Elves were thinking or feeling. The further away the mind of the other Elf was, the easier it was to ignore or block. The Elves waged war on the Elder Gods. The war was bloody, and horrible. Such atrocities happened you would have thought it was the end of the world, which it nearly was. Eventually, in a bid for power, Davros temped the Elves.
He had made Demons, and he offered to breed them with the Elves. The Elves would gain power, and Davros would have control over them. They would give up the ability to cast light magic, but become more powerful with darkness. Only about 3/8 of the Elves agreed to this. Even though they all shared memories, and could read each other’s minds, some were just greedier than others. Those were the ones that were willing to throw away their freedoms for power. Eventually they even learned a trick to handling fire magic.
Seeing this the other gods also made offers. 3/8 of the Elves took Gaia up on her offer to breed with the nymphs of nature. They were granted a better ability to sense life within the wilderness; they could also hide themselves better, through Gaia’s benevolence. They would lose most of their magic, but would have rare magic only those that followed Gaia could learn.
The remaining Elves, only about 1/8, had to find someone to align themselves with. They could not hope to fight the war with so few. They had been on even footing with the gods before, but now they would be slaughtered.
Mar saw this, and took pity on them. She offered a deal. If they would no longer wage war, or kill innocents, she would allow them to breed with her angels. This would gain more power over light, and keep about half of their original power.
This was the best offer they could hope for, so they agreed. She also tasked them with teaching the other races magic. Normally only those that followed a god could learn magic, and only the magic that god saw fit to give them. With her High Elves, she made sure the power of magic was far more evenly split.
That’s when Ancestor (that’s what we are calling the voice now) lost the ability to guide the new generation. For the next few decades the Dark Elves waged war upon the world, and the only thing the Ancestors could do was watch in sadness. The Dark Elves constantly tried to destroy, or conquer the world. It wasn’t actually clear which. They would destroy entire villages at once.
After several years of fighting the entire world banded together to wipe out the Dark Elves. When all of the Dark Elf Warriors had been killed the humans and dwarfs wanted to kill the young and infirm. The High Elves felt obligated to protect the now vulnerable, Dark Elves. These Dark Elves had not actually done anything wrong.
They prayed to Mar when they realized that the humans and dwarves were going to obliterate all of them. She agreed to help, but only if the High Elves gave up a portion of their power to her. They agreed, since it was the right thing to do.
The Dark Elves stopped waging wars after that, but they were always resentful towards the other races. The Wood Elves did not participate in the wars, unless the forests were directly attacked.
With that the explanation was over. Voice thought for a moment. How do the Elven races feel about inter breeding?
Ancestor answered, “Interbreeding between the Elven races was very rare, it was even rarer than mating with humans. If two of the races bred together, neither god would have power over them.”
Voice thought this over. Does this mean I’m free from all three gods?
Ancestor chuckled. “Yes, that is exactly what it means. However this also means you may be hunted by them. They will all remember how the Elves of old almost conquered them. They will try to rid the world of you in most cases, even though one Ancient could never hope to beat a god. Now we will set the training pace by your will. Just know that it will never go down, only up.”
Voice smirked. He didn’t know if he would be able to actually go through with the training, but the harder the training the more the rewards.
I want training as hard as I can possibly take.
| You have spent too much concentration. You are disoriented. |
-You are now 16 years old. You have spent the last 7 years being trained by Ancestor. You are now fluent in: Ancient Elven, Dark Elven, High Elven, Wood Elven, and Human. For dedication during your training you have gained: 3 int, 3 wis, 3 str, 3 end, 4 vit. You have also lost ten luck, because Ancestor believes luck is a tool of those without power of their own future.–
| Ancestor has taught you the ways of direct mana manipulation. Synergy with class Force Mage, is at maximum. You have basic control over eight elements. The lost magic is not usable at this time. For pure focus on learning magic you have not gained weapon or armor proficiency. For accepting class: Force Mage, you have not gained any new spells. All eight affinities set at 25 (locked affinities over 25 do not change) |
The past seven years flashed before Voice’s eyes. Ancestor had told him that normally Ancients would only learn four types of magic, but Ancestor would make sure Voice learned all of them. Voice was sitting in the forest meditating. He was sitting in a shallow lake. He stood atop a cliff while exercising. He was completely buried in dirt, only his mouth free. He sat near a large fire, feeling its breath. He was in a giant metal box. He was surrounded by crystals of light. He was surrounded by crystals of darkness.
The images started flashing even faster. The longer the images flashed the more intense his training had become. He recognized himself sitting on a bed of hot coals. He was fully submerged in water.
Voice started questioning why Ancestor would try to kill him. Suddenly he heard the familiar voice. “Oh good, you’re up. Well hop to it. We are going to develop your unique magic, even if it kills you.”
After seeing the training he had been through Voice didn’t doubt that last part. Ancestor continued. “You need to decide what you want your unique magic to be. Most other races have a coming of age ceremony where they get taught some new skill or ability. BAH. You will be better! And remember you must use at least two types of magic.”
Voice had a little trouble keeping up with the speed of things this time, but he tried his best to think of a cool magic. Flight would be cool, but it only uses wind.
Voice started thinking of fire breathing which could be fire augmented with wind, then he started thinking about abilities dragons might have. Then he started going through lists of mythical creatures.
AH! GOT IT!
Voice imagined his skin burning. He felt the searing heat, and massive pain, as his skin caught fire. He did notice that the pain wasn’t even half as bad as he was expecting. Instantly he started using healing magic on himself. While the healing magic was active he lost all feeling of pain. He smiled at his work.
| You have created a new (forgotten) spell: Phoenix Fire. |
| Phoenix Fire
The caster catches on fire. This flame causes (10 + (fire affinity/10) * Aura) damage per second to anything in contact with the fire. The user heals at a rate of (10 + (light affinity/10) * Aura) per second. The base spell cost for this spell is 100 mana per second. If the user has a higher fire affinity than light affinity, the fire affinity can be scaled down. |
| You have created a new spell. You can record this spell in an empty spell book. Only the person that created this spell, or someone he gave permission to, can create spell books for it. Once the creator of the spell can no longer make spell books, the one that is most proficient can create spell books based on this spell. |
Ancestor was impressed. “Even though you cannot cast normal spells you managed to cast a lower mid-level fire-light spell. Hm, that’s pretty good. Normally it would take someone at mid-level a couple of days to perfect it.”
During Ancestor’s speech Voice had been forced to let the flames die out. He could only maintain it for four seconds if he included his mana regen rate. He still managed to create a small flame on a tree though.
Ancestor stopped speaking when the magic died out. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?” The voice rang loudly through his head. “YOU BETTER KEEP YOURSELF COATED!”
Voice tried to coat himself in the flame again, but couldn’t muster up the magic. After seeing him fail Ancestor continued. “Alright then. You have until your magic fully regenerates to think up a new spell.”
Voice had already though of a few spells. He imagined his hand submerged in a ball of water. He remembered the feel, the look, even the smell of the water. At the same time as he the water started expanding around his hand he summoned up a wind to guide the water off of his hand, and onto the fire he had started.
The fire didn’t seem to be growing, just staying there. When the watery wind hit the fire it began to sizzle, until it finally sputtered out.
| Mist Spray
The caster creates a thin mist. The amount of cups of water is water collected is (.5 + (water affinity/200) * Aura) for every point of mana spent. The (speed or distance) the mist travels is (10 + (wind affinity/10) * Aura) feet per second per mana point. You can adjust the distance and speed. The base spell cost for this spell is 3 mana per second. |
| You have created a new spell. You can record this spell in an empty spell book. Only the person that created this spell, or someone he gave permission to, can create spell books for it. Once the creator of the spell can no longer make spell books, the one that is most proficient can create spell books based on this spell. |
“Good, now let’s teach you how to disguise yourself as a human, so you can walk around the world without fear.”
| You have spent too much concentration. You are disoriented. |
He was in a white area. He remained there even when he got the next, expected, speech.
-You are now 20 years old. You have spent the last 4 years mastering your class with whatever help Ancestor could provide. You are now a level eight Force Mage. You can use any of the eight types of magic. Through your other realm travels you know there is a ninth hidden type of magic. You have spent many many hours learning the skill: Meditation. You have learned the art of disguise. –
| Meditation
Current Level: Apprentice Level 25 00.00% You have learned to meditate. You can meditate under most normal circumstances. While meditating your mana regenerates twice as quickly (before debuffs). While meditating you can cleanse you mana reserves. Current Mana Purity: 1. With purer mana you can cast magic more easily. To upgrade mana purity you must meditate for one hour for every point of mana. Every level of mana purity will increase cast speed by 5%, every level of mana purity will increase the power of a spell by 50% of the original power. |
| Disguise
Current Level: Apprentice Level 25 00.00% You have learned to disguise yourself. For every level in this skill you will be able to better disguise yourself. For every rank in this skill you will be able to disguise yourself as a larger variety of things. People will get a chance to discern your disguise if they look too closely. If you study those you’re disguised as you will gain a competency bonus. |
| In accordance with the habits that it is determined you will form, both skills have been fused into group skills. |
| Disguise has fused into group skill Con Artist. |
| Meditate has fused with Mana Affinity, and Deceptive Aura to form the Group Skill: Magical Mastery. |
| Con Artist
Current Level: Novice Level 14 Exp 03.57% This skill allows you to use the benefits from: Deception, Flattery, Barter, Disguise, and Sleight of Hand. You are a practiced con man. You can trick people into buying things, or ideas, at absurd prices. For creating the Group Skill: Con Artist, the skill Sleight of Hand has been generated. Sleight of Hand has been automatically added to your Con Artist skill. The higher the level the more believable your cons are. To level this skill you must do an action that would be encompassed in one of the skills that were consumed to make this skill. |
| Magical Mastery
Current Level: Novice Level 16 Exp 00.00% This skill allows you to use the benefits from: Mana Affinity, Deceptive Aura, and Meditate. You are slowly becoming the master of all things arcane. With diligent study and practice, you may be able to better master the arcane world. The higher the level the better you will be able manipulate mana. To level this skill you must level up Mana Affinity, Deceptive Aura, or Meditate. The maximum rank this skill can be is determined by (intelligence/50). |
-You have been determined to have previously played DIVE. Your character will have all bonuses from growing up added to it. Your race has changed, the previous bonuses for race have been exchanged for your new races racial abilities.-
Voice found himself in the middle of the forest. He was bombarded by notification screens.
| You have lost all racial bonuses granted to Humans. You have lost five ability points. You have lost the versatility of the Human. |
| You gained the racial abilities of an Ancient Elf.
Ancient Elves gain the following stat changes: -2 str, - 3 end, -1 vit +5 int, +2 wis, + 2 dex, + 2 agi All spells cost 5% less as an Ancient Elf. |
| *Attention*
An update has occurred. Skills now have an upper limit to usage amount per action. Many skills have been streamlined for efficiency. Skills have been made less powerful. Items have a maximum enhancement bonus depending on the item. Dungeon bosses now only respawn after all players have left the dungeon. You can only equip two weapons at a time unless otherwise stated. Pain conversion has been set to 25%. Pain setting is now adjustable between 1% and 25%. All players below the age of 6 must be accompanied by a parent or guardian to log in. Certain classes have been modified. New timer developed. Players must leave the pod for at least one hour a day, if they sleep in game. This hour must be in three increments of at least 20 minutes each. If the player does not sleep in game they must leave the pod for three twenty minute increments, as well as one six hour increment. |
| Many of your skills have been nerfed. (Lololol) |
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
He opened his skills menu. He could only stare in anger as he read some of the descriptions. His critical strike could only be used once per action. It even went on to say that an action included the entirety of making a potion. Furthermore, all effects that added potency were cumulative instead of compounded. The worst part was that the dried ingredients and potion he used to up the power of his potions wouldn’t be effected by the second round of potion making.
(The reason his potions were so freakishly op was that the critical hit percentage bonus was multiplied instead of added. So instead of (base 100% + 100% + 360% + 15%...) [these are all of his bonuses] for a total of 6.1 times, it was (base 100% + 100%) then (200% + 720%) then (920% + 138%)… . Then he would dry the potion, which made it twice as potent, and use that as an ingredient to boost the next potion. Then all of that got multiplied by the compounded amount as well.)
All in all his potions would now only have about 11.64 times more power, and only if he made them in Susan’s lab. It had been a big oversight to add each bonus after calculating the last one, but it didn’t hurt anyone. He didn’t know why they had to go and change it.
| You have started your Racial Quest.
Ancestor wishes for the revival of the Ancient Elves. Ancestor has gone on for many a long night waxing and waning on both the good and bad parts of the race. It is your mission to bring this race out of obscurity. Success: Recreating the Ancient Elven race, or bringing mass quantities of fame (not infamy) to the race. Difficulty: Dependent on the Questor. Failure: Letting the Ancient Elves once again fall into the cracks of time, to be forgotten. Reward: Unknown. Failure leads to the end of the Ancient Elven race. |
Voice sighed as he began to walk. He had come to expect this game to try to screw him over. It didn’t matter though, he now had an immediate goal. He was going to bring back his people, and he knew just how to do that. First he would make a name for himself. He was already on that road. Secondly he would set up a safe haven for all Ancient Elves. He would start this as soon as he found a good spot. And third, once he gained enough power and prestige he would start to selectively breed all of the modern elves.
Voice started walking towards the setting sun. From his brief glimpses of his past he knew there was a river that way. A few hours after he had started walking in the forest he received a message.
*Hi Voice! This is Susan. I just collected all of the information you needed for the guild. You have to have to have five gold, at least three people, a piece of land large enough to hold the guild, and a building on that land, big enough to hold all of your guildmembers.*
Voice almost kicked himself.
Shit! I totally forgot to create the guild. Not that I could have anyway.
Voice whistled when he looked over how much money it would cost to make it. He wouldn’t be able to get that much for a while. He looked through his inventory. Luckily he still had all of his old stuff, including 32 entire rolls of OP bandages. He smiled as he saw that they still healed 5k per bandage roll. He didn’t want to use them himself. He would have to do something extra special with them.
He might even try to sell them. No doubt that would get him the needed amount of money to start a guild. After a few more hours of wandering the forest Voice started to wonder if the river even existed. He decided to ask Ancestor. This would also serve as a test to see if he kept Ancestor.
Ancestor, which way is the river?
…
He was answered by silence. It wasn’t the silence of emptiness, it was the silence of someone ignoring a person in need.
Whatever asshole Voice thought to himself. He immediately felt a sharp pain in his mind. He was brought to his knees. I’m sorry! I’M SORRY! Even with the pain down to 25% Voice felt as if his head was splintering into a thousand tiny pieces.
Voice sat on the ground and tried to think of how he could get to the city. He glanced at his map, only to see it being scrambled. Figures Voice felt an ominous tingling in his mind, so quickly apologized. The tingling died down and he began to concentrate on the task at hand.
He read inspect to make sure it was the same as before. It was, but apparently the ability to sense Mana Crystals was a subskill of Mana Sight. Though you could only get it by obtaining a super rare type of Mana Crystal. He toggled inspect on. He sat and looked around, while mainly paying attention to mana sight. He figured that if there were living beings in the river they would use water magic.
He had learned during his training that different types of mana permeated the air, or ground. If one follows the mana long enough, one would find the source. He calmly looked for the water signature. As his training had developed he had learned to distinguish the different types of mana from each other.
The forest had a dense green mana permeating the air. The trees, and all the plants created a vast ocean of nature mana. He calmly searched for any water mana in the air. As he did Ancestor talked to him.
“I… I’m sorry. I haven’t been able to connect to you since you first entered the city. You lost the battle because I wasn’t there to guide you.”
Ancestor sounded depressed, which surprised Voice. He debated whether or not to joke around, but decided not to. It’s not your fault, if I relied on you during that excursion it would have been your victory, not mine. I take full responsibility for my loss. Ancestor seemed to glow slightly when Voice said that.
“Thank you. I know you are just being kind, but that perfectly encompasses my ideal for the Ancients. Since you did fail we will start training even harder from now on. I’ve looked through everything you have done since I lost the ability to see you. While I am impressed with how you dealt with the gods you could have done better. Not needing to eat is great, but for an extremely accomplished nature mage food becomes unnecessary.”
Voice could only smile. It’s not like Ancestor would believe Voice really WAS human until now. Voice found a thin wisp of water mana. He smiled as he stood from his position and started following the trail.
After only a few minutes he noticed the thin wisp of water magic turned into a tendril. After about fifteen minutes total he had made it to the river. His inspect skill had been skyrocketing in experience since he saw so much information.
The stream gurgled and splashed joyfully as it flowed. The river was really just a large stream flowing between the trees. It wasn’t wide, but it was very deep. Voice could travel across the river in about ten steps, if he could reach the bottom that is.
Voice sat at the edge of the playful river. He opened the book he obtained in the realm of the Elder Gods. When he did Ancestor commented. “AH! I remember now! That book was written by one of the first Ancient Elves. He separated himself from the Origins, the name of the first Ancient Elves. He created that book series to pass his knowledge on to those he found worthy.”
Voice was intrigued. He might even be able to use his lineage as bargaining chip of some sort. Voice read the first words in the book.
‘In a time before time…’
He shifted into a new realm. When he regained his ability to concentrate he noticed that this world was different than the one he went to last time.
He was in an open field. The grass in the field was a healthy green, and came up to his knees. The field seemed to go on forever. He saw no mountains, not trees, nothing to distinguish any part of the world. The only thing that seemed to be different was the sky. The clouds lazily crawled over the blue sky.
Voice sat in the strangely comforting grass. He could only just see over the top of the grass. He sat and meditated. If something is supposed to happen it will happen without me worrying about it. As he meditated he noticed several strands of mana. Most of them were nature mana, but one was fire, and one was water.
He decided to go to the water source. He got up and began to follow it. The mana link quickly started to enlarge. After a few seconds of following it, the mana wisp became small again. This repeated several times. He asked Ancestor for help, but was greeted by a lack of existence in his mind.
Sigh, I guess I have to do this myself.
He continued to follow the water mana. When he got to the point where it was thicker than the surrounding mana, he used water magic. He imagined water surrounding his hand, which seemed to grasp for the thickest point on the water mana chain. He had a flash of memory. His master had told him he could cast magic that wasn’t directed on himself, but he could not manage to do it.
When the water formed into a ball a rift opened. He was sucked in. Suddenly he was surrounded by water. He couldn’t swim up as the currents seemed to oppose whichever way he swam. What is worse is they seemed to apply triple the amount of force. Even his magic would push against him, instead of propelling him.
He started to run out of air. He was getting frantic. He remembered his boon from Undine, but couldn’t cast it thanks to Davros’ curse.
Just as he was about to fall into oblivion he saw a large bubble of air flow in front of him. He took a chance and sucked in some of the bubble. He felt a huge rush of air enter his lungs. He almost breathed a sigh of relief, but the fear of dying kept him from that.
He tried to swim upwards, but the currents again pushed him backwards. He started running out of air. He exhaled a small amount, and felt a large bubble come up from his feet. The bubble propelled him slightly as it encircled his body.
He quickly refilled his lungs with fresh air. The bubble flowed upwards, leaving Voice just slightly above where he was before. He held his breath, expecting the bubbles to keep coming. The next bubble came exactly 20 seconds after the one before it.
With his immediate death threat taken care of he started devising a way to get out of this place. One plan was just waiting it out. It seemed like the best choice since he did get pushed slightly forward whenever he was encompassed in a bubble. That would take who knows how long to reach the top of the water, if it even existed.
He went for a slightly faster approach. He tried swimming downwards. Now it might not sound hard, but swimming downwards while you are facing up is actually difficult. Whenever he would stroke his arms or legs he could feel himself being pushed upwards.
He smiled. He tilted himself left (went right) until he was facing the bottom of the body of water. He swam with all of his might to get to the bottom. He even added in air magic and water magic to push him further. It was pretty complicated to do three things at once, but they were all simple things. His swimming wasn’t what one would call refined, or ‘swimming’ but it did get the desired results.
He was rocketed upwards. After several seconds he shot through the surface of the water. He reversed his wind magic, and stopped his water magic. He flew even higher into the sky. After expelling half of his mana he stopped. He stood up and survived his surroundings. He was about a hundred feet in the air.
He looked at his mana. Since he was stationary he figured the shoes were consuming a massive amount of mana per second. He was half right. The shoes were taking up 6.8 mana per second. On top of his 3.2 mana/sec regen speed he realized that the shoes would stop his fall for only 10 mana per second.
That was a pretty good deal for keeping one’s self from falling to one’s death. He started to channel more mana into his shoes. He wanted to see if they could elevate him. Once he was adding in a total of 15 mana per second his noticed a tiny amount of upward velocity.
Afraid that he was going run out of mana he stopped the elevation. He had 305 mana left. He forced the shoes to take less mana. He slowly started drifting downwards. When he only put a total of 7.2 mana per second he was dropping about half as quickly as he did in the Ether Realm. The only way Voice could reason it out was some sort of bell curve, the more mana you put in the more it took to see a change.
He started meditating. The gentle flow of air did not hinder his ability. His mana regen was now 16.4, with this much he could easily stay stationary. Although he could not fly. Not only would he need at least 20 mana regen per second to be able to go in a direction he wanted, he would also have to be able to meditate while traveling in the air. Not really a thing most people could do. Not until he got 200 wisdom at least.
With his metal debuffer he only had 11.4 mana per second that he could use. After about five minutes of meditating he had finally restored his mana. Geez that took forever. Well at least now I can go on to the next part of my plan.
He stood rigid. He inspected the air for mana. Specifically he was looking for wind mana. The biggest source came from his shows. He sighed and concentrated more. He was losing 6.8 mana per second to keep in the air while using inspect.
He couldn’t see any wind mana, except for his shoes. He started to get worried. What if my shoes somehow absorb the wind mana in the air. Reluctantly he released the magic on his shoes. As he fell he noticed thin wisps of wind mana starting to blossom. FUCK!
He quickly memorized the location of one of the wind mana strings. He started pumping mana into his shoes. He had his eyes closed to preserve the memory of where the mana string was. As he slowed he put exactly enough mana into his shoes to force himself into a stop.
He again meditated until he had full mana. At least I can get to the next place. Once his mana was back he lazily drifted over to where the wind mana was. He released the mana going to the shoes for half of a second.
He cursed. The wind mana he had seen had drifted away! He tried to catch up to it by releasing and starting the mana flow to his shoes. Every time he released the mana channel going through his shoes the wind mana would float further away.
He got pissed. If this fucking thing wouldn’t let him win the way he was trying…
He used his Sense. He focused all five uses on trying to locater where the wind mana would be. He used the first on, saw the general area, then went to it. He used the second one, saw a more precise area, then went to that. He did this until he was sure of where the collection of wind mana would appear.
Once he was as sure as he could be he released the mana flow to his shoes, and made as much high force wind swirl around his body as possible. He could only get a perfect picture of it blowing from one side, so he faced the mana vein.
The vein popped up almost exactly where his Sense told him it would. His heavy gust of wind tore open the tiny node of mana. He was blown inside by a gale force wind from behind.
Voice appeared on some sort of cloud. He was amazed as he looked around. There was an actual city in the clouds! They had buildings, made of cloud and wind, so tall they would make the architects back on earth cry in shame.
After a brief survey of the area around where he was, Voice noticed several humanoids. There were three big differences in these people versus the people he saw most of the time. The first difference was that they had no real bodies. At least not one he could see. The reason he knew these ‘people’ were humanoid was that they had wisps of wind constantly flowing around their bodies.
The second difference was the fact that these beings didn’t walk. The glided towards him without their invisible feet even touching the ground. The third and, in Voice’s opinion, most important: they looked pissed. Their invisible bodies were held in a way much like bullies in a school might walk if they saw the object of their ‘affections’. The only really visible part of the bodies were they ominous red glowing eyes.
One of the beings lifted his hand. It looked as if the wind itself had been sliced. The slice was heading right towards Voice. He had just enough time to encase himself in an earthen barrier before it hit.
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