Chapter 7: Mana
Bremdal town was worthy of its title as a royal town. The roads were smoothly paved and clean. Buildings were appropriately distanced to avoid congestion and traffic. There were town guards in pairs patrolling about and even assisting some merchants in unloading their wares.
The town was already bustling with activity with merchants hawking their goods and customers carefully scrutinizing the best goods. There were numerous merchant stalls around from small kiosks to shops down to big warehouses. Goods of all kinds could be seen being hawked from those stalls. Fresh vegetables, fruits, meats of all kinds from poultry to fish to beef, and even specialty ones such as meat from magical beasts like wyrms, jackalopes, crimson hogs, etc. the variety was endless due to the nature of the Trilunar world.
The planet was known as the Trilunar world. It was named so because it was orbited by three moons namely; Mundus, Interit, and Clades. They were of different sizes with Mundus being the largest of the three and Clades being the smallest of the three.
The Trilunar world was a planet steeped in mystery even to its own residents and the prime culprit of it all was a formless energy known as mana. No one to date has been able to explain it or tell how it came about. Did the world create mana or was the world created because of mana? No one knew, but what was known was mana was and is an integral part of the world.
Mana is both comprehensible and incomprehensible, tangible and intangible but one thing was constant it is everywhere and had integrated into everyone or thing way of life. With it, mana usage arose among the different inhabitants of the planet who intuitively became aware of it.
With the passage of time mana usage transformed from rudimentary applications of it such as just a means of survival to improving the way of life, increasing food supply, building safer homes, improvement of health through healing, and discovery of plants that had gained specific properties due to their exposure to mana.
Populations grew, societies formed, trade grew, and magical beasts evolved with each progeny having its intrinsic qualities influenced by the bloodline of its parents that had been altered with repeated exposure to mana. This gave to the rise of inherent magical traits and powerful bloodlines. The more skilled the parents were the stronger the offspring's talents would be in mana manipulation. This effect was translated even among the different races where particular bloodlines only got stronger with time with other bloodlines remaining mediocre or average.
Classes soon rose from this disparity and a battle for power, supremacy and dominance ensued. Loose settlements grew into villages then into towns, cities then kingdoms. From creation, destruction soon followed. Cities swallowed towns to grow into kingdoms, towns swallowed villages to grow into cities and kingdoms tried to swallow each other which led to the formation of Empires.
An era of bloodbath and conquest swallowed the whole world with no area being spared. Cities, towns, and kingdoms rose and fell, and with each passage of time. Due to the neverending battles, the inhabitants were getting more versatile and proficient in the use of mana. This extended even to the magical beasts whose affinity for mana grew to such an astronomical level that they rivaled the established empires, kingdoms, and cities in their capacity for destruction.
Coalitions, pacts, and intermarriages soon started when gaps in abilities between nations started showing. An era of mana research soon came about as those nations that stood out they did so through the depth of their foundation in the use of mana. Resources were poured into the study of mana. The more they dug into it the more they discovered what a bottomless abyss it was.
What was mana? Was it energy or something else? Different approaches were formed to further the study, different theories came up from those approaches, and from it, different schools of magic and techniques were formed that only grew wider with time. However as to what mana was even those who were famed for their knowledge and skills as either mages or knights never could give a definitive answer.
Mana seemed to be everywhere holding every fabric of their world together. Mana seemed to either be the breath of the planet or the planet was its breath. The latter is believed to be true as there have been strange creatures and objects that have been birthed in areas with extremely rich concentrations of mana. This has led credence to the hypothesis that mana is limitless and will continue to exist without diminishing as long as the planet existed. Some even speculated even without the planet it would continue to exist. Though not much headway was made into that assumption. But what they did discover though was the deeper they sunk into the abyss known as mana the better they understood themselves and the world around them. The more creative they got on the wondrous uses of mana and its effects on their lives. With every step they took, the world around them changed and they along with it. Life expectancy changed for those who could better use it and walked further in it started living longer due to how mana was changing their physiology even the magical beasts too.
From longer lives, dynasties were born, hegemons and terrifying creatures that seemed to be truly undying. With it also came the preservation of history and continuation of legacies which was a boon to the growth of civilization that eventually grew to what it is today. It is still growing since the study of mana is a never-ending journey. The battles may not be widespread and sporadic as they were in the early era of mana discovery but they have gotten much more destructive as compared to before. Fights that were fought with thousands of people could now be handled by a single person. This gave rise to the term "CALAMITIES" in the Trilunar world.
"CALAMITIES" was the collective term used by the inhabitants of Trilunar to describe a single person despite the race or a creature that has the power to topple a few kingdoms by themselves. Some identities of these "CALAMITIES" are known while others are in complete secrecy that only fellows of their level can tell they are there. As for who they are time may or may not reveal them.
Necessity bred the evolution of mana application and discovery on the planet, be it in the improvement of life, domination, or murder with the latter experiencing the highest of growths.
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Leo was driving his carriage towards a large warehouse that had a board with the symbol of a golden rose beautifully drawn on it with the name Golden Rose Company written below it. The pathway leading to the entrance was swarmed with carriages with lots of crates of goods either being brought into the warehouse or being brought out.
A handful of people dressed in a similar fashion were moving about in and out of the warehouse. They had on white shirts, white vests that had a gold rose ornament sewn on it and black pants with white gloves. They moved with professionalism and had polite smiles on their faces as they smoothly dealt with the owners of the carriages outside the warehouse. They were the attendants of the Golden rose company. Among them, were wood elves, half-elves, humans, beastmen, a gray orc, a goblin, and a faun carefully inspecting certain equipment at the side with careful scrutiny.
One of the attendants saw Leo making his way over to the entrance of the warehouse on foot. He had left Dyr with the carriage at the back of the line. The attendant was a half-elf. She had brown red hair tied up into a bun, half-tipped ears typical of half-elves, and elvish beauty to match. By the light-dark shade of her skin, her elven parent was a dark elf.
The half-elf quickly made her way to Leo with a smile on her face though it was different from the one afforded to customers, this was more natural like the one given to an old friend.
"Hey, Leo. Odd to see you come to the warehouse this early. Mira kick you out again?"
"Gueva not you too. You've been hanging around Padrig too much these days. I think I need to tell Alf to add you more shifts and how your venomous tongue is sending longtime customers away," Leo snidely remarked
"Already throwing threats of telling on me. That's rich coming from someone who takes vengeance on little Dyr for doing the exact thing. Like father like son I guess. What brings you to this fine establishment of ours?"
"I came to sell some blue sapphire wool and a couple of mithril weapons from Mira. There are also a few things I'd like to buy. Is Alf in? Some of the items on the list will have to be dealt with by him and there were a few things I wanted to discuss with him." Leo said as he handed over Mira's list to Gueva.
Gueva went over the list as she lightly murmured the prices of some of the things on the list. It was a few minutes later before she registered what Leo had asked.
"Ooh sorry about that. The boss is in his office you can just go through as I arrange the collection of some of the things on this list. Where's the carriage? Do you want us to transport them later to the village or will you go back with them yourself?"
"The carriage is at the back there. You'll find Dyr in the coach seat. As for transport well you can try to fit some of the things on the expansion chests I have and if they don't all fit the rest you can bring later," Leo said as he pointed Gueva in the general direction of where his carriage and Dyr were.
Gueva nodded in response as she disappeared into the large warehouse meanwhile Leo made his way to Alf's office which was through a small door behind the counter at the entrance of the warehouse.