Chapter 11: The Tales of Two brothers, the unloved son.
[AN: I decided to change the writing style because I had changed it during my other work.]
[Third Person's Point of View]
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Calculha once ruled Atlantis alongside his wife and rival, Majistra, who bore him two sons, before the continent sunk. He was also an ancestor of those in the Atlantean Royal Family. His two sons with Majistra were Atlan the first born and Kordax.
Although Calculha had two sons, Majistra bore three in total. It became clear at the birth of the third son that Majistra had committed infidelity towards Calculha and he was furious. He searched for the father of the bastard son, who turned out to be his most loyal friend and killed him on the spot.
After the death of his once-priced counselor, Calculha still felt the need for revenge, Majistra gave up the bastard son without any resistance as its existence also sullied her dignity. It was the proof that she had not been fateful. She hoped that Calculha would kill the child and everything would return to normal.
[AN: Before anyone says anything, there are some cases where mothers do not love their children and even hate them.]
In retrospect, that would have been a more merciful fate for the child but King Calculha was fresh out of mercy. He was a powerful sorcerer-king thus he cast a curse on the bastard son. He cursed the son to be hated by all who lived in his Kingdom and robbed him of everything that could make him be liked or loved.
Calculha allowed- no forced the bastard son to live just to see him suffer. Even when Majistra plotted numerous ways to kill her youngest son, Calculha prevented his death... only his death. If the plan involved suffering before death, Calculha would only prevent the death part.
At some point, seeing that the unloved son had given up on everything, Calculha felt something he had not felt in a while, boredom. He decided to sink lower into the depravity of his vengeance. He created a rumor and let it be known to the unloved son.
"The black dragon, marked by the sea, guards the knowledge of its creation and sleeps beneath the sea. Destined to live alone till the end of time through a perpetual cycle of reincarnation. Only the one who can find the dragon's egg can learn the secret of the philosopher stone but beware it will come at the cause of breaking the cycle and unleashing the dragon through the world."
It was said that the Philosopher Stone could do anything even break any curse. The unloved son decided to search for it, it took years of hard work and blood but the unloved son managed to find the place that was rumored to house the Black Dragon.
Even if he was neither skilled in combat nor magic or tactical abilities, he charged in with a warned-out armor and rusty sword that he managed to stumble upon. When he arrived and was prepared to die, he was teleported to the Atlantean's Auditorium with the entire Kingdom there... laughing at him.
Calculha proceeded to secretly explain to the unloved son via telepathy that he 'paved' the way to his pointless adventure. He relished the look on the unloved son. Atlan and Kordax were there as well but neither helped the unloved son. Calculha had taught his son to hate the unloved son.
Unfortunately, Calculha underestimated the unloved son. The unloved son plotted his revenge and sowed the seed of mistrust in his brother against their parents. The two brothers loved their kingdom above all else and it was easy to show that their parents did not share the same sentiment.
If left unchecked, they would destroy the Kingdom for their selfish goals. Believing that lie, Atlan and Kordax usurped the throne and killed their parents much to the joy of the unloved son.
When both Calculha and Majistra died, Atlan became the king and united the seven Kingdoms before he gave Kordax the right to rule one of those Kingdoms, Necrus. The unloved son was exiled and from his perspective freed from the now-named Atlantis.
After Atlan became the first king of Atlantis, he created a trident to rule the kingdom. Because of his lead, Atlantis faced great technological advancement.
Necrus grew by exploiting orichalcum. Atlan pleaded with his younger brother to stop using orichalcum before the world was destroyed, but in his deranged madness, Kordax thought Atlan was trying to steal the power of Necrus as they did to their parents.
So Kordax created the Black Trident with dark magic, not knowing that it had been modified by the unloved son, and transformed the people of Necrus and himself into monsters. The Brothers went to war but Kordax was defeated by King Atlan who imprisoned him and all of Necrus in ice with a curse that required Atlan's blood to break it. It is hidden beneath the caps of Antarctica.
A disastrous experiment with the Trident of Atlan headed by Atlan caused Atlantis to sink beneath the waves. Horrified and guilt-ridden by this travesty, he went into a self-imposed exile and died in a deep pit in the Hidden Sea.
The Hidden Sea is a realm found at the Earth's core. It is only accessible through a maelstrom in the Kingdom of the Trench.
Before his death, Atlan left behind a message inside of an artifact that can only be displayed when inserted into a stand in the forge in the Kingdom of the Deserters, where the Trident was made. In the message, Atlan guides the true heir to the Trident, telling them that with its power they can unite above and below not knowing that the message was destroyed by the unloved son.
Once the unloved son left Atlantis, he was partly freed from his curse as anything he did would not lead to him being loved by the people who lived in the Kingdom. Even though his life before his exile was not something that could be called living, he managed to obtain unparalleled knowledge of magic.
With the accumulated knowledge, he was able to create a new type of magic that was limitless in its reach of capabilities yet shackled with a simple rule that made the magic work. He combined his knowledge of magic with science, especially in Alchemy, to create that new magic called Transmutation.
Transmutation is the scientific and arcane technique of understanding the structure of ANY matter, decomposing it, and then reconstructing it. It could work on anything be it magic, divine, demonic, or anything else due to the one rule of Equivalent Exchange.
He also managed to create a philosopher stone on his own but it was not able to free him from his curse. The ingredients for the philosopher stone were the souls of Calculha and Majistra who had been trapped by an Artifact that the unloved son had stolen amid the rebellion and before their death.
Upon hearing rumors of Kordax's demise, he went to Atlantis where he learned the details of his half-brother's demise in exchange for the life of the soldier he killed via Transmutation. He laughed so hard that he feared to have broken half of his ribs.
As he was about to leave the Kingdom, he was stopped by the pent-up rage that he had carried in his younger years, he wanted complete revenge. He secretly infiltrated the castle and caused one of Atlan's experiments to go wrong hoping it would kill him but it only caused Atlantis to sink which the unloved son relished.
He then spent centuries traveling the world where he encountered a member of the Endless, Dream. Dream explained to the unloved son that he was a true Conduent. A mortal that was compatible with every type of energy.
Dream was interested in the unloved son as he had created a unique magic that resembled his power, it was the closest thing to reality manipulation that was balanced and came from mortal origin. Transmutation could warp reality... only after paying an equivalent price or energy.
Dream was also interested in learning how a mortal could create such magic. Amused by the juvenile curiosity within him, he decided to trade information for information. He gave the unloved son all the ways he could fully break free from his curse while the unloved son told him his story.
The unloved son decided to use his Transmutation to free himself from his curse and obtain much more. He traded his freedom, his sense of self, his form, and much more to be free from his curse and evolve.
The condition for him to regain his freedom was for someone to find him that was because he had decided to be imprisoned in the place where the legend of the Philosopher Stone as his tormenter had not bothered to remove the rumor which turned into a legend over time.
And so Anon, the nameless prince waits for the moment he would be free as he evolves with each passing second. Not knowing that the action he took to sabotage the experiment changed Atlan's Trident and caused the latter to be trapped in it upon his death, suffering a similar fate as Kordax.
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Acnologia closes the book. He was currently in his dreamscape which had now become Kingdom of Atlantis before it sunk.
[Acnologia's Point of View]
This implies that I am somewhat the product of Anon, his reincarnation in a way. I should probably feel something about this but from where I stand, Anon got his revenge and this has nothing to do with me.
I am me and that's that, though this story does have its benefits, I now know the existence of two tridents with magical powers. With my Alchemy, I could fuse them and have my own weapon, worthy of me. Yeah, the prideful part of myself likes this idea.
The Trident of Atlan, also known as the Sacred Trident, is an ancient Atlantean relic forged for and originally wielded by the ancient king of Atlantis, Atlan. The legends say that whoever wields it becomes the King of the seven seas.
One magical trident is located in the caps of Antarctica while the other is in the Kingdom of the Trench. To my knowledge, I am the only one who has both the knowledge of the location and the will to obtain those two tridents.
I must proceed with patience and focus on my primary goal convert the Order Energy that I siphon from Nabue into Chaos via Alchemy then proceed to make Arcane Energy. This time I will absorb it, and this should enhance my abilities.
It is difficult to explain but the Arcane Energy I gave Dream had yet to be absorbed. It's like Naruto when he obtained the Nine Tail's chakra. He stored it somewhere inside him and when he used it, his appearance changed. That is the same concept with Arcane Energy and me absorbing it.
The good thing about my newly discovered dreamscape is that I can store knowledge in here that I have yet to learn. Normally that would not be possible but I guess this must be a combination of Dream's gift and the fact that I transmuted a full copy of all the knowledge of Nabue into here at the cost of a lot of magic power... that I also siphoned from him.
His knowledge took the form of a library. now that I no longer required him for his knowledge, I focused on siphoning as much power as I could before I let him go. Kent said that Nabue needed to be available for the moment the world needed him and such.
I told him that I would set Nabue free after a week and boy did I drain as much Order Energy from him as I could. I was not stupid, I did not set Nabue free without insurance, I used Alchemy to set an equivalent exchange, he would gain his freedom but unknowingly lose the ability to do any form of harm to me.
Before setting Nabue free, I had obtained twice as much Arcane Energy that I gave to Dream and I used it to enhance myself, I, a thirteen-year-old boy, could now arm wrestle Superman, who is a pretty chill dude, though I knew he was going easy on me.
That kindness will be his downfall one day, I mean a villain could easily exploit it. Out of curiosity, I decided to a bit of Arcane Energy into the ground to see what it would do to an inanimate object. My shadow was in the way and by luck, it became animated as it became similar to Pride's shadow from Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood.
Seeing this I decided to put the rest of my Arcane Energy, which was not much, into my shadow, it became able to grow shadow-like limbs through my control and could cut through diamonds and magic shields. I should know I tested it.
The best part and the reason why I added more Arcane Energy, it could perform Alchemy though it required my command to do it.
This is the good news I needed after the setback of finding the missing Kryptonian. I managed to find a way to map out and act as a sort of radar in our research to find the missing Kryptonian as that would result in a safer outcome once I perform the spell than doing it without it.
To be more clear, I was trying to get the exact coordinates of the missing Kryptonian so that I could bring that missing Kryptonian and nothing else or extra. It's like trying to find a needle in a haystack as I have been told.
Superman has been cheering and thanking me every day for my efforts even when I still find nothing. It would have been faster if I still had Nabue as a battery but my magical reserve increased with each try that ended with me being drained.
Speaking of Nabue, apparently, I no longer need to worry about Klarion coming after me personally, not that I ever did, I was cautious, not worried, anyway, this is due to me trapping Nabue for a bit which caused me to not be liked by the Lords of Order while some Lords of Chaos became my fans.
According to Kent, the Lords of Order were planning on punishing me but Nabue intervened much to his bewilderment. Nabue's reason was that he hoped that in the future I would be mature enough to see the importance and privilege of being his host, now that I was more attuned to Order Magic.
Now to anyone else, it might sound like he was full of himself but I knew that it was due to the little insurance I had placed upon him. He could no longer do anything that could harm me in any way. Letting the Lords of Orders act was going against it.
Things became quiet after learning that Klarion was no longer after me though whether it was due to becoming my fan or being bored did not change what I intended to do with him after I found the two tridents.
Another year went by fast, I was now fourteen years old, and nothing really out of the ordinary happened. I went out, beat the bad guys with Orin or Wonder Woman depending on the circumstance and I still failed at finding the missing Kryptonian much to my irritation.
I also received my hero name from the media which was the same I got from Gotham, Triton. I was no hero so I kept my distance from the media. I met the other sidekicks but I was not impressed. The two that do not have powers seemed to want some validation and the one that has superspeed is the personification of teenage horniness.
I guess Kaldur is the only one other than me who is mature then again maybe it's both of us who are odd for our age. Now some might wonder how I could be fine with being called a sidekick. The reason is simple, the bad guys seem to underestimate sidekicks and I am not a fool who tells his enemy to fight seriously.
'If the enemy is down, do not land him a hand to stand up but aim for his crotch to take him out.'
~Acnologia, the art of not being a stupid protagonist.
The first lesson that is taught in Atlantis' military school is the greatest weapon you can have is your opponent underestimating you. That is also the first lesson mom taught me during our magic lesson.