Chapter 1: Birth and Death

In an old barn on a farm on the eastern side of the Adalwen Kingdom, a young woman was giving birth to her third child. She had already been in labor for the past 8 hours and it was now coming to an end.

"I see the baby Mrs. Bone! Just push a little more." yelled the midwife.

"I AM PUSHING! IF I PUSH ANYMORE I'M SURE I'LL BE EMPTY! WHAT ELSE YA WANT? A TURD!?" Diane growled back. This wasn't her first kid but it never gets easier. Not for her or her husband, Kevin, whose hand she had a death grip on.

Diane had brown hair and brown eyes. The stress of poverty and raising two kids was visible on her face, giving her an older appearance than her actual age of 26. Despite this, it was easy to see that she was beautiful. Kevin had short black hair, dark brown skin and big green eyes. His body was strong and muscular from days in the smithy. His rough and calloused hands were no help in protecting him from Diane's crushing squeeze.

"AAAAHHHHHHHH!" With one final push, the baby was out. Diane immediately collapsed against the blankets covering a small hill of hay. Kevin wiped at her sweaty face with a towel while excitedly looking towards the midwife for the gender reveal, secretly hoping for another boy.

"It's a boy!" exclaimed the midwife. Kevin chuckled and broke out into a stupid grin. This was his second son and in a few years, a new blacksmith. Diane smiled too, continuing to rest against her blankets. She knew Kevin would be gloating soon because he had already guessed that it would be a boy.

A few moments had passed and still not a peep was heard from the baby. The midwife hurriedly took the baby to a small patch of blankets beside Diane. She closed her eyes for a few moments in concentration. When she opened them, a light green glow shone from her palm onto the baby. The light traveled from the top of the baby's soft bald head down to his tiny toes.

"I don't understand..." said the midwife. This baby was born from two strong, healthy parents and had shown no signs of sickness while scanned in the womb. The baby was perfectly healthy! His lungs, heart, brain and other internal organs were fine. Nothing was missing except... The midwife checked the baby again, this time scanning for a longer time to make sure that her suspicion was correct.

"What? What's wrong with my baby boy?" Diane was a pro at giving birth by now and she understood that something was wrong with her child because he wasn't crying. Kevin had also realized that something was wrong and had walked over to the midwife to see his son. She was standing with a startled expression, staring at the baby while a light shone from her palms every few seconds. She kept this up for a few minutes while Kevin and Diane watched anxiously.

The midwife turned towards them, shaking her head. "I'm so sorry Mr. and Mrs. Bone but your son was born dead. I'm only a C rank healer, so I'm not completely sure, but I think there is something wrong with the baby's mana poles."

"What's wrong with them? Can you fix it? Please fix my son! I'll give you anything." said Kevin desperately. Diane had begun to weep in her makeshift bed. Even without much knowledge of healing magic, she understood that there was nothing they could do for their son from the midwife's tone and the perplexed look on her face.

"I think I should be more clear. There isn't anything wrong with his mana poles, they simply don't exist. My guess is that the dense mana in our world could not flow through him so it pressed down on him and suffocated him." This statement caused the atmosphere to become heavy. This had to be wrong! No one in all of the Adalwen Kingdom had been born without mana poles. Maybe no one in the entire world. Mana poles are points in the body where mana could be accumulated. This mana was either stored in the mana core or circulated through the body to be used to perform magic. Every living thing had a mana core and poles. Animals and plants had small amounts of mana poles, usually under 30 in total though. Humans and magic beats could have hundreds of mana poles based on their cultivation. Humans were born with 5 - 8 mana poles. There were cases of babies with less or more than 5 but they were rare and zero was unheard of. How could Kevin and Diane believe it?

"That's impossible!" Kevin started. "If that were true, our son would practically be a stone! Even a stone contains mana so what does that make him?" Kevin had began whispering by the end of sentence, almost talking to himself though everyone had heard him. What was a person without mana?

"I'll admit, I've never heard of it happening before either but it's happening now in front of us. I'm sorry for your loss." The midwife stood up and brought the baby boy over to Diane and gently placed him in her arms. Diane looked down at her baby boy through glossy eyes and gently rubbed his head. Defeated, Kevin walked back over to his wife with silent tears running down his face and placed the baby's small hand into his own.

"Ashriel. We were going to name him Ashriel." Diane said after some time.

The midwife responded with a soft smile. "Ashriel Bone. What a lovely name."

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In this world there were three destinations for souls after death. The Soul Imprisonment Plane, the Soul Plane and the Soul Elysium Plane. The Imprisonment Plane was for the souls of evil people. No matter how strong they were when alive, people who died after committing atrocities during their life were brought there. The Elysium Plane was for good people and heroes. These two planes were extremes however and were very hard to get into. The Soul Plane was the biggest of the three planes. It was separated into many sections for different types of souls.

Ashriel died as an infant. He was neither exceptionally good nor evil so his soul was gliding along the Soul Path towards the Soul Plane. Along the path was a tall woman watching the souls as they went by. She was slender and had smooth brown skin. Her hair was a mass of curls on her head, wild but shaped into an afro. She was the Goddess that oversaw the Soul Path. It was the job of her and her deities to make sure that each soul went to the proper plane.

As she watched the souls float by, an infant caught her eye. With the advance of magic among humans, it was not often that she saw infants along the Soul Path. With a small wave of her hand, the infant floated over to her. Checking the stats of his spiritual essence, she saw that his name was Ashriel Bone. He had died of mana suffocation.

"Poor thing. To be born in a world of mana without mana poles, what a shame." The Goddess held him and rocked him as he cooed in her arms. As she held him she noticed a marking on his stomach. It was a circle around his belly button with eight arrows around it pointing to all directions. The Goddess was stunned. How could this random infant possess that man's symbol on his soul?

"Boy! Your time has not yet come. You're a new soul, it is much too early for you to rest in the Soul Plane. Here let me help you." With the wave of her hand, 1 of Ashriel's mana poles were opened.

"You're possibly the last part of his legacy, I have to save you, but I don't have to give you a life worth living. Death at birth is too early an escape for your life of suffering. Have fun in life as the weakest living thing alive!"