3 Ch 3: Past Lives
--- 4 Years Later---
The young boy named Baldeur in this life watched the different colored winds drift high in the sky. Bright multicolored star could be seen in the background.
It was a sight that only he could see. Each color represented a different Source energy. Those who were connected to a Source could see the wind of their Source clearly.
Only when a particular Source Wind was strong would those not attached to it be able to see it, though the color would be a bit muted.
Since he had access to each Source, he could see all seven colors twisting high above.
He liked to spend the early morning hours up on the high roof of his family's townhouse, just watching the winds and trying to figure out the why of it all.
This was his ninth life, atleast of those that he could remember. He had a life with each Source as the singular Source in the world he was living on.
Now he was born in the City of Gates which not only had seven Sources but numerous portals to different worlds. Some of those worlds had one source, most had three or four.
The numbers seven and nine both had meaning in the different worlds he lived in. Some meanings were common among worlds, others were unique to the specific Sources.
What was common about seven among the worlds was its stability. While eight and nine were stronger, they were more difficult to control and prone to failure.
Nine was the peak of power within the different Sources. There were the nine circles of Mana, nine realms of Qi, nine choirs of Divinus, nine elemental threads of Laksulm, and nine sins of Infernius.
The outliers were the five Psychic disciplines and the 13 nature aspects of Anodular.
If everything was nine there might be a higher meaning. If everything was seven that would make even more sense.
What frustrated Baldeur was how close everything lined up to his theories but then one little aspect of a Source would throw everything off.
Maybe there wasn't an underlying theory of everything? Maybe everything that was happening to him was a coincidence? The only world that had stories of people remembering past lives was his first life on Earth, where those stories were all fiction.
As the artificial dawn approached in the City of Gates, the massive Sun Orbs around the city began to light up. They floated high above the city with a massive chain holding each in place.
Baldeur watched as the light from the orbs overtook the light from the Source Winds. Only the currently two strongest could still be seen, Mana and Anodular.
He was glad the Infernius faded out first. Memories of his previous life were still hard to control. They no longer caused him mental anguish but the very nature of them caused him difficulty.
On the world of Tartarus he had been born as an envy demon. Considering that it was a hellish world, it wasn't a bad life overall. That was until he ran across a gluttony abomination.
A simple walk to the next village ended with him being consumed. His mind and soul were made a part of the abomination along with all of its other victims. The chaos of all those different lives still resonated with his memories.
There were a number of high ranked demons that had been absorbed which gave him knowledge and experience in controlling Infernius that no other demon would be able to acquire.
It just so happened that this particular gluttony abomination was allowed to live for centuries as a way for high ranked demons to dispose of other high ranked demons and make it look like an accident. It was only killed after its appetite grew to the point that it started to attack cities rather than stay in the wilderness.
Having access to greater knowledge than his average lives should have allowed, was a common theme among his lives.
His seventh life he was born into a fallen noble house that had a long history of item creation using the elemental threads of Laksulm. When he was born into the world of al'Nuras it was two generations after a near apocalypse.
The government of that world had artifacts that controlled the amount of elemental threads in the world. Only those of high houses had access to their full strength. Baldeur wasn't born into one of those.
So even though he had a wealth of knowledge from previous generations, he didn't have access to the necessary powers to use that knowledge to its fullest.
In his sixth life he was born into the world of Faefael. He was able to become a well known healer and often accepted books on Anodular as payment from wealthy families.
Unfortunately his talents in that world were very focused on healing, making most of the knowledge he acquired useless in that life.
His fifth life was on the world of Hyrod was his most successful life. This Psychic world would be described as cyberpunk back on Earth.
Baldeur used his knowledge of Earth games and programming to become a legendary game maker. He died as one of the wealthiest people on Hyrod. He also had one of the largest libraries. Though since he could only use telekinesis, most of the knowledge was once again useless to him.
Celestion was the most boring world he had lived on. He was a mid level angel that lived a life of perpetual peace. Knowledge of the different choirs was freely accessible in this world but using songs outside your choir was punishable by death.
While peaceful, it was also the harshest world he had lived in. Stepping out of line even a little resulted in extreme punishments.
His third life on the world of Yutang was the most disappointing. On Earth he has read many cultivation novels and was excited to join a sect and advance through the realms of Qi.
After a hundred years of hard work, he was forced to give up on reaching the higher realms. He just didn't have the talent to become a master of that world.
It was another three hundred years of a decent life when he thought his luck had turned around. He found a legacy vault filled with different cultivation, martial, and Qi techniques.
Finally he was able to advance again.
Unfortunately after a near century of solitary study, others found the legacy vault. Even though he had progressed immensely, there were too many of them for him to survive. He was still frustrated that he couldn't attain greatness in that world.
When he was born into his second life on Exondar he thought he was going to be a hero of legend. After all, being reborn in a world of magic was a common troupe in stories. But he was only able to attain the fifth circle of Mana.
It still placed him above average but not someone that could save the world. Of course the other problem was that the world didn't need saving. It wasn't a peaceful world but there were no undead kings of demon lords trying to destroy everything. Just mundane squabbles among different kingdoms and noble houses.
He ended up being a librarian in a prestigious university. The hope was to use the resources his job would give him to advance.
But it never happened.
"Baldeur?" His mother called from the attic window.
The call of his current name pulled him back to the present.
