Birth of Light

Four days passed in the blink of an eye, it was already obvious by the end of the first day that they weren't heading in the direction of the capital.

Over the first two days their initially large group met up with three other groups of similar sizes and began to move in the same direction – the only difference between the groups being that the other three had both wagons and horses, Baileys' group had been the only one forced to walk the distance and it was already taking a toll on him physically and mentally.

The group would stop every night and rest until dawn, the group would divert off of the dirt road onto the grass and set-up camp for the night. The military personnel would then distribute food among them, apart from a few minor fights that were quickly settled by the militia the nights were quiet.

Every night Bailey would find himself near the furthest corner of the camp, resting his head against the side of a wagon. A book rested in his hands as he flipped the pages slowly, absorbing the knowledge in each page fully before moving on, if anyone had been around to see this they would have been astonished at how old the book in his hands was.

Although in pristine condition for a book its age it dated back at least sixty years to the time when Elementa was still being spread through across the world. The book was personally written by the Emperor himself and was priceless, yet somehow it had appeared in Baileys' hands.

"Basics of Elementa." Was the title of the book, Bailey himself had been shocked by the origins of the book yet he wasn't interested in learning how to use Elementa before so the book had rested on his shelf for many years since the day he'd first found it.

But now? Now the book was his best hope of surviving. Some may have called him foolish for letting such a valuable book go to waste and they would've been right, even now he was cursing himself for never having even the slightest of interest in learning before.

"Elementa should never be mistaken for a true element, Elementa should be looked at as a neutral force which is able to mimic the elements the most common misconception is that Elementa is a rigid force with set rules and regulations to follow – but then how did I, the founder of this power, control all the elements?

This is no secret among our clan members yet should be concealed from the rest of the world, our clan uses the rawest form of Elementa which is Chaos itself, Chaos is not constricted to a single purpose and can change to suit our needs…"

Bailey almost couldn't believe his eyes, was it possible that he'd somehow managed to pick up a secret book of the original Keilan Clan?

How had such an important book been simply discarded at the side of a bookstore? Bailey thought back to the day he'd found the book, it was after listening to an old man retelling the story of the empires founding that he'd exited the store and gone back to find the merchant caravan his father had brought him to the capital with.

Leaving the store he'd heard a sound in an alleyway at the side of the bookstore and being the inquisitive child he was he couldn't resist the temptation of an adventure, there was nothing in the alley apart from this book thrown aside.

Picking it up he'd noticed fresh blood splatters on the side of the building, frightened he ran as fast as he could and never looked back. It wasn't until he got home that he'd even looked at the cover of the book and since then he'd never opened it.

"Why am I such an idiot?!" Sweat trickled down his face as he thought of the danger he could've potentially placed himself in for simply running off with the book, but several years had passed since then and nothing had happened.

Pushing those thoughts to the back of his mind he concentrated on the book in hand, it was more important right now for him to learn how to harness Elementa for his own survival than worry about the origins of the book itself.

"To harness Elementa is a simple process, this chant has been perfected by myself over countless years since my first contact with Elementa and allows for someone with average talents to come in contact with Elementa within an hour of continuous chanting," Bailey repeated the words to himself as he read, he'd heard of the Elementa chants spread across the world yet even the most talented person would need a full day before he could feel Elementa an hour was too shocking.

"The most important aspect when mimicking energy with Elementa is to keep in mind what type of energy you want to mimic when chanting, already many of our clansmen have modified this chant to focus on specific elements and spread them across the world. So regardless they would never be able to choose their element, this is an internal secret of our clan and must never be disclosed to another living soul." The further he delved into the book the more astonished he became, why wouldn't he be? The things recorded in the book were simply too shocking to believe.

"The very reason I was able to discover Chaos was due to my yearning for power, for an undefeatable power which would allow me to protect our race… This was the reason for the birth of Chaos and yet it's also the reason for our secrecy, if the human race was given access to such power what would happen?

Our world would simply shatter from an imbalance of power and infighting would become common once more…"

Bailey closed the book on this final line and took a moment to reorganise his thoughts, it was simply too much to take in; in such a small time frame.

It took several minutes before he began to think back to the chant, pushing the shocking history of the world out of his mind for the moment, he needed to focus on gaining power before knowing the true history of the world.

Crossing his legs he sat silently and slowly began to mumble beneath his breath…

'What do you want?' A ghostly voice seemed to echo in his mind after an undeterminable amount of time. 'What do you seek?' The voice echoed again.

Bailey thought to the power of Chaos he'd seen mentioned in the book, but did he want such power? Did he need it? No. That was the only thought in his mind, it was subconscious but it overpowered the greed he felt in his mind to control the same power as the first Emperor.

'I want the power to survive, the power to protect those that are important to me, do I not? What use is the most powerful power if I'm not able to protect myself and those around me?'

A surging light began to appear in the darkness, the surrounding void around him retreated in fear. 'You have chosen well…' The voice echoed once more in his mind before disappearing, the only thing remaining in his mind being the growing light as it surged through his body.

'I only hope it's enough…' Bailey silently responded to the voice that had long faded into the darkness and focused on trying to move the energy in his body…