Chapter 002 | Alister Firestone (2)

Edited 09/04/23

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"You are the brightest star! O' loving father!"

"Rain thy light upon your humble servants!"

"O' Lord of a Thousand Suns! Praise thee be!"

Alister stood among the crowd, his right hand raised to his chest, his head bowed as he repeated the prayer in his heart.

'O' father…bless my heart.'

He whispered as he felt a warm feeling envelope his being, making him feel a little light headed.

He wore a black cloak which covered his features, the sun had set and the pale shimmer of moon illuminated the streets, others wore similar cloaks thus he didn't need to worry about looking out of place.

Alister had gone out to the market to buy the things he required.

The streets of, City Of Gloria, were filled with statues, all of them heavily decorated with flowers and real gold. The many statues all depicted the same being, an otherworldly creature who seem to be bathing in white light, as if it were the sun itself.

Alister, surrounded by other people, stood before one such statue, praying.

The statue depicted a being that had seemingly hundred arms, each holding a different item, all originating from its back, while his entire body seemed deathly white.

One could see small stone-like gems embedded onto its chest, it's arms had golden bracelets wrapped around the wrists while a deep ocean-blue, and white, coloured cloth covered its lower body.

However, the most striking thing about the statue was the crown resting on top of its head, unlike the other details, the crown itself seemed to be very much alive, it gave others a surreal feeling, as if they were being standing in front of something living.

This was a god.

Humanity as a whole worshipped four gods—"The Lord Of A Thousand Suns", "Master Of The Seas", "He Who Has No Face" and "The Child Of The Moon".

Humanity was divided into four major human kingdoms and each of them worshipped a god.

There was a Holy Citadel in the capital of each of the four kingdoms.

The Astral Kingdom Of the North was, one of the four, most well known Human Kingdoms, it spanned over enormous lands and five seas.

Just to put in perspective, the entire Asia continent was still smaller than the Astral Kingdom.

The people of Astral Kingdom worshipped "The Lord Of A Thousand Suns" as their patron god, spending an enormous sum each year, as donations, to churches, all over the kingdom.

Unlike the gods in Alister's previous world, the gods of Vaijia would very much interact with the mortal plane.

These gods would actively bestow blessing upon their followers, allowing the latter to perform miracles.

People could imbue their magic and strengthen it with their god's blessing through prayers or chants.

A god's blessing could be used by two groups, Believers and Followers.

Believers were a liberal bunch, people who believed in more than one god.

A very small portion of the population of the Astral Kingdom consisted of believers.

Believing in different gods allowed one to invoke different gifts but the effects were quite weak.

Whereas Followers were, for a lack of a better word…a more zealous bunch.

These people were extreme conservatives that prayed to a single god, and were borderline hostile to the presence of another.

Most of the population of the Four Kingdoms fell into this category.

These people followed their god's teaching to the bone, preaching the holy sculptures to the common populace, allowing them to draw great power from their faith, much greater than a believer.

However, as a result of their devotion to one god, they were unable to use the blessing of another god.

The members of church were all followers without any exception, with the Pope being the core representative of their god.

However, all of this was a slippery slope since faith and religion had a major influence over the population, the intolerance among the followers of the different gods caused the Four Kingdoms to be at odds with each other. Small conflicts would often arise and would sometimes even spiral into full blown wars, with the threat of being attacked by other races keeping a nifty balance among the kingdoms.

Alister himself was a believer, as someone from the 21st century, it was neigh impossible for him to have the same level of devotion other people had.

In simple terms, he simply lacked faith.

'I need to buy the awakening potion, hopefully I will be able to awaken some kind of innate ability…'

Alister withdrew from the group who were busy praying, and moved deeper into the market, he had one goal in his mind, he wanted to get his hands on the awakening potion that would allow him to awaken his magic, and if he was lucky, then maybe an innate ability too.

Humans generally awakened their magic after turning 18, those belonging to noble families had the luxury of having their magic awakened by the Elders of their house, where the latter would use their magic to forcibly open the magic nodes within the former's body, by flooding them with magic.

Alas, commoners weren't privy to such treatment, nor could they afford it.

There were other means one could use to awaken their magic, like using potions such as awakening potion. However such potions were costly and were only available in the black market as all the Potion Shops were controlled and regulated by nobles.

Nobles would never allow commoners to even dream about awakening magic, the former only cared about controlling the latter, after all, which lord would want a servant capable of revolting against them?

Of course, this had nothing to do with Alister, he couldn't care less about the nobles or their rules, he only cared about his interests and freedom.

And in order to ensure that, he would get his hands on the awakening potion no matter the means.

In the academy, he would be eligible to apply for an awakening potion for a decent chunk of his credit points, that would be allocated to him per month by the Institute but he wanted to save those credit points in order to loan magic books instead.

Alister had spent the past couple of years learning everything their was to know about the academy curriculum, having planned his initial steps very meticulously.

He was well aware that in order to gain any semblance of social standing in this world, he had to perform well in the academy.

In order to do that, he had to gain strength…fast.

He would be up against nobles who were not only his better in lineage but also had better resources at their disposal.

So he had to be prepared.

'I should hurry…'

Alister briskly walked towards the Ashen Alley.

Ashen Alley was the red light district of the City of Gloria, nobles and commoners, alike, often visited this place to enjoy themselves in brothels and drink booze, there were often scandals pertaining mainly nobles as they would often end up knocking up some whore and would later have to deal with a bastard child.

The church, and the faithful, hated the place with passion.

They wanted nothing more than to burn the place to the ground, however, many nobles had their businesses tied up in this place so they couldn't allow the faith do as they please.

Not to mention that the nobles were anyway at odds with the church since the latter had huge political power over the kingdom, and would always try to encroach onto more land in the name of god.

However, all of this was just a cover, the tip of the iceberg.

The real reason why the noble didn't allow church to touch this place was due to the fact that Ashen Alley was a cover for the biggest black market in the entire kingdom, and many factions had a stake in the capital's black market.

Smuggling of goods, transportation of drugs, auctioning of precious items, selling of information, contracts for assassination, slave trafficking was all a part of the black market.

Nobles were a sick bunch, many of them had hobbies that, if ever exposed, would garner the pope to personally come and execute them on the spot.

Therefore in order for them to indulge in their sick fantasies, they backed the black market as a necessary evil.

However they weren't the only ones, they were others that allowed for the place to run like clockwork, like rich travelling Merchants, Chamber Of Commerce, the Royal Family, Politicians, and Criminals.

Everything was interconnected and interdependent in this god forsaken place.

Upon entering the district, Alister's nose was assaulted by a heavy smell of alcohol and perfume.

"Bwahaha…! Keep the booze coming chief!"

There was a lot of loud noise, men chortled wildly, clearly drunk beyond belief.

Keen to take advantage of their drunken state, prostitutes and pickpockets would take it as their queue and act swiftly.

The women wore seductive smiles, eager to show off their charm. Swaying their hips, they would brush their bodies against the men with the oblivious intention of charming them, and if the latter took the bait they would earn some coins.

Whereas the pickpockets were a more daring kind, they would rely on their sleight of hand to strip their targets of any valuables. Sometimes they would slip up, get caught, and when they did, a faith worse than death awaited them.

Alister would watch for a moment before moving away, he felt nothing for these people.

His black cloak allowed for him blend with his surroundings, his footsteps quiet and quick.

He made his way towards a rundown bar.

Pushing the wooden door, he quietly entered inside before locking the door behind him.

"You are finally here, Alister…"

A woman, in her late thirties, spoke in a hushed tone as she motioned for Alister to remove the hood covering his face.

Alister took off his hood and made his way towards the bar counter.

"I got caught up, Aunt Layla…"

"How is Annie?"

"She is recovering quickly, thanks to you."

"I am glad I could help, don't worry, she is a strong kid."

"That she is…I have brought what you asked for, Alister."

The woman took out a green vial, from below the counter, and handed it to Alister.

He looked at the green vial for a few seconds before placing it within his cloak.

"Thank you, Aunt Layla…"

"It's alright kid, it is because of you that my daughter lives, this is the least I can do for you."

The woman, named Layla, was a bar owner in the Ashen Alley district.

She was Alister's mother's friend and provided his family with sewing materials, at a discount, from the black market.

Her husband had died a few years ago due to a strange illness that had also latched onto her seven years old daughter, Annie.

Layla had tried her level best to search for a cure for her daughter, hiring the best doctors she could afford, all for naught.

The disease that her daughter suffered was very strange, no one had ever seen anything like it before.

Magic didn't affect the disease while the conventional doctors weren't able to understand the reason behind the symptoms of the disease.

In this world, people were very much dependent on magic for treating any kind of disease, this in turn resulted in a very slow growth of traditional medicine and equipment.

A disease that was impervious to magic was very rare, and often treated as incurable.

Thankfully for the girl, Alister had quite the medical expertise to deal with her situation.

According to what he had observed, it was like the body of the child was attacking itself.

The girl had been losing weight, had blurry vision, couldn't muster the any strength and was experiencing stomach pain.

The symptoms of the disease reminded him of a disease that was once thought to be incurable in his world–Type-I Diabetes.

Type-I Diabetes was caused when the pancreas didn't make insulin or made very little insulin.

The disease by itself didn't kill but weakened the body enough that the person would be prone to other diseases.

It was only later that a cure was discovered, in the form of insulin shots, and while this world didn't have insulin shots, it did have something similar.

A magical plant who's leaves had the desired effect on humans, not to mention, it was quite cheap.

Alister went ahead and brought a few of those plants before somehow convincing Layla to let Annie eat it's leaves.

The women had nothing to lose so she complied, and her gamble paid off.

It took some time but Annie's condition improved and she was no longer in any danger.

In order to repay Alister for saving her daughter's life, Layla vowed to help him however she could.

It was only due to her support, the beautiful gems that she had gotten for him, that he was able to convince Lady Maya into becoming his loyal customer.

Layla was a knowledgeable woman who had spent a lot of time cultivating connections in the black market.

Hoping to find the awakening potion, Alister had requested her to find it for him.

Money didn't matter to him at the moment, he had saved up quite a sum and was willing to pay for the potion.

Thankfully for him, using the connection she had around the black market, Layla managed to convince a high-profile prostitute to procure an awakening potion using her noble lover, in exchange for a lot of gold.

When Alister heard of this deal, he readily agreed.

And now he finally had the potion in his hands.

"You would be leaving soon huh?"

"Unfortunately yes, Aunt Layla."

"I would visit from time to time as I believe that this wouldn't be the last time I would need to visit this place."

"Cheeky kid, take care of yourself."

"I will…"