Awakening Into One's Own (Apothecaries Awakening) (Psuedo - LitRPG)

Amidst a myriad of stars, a vibrant jewel of varying shades of blue and green, hung in deep space. It was the third celestial rock from the sun of notable size. 

Far larger than one might assume upon first glance, if not fully traversed by mortal foot; this single planet, teeming with life and magic was host to countless species. Each was touched and changed with mana from that which had once been mundane.

Mana, a frequently unseen and immaterial energy, transformed by faith, will, and the natural laws of the universe, became ingrained with life and reality as we knew it. Mana could be harnessed and manipulated to form magic and transform elements among countless other uses. After its arrival millennia ago, mana had suffused most everything, including even the most desolate of places on this planet.

For innumerable eras, reaching far past thousands of years, unmeasured by all but the most elderly of Deities; none on the mortal plane, could recall the time before mana had saturated all life on Earth. It had become an integral part of existence, both present and future. Dreams were built upon magic, and made real through dedicated effort, study, and too often luck of those who pursued it. With enough time and sheer effort of will, or resources and political connections, most anything that you put your mind to could eventually be accomplished; for that was the unique aspect of mana.

Not all was dreamy and beautiful with magic. Cycles of terrible destruction had rained down upon multiple civilizations, scattered across time by chaotic nature. Tyrants and their opposition as well as natural disasters, fell upon both the innocent and guilty frequently without bias. Many years would pass, before a semblance of equilibrium or calm was reclaimed each Era. However, such historical destructions had never caused the level of fear and chaos as was currently spreading across the entire surface of the world, as well as its innumerable surrounding realms at this point in time.

Breathtaking heavens sought after by the most pious of followers, Hellish depths forever feared and oft unavoidable, as well as everything in between, lay in tumultuous upheaval. Super volcanoes burst forth with sky shattering eruptions, spilling out fire and ash as it smothered civilizations by the hundreds. Crashing waterfalls, pristine lakes, and glistening rivers shrunk as torrents of water were siphoned away to realms unknown. Massive land masses amidst the ocean and mainland vanished into cracks in reality, while primeval verdant green forests filled with towering and sprawling trees, that were direct descendants of the ancient Yggdrasil, were torn asunder as Deities and Devils fought to salvage a portion of their power.

Earth was undergoing a vast evacuation, as an unstoppable entity challenged the status quo. 

In its endless consumption of mana, the entity had set its sights upon the many sources of magic proliferate across the world. This all-consuming hunger, if you could call it such, had once been a small amorphous mass that bore little concern to those that claimed seership over Earth. Watching on from their lofty heavenly thrones, it was originally disdained as it grew in strength and size. Too soon, it eventually caused even those powerful beings and creatures, which held themselves detached and aloft of the affairs of the world, to shudder in fear.

Chaos incarnate was the driving force of this existence, branded with the name of Hunger. It appeared to serve no other purpose, than to consume mana and everything saturated with it to satisfy its appetite. Like a dark storm at night, it was built of dark cloud like masses with bolts of lightning illuminating its interior, glowing as it fed upon the magic sources of the planet. Although dealing in death was not its conscious intent, the fallout of its violent methods of extracting mana from the surroundings, frequently resulted in the snuffing out of many lives along the way.

Deities and Devils alike had given up on their attempts to destroy or even contain this existence, as all prior attempts had failed with disastrous results. Now, all that they could hope for, was to salvage a portion of their power. In a mass exodus, they began withdrawing and hiding away in their realms, hoping to tide over this catastrophe. These ascended beings once worshiped in love and fear, now showed their true colors. They granted only the most pious of followers entrance into their realms, in order to maintain the presence of strong faith. All the while they ravaged Earth of lingering sources of mana, in their search to make their realms self-reliant and unassailable. Those who lacked adequate faith, were left stranded by all but a rare-few deities, who truly were benevolent and lived by deed, rather than selfish intent. 

It was unfortunately not enough. Billions upon billions of sentient beings, and trillions more of other creatures were left to fend for themselves. The vast majority of those stripped of magic and mana perished, and only a fraction of a percent lived on, as mundane shadows of their former selves.

This crucible, inflicted upon Earth as a whole, was devastating. Only after being reduced down to the barest fading traces of magic and mana, on this abandoned world, did something change. Although ascended, they who had risen above their base mortal body, to become immortals, deities, and devils amidst the many thrones of the Pantheons, were powerless against this force of nature. They too could not escape the icy fingers of death, were they to challenge this new entity. And so, they fled. Blinded by their fears and the sealing of their realms, no Ascended being saw what followed next.

A single female personage, outside of the known Godly and Demonic Pantheons, graced upon the Earth. Wrapped in deep blue robes reminiscent of a healer, and beholding the destruction in front of her, she wept. Great creatures of legend lay suffering as the last traces of mana faded from their shaking forms. Land bound winged dragons heaved great breaths as if to take in any lingering traces of life-giving mana in the air, seeking to prolong their shortened existence. Grieving families across a wide spectrum of diversity, suffered together and watched as loved ones perished for lack of proper mana sustenance or magical care. Storms and earthquakes swept about unabated, as nature sought to regain its balance, after being terribly raped by its self-proclaimed caretakers.

As she wept, this woman watched as the entity, which had brought about this terrible tribulation, began reaching out long tendrils of darkness above the earth, as if to seek out those hidden realms; realms which had absconded away with far more mana than it had previously consumed.

The weight of a fallen world and numerous realms, filled with both innocent and not so innocent sentient life, bore heavily upon her weary shoulders as its fate was for her to decide. The task required of her to resolve this, was akin to torture. The price of torment paid, would not be of the body, but of the mind and soul. She would have to dedicate all of her powers and senses, to giving these residents a spark of hope. The worst of it all was not what she would have to do, but the unknown of how long she would have to bear the solitude and absolute lack of stimuli.

The most effective part of torture was not the methods of implementation, but the unknown time of how long, if ever, until it ended. It takes a powerful and incredibly resilient mind to resist the erosion of unmeasured and seemingly unending time. Gazing about at the destruction and the countless lives whose light of existence sparkled across the globe in her mind's eye, she watched on as those lights were extinguished at an alarming rate. 

A stray tendril of wind, drew itself from the air to wipe away the tears that fell from her eyes. With a sigh that encompassed far too much understanding and wisdom, she quietly gathered her resolve. With great resignation, she knew what she needed to do.

Raising her arms in front of her, palms up as if in supplication and pleading to the secret Laws of Reality; Darkness and Light gathered within her upturned hands. These, among many other Laws, twisted in impossible patterns as powers far beyond even the sum of the Pantheons' might, gathered forth from and around her.

Her power was built upon Laws of Reality, of which none in the many Pantheons now hidden away in fear, had truly touched upon. Hording their knowledge of three-dimensional runes, as if such was the epitome of their powers, neither the Ascended nor the mortals knew of the existence of a power greater than that which they wielded. The harnessing of this natural power, could only be accomplished by an eternity of obedience to, and knowledge of said Laws of Reality.

Sacrifice was required, and a sacrifice was made in order to wield these powers to create a prison. One for which She, even as powerful as she was, would be the walls, cage, and caretaker. The very fabric of reality was torn and stretched, as her body and soul broke down, and through her will, turned into the building blocks of a massive realm, to facilitate this endeavor.

A new reality, formed of her essence and maintained by her consciousness, took hold of the terrible entity. Sliding into a space between universes, this prison realm created by the powers of Time and Space, yet bereft of any mana, became a universe unto itself. With an Earth sucked dry of all but the barest traces of mana, bordering this prison reality, the chaotic entity became lost within the eternities of its new prison. Unable to find its bearings amidst the mana-barren environment of emptiness, the creature of all consuming darkness and chaos eventually became dormant, and slept.

Thousands of years passed, and nature regained its balance upon the Earth. The dominant sapient species remaining from the removal of mana, was named Human. Among them, there was no knowledge of the great being who made such a great and terrible sacrifice for their sake. Records of times before the loss of mana and magic became scattered and lost to the ages. History became legend, and legend became fiction as the last true remnants of magic faded from living memory.