The War that Caused it All

Kyren grabbed literature on history, dragons and magic. He sat down at a secluded table and stared at the mountain of books.

While other players tried to power level so they could get ahead, Kyren was trying to better understand the world of AlKo online. He wasn't to worried about falling behind because he could level up easily.

'That's.... a lot of books.'

<Master, I might be of some help.>

'Really?'

<If you skim through each book, I can summarize and archive the information.>

'Great!'

He immediately got to work with a new vigor.

.....

<You have discovered the proficiencies [Reading] [History], [Investigation], [Anatomy], [Cartography] and [Research].>

After countless hours and many long breaks, Kyren got through all of the books.

<Your mental energy is at 5% again.>

'Ughh, you didn't say this method absolutely burns through mental energy!' Kyren got a splitting headache whenever he got to 10% and at 5% he would lose focus. Although this method was extraordinarily efficient and easy, it drained too much mental power.

He put the books away and logged out. He was in the game for an entire day so only about five hours passed in real life.

He went to the kitchen and grabbed something to eat before passing out on his bed.

.....

The next morning, Tyler came out to the living room to find Andrew and Amelia cuddling while watching a show.

"Woah dude, you look exhausted!"

"Are you okay?"

"Thanks guys but I'm fine, just gamed a little to hard the other day."

"If you say so... there were a couple of large cryogenic packages that came yesterday for you. There in the kitchen."

"Cryogenic packages?"

<They seem to be from the Longevity Corporation.>

Tyler perked up and rushed to the kitchen. There were three packages, two that were waist height and one that reached his eyes. He obviously chose to open the larger one first.

Inside were papers and rows of cylinder like tubes that had a dense blue liquid in them. They were full dive pod high density solution tubes that made it so gamers could play for days or weeks without needing to eat or drink. But that wasn't the best part, the longer he played, the healthier and stronger his body became.

The smaller boxes had cool looking bottles of a less dense red liquid. These were used for instant recoveries of any type of exhaustion. They were also good for the long run like the blue liquid.

He clicked the defrost button on the bottom of the red bottle and immediately drank it down. It tasted like apple juice and it burned his insides as he slowly got used to the excess energy.

After resting for a bit, he set the boxes to the side and grabbed a dozen blue tubes and carried them to the full dive chamber. Using the instructions, he installed six to his pod and six to Andrew's pod and excitedly got in. He didn't know how the pods administered the liquid to his body but he didn't care.

.....

His body was resting on a couch in a lounge back in the library. Leo started summarizing the information he got the day before.

Around one hundred and fifty years ago, a war between the under world dimension and the over world dimension came to a drastic end. This war went on for so long, that no one can truly remember when it started. Some theorized that it's been going on since the beginning of time.

The "under world" dimension is where the demonic race and some other species reside. No one has ever been there and came back to tell the tale so lots of rumors go on about what's on the other side.

The "over world" includes this planet and the higher world where the gods supposedly live, again this is unproven.

There are a couple dimensions in this game that have been discovered throughout history. These two dimensions and the spirit world are the largest to be encountered.

All anyone knew was that the war caused billions of problems and trillions of deaths across the world for many millennia. Everyone called it the Eternity War because it seemed like there would be no end.

Dragons and some other strong races were actually a byproduct of the war. Dragons were a small and meek lizard like creature that fell into the clutches of the demonic army. After years of bloody experimentation and gory failures, they were perfected and ready for war. When the dragons were forced to enter the battlefield, their fights could be related to tank like fighter jets mowing down legions of children with sticks and slingshots.

Even though the dragons were enslaved, and not at all related to the demons and devils, the church obviously twisted the truth and made them out to be the enemies of all life, second to the devils themselves.

This royally pissed off Kyren. The dragons survived one hell, just to be plunged into another by this so called church. Hardly anyone complained about the churches actions because of the fact that it benefited them. Just the hide of an Adult Dragon alone was worlds stronger than adamantite and more flexible than leather.

The Archaic Church is a monumental power that has influence in every corner of every civilization. It played a large part in the war and supplied a lot of man power.

Since humans were one of the first sentient beings to appear in this world, they believed in human superiority so they treated other races fairly bad. Most of the churches members were fanatical and would even carry out orders of genocide for them. The more he listened, the more he noticed the corruption it made no effort to hide.

Throughout the war, A~grades and S~grades were fairly common, with B~grades being like common soldiers. There were even some that set foot into the Transcendent Realm and became power houses that could contend with dragons.

Unfortunately, a certain battle practically wiped them all out, leaving only a few A~grades and B~grades left. On record, every S~grade and Transcendent Realm being went extinct during this battle.

Ever since the war ended, people have been trying to recreate the same powerful forces like they did back then, but it takes far more than 150 years to cultivate even the weakest of A~grade beings.

As for how the eternal war ended, it was all due to a single man named Ulysses. Ulysses was one of the very few individuals that could actually use void magic. He was a remarkable magus (super mage) and a powerhouse during the war. Some even witnessed him using the power of the fabled Transcendent Realm in many situations.

During this major battle, Ulysses did something strange and started casting an unknown tier of spell in the center of the battlefield. The upper echelons of the over world thought he was going to aid them in finally defeating the great characters of the demonic army, but to their demise, the spell caused the apocalypse and shattered everything.

The over world of AlKo online literally cracked like glass and unreal amounts of pure and violent void mana separated and lifted the cracked pieces into the atmosphere. Luckily, due to the presence of mana in this world, the atmosphere was quite large so no one suffocated.

If one was to look over the edge of any of the shattered pieces of land, they would see the core of the planet and floating debris below, kinda like a second sun.

Mana played another big part in suppressing the core from demolishing and burning everything. The oceans that were split apart by the void mana was actually pushed back by the mana. This meant none of the major bodies of water were too affected.

Kyren couldn't wait to go see the magical sights of this world. He wondered if he could truly see the core of the planet off the edge.

Over a great amount of space between the floating continents lies a purple aurora borealis looking magic wall made of a radioactive void mana that blocks any communication or travel to the other continents.

People call it the Void Chasm and to cross it was impossible because if the void radiation didn't kill and mutate you, then the void creatures that infested the wall would wipe you from existence permanently, even going as far as to make it so you never reincarnate again.

This event/spell was called the Void Armageddon and it's the main reason why the void element is now forbidden magic. The church masterfully used this as a reason to persecute and execute any void users.

This world is called Irona and its made up of hundreds of different shattered continents and islands.

The shattered continent that Kyren is currently on, is called Lemuria and it's the furthest away from where the Void Armageddon took place so it was the least affected. Lemuria's size is comparable to Earths Pangea(1) and it's not even the biggest piece of land in the shattered Irona.

After learning the very basics of history, he moved onto magic.

Leo explained that in this world, there were these things called magicules everywhere. They were smaller then atomic and invisible to all who didn't have a strong enough sense. They determined wether or not someone could cast a spell.

Mana is basically a dense cluster of magicules that were formed by something or someone.

Magic is the act of using mana to create a reaction or effect using the mind and will alone.

Dragons are one of the few high grade life forms that would innately gather an extremely dense mana around their bodies. Since dragons are technically creatures with sentience, they usually have a creature core somewhere in their body and it's used for a wide array of things.

Cores are the most valuable part of any creature because it can be used as material for forging powerful items, brewing potent potions and pills for alchemy, creating energy sources for engineering, and many other things.

Creatures only start producing a core when they get to the beast or monster realm, giving it the ability to cast magic. The cores act like a mana generator that supply crazy amounts of magicules to their host depending on their strength. This is what makes beasts and monsters so frightening and powerful.

Ripping a core out of a living creature will most likely not kill them, but only cripple them for a long time before they can recover their core. It will also permanently weaken them, forcing it to rehabilitate to their original strength.

Back to magic, the ability to cast powerful magic is due to the energy and intelligence attributes. The sense attribute helps one better control the mana they use. This is because the more thoroughly one can control and understand the magic around you, the stronger your magic.

Kyren remembered what Anthony McBell told him, "'The more you understand and feel the game, the stronger you'll be...' Does that mean the more I understand a skill or spell, the stronger that spell will be?"

<I believe so.>

Kyren left the library and traveled to an extremely secluded clearing, super deep in the Keslar Forest. He made sure there were no beasts or prying eyes nearby before he started experimenting.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

1: Pangea) Was a supercontinent that existed during the late Paleozoic and early Mesozoic eras.