World of Arth

The world of Arth, a world enriched with magical energy where mythical and supernatural creatures and monsters reign dominance over the land, water and sky. For the eons since the beginning of time, these monsters were sovereign - on top of the food chain, while the creatures who could not evolve themselves in time to utilize this magical energy like these natural born Creatures, slowly faced extinction over time. 

Humans also used to come under this unfortunate category at the start. No matter how much this 'sentient' race of primates tried to harness this magical energy in the world, their feeble mortal body was unable to handle it. Thus, for some hundred million of years the only way to survive was to hide as a feeble race at the bottom of the food chain, forming spots of underground civilization in unity with other lesser creatures. 

Until things changed too suddenly some ten thousand years earlier, when a genius and exceptional human, whose name is forgotten to history, stood up and introduced a unique system just for humans to harness the unlimited energy present in the air of Arth. 

That moment in history was a turning point marking the beginning of the rise of the Human race. It was a steep run to dominance in the war with monsters- with humanity's ability of adaptation, relatively short growing period, potent fertility, social cooperation, intellect and of course the new system of power combined put them comfortably above all other supernatural or mythical creatures.

They termed their magic as Magic of Visualization, energy as Psionic energy and the humans who were capable of using this new kind of powerful magic as Soothsayers because everything they said comes to truth like divine words. 

Current era was just a continuity of humanity's era. Only change is that after full domination, humans have now turned to fight amongst themselves. Empires, Nations, Kingdoms rule over every inch of land as the various powers rise and clash with each other to maintain hegemony over their lands. 

But what actually is a Soothsayer? What is this Visualization? 

A student raised his head from his book after finishing the introductory text of his textbook. Fortunately, he timed it well as the teacher in the classroom stood up immediately after to start their first introductory lecture. 

"Visualization! If you understand this word to its core, then it means you are already on the right path to becoming a Soothsayer."

There was a hubbub of subdued murmurs yet excited murmurs in this beginner classroom of Gentlespring Academy. It was one of the numerous Academies supported and proposed by the Royal Court of the Skuph Empire. They had termed such state introduced education as one of the basic necessities to prop up the future of the empire. 

Right now a Teacher is beginning the starting semester of the new students, who have just left their homes to study here for the next three years of their lives. In these three years, they will live here, learn here and of course earn enough skill to be called a skilled Soothsayer of the Empire. 

"To become a Soothsayer there are only three requirements…. Can you guys tell me what are those? "

Class immediately erupted in mild chaos as several hands raised up high to answer the question. Some confident ones even began to speak loudly, emphasizing that such basic questions were nothing but an insult to them. 

Teacher who was questioning just shook his head in smile, as he raised his hand and pointed towards one eager teenager at the back. 

"Here Shirley, right? You can answer this one. "

Class silenced hearing someone singled out and the youngster named Shirley stood up excitedly and answered quickly,

"Yes Teacher. It's born aptitude, creativity and…and ...."

"Visualization techniques" someone whispered from the back, making Shirley complete quickly while blessing his friend in his heart who saved himself from becoming butt of jokes in very first class of the semester, 

"Yes, Visualization technique."

"Correct" Teacher waved him to sit down and continued, 

"First is aptitude - which we are born with. It's innate potential that is something we absolutely can't control thus naturally limiting the number of Soothsayers in the human race. 

Fortunately more than thirty percent of humans in the world have enough aptitude to visualize things in their mind. 

Though looking harsh, this is actually the most lax requirement of all, even someone without enough aptitude with right and vigorous training could bypass this threshold albeit it requires one to commit hard work.

Second is… "

Students answered collectively, "Creativity"

"Correct, it is Creativity or Imagination, the second and very hard threshold of Visualization. If you can visualize but not tweak it inside your mind then it would be nigh impossible for you to materialize your spell or object in the real world. 

Most of the population with enough aptitude fails here, they could not create or more apt term would be - they 'could not' think about the process of visualization in their mind in accordance to the real world. 

A person without imagination could never tweak the visualized spell for himself to use. In the process of Visualization, we have to simulate real world conditions in our mind, holding these natural laws and according to our imagination we have to tweak or build the formula for the spell that we wish to manifest in reality. 

Then after the process of correct Visualization, comes transferring that model in our mind to the real world. If Visualization is not correct it would not manifest no matter we try. The object for example would not condense in the real word."

At this moment of lecture, Teacher suddenly stopped his lecture as his vision fluttered to the window. Outside he saw a visitor entering the Academy gates. Due to this class being on the second floor, he easily recognized the official uniform of the Empire military from his vantage point. But he quickly collected his gaze back as he continued his lecture. 

"But remember 'there is no absolute in the world of Arth'. Basic knowledge or observations could be overturned at any time. Therefore I repeat again, one of the most important things to keep in mind is never keep your vision narrow, only that way not only for fights but you will be able to deal with everything that life may throw at you. 

Same in this case, it is not completely impossible to overcome this barrier of requirement. For example a person can still learn how to use a knife if he uses it enough times, but the obvious side effect would be numerous times he would cut himself in the process to figure out the right and tested method.

But in this case of Visualization without enough flexible imagination, one would be trying to learn how to use a knife every single time he wants to materialize a spell or visualize a construct. It's a harsh penalty but not impossible. 

We have many examples in our history to support this notion. But Few ones who were able to achieve this were unexceptionally strong-willed and not afraid to experiment with their life at line. They put their mind to work at the risk of forgetting everything."

Teacher took a moment to observe expression of the students and was satisfied to see them engrossed, 

"Third and last requirement is simultaneously, a requirement to become Soothsayer as well as the watershed of the Soothsayer world. It is 'Education' or more specifically Visualization technique. As you know to become a San Soothsayer from a normal Soothsayer, the difference is this Visualization technique. 

Most of the families and clans hold such unique techniques particular to their family. They keep it secret and only teach it to their blood descendents, who have potential to learn this technique. But here because of the magnanimity of our Emperor, Academies all around the Empire are allowed to teach the basic Visualization technique or sometimes even more which is more than enough for you guys to become a reputed San Soothsayer. It is the vision of the Emperor to groom Soothsayers without any discrimination."

Teacher waited for his words to settle before finally reaching to the end part of his lecture, 

"And once you become a Soothsayer, anything you imagine will become real in the world. It is the ultimate power, power of us humans allowing us to dominate over various mythical beasts, monsters, demons and other creatures. "

Taking the chance of peak excitement of Students, Teacher pulled off his jacket and revealed an empty sleeve in the place of his right arm. All students gasped as they hadn't thought that their teacher was one armed man. 

"Yes, you are thinking right. I lost this arm in the war. I was a Soothsayer in the empire army a few years back. But for us soothsayers, even such grave injuries are nothing but minor hindrances to us."

The moment he finished his words, he flicked his empty sleeve and suddenly an energy visible to naked eyes conjured around the sleeve, filling it quickly which then soon transformed into real flesh, muscles and blood vessels. 

In less than a second, a completely healed right arm was attached back to the Teacher's shoulder, who opened and closed his palm to demonstrate to students that it was an absolutely real arm. It was the materialization ability of the Soothsayer that could make things reality just from the power of imagination of his mind. 

Noticing the all familiar awe in the eyes of students, Teacher smiled warmly, finding this scene refreshing no matter how many times he had seen it in the previous decade of his career as teacher. Clearly, students were already familiar with materialization but live demonstration was always special. 

But at this moment a teaching assistant entered the class and signaled to the teacher, who understood the sign and waved his hand to let his arm vanish. He gave few mental mathematical exercises to the students to do while he walked out with the assistant. 

"It's someone from the military?"

"Yes, Teacher Ming. They want to ask you something about the war eleven years ago. It's something about the Cross kingdom war."

A grave expression fluctuated on the face of the retired soldier, as he inadvertently remembered the anomaly of that war. His heart beat spiked momentarily as he recalled the scene he had seen when he had gone with his brothers after war to fetch the dead bodies. 

'It must be that incident of Cross Calamity. I hope it's just routine questioning for research purpose not because…. '

"Sir!"

"Yes yes, you should go back. Some military matters are still confidential and shouldn't be discussed publically. I will meet the official in private."