Tree of Aeons

322. Birth of a star

322.

Ascension

Year 288

Lausanne stood at the place where they made a tomb for Jura and looked up at the statue they made for him. He wasn’t the only one. Many others died there, Tigashfall was now home to a thriving industrial facility where magical weapons were made by large groups of skilled craftsmen. Back then, the motivation was the harvest of the residual crystals and magical energies left by the demon king, but that momentum had sustained itself, and these days Tigashfall remained a large industrial center of the Central Continent, together with tourism for  those who made the historical tours to visit the various monuments to the Order’s rise.

These days, they were referred to as the pioneers, the new revolutionaries who helped the Order usher in the great moment of the Early Pax Aeonica of the Central Continent. 

Founding fathers, as the heroes often said. 

Some historical revisionists referred to Jura as the First Legate of the Aeonic Empire, and the term ‘Legates’ is later used to refer to patriarchs and matriarchs after Jura. Religious leaders. 

Even if they were not highly leveled, they were titans of the past. Historical figures to be revered.

Internally, within the Order, there are those who referred to the current era as the start of the second phase, the era of Expeditionary Aeonica.

The public didn't know. Many didn’t, even if there were many within the Order who lived and fought with the first generations of the Valtrian Order. 

“Hero.” The word was stuck in her head. She had wanted it, and she remembered her youth. She was so young and naive then, and she still believed. Somehow, she knew deep in her heart that this was a path she had to take. 

Aeon’s growing pantheon would be home to masters from many disciplines. The knights, the rangers, the snipers. 

But Aeon never had his own hero. Someone who could wield star mana without the meddling influence of the old gods on their mind. 

“Aeon said I shouldn’t be beholden to the past.” Lausanne whispered. “I think he’s right. I definitely shouldn’t.” 

Now that both Hoyia and Ebon got their domain, some of her concerns faded. She would not be the last of Aeon’s domain holders. If anything, Aeon’s expansion into the multiverse would only require more domain holders. More of them, to keep things in a functional manner. 

There was a role for her to play.

“But you know, uncle Jura, the heart wants what it wants.” 

Aeon didn’t need a huntress. Aeon had plenty of that already. Roon, Johann, Kafa, Ezar. They were all his muscles. But star mana was a field he lacked and had actors with potentially risky loyalties. When the other heroes failed, she would be the one there standing by his side, and she would be his hero. n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

“I will be an [Unchosen Champion].” Lausanne whispered mainly to herself. There were heroes, but Aeon needed an untainted hero by their side. Someone with star mana. Someone to touch the hero’s weapons without the baggage of being a transplant from another world. Someone to bring the touch of the stars, if there were things beyond that void barrier. “I’m not sure if it is the right choice, but it is the one that speaks to me. It would be the path you wouldn’t think was possible.” 

An act of defiance. 

Maybe, even after all this time, a part of herself wanted to prove that Uncle Jura was wrong for saying it is impossible. 

It was a marvel how few words became a formative drive in her life, either as a result of, or as a reaction.

***

Star mana. 

She had used weapons that contained star mana in the past. Hero items, they were called. And they were these caustic, extremely dense bits of power that would be dangerous to anyone that was too low leveled. 

Some better made hero items had layers to protect their users from the side effects from star mana overuse. For high leveled individuals like herself, she needed less protection from its effects. Her soul was stronger and could withstand the incredible power of star mana. 

What was it like to be a hero, and what was it like to wield a power so chaotic and dangerous? 

A hero could move mountains. Lausanne remembered when Colette and Prabu moved entire dwarven cities out of harm's way. 

The power of a hero was intense, as she felt her soul transform and bits of her own mana began to convert to star mana at her will. Interestingly, she could mix both and have pools of star mana and also regular mana. 

The flow of power through her flesh was also immediate, as she felt as if the star mana instantly gave her entire body a layer of strength that she could only describe as divine. Not just that, there was a subtle change throughout her body as it adapted to work with star mana.

Now, it made sense why the heroes could take so much damage and still recover. Some attacks from demon kings that would’ve annihilated lesser creatures only resulted in the heroes getting a bleeding wound. Domain holders usually started with a lesser version of this exceptional durability at first, though the other Level 200 domain holders like Edna and Lumoof gained powers that surpassed even the heroes later on, but what the heroes had  at the relatively lower levels was truly unfair. 

And yet, she also sensed the caustic, unnatural nature of star mana.

It was inherently toxic. Her soul felt like it was coated with a thick layer of constantly healing material, just in order to sustainably use star mana. 

This was a power that was eager to combust and was inherently unstable. There was a bit of her soul that flowed through the star mana, as if intentionally controlling them not to decay and just being in the star mana state was tiring. 

To borrow an earthly term from Aeon, this was an unstable chemical fuel, and it was only through sheer spiritual power that it was kept under control. 

It was like an additional mental load, even if it was not much at first. But at some point, it would be exhausting.

She understood now why the domain allowed her to convert star mana to normal mana and vice versa. Being in the star mana state perpetually would eventually exhaust her. It was strange that the heroes did not feel it, or perhaps they did, but its effects were numbed by the powers of the [hero] class. 

Maybe, this was also why the [system] allowed conversion of [hero] classes to lesser classes, in order for the heroes to have a way out of the perpetual drain of star mana. 

She had heard from Aeon that there were materials that are apparently known as radioactive. In her mind, it was just like a form of poison, and as she manipulated star mana in her body and her arms, she realized that this was a form of poison. 

“The difference between poison and medicine is a fine line, Lausanne.” Lumoof smiled as he dropped in on her.

“This is weaponized poison.” 

“Just like void mana. Stella had to deal with the side effects of void mana for years before she got used to it. In time, you too will get used to the weight of dealing with star mana. The heroes gain more and more star mana as they gain levels, I believe that too is a form of acclimatization to the nature of star mana.”

Lausanne nodded and realized how this seemed to be a feature of the higher powers. More star mana was a toxic, dangerous, easily combustible brew. Very much like the dangerous faith and zealotry that Hoyia manipulated.

Faith was likely to be incredibly dangerous to use as a weapon. 

“I have doubts about how reliable this star mana is over the long term, its nature seems to be too ..raw.” 

“Perhaps– but right now, I believe you are now the best person to experiment on their nature. If there is a way to purify or improve on star mana, you should be able to find it. Aeon’s ability to manipulate star mana is fairly limited, and the heroes are so familiar with it that they do not have a frame of reference for what else is out there.” 

Lausanne nodded and suspected that the heroes’ minds were clouded by more than just the [hero] class. Long term exposure to the star mana could influence their flesh and bodies in some other ways too.

Indeed, being able to convert star mana and regular mana freely through her own soul was a power that enabled experimentation. 

“There are higher forms of star mana, aren’t there?” Lausanne asked. She recalled Lumoof describing the sensation once, when Cometworld collapsed. A higher, different form.

She later asked Aeon to share the memory of that moment. 

“If this is true, I need to visit more collapsing worlds. I bet there are some out there.” 

“Or a visit to Cometworld.” Lumoof smiled. “There may be some residual energies someone like you can still sense.”

***

Cometworld floated through the void sea, and its speed did not decline even after destruction. 

A sunless world, it floated through space in darkness. The skies here were nonexistent, though the void mages often came here to see beyond Cometworld’s tiny bubble of reality and out into the wider world. The bubble was larger now. Aeon’s presence on Cometworld also expanded that reality bubble. 

Lausanne landed to find almost nothing.

Almost. 

“I don’t remember coming here.” Lausanne laughed. 

Lumoof nodded. “It’s not a place that people come to. There is nothing to fight here, only what remains of a world that went through death and destruction. The last vestiges of the Canari’s homeworld.” 

The Canari, the half-dog people. Lausanne met them, they were nice, but perhaps because of who she was. The Canari had a strange fascination with community and authority, their pack-like nature was still something of a stickler that prevented full assimilation into the Order’s military structure. 

She wasn’t here for that. Instead, she walked and expanded her senses. Maybe, there was some lingering remnant of that different form of star mana. 

There wasn’t any.

But then, she recalled from Magisar that magic sometimes seeped into the rocks, and so, she walked around Cometworld and began to search the stones for evidence of that old star mana.

Here, she had some success. After searching for about two weeks, she eventually found a few stones that still contained a lingering, faint amount of that old star mana. 

“It’s been too long, and I believe it’s mostly dissipated.” Lausanne frowned as she picked up the few samples that contained the denser, different form of star mana. 

Its thicker, unusual nature was inherently fragile, and then, it vanished when prodded.  At least, she knew it existed, even if she couldn’t extract it from the stone.

“If that doesn’t go well, perhaps visit the Three-Ringed World. The glow from the Sun of the Three Ringed World has potential for more studies.”

“Are you sending me on a wild goose chase?” 

“Does it look that way?” Lumoof stroked his chin and smiled. “I believe the exploration of star mana’s nature is something long overdue. A part of me believes that all these different types of mana in the end converge into something.” 

“Hah.” The new domain holder realized she had been played. “I’m not testing out your wild mana theories for you.”

“Oh, it’s just Alka’s theory, I happened to buy into it and added my own philosophical variation.”

“So it’s speculation.” The elf, however, did follow Lumoof through the portals and to the Three Ringed World.

***

The blue sun. The ‘night’ mode of the Three Ringed World.

It stood as if a burning flame raged through the three ringed worlds. Nightfall brought empowered monsters, enhanced by the strange energies of the purple moon

“This isn’t the same energy as the one I’ve seen on the Cometworld.” Lausanne said.

“Oh. It is not star mana, then?”

“No. The moon’s emitting something else. At least, I don’t think so. It doesn’t feel like star mana.” 

“Perhaps, a variant of Core Mana.” Lumoof said. 

There were a few types of mana known to the Order. There was regular mana, which could be ‘colored’ in terms of elemental nature. Then, there was Star mana, which was what the hero used. Then, there was void mana, the fuel of void sea travel. Core mana was the power of the realm’s cores and Will of the Worlds. Then, there was demonic mana, a perversion or inverse of ‘regular’ mana. 

If regular mana was plain water, which could then be colored by the different elements, star mana was a water made of liquified, potentially toxic and highly dense star stuff. Void mana would be the inverse of that, a water made of black, dark matter. Core mana was then as if it was liquified mud and stone. Demonic mana was then dirty water. 

Of course, these theories were still debatable, and Lausanne knew that within the magical community that heavily studied these things, the ‘lines’ that divided the types of mana became really quite vague and uncertain.

Was the mana used by undead a special kind of mana? The death-tinged energies of creatures such as the Osroids was technically still far under normal, regular mana. Yet due to the coloration, they did have some unusual qualities. If the ‘death mana’ was then considered regular mana, there were those who want to classify demonic mana as just a coloration or variation of regular mana. 

Lausanne shook her head. The academic research into the unusual variations of mana was something that would persist. It was often these type of abstract arguments that made her head hurt.

Some folks wanted to flat out use Aeon’s [Soul Realm] Colorations as a means to classify mana. After all, Aeon’s Soul Forge had Blue, Green, Yellow, Red and Black, so some mage-researchers took the position that this was the [system]’s own internal classification for mana. 

Aeon himself didn’t seem that bothered. “The system has many ways to do many different things. It is doubtful that one system of naming mana would be sufficient.”

It was also likely that mana was such a common thing that it wouldn’t surprise her that new mana itself could be created by powerful domain holders and worlds. Some mage-researchers predicted the existence of world-specific mana types, though they argued the rules of the [System] often constrained the unique qualities of these world-specific types of mana within still unknown limits. Of course, if this was possible, the corollary also supported the existence of world-specific variants of existing mana types, such as unique colorations of regular mana.

For domain holders and senior Valthorns, they were all regularly briefed on leading edge magical research findings. Though Lausanne knew from experience that they were often so dry and boring that not all members of the Order remembered them. Perhaps, only mages and those with related classes.

The hope, of course, was that for senior members of the Order, they were more likely to encounter these edge cases when exploring new worlds, so these findings would equip them with some basis to engage with such unique types of powers.

“This isn’t it.” Lausanne said. “Thanks for your help, Lumoof. I’ll need to speak to Stella and see whether she can find me one of these ‘near-death’ worlds again.” 

“No worries.”

***

“Near death worlds.” Stella repeated. “Got it. I’ll look out for it. I think if we use Cometworld as a basis, it’s likely that these worlds have unstable movements in the void sea. If we find any we’ll let you know.”

Lausanne felt a strange presence from Stella, as if the star mana within her body wanted to pull away from her. “Do you feel that too, Stella?”

“Yes.” Stella laughed. “I feel it all the time, especially around heroes. It’s nothing. You get used to the sensation of the energies within you reacting to something. Our mana and soul is densest within our body, but it actually extends slightly outside of our physical body. This is especially true for domain holders who have this protective shell which prevents the outside reality from influencing us.” 

“What happens if I touch you?” Lausanne asked, curious, yet her body and her instincts screamed against it.

“Oh, for you, nothing, I believe both our barriers will prevent something from happening. For non-domain holders though, not so good. I suggest you don’t touch any of my void mages. They might suffer burns.”

“Ah.”