Casmir was sat on a bench at the side of a busy street, he didn't pay any attention to the various people who passed him by as he was lost in thought.
'I hope Rose doesn't get like that when she visits... She is so sexy...' He thought with an odd smile on his face before he regained control of himself.
'What, no. Ahhh stop it!... You have Elena.. You have Elena..' He thought to himself as he realised his stupidity.
At this moment an Elemental with the appearance of someone from the Angel Race flew down the street calling out to all the people.
"Major news! Major news! A new war has broken out on the continent! Visit the communications tower to find out more!... Major news! Major news! A new war..." he repeated in a loud clear voice.
This elemental was an employee for the communications tower who's job was to deliver communications to large businesses and other non-government owned organisations.
He was essentially a messenger for the city.
Normally he wouldn't be shouting out to people however apparently there was new big news, he was likely asked by his boss to spread the word and draw in customer's.
As Casmir heard the Elemental he frowned, he forgot about Rose and got up intending to head towards the communications tower.
A new war on the continent was big news.
As Casmir made his way to the communications tower he passed by many other messenger and people walking towards the communications tower.
Eventually the tower came within sight and the crowds of people surrounding it.
The tower was very tall, nearly 200 metre's in height. It was a large stone tower that was clearly old however it had many metal item's and structure's attached to it, most prominent were the many long metal poles that stretched 15 meter's into the air from the tower's tallest point.
This tower had a long history to it, since nearly 250 years ago it was the home for all major communications and small scale deliveries to Ellaris city.
Until 50 years ago it served as the home for the various messengers and carrier animals delivering information and small packages. The main form of communication in this era was via air mail, specially trained animals or fast, flight capable race's delivered physical package's containing the needed information.
However 50 years ago there was a massive change in the way city's and countries communicated, it came from the creation of long distance Qi powered Information arrays.
Using a specific type of Qi energy that was transformed into a wave form, Information could be transferred over long distance's nearly instantaneously. This allowed organisations to communicate efficiently and transformed the way people communicate.
Unfortunately the cost's to maintaining these Qi powered information array's were relatively high, only cities and large towns had the ability to maintain these towers all the time and smaller portable versions were decades from realistic use.
When this new technology was created, it reshaped and changed the various communication and transport industries, the old airmail industry collapsed leaving many unused airmail towers in various towns and cities.
These old towers served as perfect foundations for new communications towers which is how the communications tower in Ellaris was created.
"Come on, keep it moving! Keep it moving!" A large man shouted to the crowds.
Due to the large influx of people intending on finding out the new news, the area around the communications tower was packed to the brim.
Casmir joined a long queue to the service area's where you could access various pieces of information, these desks would hand out information crystal's containing the information you asked for which you would then take home and plug into another device to access the information.
Information crystal's, often called Qi chips, were a common refined form of Qi crystal's that could contain information. They were commonly used as physical storage mediums for information, Qi cultivator's could use them easily, with some training, to display information, otherwise you needed a machine to display it for you.
It took around 15 minute's for Casmir to get to the service desk's that were extremely busy at the moment. An old lady who seemed human in every way except for her white wings that clearly displayed her status as someone from the Angel race, stood in front of Casmir behind the desk asking for his request.
"Are you here for a grade 1 Qi chip of the war news?" She asked quickly.
Qi chips could come in different grade's according to the grade of Qi energy used to make it, the grade determined it's reusability and shelf life.
A Grade 1 Qi chip would remain usable for around a month however you can't rewrite the information on it or it would be destroyed.
"Yes please. Oh, and a copy of Heldan monthly, grade 1." Casmir replied.
The lady nodded before grabbing a small square green crystal from a large pile behind her and then walking a short distance over to a wood cabinet. This wooden cabinet contained dozens of holes with various Qi chips inside of it, each hole was labelled with title's such as 'Ellaris Daily', 'Heldan North', 'Helios directory' etc.
The lady reached into a hole labelled 'Heldan monthly' and then returned to Casmir.
"That will be 32 silver please." She said.
This was quite expensive but definitely worthwhile, 2 nice loaves of bread were approximately 100 copper coins, 100 coppers was 1 silver coin and 100 silver coins were 1 gold coin.
Casmir quickly found the money before beginning to extricate himself from the crowds.
He wanted to quickly head home so that he could look at the information, as he left he saw some Qi cultivator's around him using the Qi chips were they stood.
When the cultivators injected Qi energy into them, the chip's emitted a light that one could shine on a plain surface, this light would display the information for a person to read and by controlling the Qi energy input into the chip this information would change.
"Hey! Hey! No freelighting!" A cultivator shouted out as he noticed other people were reading what his Qi chip was displaying.
The few bystanders who were 'freelighting' begrudgingly walked away clearly not intent on using their money to purchase a Qi chip.
========
In a short while Casmir had made his way home and was sitting in the living room, he had an odd device in front of him, it looked like a typewriter with a smooth flat black sheet of metal attached to the back of it.
Casmir inserted the war news Qi chip into the device before pouring a small amount of a black liquid into a compartment on the device, this black liquid was the fuel for the device.
As the device turned on it made an odd noise "..zzzssss...", light started to shine on the black sheet at the back of the device, this light contained words.
Casmir tapped on a few buttons to adjust the display so that the writing was of the appropriate size then adjusted it to the beginning of the busy of text. The device acted similarly to a projector.
Casmir then started to carefully read it and occasionally he would adjust the display having finished reading that portion of text.
While he was reading it, Aunt Linda walked into the room carrying a book.
"Oh, Casmir dear what are you reading?" She said with a smile.
Casmir looked at her with an awkward smile as he spoke.
"Hmm, well it's some bad news. A war has broken out."
Aunt Linda was shocked, she quickly walked over and sat next to Casmir.
"Oh no... What happened? where was it?"
Casmir went on to explain to her what had occurred.
In the North east of the continent in the region of the former Ariel kingdom and some other Nations there is a religion called the Truth Religion, it is quite widespread and prominent.
This Religion has gained prominence in the region because of the after effects of the war there, the region had been severely effected by the war, starvation, disease, mass incarceration, dissolution of governments, all this chaos plague the region.
Over the last 10 years various groups appeared in the region and establish themselves, with the Truth religion being the most prominent.
Recently a small nation in this region banned the Truth religion from being practised, the friction between this nation and those who favour the truth religion led to small conflicts occurring. These conflicts in turn created bigger and bigger problems between the Truth religion aligned nations and those who did not welcome the truth religion.
A few days ago a bishop of the truth religion was killed publicly while on a peaceful mission, this sparked war between two smaller nations and then this war sparked the conflict between many other nations.
This conflict was dubbed by the Truth religion as the reunification of the people and cleansing of demon's.
This war would take years to end and very few of the larger nations even contemplated stepping in, they had bigger problems to deal with.
"This is terrible... " Aunt linda said after Casmir finished explaining to her.
"I know.. but there's nothing we can do, even the bigger countries aren't willing to step in because of growing instability." Casmir said with a frown.
Aunt Linda looked at Casmir and attempted to teach him because of her concern over the war.
"Casmir, you should learn to be a good doctor! This world has enough people willing to break things apart, we need more good young people, like yourself, to stitch it back together." She said firmly.
Casmir couldn't help but smile at her, Aunt Linda was always like this.
"Don't worry, there's plenty of people like me out there. We just keep a low profile, it's only the idiots that get all the attention." He said with a smile.
"Hmm, Good... Well I'm no longer in the mood to read, so I'll leave you to it." Aunt Linda said before she got up and left.
Casmir waved her goodbye before he switched out the war news Qi chip for the Heldan monthly Qi chip.