"Are you sure you wish to take the trial" the spirit guardian was unsure whether to allow him but ultimately trials such as this was every species right.
As a small blue box appeared before Zel he said yes. The spirit looked at him an began to explain the trial.
"the trial of acknowledgement is a task for every species called by different names across different races each trial grants an ability inherent to that race dragons crystalize their hearts and gain their dragon forms, humans unleash their mortal limits, elves gain the ability to give form and life to nature dwarves gain the ability to bring sentience to metals and while other races gain myriad abilities none are more mysterious than the Fae as the fae gain the ability to give life to mana as this can only be done when Fae have not bound with a spirit created naturally by the world before the trial was banned Fae where one of the leading powers sadly with the death of the queen. Fae could not protect themselves and were forced to abandon their right for others feared there power while some wanted to enslave them." as the spirit guardian finished a sad expression touch her face.
Honestly Zel wasn't shock about why the Fae turned out this way while giving life to mana might sound mystical it was in essence creating a spirit one without the influence of the elements meaning the spirit was attributeless now this might seem useless but it gave one of the most broken abilities in New Orbius the ability to control any element from darkness to light fire to water even sub elements as long as the players understanding reach a point the spirit could then be taught to create those elements and help you manipulate them.
to really understand this you have to look at what elemental spirits do for players they help form spells lowering cast time add attributes to non-attribute spells help cast higher tier spells and fight alongside you casting their own spells have an extra mana pool and they have the ability of spirit unification while the grade of the spirit determines their added benefits along with the potential rank of spells they can cast an although raising the rank of a spirit can be done its hard and can only go up two ranks from where they were born.
While this hold true for naturally created spirits the ones the Fae create grow with the user the only cap on their power being the user while the downside is they start out with nothing having to learn alongside them otherwise known as draining experience while also having to gain affinity with elements they use i.e the definition of weak early game strong late. This could be partially circumvented with Zels knowledge of spell language as it doesn't take into account the type of elemental mana meaning that creating anything was theoretically possible you just couldn't use it unless you had the right type of mana just like writing and equation anyone can write an equation doesn't mean anyone can answer it. Quinton wanted it this way so you could create infinite possibilities creating a whole new field of study and plus anything less he felt stifled his creativity.
Although gaining affinity with an element had its own journey in and of itself there were ways to. And while you could cast spells with elements you had no affinity the material cost of doing so was pretty heavy plus high ranking spells could only be cast with a certain amount of affinity. So while humans have basic affinity with all elements focusing on one or two was the way to go plus contradicting elements were natural limiters on how far you could take one or the other so if you had high affinity with fire it would make learning water based affinity way harder the key here is balance this was probably one of the greatest upsides and downsides to Fae create spirits they didn't have the problem of balancing affinity but a problem with gaining affinity.
So with all this knowledge Zel knew why other races would grow fearful of the fae and could easily understand why other races would force them to neuter their own potential this slightly depressed Zel because it would mean he'd make a lot of enemies by doing this but with the addition of players though he probably be able to avoid the total suppression of his race by the world but it wouldn't do anything but paint a big target on his back by most Npcs not looking to deal with another overpowered ruler of Fae kind plus Zel knew most the history of the Fae queen and her rise to power was a bloody one. Zel honestly didn't think she'd ever die which was part of the reason he chose Fae in the first place. Because when your scaling is so slow and the worlds as chaotic as Orbis's is being suppressed for being weak goes without saying. So saying the queen had to fight to raise the standing of the fae was an understatement.
As the Spirit Guardian continued "Trials of Acknowledgement for the races are usually following a rise to power and although the first trial you can create a spirit inheriting a spirit does not hold you back from other trails for Fae kind" Zel just mentally shook his head at this yah you gain a boost at the lower levels from having a spirit and a little elemental affinity but unless you bounded with a royal spirit or high ranking one right at the start you pretty much screwed you future development and even if you did you be really screwed because if you wanted to gain a new element you'd have to find one higher ranked then the one you already had meaning you'd end up with different ranked spirits and plus Zel knew what the trials were and they got multiple times harder the more spirits you had and higher ranks they were. Zel could see plenty of other players who picked Fae crying at the sheer bullshit this whole setup created but Quinton wanted the game to be realistic and life wasn't always fair.
Zel thought back to the steps of every trial and he almost regretted putting this mechanic in the game as most trials were separate spaces that once completed upgraded the individual.
For the Fae the first trial was remarkably easy if you chose to do it instead of picking a spirit. it was the trials after the first that became the real shit show and this was across the board to reach the peak in Orbis was not easy the vast majority of players wouldn't even get close and for those who did that was only on the mortal plane not to mention Human and other races also at this height who've been around longer there were real gods in this world and the never ending war Quinton's Ai baby's have started would make this whole thing just a bigger pain in the ass he honestly should have programed there personality to be less obnoxious this honestly made Zel really regret ever writing this into his will. While Zel continued to barely listening to the Spirit guardians explanation he looked absently and mentally complained about how if he only knew he was going to high-jack someone else's body.