During the two months he lay in bed recovering from his injuries, Larne spent all his time to gather information about Elysium's history, geography, folk tales as well as travel journals to gain a rough understanding about this new world he found himself in.
To Larne, this world seemed quite similar to Medieval Europe at first glance, given that it had stuff like titles and knights. In his past life, he had liked movies made form those times.
The people here greatly resembled white caucasian Europeans, but according to his observations, the culture in this world was far more advanced than that of the people of the Middle Ages in his previous world. However, the food culture did seem quite primitive here. He was served oatmeal, black bread and mashed potatoes with salt almost every day and 'suffered' without end to the point where he suspected that the reason his caretaker was so plump was due to her sneaking away all the delicious stuff from his meals.
With his mind full of such thoughts, he asked one of his caretakers, Natalie, to see if he could have a different menu for his meals.
Natalie said that this was the staple menu for the sick students of the academy.
Larne responded by insisting to be served the regular meals instead.
And so on the second day, Natalie brought over a piece of black bread, some mashed potatoes and a bowl of herbal soup (with only two leaves in it) which replaced the usual oatmeal.
With a face full of tears, Larne ate the food feeling utter anguish, sorrow and despair.
One of the differences between the people here and Europeans was the way they put their surnames in front followed by their given names at the back in a way that was similar to the Chinese naming scheme. In a book covering the topic of noble family history, it was stated that during the thousand years of oppressors, brave warriors who challenged the magical beasts and goblins on their own and returned alive would be granted a title by the village chief. Names like Darkwolf, Tusk, etc. would be appended before their names and, in time, those titles became family names. Ruslan, for example, meant Prideful Lion in the ancient language of the elves.
The most glaring difference between this world and his own was the presence of the three moons in the sky. The first larger silver moon was called Osupa and it was personified as the Firstmoon Goddess and also known as the Goddess of Love maybe due to the fact that her husband Orun cheated on her and married other women. The second one which was a smaller, Scarlet-colored moon which hung in the night sky like a crimson, crescent fang was called Elena the Redmoon Goddess and also served as the Goddess of Vengeance[well maybe because she loved to kill any goddess that loved to sleep with her man]. According to the legends, when Elena reveals itself as a full moon, it would signify the beginning of another major conflict on the continent, now the third and smallest moon which was called Seamoon due to its blue-color and named Osun was the ruler of the seas[well, she was the most loved and most contested because every god was smitten by her.]
The Firstmoon Goddess, the Redmoon Goddess and the Seamoon goddess were wives of Orun, the God of the Sun, Light and Heroism[and a playboy too but they didn't add that to the legends]. That was also the reason why in Elysium, marriage between a man and three women was permitted. But one could only be allowed to do so if one was economically able to support having three wives. The status of the second and third wife was not one bit inferior to that of the first wife and all the wives were entitled to the same amount of love and care from the husband. That was why most people, even nobles, only took one wife to avoid too much hassle[Damn! that Orun is one hell lucky].
The more Larne read about the history of the world, the more confused and intrigued he felt[What a contradiction, can't your emotions be in one place. Damn! Larne i am removing you from being MC, Landon come here and take over. Oh gosh! what a fool!]. That was because the Elysian Continent was very large and humans only occupied a third of it and another third for other races. The rest of the uncharted territory were comprised mostly of desolate plains, forests or mountain ranges. But the many culture and history books he had browsed through had maps of the continent that were mostly similar to each other. It is said that these maps were left over from the age of magic and had been mapped by the magi during their travels around the continent.
The language used on the continent was known as the common language. All people on the continent spoke that language and no alternative dialects had ever developed. The script resembled alphabets and were comprised of 25 characters which could be formed into words by putting two or three characters into stroke-like. In the books, it was said that this language had been developed by the magi specially for the humans' use. The magi also knew several other languages of other races including that of the ancient fairies, dragons, elves, beastmen, dwarves, goblins, gremlins as well as some other tongues that contained mysterious magical power called shamanic spells.
The most surprising and contradicting part was that the maps of Elysium were drawn on a round globe, and the people of Elysium understood that they lived on a spherical celestial object. However, they didn't refer to them as planets, but rather as planar worlds. Some books from the age of magic described that there were other planar worlds and they were also sphere-like objects that were suspended in the empty void of space.
If the maps accurately depicted the Elysium Continent, then the legends about the magi must have been true; there was simply no other explanation. If that were the case, that meant that the civilizations on the continent evolved in a straight path that greatly relied on an individual's training in magic followed by CoreEnergy, unlike the civilizations in his previous life which pursued advancements in science and technology instead.
It was at this moment when Larne suddenly felt interested in the mysteries of CoreEnergy. After carefully researching his hand-copied version of the Proud-blood CoreEnergy manual and using it to train, he came to understand that the key to channeling CoreEnergy was blood circulation and a strange grayish-red energy depending on the attribute.
The people of Elysium call the points where blood vessels intersect 'Cores'. The average human body has 84 major cores and 490 minor cores as well as another 840 miscellaneous cores. Through sensing the elemental energy in the surrounding environment, one can increase one's blood circulation rate and attribute will the blood and energy(attributed) to circulate through specific cores in the body, resulting in the generation of a unique, explosive life energy that can be harnessed to greatly increase one's strength, speed as well as reaction time. This was the power of CoreEnergy.
To Larne's surprise, CoreEnergy also came in various types or attributes. Recalling the far-Eastern medical books he had memorized in his childhood, different parts of the human body corresponded to one of the five different elements. The skin, nose, large intestines and lungs belong to the metal attribute. The tendons, eyes, liver and gallbladder belong to the wood attribute. The bones, ears, kidneys and bladder were of the water attribute. The blood vessels, tongue, heart and small intestines corresponded to the fire attribute. And finally, the muscles, spleen, mouth and stomach belong to the earth attribute. However, CoreEnergy had more than 5 different attributes categories.
The cores from the eyesockets to the jaw produced light type CoreEnergy. The cores from the(back of the head) medulla oblongata[Fool, why didn't you use a simpler word or name. oh my gosh!, Larne!!!, come back here, replace this fool for me. Now back to the story, sorry for the sidetrack] down to the spinal cord (tailbone)[Damn! wasted effort, just continue] produced dark type CoreEnergy. Water type CoreEnergy came from the cores around the kidneys and bladder. Cores from the right chest up to the gallbladder and liver produced wood type CoreEnergy while the cores around the right abdomen corresponded to the fire type. The left chest trained in metal type CoreEnergy while the left abdomen cores trained in the earth attribute. Finally, the several major cores from the shoulders up to the upper thighs produced wind type CoreEnergy. Besides the more common attributes, some exotic kinds of CoreEnergy attributes like the blood attribute which he had(a story for another day) or the ice attribute existed as well.
In most cases, the training of CoreEnergy involved picking several major cores on the body to form a hexagram (a six side-shaped core) or a heptagram (a seven side-shaped core) and speeding up and isolating the circulation of the blood in the body through the minor cores in between the star shape to manifest CoreEnergy. To reach the point where manifested CoreEnergy can be projected according to one's will was the main aim of training. Larne felt that the theory behind CoreEnergy training was very similar to the art of training the internal energy of the body that he had come across in his past life.
[Well, Larne has always been the smart one, or i would have sent him away because what's all of this? Huh!, now my head hurts]