Somewhere, in the vast vacuum of space, was a large, beautiful planet roughly three times the size of earth. It's name? Terran. It was the home of over 10 billion humans and animals. For over half a millennia, the planet and her inhabitants enjoyed a peaceful and prosperous life. There were no wars, no fighting. Life was easy and free. However, trouble and danger found them and came a knocking in the form of a raging storm.
In the year 520, a storm, in which was later dubbed the mana storm, descended upon the planet and swept across it in vengeance. This had officially marked the beginning of the "Terran's fall" period. The mana storm had caused mutations in about 85% of all living beings on the planet, as for some reason, their bodies couldn't properly handle the sudden influx of new energy. These mutations resulted in the creation of viscous, ferocious beasts, and the rise of 5 new species.
Of the 15% of the sentient beings that were unaffected, roughly three-quarters of that were human. These people only gained a slight increase in strength, which only increased their tragedy. The rest were animals, and there were even worse off, as they were quickly killed of by the new ferocious mutated beasts. The humans that had mutated, had changed in either orcs, demons, dwarves, elves, or dracos.
Orcs. They were tall, large creatures with light brown skin, and large horns on their foreheads. They had incredible defenses and strength. They also had an innate ability to control the the earth element. However, they also had the uncontrollable urge to conquer and wage war. They were violent and merciless.
Demons. They were a vile, evil species that loved to kill, torture and corrupt all life forms. Their forms featured either black, red, or purple skin, black eyes as dark as the abyss, and leathery wings that gave them insane speed. they had the innate ability to control darkness and lightning.
Dwarfs. A short, stout, serious, peaceful people gifted with the ability to manipulate metal, earth, and fire to a certain extent.
Next were the elves. A peaceful species that tended to live in the forests and be close with nature. They were blessed with good looks and the ability to control wind , water, and light. They tended not to associate with the other races for the most part.
The dracos were a dragon - human hybrid race. They as well were a peaceful people, though they also had an intense love of fighting. They had the ability to use and control fire well. They could produce scales on their bodies that increased their strength and defenses. They also had wings that allowed them to soar through the skies.
It did not take long before the orcs, demons, and ferocious beasts started waging war and causing chaos all across the world. Their violent, feral, and vile characteristics pushed the rest of the world onto the brink of catastrophe. These ferocious beasts formed beast tides, that raided cities and laid waste to everything and everyone.
Not only were the living affected by this mana storm, the environment, the planet itself was affected. Large structures, later named as dungeons descended upon the world. Hesitant and scared, the humans didn't enter these monstrosities and avoided them. For a while, nothing had happened with them, and they stopped worrying about them. However, this became a grave mistake as after certain amounts of time of being left alone, they would flash red and numerous creatures, aliens would emerge and attack everything in sight. This pushed humanity even further into the edge of extinction.
Not only the humans, but the other races, the elves, dwarves, dracos tried to fight back, but their strength and abilities weren't enough either. They too were at the edge of destruction. It was a losing effort and the world seemed to be on the brink of destruction.
Meanwhile, deep inside the planets core, a consciousness had awoken, shortly after the storm had ravaged the planet, her planet. Yes. This consciousness was the planet herself. It was not a good sight waking up to. Her body, and her inhabitants were being slaughtered like sheep and had little to no way to fight back. Slowly falling into despair, she could only watch as the apocalypse ravaged the surface for years. During this time, she tried to come up with an idea, anything to save them. However, the years had turned into over a decade and the humans fell to under a couple dozen thousand in number, and the other races about to follow. It seemed all was lost.
However, some higher being or lady luck had saw her desperate situation and felt sympathy as after about 15 years since the apocalypse started, she suddenly felt a surge of power being injected directly into her core. With this new energy, she finally formed an idea that could possibly save her and her inhabitants. This began the era that would be known as "Gaia's comeback".
Implementing her plan, Gaia, the planets consciousness, gathered her new power as well as most of the mana still left on the surface of the planet and created giant trees in al the major cities of the humans, elves, dwarfs, and dracos territories not ravaged by the beasts, demons, and orcs. She called them world trees. The demons and orcs would not be able to approach them or destroy them so easily. She gave these trees the ability to grant systems of power to those of the 4 races. However, they had to have reached adolescence, 16 years of age, in order to receive it as their bodies would not be able to handle it if they haven't reached that threshold. The trees were used as a medium to connect her with the people where she would inject her power and mana into their bodies. The result? These "awakened" individuals received a system where they could use them to grow stronger. There were many different types, and some people could receive the same one. What they got depended on their personality as well as their innate gifts and talents. They could also open things called status panels, inventories and such to monitor their individual progress.
Some more time passed, and as more and more people received their systems, the pressure on the 4 races slowly dropped as they were able to fight back more and more. however, Gaia realized that this was still not enough as the populations continued to decline, albeit, slower. There were still people that were too scared still to fight despite this new gift. So, Gaia decided to implement another system. A reward system.
After someone defeated an orc, demon, or beast, half of it's energy would go to the planets core, while the other half would have a chance to be turned into either an item, that could boost someones abilities once worn or a skill book that they could absorb into their bodies and learn, expanding their abilities by a notch. If someone cleared a dungeon, a chest would appear with more of these same things. These things would be random, but generally, the stronger the enemy defeated, the better the item or skill that appeared.
This new "update" gave the rest of the people the push they needed. Within a decade, the populations of the 4 races gradually increased once again, and the forces of demons, orcs, and beasts were pushed back into their own lands. Wars still continued from time to time, but, light and hope shone down upon the planet once again.
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After thousands of years, people have tried to guess on what caused the mana storm to happen in the first place. Some believe the mana storm was caused by a bored god that wanted amusement while others thought it was because some celestial being passed by the planet and inadvertently caused great changes to happen on the planet due to their vast power. But, whatever their guess, maybe in time the truth would be revealed.