Elysium.....
What a beautiful name for a floating rock in space.....
The Planet of Elysium was formed approximately 4.5 Billion years ago. Because it was located in habitable zone of it solar system, having ocean of liquid water, a magnetic field that protect it from harmful cosmic rays and radiations, it's possible for life to emerge and survive in this planet.
For the first few billion years, the planet was pounded by many asteroids that contain mineral like iron, gold, copper, and many more. One of this mineral, lets call it Etherium, came and scattered across the world like many others. Unlike its radioactive cousins like radium and uranium, Ethereum wasn't harmful at all. Because the chaotic orbit it has, it nearby planet, crashed and fused into Elysium. Some debris of it destruction orbit the planet and then formed the moon. after that the atmosphere, ocean and landmass created. Even though there was many natural disaster here and there, the world was stable.
After a few billions years, life form came to existance. In the quiet oceans they begin to form. At first it was just a tiny microorganisms,so small it was, this creature cant be seen with naked eyes. Some of them use the sun's blessing and plenty nutrition in ocean to make food. The other creature, seeing how much work to do just to get food, decide to just 'Eat' the ones that already make it. The ones that make the food, lets just call it Plant, release a gas like oxygen to atmosphere and over time, make it habitable.
Cut sort some hundreds million years later, complex life form emerge and start their odyssey to land. The Plant was the first to arrive and start to evolve to live on land. Remember the other one who chose to eat instead make the food ?, they also evolved along side the Plant in the ocean. This "Animals", lets call them that, also following the plant to the land.
Through Millions of years, they evolved to survived on the land and thrive on it. They become much bigger ,complex and smarter over the year. But then, a calamity happened. Through some catastrophe, over 95% species of both plant and animal extinct. The survivor of Calamity forced to survive in ruined world.
The thing about live is they always found a way to survive, to reproduce and thrive in even the most dangerous conditions. And just like their ancestor, they evolved into something more. Now lets talk about the animals, especially the Reptile and Mammals.
The Reptile or Dracan were the first ones to spread across the world and rule it. For Fifty million years they evolved into Titannical Beings and the first one to achieve the ability to fly. But all of that were over when the second Calamity happened.
The Second Calamity happened when a massive asteroid came striking down into the world. The heat released was the first thing that killed many of the Plants and the Dracans. Then the extreme climate change and nuclear winter on worldwide scale saw some of the surviving plants species to died and as the result, mass extinction of surviving Dracan because of the lack of food.
Where are our friend, the Mammals you asked ? Well they were deep underground when the shit hit the Fan. When everything was over they get back on the surface and take the place of the former Dracans, by spreading all over the world.
So are all the Dracans dead? No. Some small and avian Dracans species survive the Calamity. But the amount of surviving Dracans were so small they can't completely recover their population, and then the Mammals began their world conquest, out compete the Dracans and their already small population dwindled further.
Now the Dracans had no choice but to avoid the Mammals, some that still retain it reptillian traits lived in massive cave and deep ocean, while the other ones who can fly try to live on high places. By the next millions years the split happened. The Dracan Species split into the Avian, Draconite, and Serpen.
Remember Ethereum ? now we get into it. the first ones to encounter the Ethereum was the Draconite. The thing about Ethereum is, they were everywhere in the air. But to get the abnormal and magical effect it has, it must be consumed. Though generations of this consumtion, the magical property of Ethereum will start to flow in body and changed it. Sometimes the change is good, some times bad. One of the Ethereum magical effect is it enabled the user to manipulate the physics itself.
The Draconite then evolved and split again into the Land Dragon, Wyvern and the Winged Dragon. Their name explain themself. The effect of Ethereum also depend on what ecosystem and habitat where the user lived. The Draconite who from the generation to generation lives near Volcano or magma concentration usually has that magmatic trait and ability to manipulate fire on it whim, the same could be said to the one who live in Frozen Tundra, Forest, Ocean or Desert.
Now another millions of years had passed and our Mammals also evolved and split into many new species. Lets focus on one of them, The Apes. This new species usually work in group and can be found hanging around in forest. They walk and climb with four of their limb ,spend most of their times in tree and eat nearly everything even something that poisonus. This make them very adaptable in every kind of change in nature.
Now another million of years has passed and they start to learn how to stand straight, walk with just two feet and they started to abandon the tree and started to live and travel on land. They also live a nomadic life, moving from one area to another in search of better condition and also started to learn on tool making
The thing about the Apes was, their curiosity and learning abilities is way higher than most of animals. They usually copy and passed down the knowledge they deemed important to their descendants. When one of them started using pointy stick to hunt their food, the other start doing the same thing. When one of them started to break bone using stone, the other will do it too.
When their species split and one of them decide to discard it fur, they change the game forever. Why ?, because without fur they can unlocked new ability, Sweating. Yeah you read it right my friend. When hunting, the hunter and the prey usually spend large amount of energy to run. After period of time both of them has to slow down and catch a breath while releasing the accumulated heat from running.
Our friend the Hairless Ape or lets just call them Human, while not the fastest runner, have greater endurance because their ability to sweat. The could just follow their prey until the said prey had to slow down or their heart exploded. Either way, you can outspeed the human, but not outrun them.
Another game breaking move developed by human that differentiate them from another animals is the ability to make fire. Because this ability they can cook their food and make it more nutritious which in the other hand make their brain bigger and more developed.
From this they can think better than before and developed more sophisticated tool.
The Human usually take shelter in cave and live together in group following the herd of their prey. In this hunter and gather livestyle it isn't unusual for them clash with other animals or other human group in search of food. One of the species they encounter when they out hunting was our old friend, the Draconite.
At this time, the Draconite had already evolved after millions of year affected by the Etherium. When they first meet the Draconite, the Human was a bit wary of this oversized cave lizard. After they see The Draconite ability to manipulate worldly elements around them, the Human start to fear and become hostile to Draconite.
Among Humanity first tool of diplomacy is violence after all and clash between the two species was a normal occurrent. If the Human can defeat the Draconite, they will eat them. Why eat them ? well why not, at the end of the day the Draconite was just another source of meat for them, and if they lose, the exact same thing will happen, except this time they were the ones on the menu.
This process happen for another thousand of years and by the time the Human finally know it, their body has also changed. The Ethereum, the abnormal element that flow inside the Draconite's body, has also started to flow inside their's. From time to time, a weird thing happened. One of their elder start to get near prophetic dream, some of their children spooked when out of nowhere a fire suddenly flared from their hands. From this the magic user started to appear and culture born.
Unlike the Draconite, only a small percentage of Human can harness Ethereum energy or what they called as "Mana". Because of relatively huge amount of mana required to harness it, only a person with a big amount of Ethereum energy inside their body could use it. Most Human didn't have that large pool of mana, because of that a presence of an individual who can harness it was very valuable in one group.
One of this human group, is the Elfs. From thousand years of using Ethereum magical energy, their body also started to changed. Their once small ear started to get longer, enhancing their hearing range.
One the Ethereal ability they gained is the power to manipulate plant inside the forest where they live, bending it to their will and make it able to produce a fruit in higher quality and quantity. In order to ensure the availability of food increases and ease their daily life, the Elfs leave their Hunter-Gather life style started farming by planting now domesticated wheat and others crop plant.
Without knowing it, they ignite the first agricultural evolution and change the world forever.