He is Germain Stargazer, the strongest mage alive, he reached 7th soul ascension a paragon for his time. However, it'd never be enough to claim the title of strongest by just reaching 7th ascension, the reason why he's the strongest is because he's the only one above 5th soul ascension left alive.
A war that went beyond any other did shake heaven and earth, a war for dominance decided the one true ruler. It also completely devastated the mages that use to rule throughout the land. As the last healthy and well enough to considered victor, he started question the needs for such war.
Germain looks at what he considered the biggest failure of his life Elizabeth Stargazer. After another long day, he didn't sigh, he didn't cry, he was there by her bed... by her side until the very end. He couldn't save his lover, she got mortally wounded to protect him, he failed her.
Holding her hand, he looked at her and can clearly see what she is feeling. She feels satisfied but the time is running out, so she closes her eyes, so he doesn't close it for her. She didn't mind that she was weak or that all progress that she did is gone. She achieved everything she wanted.
The last vestige of life of what once was the most talented being he had ever seen is gone.
Beautiful blond hair, mesmerising blue eyes, shinning smile on her face full of youthful vitality. Now, a shivery corpse that looks like died long time, it has been a while since she lost her graceful appearance.
It's time to move on.
After recomposing his bearings for a moment. He gets closer to her body, carefully got her into his embrace as he takes her of the bed. He is holding her as if she were most fragile material to exist, though deep within he knows that her body has a resilience of being incomparable to any other body.
As if by magic he floats with her, holding on to her he flies to a spot just behind the house. He's mind was to much of a turmoil to appreciate the beautiful house, garden or aura. She organized everything before death, so her resting place would be perfect.
He looks at the tomb in front of him. He doesn't want to let her go, even though she's already gone. His body and mind diverge as he proceeds forward. He already can see the coffin, immediately he thinks about stopping, to late he's already by the coffin. After a deep breath he puts her inside, while setting her in properly his body gets colder and colder.
He is ready to get up and close the coffin, however the emotions inside where having I real time effect inside his body. His head feels faint, his back feels cold, his mind feels empty. While getting up the energy so dear and familiar to him gets out of control, lashing out almost get blast into the surrounds and destroying this tomb. His quick reaction to were able to pacify the energy but he could feel a minor wound was done inside his body.
After getting up he stood there morning for who knows how long, but he understands suffering can't continue like this. There's one thing he can do… something they've never understood she wished for him to try his luck after she's gone.
...
Germain Stargazer is man with a finely shape chin, slightly dishevel black hair, his cloths couldn't hide his finely shaped muscles, even his hollowed eyes and expressionless face makes for handsome man even if he isn't neatly prepared there's a slight charm to his appearance.
He is looking at strange lights forming on the ground, something known as spell formation, but he could understand nothing about this formation everything about this is undoubtedly strange. He doesn't know how it works neither why it's here nor what it does. Though there's one saving grace, after a lot of tests and try he has been able to make it work.
"I did it!" he thought to himself. Germain and Elizabeth aways wanted to make this ancient formation to work, it's a pity she couldn't see it working. At least he completed the last thing she asked him to do, now he needs to see what it does.
As he walks in the centre of the formation the lights revolve around him, slowly the started to pressure him. Feeling pressured he tries to get out, but he can't, letting his mana out of his body he uses force.
Nevertheless, the formation holds strong and pressured the mana back into his body. Frowning Germain gives his all even calling forward his soul, as the spirit power gushes out of his soul it started to combine with the mana.
In addition, Germain makes gesture using the combined spirit power and mana to form a mesmerising shield that blocks the pressure, not convinced he proceeds to make hand incantations as star like light formed around his shield reinforcing it.
Soon he's left stunned, the shield is being pushed back, until it shrunk to look more like an aura around his body. He is so confused this didn't look like a harmful formation, why are things happening like that.
He thinks to himself "I can't believe… am I about to die? After all that I've been through…"
The shield was forced inside his body, the pressure touches his hair and skin, but it did no harm. Germain becomes even more confused… and since he couldn't resist, he decides to let go of the shield, as the pressure entered his body it did no harm to his flesh nor soul.
However, it restrained his mana into his core, and he could feel it being restrained. The feeling of those restriction is painful but there's nothing he could do, as the pain blanks out his mind for a moment.
He's falling to the ground, summoning a bit of strength with his right arm he put the hand to his front, then it's gone… He feels that the formation isn't working anymore.
Footsteps a lot of them, looking around he sees a bunch of haggard looking people, there's a lot of them, way too many of them. All around him just haggard people moving in the same direction. Their hallowed eyes clearly deliver the hopelessness that they felt.
He tries to summon his mana, but he can't feel it at all. He tries again but there's none left in his body, he takes in a breath of cold air.
"I'm panicking!" He thought, as he tries to calm himself down. Looking around he could see that even though there is a lot of people around him none are paying attention to him.
As he let out a slight breath of relief, his emotion once again started fall into a turmoil! "Where that fuck am I!" He proceeds to internally scream.
A hand touches his arms from the back, turning around he saw a woman as he distances himself from her. She has a hand extended as if asking in case he needs help to get up.
Germain gets up on his on as he analyses the woman before him. She opens her mouth and says something making him even more dumbfounded. He doesn't understand, it is even worst he don't even know what language this is.
He might not be a sage with boundless wisdom, but he has always been confident in a least roughly identifying the origin of a wrote scroll or spoken word. He supresses the astonishment inside his heart and focus on what she is saying.
Nothing… He looks at her clothing maybe it might help identify her origin, plain brownish robes on the outer layer and inside a with cloth with strange looking marks and patterns it seems like a uniform.
Again, he failed, but soon an idea creeped into his mind. Ignoring her, he turns his back to her and goes ahead to act like the others looking forward with hallowed eyes and walking in the same direction. Since the whole interaction and evaluation was so fast, his actions are in one cohesive action makes it more believable.
Although he is acting like the others he decided to keep looking around and listen if other start to talk. Although he couldn't understand their words, he could try slowly deciphering what is happening.
At least his act seems convincing, the woman isn't bothering him anymore. For now, he decided to just analyse the situation, least he gets unwanted attention.
From the fatigued looks on the face of others they see to be non-mages. Concentrating internally, he could feel mana in the air, so he decided to slowly absorb it while moving forward.
Without disturbances hours go by… soon there's complains people are talking more often also the mob started to look even more fatigued, hungry and thirsty. There's a disturbance at the front looking ahead some short of carriage that just make its way closer to the crowd.
There're people around the carriage their cloths are similar to that woman from before, so it was indeed a uniform. Some individuals started to push their way to the front, the reason soon was revealed. Those uniformed guys are distributing porridge.
As he listens closely one by one are being served, they all repeat the similar words amongst those words one is being use more often than others. With a small smile, at least he can understand that might be a 'thank you' in their language. Maybe that isn't the exact words for 'thank you' but just another way to express gratitude, for him it means progress in understanding them.
Moving around he went to the front got the porridge said their 'thank you' and looked around and went to the place with most people. They are mostly whispering but it's better than before where there were almost none talking.
Two day goes by.
Germain haven't learned the language yet but made a lot of progress. There's lots of words he decorated but only a few words he knows the meaning. While most were names and others were food, water, thank you, sorry, tired, hungry, a few numbers etc. Some he roughly knows what they could mean like land, day, night, commoner, yes, no etc.
The progress has been slowed since they don't talk out loud. However, there's some good news, he's sure if he leaves the group, he can survive. While traveling they've found beasts, after accumulating mana inside his body for a few days he's sure he could kill them as a source of food. However, he's prepared to stay since he doesn't have information about the surroundings.
At the afternoon of the third day, they reach a village. Since they're all non-mages under caution and a few tricks he was able to go wherever he wishes to. Also, Germain is even more prepared to leave the group, there's road that most likely leads somewhere, and most important also there's a river close by.
He can't be sure about the road, but the river he knows that will most likely lead to civilisation. Thinking again even though he has some info he hasn't learned the language yet and leaving right now when he's in a safe village sees stupid.
In the following days was able to adapt to some conversations and even give an answer, the villages gave work to the crowed of haggard people. Germain was able to hunt without trying to stick out, he is adapting to the environment.
He learned that the haggard crowd are refugees from a war that just broke out in the border, the uniformed people are a relief team to guide the refugees to a temporary place. He also got information about cities all around, mostly about those that were caught into the war, nonetheless he learned about one city that is where the supplies for the war and the relief team comes from.
Germain Stargazer is just rumble refugee making a name as a hunter in a small village, when asked about his name he responded, "I'm Glen." The truth is that's the name of someone else, but since he didn't know what name is common, he copied it.
In general, he learned a lot of information he has desperately needs like names, places, culture and the most important were about mages.
Since none of those from the village or relief team are mages, he was able to absorb mana from the environment without getting caught. He is a mana accumulation mage, the most basic type of mage. Back where he came from it isn't even considered a true mage, but even the most basic magical skill is divine before those villagers.
As mana circulated through his body it passively reinforced this weak body, mana nurtured the vessel that contains itself, it's a baptism. The mana slowly accumulated and when his body felt filled, he would spend mana actively reinforcing his body to make so it could hold even more mana.
Until he finally felt ready to make the next step, the foundation establishment step, the moment where the mana inside his body could be used in liquid form. It'd be a massive undertake, a whole new level of mana quality leading to access in even more magical techniques at his disposal.
It's already the tenth day since he reached the village, although he isn't knowledgeable enough about their language, he can pass through a normal conversation without arousing suspicions.
In the same morning Germain under the name Glen went out with the hunting group but Glen never came back.