Sometimes in life, the simplest of answers can shed light on the most challenging of questions. Why did light energy have the same color as fire energy? Why was it warm, yet not quite as hot? Why did it lose its color when interacting with darkness energy, or evil energy, as some called it?
As with all things, theories and speculations existed. Many of which bordered factually correct responses only to be drowned in mythology and fiction.
There was once a time when the main religion held by the human race was not monotheistic. The God of Light Aureon was not always praised as the one true God.
With their daily lives revolving around various elements, it was only natural for them to be filled with awe and worship towards them.
Light and fire were once seen as two sides of the same authority wielded by Aureon, whose Avatar hung in the sky in the form of the Sun. The destructive power and scorching heat in fire energy could be used to deliver His wrath and act as divine punishment. The gentle warmth of His light energy could be used to invigorate and heal those worthy.
The other elements were believed to be authorities of the Gods of Lightning and Air, and the Goddesses of Earth and Water.
Darkness energy had yet to be encountered during that era, at least by the races on the planet, so they had yet to speculate on its origin.
Some groups worshipped many of the deities. Some only worshipped one but acknowledged the existence of the rest. Regardless, they all accepted that the nature of their reality and the elements were all controlled by specific Gods.
So, at the time, there were some 'explanations' for a few of the questions. Why was light the same color as fire? The two were different sides of Aureon's power. Why was it only warm instead of being the same temperature? The different sides were used for unique purposes, destruction and restoration.
Later on, a shift in power occurred, tilting world influence in favor of the Church of Aureon. The different Gods and Goddesses were demoted in belief to that of natural spirits below Him. With this change came a disassociation between fire energy and Him.
Rather than light energy having a similar color to fire energy, it became accepted that the fire spirit made its power resemble Aureon's authority out of admiration. He managed to get the color right, but failed to match the exact temperature and function. Any written mention of prior beliefs was strictly forbidden, and for the most part, destroyed.
When the Abyssal Realm first connected with the planet and darkness energy was introduced to its inhabitants, the conclusion was that it was evil energy created to substitute His authority by those that had fallen out of His favor. Specifically, the consensus was that the strongest among them, the Evil God, created the cursed energy.
After the initial battles against demons, the theory was that the 'darkness' aspect of evil energy simply removed the coloring of light energy during the cleansing process, but that the Lord's energy remained present and strong.
A new question surfaced at that point. Why were portals connecting their two realms. A rather convenient answer came to mind. The Evil God was responsible, of course. It was simply His sorcery.
These 'explanations' sufficed to satisfy the curiosity on the several phenomena, but how close were they to the truth?
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The portal room was nothing but compact brown earthen walls. Its most prominent feature, the hovering blue artifact that attracted glowing orange light, was fostering a reaction of energy that assembled all possible conceptual meanings into their principal origin.
The reaction itself was not reliant on the blue artifact, but was contained and facilitated by it.
The speculation from the various races of the planet that the portals formed due to the sorcery of the Demon King was completely incorrect.
The truth of the matter was that the demons were simply making use of it by collecting and strengthening the portals. The demon race was aware that the portals only existed due to the natural formation of soul energy, a discovery made by the Demon King.
That being said, all they knew was that the energy was forming, not how or why. To all of them, the outward appearance was the same, and they could not see more than their eyes allowed.
What Elsmeth saw as he stood in a daze was light energy and fire energy loosely associated with each other, with very little fire energy bonding with different monomeric conceptual meanings of a lot of light energy.
Essentially, the meanings that the two energies held in common was gluing them together.
Despite how it appeared to others, they weren't actually seeping through the walls and flowing towards the portal as a continuous stream. Instead, the energies were simply appearing in the room at different points, likely straight from outside the dungeon despite being a few floors underground, and then proceeding towards the portal.
In response to being surrounded by darkness energy full of the Attribute of the Dead, specific units of the light energy with shared meanings emerged from their folding to bind it. Consequently, the exposed regions with an affinity for fire energy folded inward, releasing the bound element.
Which tiny units with different conceptual meanings exposed to the outside, and which ones folded in on themselves, dictated what the energy attracted and chose to bind to.
The coloring would briefly linger after the light energy and fire energy separated, before the fire energy too folded in on itself, showing only pure mana without any element.
Something he had already noticed when observing the recent battle was that all energies aside from light and darkness came from and returned to ordinary mana. They seemed to be nothing but small chains of monomers that would peek out from pure mana when used before tucking back in afterward.
Following in the footsteps of the light energy, the pure mana that no longer exposed the chain representing fire energy would take the Attribute of the Dead. Only, it had no attraction to it except when specifically stealing it from the light energy.
Having its Attribute of the Dead taken, the light energy would take up more from the darkness energy, and then it would merge with the pure mana through the attraction of the Attribute.
This combination was exactly what was driving the connection between the Abyss and the world. A stream of conjoined mana and light energy, both containing the Attribute of the Dead, was funneling in from the Abyss while simultaneously attracting more energy from the world.
The key ingredient missing to finish the reaction was a living being with mana containing the Attribute of Life. After merging together, some of the mixture would break off and move towards the flora growing in the dungeon, nourishing them with soul energy after reacting with their Life Attribute.
It also reacted to people when unobstructed by energy circulation, such as to the Warrior that Elsmeth was near at the time of his birth, but had simply missed due to its smaller scale.
All of this sensory input offered a great deal more than speculation.
Why did light energy have the same color as fire energy? Well, Elsmeth couldn't quite 'see' color, but if he was asked that question at that point, he could probably answer that the color simply came from the fire energy surrounding the light energy. The light energy itself didn't actually display any color.
Why was it warm, yet not quite as hot? As long as he looked carefully, he'd be able to articulate a fully correct answer. A half-complete one would be that the heat came from the fire energy, but because it was present in small amounts, it didn't have the same potency as concentrated fire energy.
The rest of the answer rested in the conceptual meanings of the monomers. Albeit much less, light energy had identical units with the conceptual meaning 'Heat' that bonded to the abundant units in fire energy.
Why did it lose its color when interacting with darkness energy? The orange fire energy was released when light energy changed its form in response to binding the Attribute of the Dead.
Finally, why were portals connecting the two worlds? What comes apart also desires to come together. The component parts of matter and energy were driving a reaction to form more of the principal origin.
Soul energy.