Humans are weak; we have limited stamina, we can't breathe underwater or at certain altitudes, and we have limited strength and pitifully limited influence over the world around us. This was made all the more apparent when we suddenly discovered we were not alone, and no I don't mean aliens invaded, It would be more accurate to say the true inhabitants of Earth decided that our time here was up.
Everything we had written off as fantasy, everything we assumed was meager mythology or folklore; everything revealed itself, everywhere, all at once. Only 20% of Humanity survived the first wave and as a result, we were thrown back to the medieval age. The only positive that came out of the falling of outer Ice caps was the fact that humans awakened their potential for magic. From there humans threw themselves into the study of magic paving the path to development and ushering in an age of war with every existing race that dared walk over us.
As a last effort to put an end to the fight, the world's first-ever Cardinal mage sacrificed himself to create an Ice curse that protected the original human territories and went out to slay the beasts of the greater world allowing humanity to rebuild. A Millennia later Humanity regained control of the earth and began redevelopment; this only took so long because the mana that the outer world enjoyed was also blocked off by the Ice Curse which is now known as the Ice Cap.
Humanity entered an era of decline and classism took root as they restored themselves to their prior state of technological advancement, slowly Because of the plotting and scheming of noble households, Magic declined further leaving only the elite of elites to achieve greatness; society was then divided into commoners, Wealthy families, Magic Dynasties, Noble households, Royal households, and Imperial households; and this was counting magicians. Society had become such that you were only big amongst other normal people if you weren't a mage.
All wasn't lost though, records were still kept and studies were still being held on the improvement of magic to the standard of the Era of war, not because humanity needed to survive, but to determine who was truly worthy to venture out into the world beyond the Cursed Ice caps. The Royal families of the world sponsored an organization called the Scholar's Guild with hopes of preserving the knowledge and understanding of magic they had; Not long after it was constructed the guild was trashed with different factions taking different pieces of knowledge; the scholars who were mostly made up of mages then decided to fight back initiating the 100-year void war where every underhanded method in the book.
In the end, 100 years passed a singular scholar won over both the Royal families and the political factions of the world's countries with the sheer Innovation and balance he brought to their understanding of magic and cultivation as a whole. He designed the format for the world's magic structure and discovered many of the tight-lipped secrets that the current political world safeguards like divine treasures; It is said that this scholar was the second greatest contributor to Humanity due to the wave of advancement he brought to the world.
The scholar never lived to see the age of 20, at 19 he was assassinated because of the sheer number of common households that suddenly gained strength and the mages coming out with bloodlines left, right, and center. He was doing too good of a job and as such his brilliance was cut short The world was denied what would have been the Golden Era of magic, it wouldn't have been too fetched for humanity to break out of the Ice caps and challenge the other races of the world on equal footing with The scholar's contribution, and everyone knew it.
Following his death, the Scholar's guild willingly disbanded and dubbed him the sole Scholar of Magic, leaving the world to face the consequences of killing such a wonderful mind, Following the death of The magic Scholar, Sora King, the Scholars disappeared as though they never existed and humanity entered it's final decline, choosing to rely on magical tools they would develop along with their technology leading to the current state of society. Now Both the First Cardinal mage and The Magic Scholar are fairy tales and legends told only to inspire the young generation of talented mages to go out and achieve similar greatness.
To be frank, the only public knowledge that remained consistent throughout the ages was the knowledge humanity had on the creatures of the world, or at least the way they were scaled. Humans knew that despite the creatures outside the Ice Cap attacking them they were not the final enemy of the world, It just so happened that the development of non-magical technology was weakening the vitality of the world and that was preventing the other races from curbing this greater enemy more effectively.
Demons, Devils, Calamities, Titans, and other nefarious races of the world were wreaking havoc in the greater world and if humanity wanted to thrive out there they would need to deal with them effectively. Luckily for humanity, only a drop worth of the ocean of nefarious races resided within the Icecap, and it is these very creatures that Human Mages are obliged to protect the masses from.
This is the divine mission of the world's mages and unless they can deal with the enemies within the Ice cap they would never survive in the greater world. Demon beasts, similarly to other races, were ranked in a fairly straightforward system. They would identify the creature's core element, its life stage, and its strength compared to the magical system humanity had been using thus far.
Humans knew never to assume that a demon beast would only have one element and made it so that a Basic mage could never fight a demon beast alone as that would be a meaningless loss to humanity's limited Military force against this foreign enemy. After Sora researched thoroughly he discovered that demon beasts, similar to other creatures of the world, grew vastly differently than magicians.
Magicians would have to make an active effort to grow out their mana and unshackle the limits placed on their magic by the universe; while this limit would naturally just crumble over time for the demon beast as they passed through their stages of life. These stages were very simply divided into the Infant stage, the youth stage, the adolescent stage, the adult stage, the elder stage, and the ancient stage.
Despite a demon beast's life stage having no real relevance to its strength, tracking it helped humans get a rough idea of how much a demon beast would grow at different points in life. The real statement of a creature's strength was divided into classes, 11 of them, just like the Human's magic system. Unlike humans who were somewhat limited by their spells and the single-tracked nature of it; creatures would have that amount of mana and free reign to control their natural element in any way they see fit. The classes were the equivalent of the levels of magic humans could attain and they were as follows:
Basic Mages - Common class creatures
Intermediate mages - Soldier class creatures
Advanced mages - Captain class creatures
Profound mages - Chieftain class creatures
Master mages -Sergeant class Creatures
Grandmaster mages -Major class Creatures
Supreme mages - Colonel class creatures
Apprentice Sages - Commander Class creatures
Lesser Sages - Titan Class creatures
True Sages - Ruler class creatures
Cardinal Mages - Cardinal Class creatures
Despite the various classes being relatively equal to the level of magic attainment attached to it, that was only speaking from a mana point of view, the natural abilities of these creatures were still vastly superior to that of humans, and that fact made humanity decide to make Mages fight demon beasts in squads of 4 at least with one member being a level higher than the beast; if someone like that isn't available the squad number immediately shoots up to between 7 and 10 members depending on the actual creature being hunted.
All that being said though, race was still a deciding factor in how big a threat was. If it was a land creature that had the water element, it would be borderline suicidal to fight it anywhere in water and one would immediately recommend sending some kind of lightning mage in for good measure. Following the establishment of the Ice Cap Humanity had only ever faced one Ancient stage creature, It was a Cerberus and it was discovered that a Cerberus at the Ancient level was, not that surprisingly, Ruler class.
That fight took the combined might of all the world's greatest mages and even then they barely got out by the skin of their teeth; In the end, the creature was blasted through the Ice Cap wall, and the curse was immediately triggered. Humanity received two warnings that day, Grow strong if you want to stand a chance in the greater world and they equally learned the consequences of trying to destroy the Ice Cap.
The Cerberus that easily held humanity in a decade-long chokehold was immediately frozen through and crushed in seconds. They now knew why the creatures outside feared breaking into the Ice Cap, not because they couldn't break in, but because of the potential of encountering another mage at the level to do this. It has been half a millennia since then and Humanity has not once forgotten the might of Ravel, the first Sentient demon beast to grace the earth since the time of the First Cardinal mage.
It set the Royals straight and they began to proactively gain strength instead of being satisfied with their little cake within the Ice cap. Not because of fright of what happened to Ravel, but because of the glimpse of the greater world they saw in the moments before Ravel's demise. Now mages weren't just obliged to grow to protect their race, they were to become the soldiers that led the charge when humanity one day conquered the world beyond the Ice Cap.
All of that was just a passing memory for Sora though; he also sought out the Cardinal level and also sought to leave the Ice Cap, but not for reasons like conquest or patriotism, No. Sora wanted to go out there and raise the standard of Magic in the Greater world, Earth was an island compared to what was out there and he wouldn't rest until he had become the focal point of it all.