In this world, where humans are not the only intelligent creatures in the world and share the world with humans of other forms called deviant creatures, surviving is not an easy task ,as humans are born without any sort of physical strength to speak of, they are at a disadvantage against deviant creatures who are born with great strength and mystical inborn abilities the moment they are born.
They do not need to practice anything to easily smash huge boulders, create illusions, and soar through the skies amongst other things as their own physical bodies can show such qualities from birth. Since deviant creatures had such abilities humans were suppressed by them.
To survive humans used their sole thinking abilities which was not an advantage to them since deviant creatures had high intellectual abilities too, the only difference between them and humans were their physical constitutions which gave them an advantage over humans. Humans found ways in which they can mimic deviant creatures and the natural phenomena observed in nature such as floods, earthquakes, birds flying through the skies, the excessive strength of elephants and so on and so forth.
There are four known ways in which one could use to recreate the natural phenomena of the of the world, the number one way widly spread in the world were people awakened to be Invokers, these individuals had a worship like manner of doing things, they claim to worship the world and the world bestows upon them corresponding abilities of a certain level depending on their devotion to the world they can also offer sacrifices to the world and receive power according to the value of what they sacrificed from the world.
The second practice, right after the Invokers were Lifeblood Derivers, these individuals were high in number but less than the Invokers, once awakened they extract the essence of resources in the natural environment ranging from trees, plants, living organisms, soil, natural resources in the soil, water and even the air if they are more proficient with their practice and then use this essence to concoct things like healing portions and powders and even use them to create offensive portions as form of offense they are mostly known for their exceptional healing prowess and transformation abilities as they can extract the essence of a beast and transform into that beast by using that essence unto themselves and change their own essence to be the same as that of the beast they extracted from thus changing their appearance.
As they progress they can even directly use this essence to form something like a spell cast by a spell caster, an example being the High Elder in Oliphant's academy when he got binded and restrained by dry wooden vines when he first arrived in this world and was being cleansed of soul contamination by her. This path or way is popular since resources can be found everywhere and people can practice it easily if they ever get a chance to awaken in this way.
The third way which one can follow is being an Enchanter, this way is a bit difficult since it depends on one's comprehension of the world, it also a path with a few variationas within itself , one could even call them sub ways or sub paths as not many individuals are found practicing them as they are deemed unorthodox namely, Witches, Warlocks and Voodoo Masters. These types of people can inscribe their comprehension of nature's phenomena on objects and make those objects exude that comprehension.
For example one can get a blacksmith to forge a weapon for them and then take that weapon to an enchanter or enchantress to enchant their weapon to have fire based abilities of that enchanter if they comprehended fire in their practice , they can also enchant themselves with that comprehension, they mostly enchant themselves as form of defense against enemies. Witches are more specialized in curses and divinations and things in that domain, while Warlocks do the almost the same thing as witches but they specialize in poisons and decay like abilities and Voodoo Masters being well known for the use of their Voodoo dolls which they use to curse others and take damage in their place if they are hurt making them hard to kill.
And lastly Spell Casters, these people are the rarest of all, while others have to worship and sacrifice, extract and use natural resources , or inscribe and engrave their comprehension, they have no need for following these processes as they can directly manifest what they want to achieve by only expending mental strength or psyche to conjure spells that exude an element of the world they understand, one could say they are the blessed children of the world.
Spell casters can simply believe that whatever Spell they want to conjure can manifest without worshipping anything, they can also sacrifice natural resources of the world to power their spells and make them stronger and they can even also inscribe arrays which show enchantment like abilities to exude their power by applying them on themselves or objects, this path is is the most powerful as they have an all rounded manner of dealing with many situations,which is also why its the rarest of all ways as one has to learn too many things at once which can slow down their progress as they try to advance further.
Another reason for their scarcity is because of human nature, once such people are born they can be targets of greed, and jealousy to others and bring about a sense of threat to them which causes them to die in a large scale across the world without even reaching such heights of power due to other people's insecurities.
Oliphant was one such person but because of Zakia he may never even realize his full potential in this world. Oliphant did not know about any of this but with his mind he could tell that his Spell Caster status, was of high importance to the academy because as soon as he was found out to have recovered, and became a spell caster again people were sent after him either to silence him or take him back to be controlled by the academy.
Which is why Oliphant opted to never use any Spell Caster abilities unless necessary and chose to mimic the three colored masked man which Zakia had killed so that people more powerful than him would think he was an Invoker, like the patroller on the ship he arrived with in the Valley of Sirens thought as such.
This Valley was not a place run by humans but deviant creatures called Sirens, as Oliphant traveled amongst the crowd he saw more of these people who had skin with a fish scale patterns on them as he passed by many inns and stores selling various types of items, weapons and food.
Oliphant arrived in front of a place with a board sign written in bold letters, Giant Whale Inn, he chose this place as it was not too remote or too crowded as his base for the moment, to stay and gather information. He briskly went inside, as soon as he arrived a beautiful female waitress with ears like the fins of a fish and fish scale skin glistering in a light blue color adorned in a slightly revealing outfit as her thighs and cleavage could be easily seen approached Oliphant with a captivating smile on her face.
"Welcome to the Giant Whale Inn, what can this servant do for you?" the waitress kindly asked.
Oliphant replied in an unfazed manner but also not indifferent and said. "I need a room to stay if any are available, do you have those?"
"Sir we do have them its just based on your preference, we have our high quality premium rooms which have all necessary facilities and other services you may desire." the waitress slowly said in a provoking manner, she continued to say. "We also have medium quality rooms you can get an assistant if you like if you get this room, and then we have our ordinary rooms which have basic necessities for our guests, the decision is yours to make sir." the waitress said as she bowed. It was at this moment Oliphant noticed that the former user of this body was Zakia the genius of a generation in his academy so his demeanor and the clothes he wore were of high standard so this waitress must be thinking he was one of those high money spending young lords.