After defeating Eric, I spent the night drinking with the locals, retelling the tale. It seemed Eric was what was known in town as a Raven Boy, a group of delinquent adventurers who stay around the guild bullying the weak. Apparently, their party got severely injured and even lost a member a year ago, and since then they have just been wallowing in self pity taking it out on unsuspecting newbies.
So when Eric got a taste of his own medicine, the entire guild house was eager to celebrate, which explains why I was waking up this morning with a raging hangover. I had a quest to fulfill, and I was eager to learn what all Red could accomplish. After learning he was a Blood Raven, I asked Siya for some information on blood ravens.
Apparently, back when the titans ruled the world, there was one monarch who rose from the darkness, hated for his strength and power, yet hailed as a hero for bringing the age back in the control of humans. The Dark Monarch was the monicker he was given. In an age where humans feared magical beasts. The dark monarch was a necessity. It wasn't a hero the world needed but a villain.
The Dark Monarch had a Raven, a Raven who became one of the most feared magical beasts of all time. Together they rose from hatred and took the world as there own.
He slayed the 5 titans of the world, redistributing the mana back into the world. This ended the dark ages of the world.
They say, his raven gave birth to Three offspring, A blood raven, a Rafron, and the 4 winged runic crow.
After hearing this story, I could tell I hit the jackpot. Not knowing any history of the world, let alone what a monarch of titan was, I could tell the blood raven was a very prominent beast, and I couldn't wait to create a permanent soul bound with it.
But first, i did ask Siya, what a monarch and a titan was, knowing damn well I would do my best to avoid these beings in the future.
'A monarch is the strongest affinity user on the planet. Every human is born with an affinity, some stronger than others, and some are born with multiple. There are people that believe that the strength of your affinity, will determine your celing as a mana user. Yet this is not true, even someone with the weakest affinity could defeat someone with an extremely high affinity, depending on their fighting prowess and life energy.' 'This is not true for a Monarch. A monarch has absolute control over an affinity. Unless the monarch is new the world, they would not lose to anyone with the same affinity. Their power is absolute. Not only does a monarch, have the worlds highest affinity, but they are also born with a mutation, or as some call it a unique gift. This gift and a large affinity level will be past down to all of his descendants, creating what is known as a bloodline. Each of the worlds bloodlines comes from a past monarch. Someone with a stronger bloodline, will have a stronger version of the gift.' There have been countless monarchs, usually 2 but upwards to 4 a generation. And a new one cannot be born until the previous monarch of that affinity has died."
Okay so the concept of a monarch made some sense. I still didn't understand all the affinities in the world, as mine was currently Beast and Nature.
Siya, can you explain the worlds affinities.
'In this world, almost anything can be an affinity, ranging from common elements like wind, salt water, steel, but also uncommon things in the world, such as sap, honey, mud, toxic gas, etc… yet, all of these affinities can be grouped into one of the 7 major categories. This categories are Holy or White Magic, Dark or Black Magic, Wind, Earth, Fire, Water, and life magic.
Each of the other affinities all fall into one of two of these major affinities. So someone with the sand affinity usually has part of a earth affinity and part wind. While someone with control over lightning could have either wind and fire affinity or a storm affinity which is wind water and darkness. A monarch can specialize in any affinity within their major scope.
This was starting to make sense, and with a world filled with over a billion people, only 2-4 of them being a monarch meant the odds I ran into one was very low. I was glad about this, so next I wanted to find out about a titan.
'First, you need to know that any magical creature can become a monarch, it is not limited to humans. The first dragon was the first ever fire monarch and the mother Dryad, was the first monarch period. However, a titan is a high level magical beast monarch. One who has been gathering strength and mana for decades, if not centuries. In this world, the mana levels of the world are consistent, so if one being has 50% of the worlds mana, then the rest of the world is left with the remaining. During the age of the titans, these 5 Titans has power over 85% of all the worlds mana, making humans the weakest they had been in centuries. This was the age of the Titans. After the death of the first titan, and by far the strongest; the world finally was able to rebound and humans gained their strength again. Titans gain power the more mana the gain, this means that each day they are alive, their power grows, making them one of the most feared constructs to humans to date."
I gulped after this explanation, thanking whoever this dark monarch was that I did not have to deal with these titans. That would be a sure way to lose my life.
I decided to end my questions there, truth be told I would love to ask Siya if there were any titans still alive, but I thought avoidance was better. I knew that in a fantasy world, you could easily speak anything in to existence, and so I put the ideas of Titans and Monarchs way out of mind. Instead, I did the most popular past time for people trying to clear their mind. Shopping !!