"With the empress and her most trusted council dead and the capital nothing more than a crater, the Ilyn Empire was as good as gone.
The councils overseeing each continent formed whatever semblance of order they could in the short time they had between the time they were informed of the Monsters existence and the time they would inevitably have to fight them.
In order to help the common people understand the severity of the threat that Monsters posed, the remaining Continental Councils came to an agreement to formally declare the Imperial Era over." Maros paused to give his son some time to process the information.
Aryn wanted to ask more about Monsters — the Crawling Chimera especially — but he held off in favor of allowing his dad to tell the story in a more linear fashion.
Instead he asked, "Was the Imperial Era named then, or was it called the Imperial Era already?" He knew that the Pre-Imperial Era was named after the fact. He was also fairly sure the Warring Era was named afterwards, but he wasn't certain about the Imperial Era.
Maros nodded in appreciation of the question. "The Imperial Era is the only era named at its beginning. Emperor Lorik Ilyn declared it the moment he formally became the first emperor."
The question wasn't really relevant to the topic at hand. But it did give Aryn a bit of insight into the thought process of Emperor Lorik, and that was something he considered of at least some value.
Aryn reigned in his attention as Maros continued where he left off.
"The most powerful people in the world were rallied together to stop the Monsters. Of those recorded as present among the armies the continents sent, there were 27 Archmages, 14 Grand Warriors, over 20,000 High Mages and Great Warriors, and over 200,000 Mages and Warriors.
Aspirants and Apprentice Mages weren't even sent. They would only die pointlessly.
They were all sent to Sorven with the goal of if not destroying the swarm of Monsters, then at least splitting it off into smaller groups. They knew very well that most of them were going to die. The empress was considered the strongest of the time, and she had been helpless.
Luckily for them, when the army touched down on Sorven, the swarm had already split up. There was only about 5% of the original swarm left. Many of them had returned to Avillis, but about a third of them hadn't — they were on their way across the world in every direction.
Very luckily for them, the Crawling Chimera was among those that had returned to their birthplace on Avillis. But that was the end of anything that could be called lucky.
The army engaged the Monsters still present on Sorven, immediately realizing the severity of the danger the Monsters posed when they did. The records on how exactly the battle went down are almost entirely unreliable.
One thing that is certain is that the battle was chaotic beyond imagination. The initial battle lasted three days. At the end of which there were only 11 Archmages, 7 Grand Warriors, about 5000 High Mages and Great Warriors, and less than a thousand of anything below that level."
Aryn tried to wrap his mind around the sheer power such an army would've been capable of dishing out. It was simply unimaginable. And yet only 5% of the Monsters that had touched down on Sorven had cut them down like grass.
"With the battle finished, the army split back up to return to their respective continents posthaste. With the remaining Monsters spreading throughout the world, they had to protect their homes.
For the next hundred years or so, humanity struggled to keep the Monsters back. Settlements fell and rose again repeatedly. The powerful felt the drive to kill the Monsters weaken. Their desire to protect themselves and those close to them was preventing them from hunting down the Monsters, keeping them on the defensive.
When the councils saw this, they responded with creating the Adventurers' Guild. Incentivizing those capable of fighting Monsters to do so was essential if they ever wanted the war for survival to end."
Aryn waited patiently as his dad grabbed an empty cup on his desk and brought it to his mouth, water appearing in the cup as he tipped it to drink. All this talking had made him parched.
"Ahh... Much better." Maros let out a breath.
Aryn had a strange thought that one of the main reasons his dad had chosen water as his trait was so he could drink some whenever he wanted.
"Now where was I?... Right. The idea worked wonders. With the incentive to kill Monsters from the newly formed Adventurers' Guild, Monsters were being removed from populated areas somewhat reliably.
Not only that, but the adventurers that hunted the Monsters would become stronger and more experienced while doing so. It was a virtuous cycle for the survival of humanity.
This was the golden age for adventurers. Now there are far less Monsters roaming about in areas populated by humanity, making today's adventurers be seen more as mercenaries by most rather than the Monster hunters they were originally.
The Monsters were slowly defeated over the course of the next few hundred years. Until the 489th year after the end of the Imperial Era, when the Continental Councils declared the end of the current era, renaming it the Warring Era.
To mark the occasion and honor all those that had fallen to the Monsters over the centuries, they had a memorial erected near the base of Mount Hewn in the center of Merris.
That's all for history lessons today, my throat is getting sore. We can get to the current era some other time, do you have any questions?" Maros leaned back in his chair and looked at Aryn across from him, meeting his son's ever-shining black eyes.
Thinking for a moment, Aryn started rapid-firing questions, "A few. What happened to the Imperial Councilman that survived the destruction of Grand-Ilyn, is the Crawling Chimera still alive, and have you ever fought any Monsters?"
He actually had a few more questions than that, but they weren't very important ones, and he could tell Maros was getting tired, so he kept them to himself for now.
"Well, the councilman was one of those that died in the initial battle against the Monsters in Sorven. He has his own smaller memorial near the main one in appreciation of the valuable information he gave, allowing humanity the chance to fight back in the first place. It's called the 'Councilman's Courage'.
The Crawling Chimera was never seen again after it returned to Avillis. It could still be alive, or it could have died there. I personally prefer the latter theory.
As for me fighting any Monsters, I have fought a few. But I was lucky enough to only run into those that I could handle. Not that they were easy to kill, they almost never are." Maros stretched his arms over his head as he finished.
"Thanks dad. That's all the questions I had for today. I'll go saturate my Crystal Heart until dinner's ready."
"No problem Aryn. See you at dinner. Love you." Maros rested his eyes.
"Love you too, Dad." Aryn walked out of the office, closing the door on his way out — with magic of course.
***
Back in his room, Aryn didn't immediately start gathering mana. Instead, he grabbed a piece of paper and a pen and sat at his desk.
It was time he started planning what trait he would choose. His Crystal Heart was going to take much longer to fully saturate than his Conduit would've, but he figured that choosing early wouldn't hurt.
He guessed that it would take him another four to six years depending on how diligent he was. However, he would be going to one of the magic academies when he turned 12, so that may be subject to change depending on the density of the ambient mana there.
Regardless, he grabbed his pen and started writing as many possible traits down as he could think of. It didn't matter if he was actually considering using them or not, he wrote down every word he could think of that could even vaguely be considered a possible trait.
He didn't write in Gleryn though, he wrote it all in English. It was best to keep one's trait hidden when possible. That was another advantage of choosing a more vague trait, it made it harder for potential enemies to accurately guess your trait.
His choice would be based on five main criteria.
First was compatibility. If he chose a trait incompatible with his personality, it would be harder to reach the necessary understanding of his trait to ascend through the ranks of power.
Second was potential. This was the single most important criteria in Aryn's opinion. If he chose a trait with an upper limit to its potential power and utility, he would consider his entire second life a failure. He wouldn't allow himself to place a limit on his potential.
Third was interpretation. This one was a more complicated criteria to rate a trait on. By interpretation, he meant the variety of ways a single trait could be interpreted. For example, the trait of Fire can be interpreted as burning something to ash, but also as a warmth-giving hearth flame.
This would have an effect on the possible Concepts one can form to become an Archmage.
Fourth was combat ability. Some traits may provide almost no combat potential at the early ranks, but make up for it in the later ranks. While it is also possible for traits to provide exemplary early-rank combat power, but are only average or poor later down the line.
He didn't mind compromising his early combat power for a sufficient later potential, but the reverse would not be a possibility he entertained.
The fifth and final criteria was the difficulty of identification of the trait by a potential enemy. This one wasn't particularly important to Aryn because no matter how hard his trait was to identify, it would inevitably be found out someday. Regardless, it was still a factor in his choice.
He crossed many possibilities off the paper immediately. These were traits like the basic elements as well as those he wrote more just to keep his mind rolling and creating more ideas, like colors, body parts, and objects.
All these would be far too limiting to consider as his trait.
He hesitated before also crossing off any weapons he had written down as well as the trait of Weapons in general.
Their potential was theoretically limitless with sufficient creativity and they would have good early combat power, but they simply weren't compatible with his personality. He preferred the idea of hand to hand combat and if he chose a weapon for a trait, that preference would always show.
'Though, the body can also be considered a weapon of its own...'
He kept the thought in the back of his mind as he moved on. If he couldn't find something better, he could choose the trait of 'Weapon'. But he knew he had better options further down the list.
Next he crossed off the more specialized elements. These included those like Lightening, Metal, Light, etcetera. They had potential, but not enough for Aryn to consider seriously.
Then came those that he could actually see himself choosing, but removed from his options for various reasons. There were many in this category, some more notable ones including Life, Death, Chaos, Order, and Destruction.
Life didn't seem like it would have great combat power in a direct fight and Death would likely kill him if he used it to ascend to an Archmage unless he created a Concept involving undeath, which he didn't want to do.
Chaos and Order were better options, but they had their own problems. Chaos, while sounding scary, can be simplified to the concept of 'change'. While Order can also be simplified to 'stagnation'.
Aryn wasn't certain that reaching a sufficient level of understanding to ascend up the ranks wouldn't affect his psyche. Mages and above often used certain methods of deepening their understanding of their trait. Choosing Chaos or Order could drive him mad in the long run.
The two traits that Aryn had to force himself to scratch off next were Insight and Instinct. The sheer magnitude of utility that he imagined he would gain from these traits was invaluable.
Unfortunately, they had very little combat potential alone. Perhaps he would revisit them after he reaches High Mage, but for now they were no longer options.
After a few more minutes and a lot more traits scratched off, Aryn looked at the possibilities that were left. He had already come to a decision in his heart, but he needed to catch his mind up with the choice.
The last choices on the now mostly scratched-out paper were Creation, Reality, Truth, Energy, and Power.
Any of these five choices could bring absolute power, but he wasn't just choosing a trait. He was choosing his first trait, and two of these five options stood out to him as more useful than the rest for that purpose.
This was really just a choice between Energy and Truth.
Energy was all-encompassing. It could refer to kinetic energy, electricity, or even mana itself, the potential was truly limitless. This trait would not only help him in manipulating mana and uncovering its secrets, but also be perfect for melee combat.
Truth was different. It could not only help him identify the truth of the world around him — as well as magic in particular — but at higher levels, he could potentially choose what is true. If an Archmage of Truth spoke the words 'You are dead.' It may just become the truth.
Looking at the final two options on the paper, Aryn affirmed the decision he had already set his heart on. His rational mind had agreed that his heart's desire was the correct choice.