Addendum: Letter from a Traveler (Patreon)

Disclaimer: This chapter is an addendum to the end of the second book. It's meant to incite questions but contains mild spoilers that some readers may not be comfortable with. This chapter is totally optional as it doesn't follow the main story and can be skipped without affecting the next book at all.

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As per my treaty with Information, I found myself exploring the worlds of the latest Creation. The one I will talk about now is one called Enil. Well, or at least that’s what one of the many indigenous races calls the planet. There’s never a right answer to languages.

What interested me more about this planet was how they used magic. Unlike the ether manipulation of Caelestaya or the Record-touched worlds, magic in Enil is performed with a combination of two parts. Fuel and computation.

Magic in Enil cannot be performed with one part alone, both are necessary to conjure spells. There are methods of bypassing this such as chanting, but I have noticed traces of micro computations to recite the spells in the first place. But this subject is rather aligned with Information, than me. So, I will avoid it.

As I was saying, both fuel and computation are the founding parts of magic. You can either specialize in computation to consume less fuel or use more fuel to require fewer computations to conjure spells. But no matter how much fuel you throw into a framework, it will never shape into a spell. Same with computation.

Specialized mages in computation are called Wizards. Whilst mages that specialize in fuel are called Sorcerers.

I also have to mention that mana is the main source of magic on this planet.

This a rather obvious affirmation, but Caelestaya didn’t really on mana until a while ago, as the planet preferred the usage of ether.

Fuel, or source, isn’t limited to mana, though. Mages can use anything as fuel if they can adapt their spells to do so. The next most common fuel is lifeforce, typically used by one of the dominant races, the draconids.

But there are a handful more. Blood, souls, momentum, or even dreams. Though the latter is yet to be fully developed on Enil and is a niche in use.

Magic is also influenced by the innate affinity of the conjurer, but as it doesn’t differ a lot from the other known worlds of this Creation, I’ll omit it.

Talking about races.

There are three main dominant races in this world. Those are the elementals, the draconids, and the ellari.

Every single one of them is incredibly curious, and even though neither elementals nor ellari have much presence on a geopolitical or population-wise scale, they compensate for it with their power. Many of the mountains surrounding the Elemental Council, the country where mainly all elementals reside, were elevated by one of their council leaders. Whilst one of the High Arcanists of the ellari (the name they give to their heads of state) had even reshaped the orbit of the whole planet.

I’ll give a brief about every dominant race before ending with the lesser ones.

Elementals are different from what you may expect from their name. They aren’t living incarnations of their elements as it happens to be in most worlds, but are a race heavily aligned to one element.

They cannot perform magic outside of their elemental affinity but tend to be far stronger and more knowledgeable of their abilities in return. I think that magic in this world is Information-aligned considering affinity brings intrinsic bits of knowledge as it becomes higher on the elemental scale. Though I should discuss that with Information before jumping to conclusions.

These elementals are akin to humans in their first stages of life, only that their affinity heavily influences their coloration (skin, eyes, hair, and likewise). An earthen elemental will have brown skin, an arcane one will be purple, and so forth.

What is truly interesting about elementals in Enil is that they become more elemental-like (or how you know them) as they become older and more in touch with their inner element. Air elementals will become part tornadoes and water elementals will become part liquid, for example.

Elementals can reach true affinity once they are old enough (the highest affinity possible short of Incarnation) and they become embodiments of their element. There only exist four elementals of true affinity and are the heads of the aforementioned council. True elementals also have unlimited lifespans, unlike their brethren who live around two centuries.

As for draconids.

In short, the draconids race are a bunch of human-looking reptiles. They are just humans with dragon wings, horns, and tails stitched onto them. They have human skin coloration, but they tend to be dark-skinned rather than beige.

Every draconid is able to fly with their wings since infancy, though they don’t have great stamina, even when they grow older. Their wings are thought for a small burst of speed and sudden take-offs rather than sustained flight. Even then, the draconids have uncontested supremacy over the skies of Enil.

Draconids have a slightly lengthier lifespan than humans, but an uncommon variant of draconid exists that more than doubles that lifespan.

Such are the dragonborn. Draconids who have the ability to shapeshift onto true dragons, instead of their rather lackluster innate form.

That’s why I had talked of draconids as reptiles rather than human hybrids or beast-kin as I believe they are descendants of long-lost true dragons on the planet.

The draconids are also the most proliferous race on Enil, their empire expanding a little over half of the main continent of Tilean. Their leader is an emperor.

I forgot to mention that Enil is a bi-continental planet with plentiful volcanic islands. That second continent is currently unoccupied as it rests on the other side of the planet, but I don’t doubt that will change in a little time from now.

The last dominant race are the ellari.

Ellari are magic-touched elves. Their skin coloration is limited to the mana color spectrum but mainly appears in blue, violet, and purple tones. Pink ellari are uncommon but they do exist, and white ellari are but a genetic mutation akin to albinism.

As I have mentioned, the ellari could be described just as magic-touched elves. The main affinities between the ellari are Arcane and Force, with a fifty percent and a twenty percent of presence among the population, respectively.

The remaining thirty percent is free for all, as unlike elementals, ellari can possess multiple affinities and aren’t limited by physical elements. Yes, I regret to inform you mind and soul elementals do not exist. They would be ghosts or apparitions rather than elementals.

The ellari classify their rarest affinities as legendary and those are Time, Space, Soul, and Void.

Curiously enough, the Information affinity does not exist in Enil when it does in a lot of words, even if the planet is very Information-aligned. Though I guess you could take the Mind affinity as a good enough substitute.

The ellari live in a single city called Ferilyn, as they are a close-minded and rather antisocial race. I have plenty of difficulties going inside as they just decided to close their city to outsiders.

The head of state of the ellari is the High Arcanist, a position given to the strongest ellari alive, as per the structure of their meritocratic government. High Arcanist doesn’t mean that only arcanists can take that position. In ellari, arcanist also means mage, which makes a lot of sense considering half their population is born with Arcane affinity.

High Arcanists also tend to be the strongest figure in the entirety of Enil, only the true elementals being considered equal. That’s why underpopulated races like the ellari and elementals have such influence on the world. No other race has individuals whose power could be counted in armies.

For the minor races.

Those are the humans, the merfolk, and the centaurs. Humans are the average ever-present pest; the merfolk and centaurs are far more interesting.

Merfolk is a general term as they are, in reality, a diverse group of aquatic and sea-faring races. From mermaids to scyllas for the female, and from tritons to fishmen for the men. The individual races aren’t that plentiful alone, by they recently merged in a state called the Merfolk United Kingdoms that expands all of the volcanic islands of the world, a good part of the shallow seas, and a minute fraction of Tilean.

The centaurs are a collective of half-horse half-humans under a tribal-like banner. They are the only race that doesn’t use magic, but surprisingly enough, they aren’t threatened with extinction. There are three reasons for that. Their bodies are naturally resistant to magic, but not immune as some races you know. They also have incredible reproduction capabilities. But most important of all, they can survive in a barren desert with little to no food and water. My theory is that they partially sustain on mana, but I haven’t pried into it enough to be a solid hypothesis.

There is another minor race: the ‘orcs’. I don’t even consider them a race out of themselves, but a failed alchemical experiment between human and draconid bases. They are destined to die out in the coming centuries.

Besides the curious magic system, two things in Enil make my interest peak.

First, the dominant races. They aren’t ‘pure’ races. They seem to have mixed ancestry, up to a certain point. Both the draconids and the ellari share genetic quirks with the elementals, even though the draconids and ellari don’t share one between them. Don’t ask me how that works, I’m not Life. But those dominant races also have one more thing in common: they have superior forms.

The elementals have the true elementals; immortal, embodiments of their elements. Draconids have the dragonborn; more longevous and able to transform into their ancestors. And the ellari have… Well, you surely will find out once you come to visit here with Information.

But second, and perhaps more important. Time seems to be fractured around Enil. That’s why I came here in the first place. Because Time detected an uncommon anomaly. There aren’t any clues about how that happened, I have searched the whole world. But I most likely assumed the origin of this anomaly was in another plane or reality. Not the one I visited.

You surely will decipher this world’s secrets, you were always smarter than me.

See you soon,

Your father.