The Fractured Mage

Chapter 6 - Present and History

My name is Topaz Oriole, and I have amnesia. I'm apparently fourteen years old, born on the 20th of April, in the year 490 PA. The current year is 504 PA, and PA stands for Post-Apocalypse. I'll get to that later.

The first memory I have is waking up in an unfamiliar room, before being greeted by an unfamiliar man who claimed to be my guardian, and who turned out to be a bit of a pain in the ass with all his secrecy.

It's been a month since then, and I have to say, this place is pretty comfortable. It's a two-story house with a big garden out front and a backyard, with four rooms on the upper floor. Since Ifeus is a Guildmaster, he's seriously loaded. Possibly most importantly, the meals are great too.

The bathroom here is massive, it even has a sauna and a jacuzzi, which I don't think I've experienced before...with trying certain things, I sometimes get a sense of familiarity and deja vu, which likely means I've experienced them before.

Like with eating certain foods, and also my Magic, it came so naturally to me during the first few days of training with it, I think I've long since caught up to whatever level of mastery I had over it before I lost my memories.

There's a massive basement under the house that's used as a training room, I mostly use it for training alone, but every now and then when he has some free time, he instructs and spars with me.

He also forbade Iris and Lilac from going down to the basement while I'm training...but about a week in, Lilac snuck down out of curiosity and saw me using my Ether Magic. Naturally, she had a lot of questions.

Ifeus wasn't too happy about that, and reluctantly told the two of them about my unusual Class, and then made them promise not to tell anyone.

Aside from training, he also insists that I study basic subjects like math and language. I actually kinda enjoy training, but I really hate studying...time goes so slowly, and concentrating on it is seriously exhausting, sometimes I'll read an entire page but none of the information sticks in my head at all.

And upon re-reading it, I'll find myself wondering if the words changed somehow, because I can't remember reading any of it. Maybe it's a side effect of my amnesia...no, that's unlikely, I have no such trouble when I read novels for entertainment, I just really hate studying.

Anyway, in my free time, I usually laze about in my room, reading books. Well, I try to, at least...Lilac often barges in and drags me out, forcing me to play stuff like hide and seek, cards or board games.

I was pretty awkward around her and Iris at first, but now that I've gotten used to them, I'm a lot more comfortable. Iris is generally easier to be around, she's usually amicable and a bit reserved, though she can be a little scary when angered...which happens often thanks to Lilac.

Speaking of whom...she's a lot to deal with. She's got a seemingly endless pit of energy, it's like an overwhelming tidal wave that sweeps you up despite your protests.

And I do protest, but getting into a conflict would be a pain, not to mention exhausting, so more often than not, I end up relenting and going along with whatever she has in mind.

She's really blunt and outspoken, never afraid to say exactly what's on her mind. I have to admit, I kinda admire that, I don't think I could be so candid and unreserved...I just wish she'd give me some space sometimes.

On another note, after considering my options, I decided to join Ifeus's Magic Guild, Solaris. He seemed pretty happy about that, though he told me it'd be safer to postpone me joining until I'm a bit stronger.

Well it's not like I'm in any particular rush, so I'm fine with that. Incidentally, both Iris and Lilac are members of the Solaris...which means that, from time to time, I get the place to myself, with the three of them busy with Guild work.

Alright, that about sums up my present, the current state of my life...so, with that, I'll move on to explaining the history of the world. About five centuries ago, this world was drastically different to how it is now.

Most significantly, Magic didn't exist, it was thought to be nothing more than a fictional concept.

It was a world of technology, made up of things that no longer exist now, devices that ran on energy sources other than Ether, energy sources that we don't know how to utilize today.

Everything changed when seven individuals discovered a strange energy that had previous remained undetected, an energy that's now known as Ether.

It was unlike anything they'd ever come across, and they began trying to find ways to utilize and make use of the energy. And after years of trial and error, they built a device they believed to be capable of harnessing the energy.

However, they hadn't fully comprehended the properties of the energy, and in their rush for progress and eagerness to get results, they went ahead and activated the device.

And that led to the greatest disaster in history, which is now known as the Ether Apocalypse...a catastrophic explosion of the energy enveloped the whole world, changing the very structure of the Earth.

The planet itself shrunk drastically in the blink of an eye, billions upon billions of people and animals died instantly, without so much as a trace of their bodies left in the aftermath, as the world was reduced to a single continent and a handful of small islands around it.

The seven individuals were significantly affected by the explosion, having being at the very center of it. Most of them underwent changes to their appearances as well, to varying extents.

One of them grew pointy ears, another sprouted feathers all over their body, their arms turning into wings. Another found their body covered in fish-like scales, along with forming gills and fins, while one other grew ten times larger than they'd been before.

Of the last three, one took the form of a massive, winged reptile, resembling a Dragon, one took on a demonic appearance, with dark, leathery red skin, twisted horns and wings and a tail, and as for the last one, their appearance wasn't visibly altered, still appearing human.

The vast majority of humans and animals underwent similar changes to the seven of them, almost every single organism that have survived the initial disaster significantly affected.

With the planet shrunk, the presence of Ether in the environment became more prevalent, rapidly accelerating those changes.

But all of that was overshadowed by the world being thrown into complete chaos...a once prosperous and thriving world has been reduced to a desolate, lawless wasteland, and with barely even one percent of the world's population surviving, all existing technologies disappeared before long.

The seven who caused the disaster salvaged the scraps of the technology they'd used and worked tirelessly to fix their mistake, but soon realized that there was no going back to the way things were...the world was irreversibly changed. And the seven of them had changed too, and I don't just mean physically.

As a result of the Ether explosion, they had each gained transcendent levels of power and intellect, and would eventually come to be known as...the Seven Gods...