The day had fallen, and night had risen. A dim full moon hung high in the air. The trees swayed in the fierce wind, and crickets chirped, but still, silence dominated the peaceful land.
CRUNCH
Amidst the silence, a large, steel-tipped leather boot had stomped upon the fragile leaves that covered the ground. Not even a second later, the boot hit the forest floor again.
CRUNCH
Abruptly, the noise paused, and quietness cast over the forest once more. However, the rustling of leaves soon filled the silence. A wrinkly arm had reached down at the ground and wiped a pile of leaves off the smooth, hard surface of an object. The callused hand finished wiping off the now visible item. The item was a mask, one that was the color of midnight. The hand tried to grab the object but missed due to the darkness, grasping the neck of Night instead. The arm immediately jolted back.
A gruff, hoarse voice that belonged to a man rang out. “Damn it, what in the heavens is that,” the man frantically rubbed away at the leaves on top of Night's body, partly unveiling a shocking image. The man spoke out again, much more hurriedly than before. “Fate isn’t it, that the night I break my lantern, I find a damn body in the middle of the wood.” After the leaves were removed, a stellar light illuminated the area. The robe on Night's body had started glowing, basking the vicinity with light.
Due to the newfound light source, the man's face was finally able to be seen. He had whitening grey hair, a sharp jaw, small beady eyes, and wrinkly skin. He looked at Night's robe with wide eyes but then turned his attention to the black mask on Night's head. His brows furrowed upon seeing it. After assessing the situation, the man hesitantly touched the side of Night's neck. All he felt was the rhythmic thumping that indicated a pulse. Feeling the pulse, the man slumped over on the back of a nearby tree.
“The boys’ lucky I saw him under that enormous pile of leaves,” he exasperatedly said before continuing in the same manner. “How long has the young man been out here?”
He looked at Night's body again, frowning. His mouth opened wide in an O-shape, and he placed his hand on the top of Night's head. Grimacing, he sat in that position for a short moment before taking his hand off.
“Mana overexertion, of course. How foolish of me not to think of that sooner. He’s barely injured, just a few scrapes and bruises, but he’s knocked out cold… Well, I suppose he could’ve hit his head hard,” he added right after that statement. “But still idiotic of me.”
He sighed and muttered a hushed curse under his breath. Closing his eyes for a minute, he rested. After taking that much-needed break, he stood up. Walking over to Night’s body, he clutched the palms of Night's hands and started dragging the body through the forest.
Black spots. That was the only thing filling Night's vision. He groggily rubbed his eyes, trying to wake himself up from his surprisingly comfortable sleep. For some reason, he felt like he was sitting on a cushion made of clouds.
Eventually, Night completely woke up. Evaluating the situation, he quickly discerned that the “cloud” he had been resting on was a soft mattress. He scanned the small room he was in some more. There was a simple wooden table with two chairs in the center of the room. A kitchen that featured a primitive stone stove sat at the back wall furthest from Night. The door to the building was right next to his bed. Everything was crammed in tight, making a cozy and peaceful atmosphere.
He got up from the bed, his feet hitting the wooden floor with a thump. Night wandered over to the table and sat down, tapping his fingers on the wood surface. He knew that someone had to have saved him from the treacherous woods. There was no way for him to have ended up here other than human interference. When did he come to know about humans? That fleeting thought crossed his mind, and it annoyed him.
How do I know anything? The oldest memory I have is being at the bottom of a lake, and even that seems normal to me. Does it matter though? Does it matter how I know any of this stuff when I logically shouldn’t? Night internally talked to himself for several minutes before concluding. No, it doesn’t matter. I will find my answers eventually, but as of right now, it's unimportant. Firmly nodding, he ceased thinking so deeply and went back to waiting for someone to show up.
Right on cue, the door creaked open, revealing the figure of an elderly man. The man had a long bow that he wielded in his right hand. Additionally, two knives were resting on his metal belt. Night looked up at the man and waited for him to initiate the conversation.
The man casually hung the bow on a rack next to the door before saying with a raised brow. “Not even going to thank your savior, old Gerald? Tut tut, bad manners, I see.” He walked over to the table and sat in the unoccupied chair, waiting for Night to speak.
Mildly embarrassed, Night said. “Thank you.”
“Took you long enough, don’t you think?” Gerald replied, snorting. He stared at Night curiously before speaking again. “What’s with the mask, eh?”
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
“Mask?” Confused, Night touched his face, feeling only his nose, mouth, and everything he should have. “I don’t have a mask on, so I’m not sure what you're talking about.” Night glimpsed at Gerald, whose expression was one of utter shock.
Gerald exclaimed, eyes wide. “Incredible! I never imagined that I would be fortunate enough to see one of the Masked in my entire lifetime.” Gerald’s gaze burned into Night as if he was looking to unravel his secrets.
Now very confounded, Night insisted. “Alright, that’s great, but I think you’ve made a mistake. You see, at least, I hope you do, I don’t have a mask on.”
Gerald rolled his eyes. “Yes, I have eyes. Anyways, let me clear some things up for you. The Masked, as we call them, are beings with, shocker, a mask on their face. To you, it’s invisible, but to everyone else, you have a mask on. The mask always depicts an animalistic trait,” he gestured to Night's face. “For you, it looks like a black fox.”
Night waited for Gerald to say more, but all he got was silence. “That’s it? It’s just a mask that only others can see.” Night was already accepting that he had a mask on his face that he couldn’t see. It seemed unbelievable, but at the same time, it felt natural to him.
Gerald shook his head. “Not entirely. I’m not exactly knowledgeable about this subject. Few are, but I do know that the mask can act as a defense of sorts. Apparently, it’s nearly indestructible,” he added seconds later embarrassedly. “An old friend told me that when he was drunk and almost passed out. It might not be the most reliable information.”
Night looked at Gerald questionably. “I understand.”
“Good, now I am curious about something. Why do you know so little about yourself?” Gerald asked.
Night replied. “I’m not sure.” He was being honest. Logically, he should know about himself. After all, the information had always popped into his head about things he had heard about, such as the bird and wolf.
Gerald sarcastically remarked. “Well, that clears that up,” he carried on using an uncaring voice. “Keep your secrets, young man. Moving on, how did you overexert your mana?” Gerald seemed genuinely interested in the matter, looking at Night keenly.
“What’s that?” Night asked, completely clueless once again.
Gerald scrutinized Night. “Looks like we have a lot to expound upon with you,” Gerald shifted slightly, adjusting his position, and cocked a brow at Night. “So, do you at least know what Mana is?”
“I don't.” Night casually said in response.
Gerald rubbed his temples ferociously and sighed. “Here we go. Mana is the concept of...” Gerald's knowledge poured out for tens of minutes before finally stopping. After finishing, he looked at Night, who sat stock still.
Night compressed all the information he had learned from Gerald. He did so astoundingly quickly.
When Night felt he had gained sufficient comprehension of the concept of mana, he confidently described it to Gerald. “From what I understand, mana is just the concentrated essence of the elements, such as fire, air, earth, etcetera. Mana is the immaterial version of, let's say, wind. It’s a form of energy that takes up no space but can be transformed into the physical realm at will, with the proper skill set, that is. Correct?”
Gerald looked at Night, impressed. “Yes, that's what mana is, albeit roughly. Another thing of note is mana density. Just like you said, mana is the concentrated essence of the elements. That means certain places have more of one type of mana than others. For example, the incredible Ice Caverns of the North feature a much higher quantity of Ice mana than a volcano would. This is due to there being a higher amount of ice that's converted into ice mana. Next, you may be wondering why the elements change to the form of mana in the first place. The answer is, I don't know.”
Night looked at Gerald and asked him. “Why don't you know?”
Gerald looked at Night suspiciously. “Boy, are you playing games with me? Do you think I'm some sort of divine seer? Of course I don't know,” Gerald carried on in a bitter tone. “After all, I'm just some old cripple on the outskirts of the Forbidden Lands.”
Night decided not to pry into Geralds's matter about being a cripple and instead conversed with Gerald for a long hour. Night learned many new things during the discussion. These things included meridians, the core, and the myriad of elemental powers.
It was a lot to unpackage, but Night thought he understood what he had learned. Essentially, it went something like this; meridians were minuscule pathways throughout the body. These pathways gather mana from the air with the guidance of the owner, or cultivator, of the meridians. The amount of mana, or essence as it's occasionally referred to, one can amass depends on the size, durability, and amount of meridians one has. After gathering the essence, the cultivator guides the energy through the pathways that eventually all link up to the core.
The core is a spherical organ located in the stomach. It's remarkably tiny, with the biggest ones only being a couple of centimeters in every direction. The purpose of this organ is to compress the mana. The first step of compression, as it's called, is to trap large quantities of mana in the core. The organ then shrinks at the behest of the cultivator, deflating like a pufferfish. The compression forces the energy to clump together, and after the mana has reached a certain point, this point being when the particles no longer have anywhere to go but inward. The mana combines with the separate particles of elemental energy. The reaction caused by this is violent, often creating loud, booming sounds. If the walls of the organ are not sturdy enough, the unstable energy can break out and wreak havoc on the internal organs of the cultivator's body. Though if the process succeeds, the practitioner will have denser mana, known as compressed mana, which is much more deadly than standard mana. After the cultivator compresses the mana, it’s circulated in the body’s meridian system until the cultivator needs to use it.
Compressed mana also has several tiers of power. For example, mana compressed one time is known as Tier 1 mana. If this same energy goes through the ordeal a second time, it is now Tier 2 mana, and the same goes for mana compressed a third time, and so on. Every time mana tiers up, it doubles in power. Increasing the level of mana is extremely hard. This is because mana will only truly gain a substantial strength when compressed with like tier essence or above due to lower tier mana not having enough energy to affect higher level mana substantially. Another reason is that the compression takes an absurdly long time from start to finish because of the finesse required when controlling mana.
Finally, the last thing Night learned was the mana types and affinities. Mana types were self-explanatory. They described the type of mana, for example, mana type would be wind or fire. Essentially, mana types were just the different elements in a mana form. However, affinities had a slight difference. Affinities are the type of mana an entity, including beasts, that had the most compatibility to use. They would resonate with somebody, drawing them closer to that element. Going back to mana types. There are four common mana affinities, fire, water, wind, and earth. Then there were the two rare affinities which were ice and lightning. Lastly, there was the highly sought-after light and darkness manas.
When Gerald got to darkness mana, he spoke to Night, snapping Night out of his focused state. “Now take this with a grain of salt, as I don’t know much about the Masked, but if I had to judge by your attire,” he gestured to Night's pitch black, ostentatious robe. “You are probably most likely to resonate with the darkness's affinity.”
Night looked at his robe and couldn’t help but agree. “Yes, it is black, like the night sky. The idea of mastering darkness strikes a chord within me. I need that power. It belongs to me.”
Gerald gawked at Night. “Your one of those power-hungry weirdos, aren’t you,” Gerald quickly diverted the topic. “Doesn’t matter though, I’ve humored your questions longer than I initially planned. So, you’ve got two options right now, stay with me, or get outa’ here.”
Night jerked at the switch from a standard chat, to a pretty big decision. Night recovered from his surprise and thought everything over. He had the logical option, stay with Gerald and learn helpful information. Then, there was the exotic but stupid option of rushing into a dangerous forest filled with terrifying wildlife. Night thought both over, but from the very beginning, he knew exactly what he was going to do.
