《Unknown horizons》


 Prologue

    Noblesse oblige my entire life I had grew up with the expectation to fufill such a duty that had been given to me by the humans simply due to being born a manakin. There has only ever been one manakin known to man till I was born after the death of the previous one. Manakins were creatures made purely out of mana birthed from the world tree, magic was second nature to such a creature capable of doing what normal mages would never be able to do even if they dedicated their entire being and soul into the craft for their entire life.


    Despite being the wielder of such overwhelming power by the age of 15 once I was old enough to be independent by human standards. I decided to move out of the castle walls that had been my place of dwelling to live in a forest out of civilisation. Why would I ever decide to do such a thing was simply because I disliked being around people I preferred a solitary life. Such a thing had happened after years of constant contact with the humans who had looked at me with fear and trepidation due to the power I had been born with. I had a childhood surrounded with adults who always had fake smiles plastered upon their face. The humans who i was apparently suppose to protect thought of me as nothing more than a tool as such I had never managed to grow close to anyone. The nobles and royal family had try to prevent such a thing from coming to past yet they were unwilling to resort to anything to drastic out of fear.Therefore I managed to get my way and was allowed to leave the castle i had grew up in.


    Living in the castle growing up had been nothing but a traumatising experience if I was to put it lightly as the humans had placed unreasonable expectations upon me time and time again to the point I was honestly unsure why I had to protect them at all. I was also usually alone growing up as humans feared the power I hold, therefore most of the adults did not let their children approach me. Its undeniable that the manakin had been nothing but a boon to humanity from the records their ancestors have left them but with time of peace such power was nothing but a threat in their eyes perhaps. I will never know how the previous manakin viewed the humans or why he had decided to help them in the past but according to history that was no denying it as the town with the king of the country was built around the very world tree that had created me and the previous manakin. The human have apparently discovered the previous manakin centuries ago and as far as the history had recorded the previous manakin had been the only one the human has ever known. He had apparently helped the human ancestors by driving the demon invaders away. The current demonic continent was apparently where the ancestors of the humans had come from till the creatures that is now simply called demons by the humans invaded and chased the humans out of their lands till they eventually stumbled upon the world tree and the previous manakin.


    However I was not him and will never know what he was thinking when he had helped them nor will I ever know. Honestly I do not hold the humans in high regard and would probably never have helped them if I was in the previous manakin position. After aweek living peacefully in the cottage I had constructed with magic the humans had sent me a message. The message was basically stating that the humans wants me to assist them in a campaign to clear one of their territory of a monster that they couldn''t deal with. Apparently the monster appeared recently and despite their best effort they couldn''t slay the beast. I was planning on declining but thinking about it despite everything the humans did look after me while I was young eventho they didn¡¯t do a good job at it but I dislike the feeling of owing them anything. Thinking to myself that this would be the one time I help them than I could dissappear from this country for good after the fact, of course I kept that thought to myself and agreed to help them.If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.


    The campaign should be relatively simple with me helping them despite my young age mana bended to my every thought allowing me to produce devastating spells without the formulas a mage normally needed to control mana. Not to mention as a manakin my mana reserves were quite frankly almost bottomless as i could wield power enuff to decimate a country as easily as breathing. Upon arriving at a large open plain close to where the monster territory was at according to the commander of the army a camp was set up. In the tent they had assigned to me as i was slowly drifting off to sleep i suddenly felt some fluctuations in the mana surrounding me. The fluctuations slowly intensified as i woke up to a magic circle surrounding the tent that i was in, before i could react the magic circle had activated instantly causing my vision to darken for what felt like a second.


    I felt my heart racing as i quickly stood up and left the tent i was in. What surrounded me was a trees as far as i could see. Panicking i quickly looked around me noticing something weird. There seem to be a lack of mana in the environment around me. As far as i''m aware there is no such place in the world where mana was absent, yet the only mana i could feel was the excess mana leaking out of my body that was generated from the core of my being. Calming myself down i slowly tried to piece together what had most likely happened. Perhaps the mana circle was meant to teleport me somewhere. I can''t help but not understand what was the point of it since i was planning to leave after the campaign ended eitherways. Looking at it that way my plans simply got speed up a little. Smiling a little to myself i decided to get a bit more rest before exploring where i had been sent. Setting a barrier up around the tent i went back in to take a short nap.


    ~The king pov~


    The day the manakin decided to leave the castle a meeting was immediately held among the the highest nobilities of the country. For centuries our kingdom had been protected by a manakin of great strength yet after his death there was a period of great unrest in the kingdom till the mana tree started to generate an unwordly amount of mana one day and from within the tree a baby had emerged. That child grew up slower than a normal child but there was no mistake that she was most definately a manakin as before she learned how to prevent to much of her mana from leaking it was suffocating to even be in her general vicinity as the mana she was releasing was to much to bear for any mortal. Most of the nobility and myself included thought that a new manakin birth was a blessing at first as we thought we could mold her and make her grew up to be loyal to the kingdom and perhaps we could have complete control over her unlike the previous manakin. That was probably the biggest mistake we could have made as she grew up it was as clear as day that she started to grow wary of humans. Eventually i couldn''t help but feel she was a threat to the kingdom as a whole. I couldn''t trust a child to wield as much power as she had access to and with the way things were going i couldn''t trust that she wouldn''t turn her power our way. Many of the nobles held the same sentiments i held and finally the straw that broke the camel back was when she decided to leave the castle.


    During the meeting we had decided that she was to dangerous to be allowed to be here but we most definately could not kill her as that would simply cause our own downfall. Instead we relied on a forbidden spell created by one of the greatest mage ever born in our kingdom history that he has created as a fail safe in case the manakin had ever turned against us. He had created the spell out of paranoia but it is what will save us now. The spell basically teleported the target to a different world completely separate from ours. With this we could finally rest easy that we have eliminated the threat facing the kingdom.


    Author note:


    I''m unsure if the chapter turned out the way i wanted it to. But the starting point of a story is always the hardest to write for me hopefully its ok? i didn''t really want to go into to much detail for the kingdom as it was just a temporary location to explain her origins but i''m not sure if i explained enuff. :(

 A new beginning

    Waking up the next day I couldn¡¯t help but feel a little giddy with excitement that I have finally gotten away from that awful kingdom. I can¡¯t help but wonder why they would do me such a generous favour as to speed up my plans to such a extent. I could also conclude that the location that spell had sent me to is most definitely no where near the kingdom as there is no record written of a forest where mana is completely absent from. If a human mage were to be transported here it would most likely be a death sentence as no human could naturally generate their own mana but as a manakin that was of little concern to me. Since they had decided to betray what little trust I had in them I could most likely conclude they didn¡¯t want me there, well neither did I want to stay there so it¡¯s a pretty good situation to be in if I was to be completely honest with myself as I no longer felt any obligation to stay as they themselves have deign it necesseary to get rid of me.


    I wonder what species would be native to an area devoid of mana. Without any mana in the area it is most likely a safe assumption there is no monster around either as monster are in essence simply creatures who had absorbed to much mana to the point they mutated to a different creature altogether. Humans aren¡¯t exactly exemptions to such a phenomena as they are actually strengthened by the mana released by the world tree giving them increased strength. It is also a possibility that humans were native to these part as well but as they were living in such a land it would come to no surprise to me if they were unaware of magic as humans are unable to cast spells with the complete absense of mana. Perhaps I¡¯m in a different continent. While I was born with no knowledge of the world just as any human are. I¡¯m actually able to converse with the world tree therefore I¡¯m aware of certain things human wouldn¡¯t know, I also didn¡¯t see the need of informing them about certain things such as the fact that a manakin lifespan is indefinite and we only die once we choose to. Without the death of the previous manakin and the return of the manacore that acts as my heart to the world tree needed to form a new manakin to be born there will most likely never be another manakin born to the world tree that the humans have built their settlement around. As I¡¯m no where close to the world tree there will most likely never be another manakin born in that continent. Well not that I regret leaving the world tree behind as it didn¡¯t exactly made the best partner to converse with. It didn¡¯t really seem to have much of a will of its own and acted more akin to something that would answer my questions without much of its own thoughts on the matter.


    I decided to first find a settlement to find out how the native species looks. Since I¡¯m having a brand new start I would rather play it safe and hide my magic and race for now. It doesn¡¯t help that my looks are also relatively eyecatching. As all manakin do my hair is a as white as snow and my irises were golden but when I channel mana the colour shifts depending on the attribute I¡¯m currently channeling as my entire being is created from mana any change to the attribute will affect my haircolour and eyecolour. My ears were longer than a normal humans as well not unlike the elfs that live deeper in the forest I had move to and stayed for the week before the unexpected betrayal from the humans of the kingdom. My skin was also much paler than a human and due to my race I grow much slower than a human. I would probably look to be about 8 years old outwardly comparatively to a human. Despite being creatures made of mana the reason manakin grow like humans is due to the bones in my body being closer to actual mana crystals that are mana so dense it solidifies into a crystaline form. It takes a longer time for the mana crystals in me to grow into a adult human size than a human skeletal structure would take to grow to the adult size.If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    This is a bit troubling I had to first find the species native to this area and use illusion to hide my appearance and make myself look slightly closer to watever is native to the area. For now I turned myself invisible using a spell and scanned the area around me by sending mana to the area around me. Not far from me there seemed to be a cliff off some sort with something similar to the roads made for carriage travel. For now with no better leads to go off on I used mana to allow myself to fly to the road I had found. It wasn¡¯t hard to miss it as the entire surface of the road seems to have been painted black with some yellow strips running down the middle. Landing on the road for now I decided to proceed by walking to see if I¡¯m lucky enough to come across any carriage to follow back to any settlements.


    After what felt like ages I suddenly heard the sound of something approaching from behind me. I turned around and after some time a huge beast made of pure metals seem to be charging right at me. I almost instinctively attacked before I noticed that rather than legs the beast was moving forward via wheels. Not to mention that the front of the beast was transparent and a creature that closely resembled a human was visible throught it. Quickly deciding on what to do I jumped up and landed straight to the top of the giant beast and used mana to prevent falling off. Seeing as there was no reaction perhaps its safe to assume this metallic creature is actually a carriage used in this area.


    As I was sitting comfortably on top of the thing I have now dubbed the iron carriage I was thinking of the fact that most likely even in this continent humans seem to be the dominant species. At the very least they are definitely a different variety tho as unlike the humans I know with blonde hair and blue eyes the human I saw steering this carriage had black hair and black eyes. Using that as a basis I used my mana to create an illusion changing my appearance slightly. My long hair will now look black the same goes for my eyes and I had made my ears appear to resemble a humans. Unfortunately I¡¯m unable to use illusion to make myself appear older as it would be very obvious if someone were to touch me that there is a discrepency in size. So the best I could do is make the stand out features look more in line with what is expected of a human.


    I also finally have the chance to use my name of Cynthia which I had created for myself as the humans only called me Mana referring to my race rather than giving me a name. Despite my slight hesitation of making contact with humans again I decided to try to be more open minded that these ones aren¡¯t the same as the ones I have known all my life. After all there isn¡¯t even any mana in the environment here they are most likely strangers to magic so they wouldn¡¯t even know that I was different from them. I had also used my sense to scan the human piloting this carriage and there is no mana nor a core within him so magic is definitely something foreign to him and the ability to sense it will be lost to him as well. Without constant exposure to mana creatures with no mana generating organ would be unable to sense it. This give me more hope in being able to blend in easily with whatever society I would find at the end of this journey on the carriage. One of the reasons I had stayed so long at the kingdom was also due to the fact it is extremely hard to hide the fact I was generating mana constantly from any creature that was able to sense it. The reason I moved to the forest first was to perfect my ability to hide my mana but it seems its no longer a necessary concern.