《The Keepers》


 The Genesis

    The Seven gathered together; each renowned, each more powerful than armies, each immortal, each alone. It was a dark night, darker than most. The field they had randomly chosen was quiet, only the sound of the owls interrupted the howls of the wind. Everyone knew of the men gathered on this field, they were the ones that kept the peace between the kingdoms. They could topple a civilization without a second thought. Who would wage war when infinity was the opponent? They were beholden to no king, but did not crave power themselves. They wished for happiness for all.


    Their loved ones aged and died. Always they aged and died. But the Seven endured. They were immortal, they were forever, and they were alone. Until... the Precursor of Time, as he would later be named, had an idea. What if each of The Seven was to lend his power to his fellows? They could give the gift of magic to everyone so that all may share in a piece of eternity.


    First the Precursor of Blood poured his blood into a vial. His blood created the foundation of which this most monumental magic of all time would took place. His blood magic allowed the others to fuse their powers together, to each other and to him, in order to combine their powers together and give them to the rest of humanity.


    Then the Precursors of Life and Death poured their bloods into the vial. This addition gave magic the ability to reach in and affect people¡¯s life forces, and manipulate the forces of the afterlife. The Anti-magic Precursor gave his blood unto the vial so that the infinite power of the Precursors would not curse anyone ever again. The Precursor of Gravity lent his blood to the vial so that the magic of the Bloods were tied together. The Precursor of Elements gave blood so that the magic could be used by, and manipulate all things. Finally the Precursor of Time gave his blood to the vial that the magic they wrought here would continue on through ages innumerable.


    One by one the Precursors gave their magic to the vial, and one by one the Precursors blinked out of existence. When one of The Seven gave his Blood he turned to ash and disappeared, the enormous amount of energy required to perform this infinite and eternal magic taking its toll on all of them.


    The magic shot out from the field, the effect hastened the terrible howl of wind. Magical essence coursed through every living being in a hundred mile radius. The humans near the epicenter of the event would later say that they felt a great tremble in air, and many experienced d¨¦j¨¤ vu, that is they felt like the events were occurring several times.


    From that moment onwards, magic started changing, evolving, devolving, twisting, and breaking off on tangents unforeseeable to The Seven. Over the next several hundred years, magic would take on a new image. It would become classified, ordered, controlled. Life force became a unit of storage for magical excess. Living depleted it over time, not only because life spans are finite, but also because replenishing ones stores of magic took away from this pool of life force. The larger the magic store; however, typically the longer the lifespan associated with it became. The longer the lifespan the slower one was to age. Magic became a way of life for all; everyone had it, and used it on a near daily basis. Some would be more powerful than other, some sought to use it for purely selfish means, and others would defend the innocent.


    Magic was generally genetic after the Seven gave up their lives. Most of the time the parent¡¯s magic would be duplicated or closely copied to the offspring; however, these small variances in the similarities eventually led to great disparities between the magic held by the people, and the magic once wielded by The Seven.


    Magic was eventually classified into two groups, active powers and passive powers. Most people were born with three active powers, although in rare circumstances some were born with more or less. Although no one had ever been recorded to have had more than four active powers at once.


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    For some reason, debated by many Blood mages, a person¡¯s active powers would fuse and morph into a passive ability. The active powers were directly responsible for creating the passive power. The passive power was a potent mix of the three active powers used to make it.


    The active powers were classified by scholars: Greater, Higher and Lower powers. Greater powers were those that could directly manipulate one of the powers of The Seven. These were: Life magic, which gave people the ability to heal others by tapping into their life-forces; Death magic, which gave those that used it the ability to raise the dead, conjure curses, or create diseases; Blood magic, which allowed direct conversion of life force into usable magic, netting huge sum of magic all at once instead of over time; Anti-magic, which allowed the user to cancel out other magic, or certain aspects of that magic if the user was skilled; Elemental Magic, which gave the ability to manipulate the primal forces of Earth; and Gravity magic, the ability to directly control an items inherent weight, whether by increasing or decreasing its value. Time magic was extremely rare with only one in a million people being able to use it; this was attributed to the fact that the Precursor of Gravity bound the magic before the Precursor of Time gave his blood.


    The next tier of magic was higher magic. These included the ability to use a small, but potentially lethal, portion of power from the Seven. These abilities were never ¡®pure¡¯, but instead a mixture of the Seven¡¯s original abilities. The final tier of active magic was lower magic. This includes all magic involving things like temperature changing, bending light, and other such non-lethal possibilities.


    Passive magic includes all other magic, generally not Greater magic, but in a constant usage that did not consume magic energy. Special cases include resistance to high or low temperature, the Discerning Eye, which allowed the user to see magical auras, and magic resistance (both an off-branch of anti-magic), all speak, which gave the user the constant ability to talk to anything living and, in cases where living matter recently came in contact with it leaving a magical residue, nonliving things. Also among the passive abilities is incredible strength or heightened senses.


    Magic, generation by generation, became less and less like it was when controlled by The Seven. Eventually completely new branches of magic would pop up. Some magic died out, others flourished. But magic as a whole became more potent. Eventually it became common place to see a mage that could destroy an entire city, or create one, with just a flick of his wrist, when walking to market. Most people did not care to use their powers to such an extent but some did. Many towns were destroyed, by unknown mages, for no reason at all. Entire lifetimes of work could be demolished by an unruly youngster.


    To help prevent this schools were created to teach mages of any age to better control their powers. These schools quickly became renowned for their ability to turn someone who could barely use their power without destroying something, into someone that could light a single candle in a group of one hundred, without harming the others.


    As time passed more and more powerful mages came to these schools, thus they needed to expand, taking on many high level mages as teachers. Some of the people that graduated even stayed on as support for the teachers; or if they had the talent, teachers themselves.

 The MC

    I straightened my clothes before entering the room. I nervously sat down. In front of me where five imposing figures. Each one dressed in court outfits. These were the ones that would judge if I were worthy or not.


    The room was dark, very dimly lit. I could only barely make out the faces of the five people in front of me. I sat down in the chair in the middle.


    The older looking man in the center spoke. In a voice devoid of inflection he said, ¡°Please, tell us a bit about why you should be chosen.¡±


    ¡°My name is Caelus Pendraco. I am the son of the great Jerold Pendraco. Jerold Pendraco is the son of the great Joshua Pendraco. So my potential for power is, at least in part, thanks to my great lineage.


    My grandfather was ever the experimenter. He could manipulate gravity, and light magic. He made experiments, and was the first to suggest the sub-view items known as ¡®life parts¡¯.


    As you all know life parts are the general building blocks of everything in our world. His great success was usually attributed to the fact that he was the only person in his field of magic. What only a few people know is that he was actually able to increase his own intelligence. He could increase his own intelligence to equal ten smart men thinking of the same problem all at once.¡±


    The woman on the far right interrupted. ¡°That¡¯s nice, but that doesn¡¯t explain why you are the most capable, or why we should choose you.¡±


    I nodded. I couldn¡¯t do much else. Anything any of these five said was basically law here.


    ¡°Well it is to explain something later.¡± After she nodded I continued. ¡°To shorten a long story, one of his experiments dealt with the inheritance of powers in offspring.


    His son, Jerold, was the product of one of those experiments. One night grandpa- uh Joshua, made his wife with child while he was using his intelligence increasing magic.¡±


    After a brief amount of murmuring from the judges I continued. I was giving away loosely held family secrets after all.


    ¡°Well Jerold was born, and learned far quicker than any other his age. Part of that was due to the superior genetics of Joshua, but part of it was due to him having a largely increased intelligence right from birth. He has been assumed to be about twice as intelligent as any man normally.


    Of course genetics were later discovered by Joshua. Joshua could actually view the ancestral code each person held. My father could also increase his intellect by about ten times. Joshua spent a long time researching about genetics. That was because of my mother.¡±


    The judges were getting impatient so I hurried my story again.


    ¡°My mother always lost her child before it was born. No matter what they did it always resulted in the same thing. Then my father had an idea.


    While he and my mother tried for another baby, he increased his intellect to the maximum. He modified my ancestral code before I had even started developing.¡± I cleared my throat to speak up.


    ¡°*Ahem* Well what resulted was a baby that had access to all of his powers since birth.¡±


    The judges began debating instantly. To be fair, it was unheard of for anyone to be able to use their magic before turning at least 50 at the earliest. I was a mere child of 60 it was no surprise they didn¡¯t believe me.


    It was a weird life up until now. I grew up with the power of regeneration. Not as a usable power, but as a passive ability. I aged like normal until I hit 15, puberty. While anyone with magical aptitude began to age slower, I stopped aging altogether.


    While the judges deliberated, I thought carefully about how to phrase the next part of my presentation. I had been trained in the four M¡¯s. Magical Arts, Martial Arts, Military Arts, and Mental Arts. I had private tutors for all of them. My father afforded the best for my education.


    It was one of the few perks of being scion of the great Pendraco family. My grandfather made a good living for his wife and children. My ¡®father¡¯ made a merchant¡¯s web so big it was said to be able to topple any nation within the empire with sheer economic manipulation.


    It was almost cheating that he could use his massive intellect boost while making plans and investments. He almost always came out with a killing. Sometimes he lost a lot, but never enough to affect our family¡¯s fortune.


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    The head judge silenced the rest. ¡°SIIIILENCE!¡± The others quickly stopped whatever they were saying. ¡°Continue boy. Why would accepting you benefit us? We already have many intelligent and powerful people with high potential.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m used to intense training, and can handle myself in almost any circumstance. My life pool was estimated at over nine thousand last year. Only half of the people here have over a thousand.


    My intellect is about twice as large as Jerald¡¯s when he isn¡¯t using his intellect ability. Letting me go would be doing a disservice to both me and you.¡±


    I was ushered from the room soon after that. Several other potential students gathered around me. They began to buzz around me with questions. I ignored them and continued on into the waiting-room.


    Fucking peons don¡¯t deserve my time. I am Caelus Pendraco! Who do they think they are? I never gave them permission to touch me.


    My father beat several lessons into me. One of which was to never show that I thought others were beneath me. My private thoughts though, they were mine to do with how I would.


    A few other candidates were in the room as well. Most of them were women, as was the norm. Women just had a higher pension for magic then men. Some thought it had to do with the fact that magic is passed down mostly through the mother.


    The one that caught my eye though, was child. He looked as though he was sixteen or so. He had to either be very young, or have an exceptional amount of life pool. That boy is a child! How is it that he made it here!?


    The youngest person to ever make it in to this academy was around 50 years old. This boy might break the record. I should hurry up and make friends with him. It would be good to know someone around here.


    The boy was the easiest to approach. His posture screamed a lack of high-brow upbringing. His clothes were high quality but worn. He must be from a family in decline. They must have forced him to come here to help establish the family name for future generations.


    Whatever the reason, it was easier to talk to him than any of the others there.


    I sat down in a seat right next to him. ¡°Hi there. I¡¯m Caelus. What family are you from?¡± It was polite back then to ask for the family name after introducing yourself.


    The boy looked at me. ¡°I¡¯m Garren Vloust. Nice to meet you.¡±


    The guy didn¡¯t even ask me my family name. No wonder his family is on the decline.


    I decided to put the information out there anyway. ¡°I¡¯m from the Pendraco family. My father is Jerald.¡±


    His eyes went wide, and he gave a low whistle. ¡°Not THAT Jerald. The man that can topple kingdoms?¡±


    I inwardly smiled at the praise. Even if I hated my dad, it was still good to be associated with someone powerful. ¡°Yes THAT Jerald. I¡¯m his only son, so he sent me here in hopes of becoming a Magi one day.¡±


    Of course Magi were the highest of the high ranking magic users back then. They were said to be able to topple entire cities with just a thought. Exaggeration and rumor can do a lot to boost someone¡¯s reputation.


    The students around us started murmuring to themselves. I was used to that kind of behavior. Meeting me was like meeting a foreign prince. You might have heard of my family, but I was generally not as known.


    After half an hour of talking I learned that Garen was very sociable. He seemed to enjoy talking, and making friends. It was a good quality to have, but power and money were better.


    A tall, slender man walked into the room. ¡°Hello all. My name is Brutus. I am from the Corvo family. I will be overseeing your tests. The judges have finished deliberating, and the applicants will be decided by way of competition.¡±


    He gave a smile, but all I felt was calm acceptance. There was no way I could lose to these curs. Winning the competition was going to be as easy as taking a walk in the community park.

 The Competition

    The instructor guided us to an outdoor arena area. It was in the shape of the modern colosseum, and had a few powerful looking Magus in the seats. After briefly surveying my surroundings I turned my attention to the instructor.


    ¡°As I said earlier we will be testing the applicants in ability in this portion of the application process. We have a detailed list of each of your powers, so we have set up an area for each contestant.  Some of you will be tested in single combat, others in solo exhibition. It will completely depend on the powers you have discovered thus far, and the ability with which you have used those powers in the past.¡±


    He waved his hand, and several copies of himself sprung the ground. Each copy grouped people together, and led them to other areas. Most people were in groups of two, but some were by themselves, and a few were in large groups.


    I was coincidentally in a group with just Garren. The instructor led us over to a small table, where a chess set was already set up. It was interesting to watch him play. He seemed more interested in protecting his pieces than taking mine.


    The plebeian was actually giving me a run for my money. At one point I sacrificed my queen to take out his queen and a rook, but he took a pawn and bishop right after. The game ended in a tie. Garren rubbed the back of his neck.


    ¡°Ya know, I never had someone that could get a stalemate with me. It¡¯s kind of a new experience to not win. But like muh dah always said, ¡®Humility is the foundation of a good mage¡¯. I guess I got too arrogant right there. Sorry about that.¡±


    I looked at his with a thin veil over my scornful feelings. The pathetic cretin actually thought it was because of his skill that he tied!? HA! Right when I went to challenge him to another match the instructor came over.


    ¡°Alright you two, time for the next test. Both of you know two of your magical abilities. Go now and test them against each other. The battle will continue until one contestant forfeits, or falls unconscious. No killing each other.¡± He showed us to an area that had a wide area open. We were amid several other fighting pairs.


    I took a ready stance after procuring two short swords from him. Garren only took a small dagger. Is this boy under estimating me? Is he gloating? Does this little dung heap think because he tied with me he can win a real battle!? Oh how wrong he is!


    From the time I could hold them, I was taught to fight with a medley of weapons. My favorite was the twin-blade style. It boasted one of the highest offensive and defensive capabilities if one had the mindset. We were placed 100 feet apart, so as to give us time to prepare our respective magic.


    As soon as the battle started he pointed his hand at me. I began running at him at the highest speed I could. My magic abilities didn¡¯t help unless I could come in close contact with him. The two magics I knew were pure life magic, and pure blood magic.


    By giving me the ability to regenerate these were the magics I obtained. Normally your passive ability is based on the magical abilities you had, but in my case the magical abilities seemed to be based around my passive ability.


    Pure life magic allowed me to delve into other peoples life force, and use my own to heal them. Pure blood magic allows the user to steal mana from those around them. I needed to use my blood magic to take the mana he had before his life force replenished it. That would guarantee my victory.


    I began to feel heavy, but I only decreased my speed a little bit. Whatever he was doing wasn¡¯t working as well as he wanted. As I got closer I began to feel heavier. Anger began to boil up from the pit of my stomach. This charlatan thinks to outshine me!?


    I put all of my strength into running towards him. He was obviously having a difficult time keeping the magic up. His body began to shake as I got closer. He was increasing the gravity! The closer I got the more he increased it. Each step felt like a hundred. Though skinny I had trained in places with higher gravity before.


    Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.One such place was the ¡®gravity well¡¯. The alleged home of the Precursor of Gravity. It was a series of tunnels that spiraled towards a central point. The gravity there was such that it increased the further you went in.


    Though my muscles were lacking compared to some of the others in that abominable place, my passive ability kept me going. My muscles refused to build after a certain point. Jerald wasn¡¯t sure if that was because of my passive ability, or some other result of the modification he had done to me while I was in my mother¡¯s womb.


    I learned early on that I could still push my muscles passed the point that normal people could. It might have been because I no longer feared the pain at that point, or it might have been that I would just regenerate the muscles once I pushed them too far and they tore.


    The idea was that I could hold my body upright, and still walk forward, until the gravity was about five times as much as usual. The most the tunnels went to was 100 times. At least that was the highest anyone had managed to get to.


    The Garen kid was doing something similar. He was increasing the amount of gravity around me, it seemed controlled. The grass that was five feet in all directions of me was flattened, but that was it. The gravity slowly increased as I got closer.


    The closer I got, the more he increased gravity. I didn¡¯t know if that was because he was trying harder to get me to go down, or if he could only produce greater effects at closer distances. It was a battle of wills. One I refused to lose. He was rapidly growing tired from sustaining his magic, and the magic was getting too heavy for me to continue in.


    Garen knelt as the magic began to become too much for him. I was only ten yards away from him, but walking was getting almost impossible. The gravity was so intense my vision began to narrow. I could only see a few feet ahead of me. Just keeping my eyes open was tearing them eyelid muscles dozens of times a second.


    I quickly pictured the arc I would need, and threw one of my swords. Throwing the sword took the rest of my energy. I fell down just as I witnessed the sword sink into his abdomen. He fell as I did. Then everything went black.


    I awoke while two men were picking me up. I shook my head to clear it, and looked around. Several healers were pulling the sword out, and healing him at the same time. I looked for the instructor. Determined to learn the winner.


    When we locked eyes, he shook his head and smiled. ¡°It was a tie. You both fell to the ground at the same time.¡±


    Indignation consumed me. There was no way this little ball of nothing could come close to how great I was! There was no way! I just smiled and nodded though. Never let them see you mad. Never let them see you anything but superior.


    I gently shook myself free of the people that were ¡®helping¡¯ me stand up. The filthy mongrels. Why was everyone so obsessed with touching me? Do I have a sign on me that says: I¡¯m lonely please touch?


    I promised myself at that point to destroy Garen. Utterly and completely. If I don¡¯t then it might get spread that I¡¯m not the best. I won¡¯t have that.


    Still though, it has to be said that I did not condone murder or anything underhanded. That would just start rumors of me being sly. I wanted to appear as innocent as possible. Jerald no doubt knew I was lying, but to all others I had become an introverted, kind, and compassionate warrior mage.


    I smiled at the two people that were holding my arms. ¡°Thank you. I¡¯m alright now. I give my thanks to you for your assistance.¡± I nodded slightly at them, and walked up to the injured person.


    By placing my hands on the wounded Garen, I began to heal him. My mana was exceptionally high. I used a tiny portion of it to instantly heal him, after carefully pulling the sword out of his gut.


    I decided to wait with the healers near him until he awoke. That way I seemed like a good advisory instead of a sore winner. I had to keep up appearances.