“And that's how it is” concluded Neln in front of an assembly. Neln was speaking to a group of old and wizened mages as he explained the direction the three mage families had to take in the future. The mages in the room were the leaders of the three mage families. Each an every single one of them has opened at least one element up to the fifth gate and two of the eleven mages even managed to open two. Although these were not all the archmages of the three mage families, they were the elected rulers. Each family elected four archmages to represent them in this council.
Normally the twelve would not be inside a room at the same time. Although the three mage families were called like this, they were not an alliance of three families like the name suggest but one united entity. Because of intermarriage and century-long cooperation one could say that it was actually on a gigantic family with three different names. Even the council of the twelve was something which existed sorely out of tradition since there was no need to fight with each other. Under normal circumstances, the representatives in the council would only manage the part they were responsible with and speak with the other members only in order to verify the movement of goods and personnel. These twelve people would normally only gather in order to discuss policies which would have big changes to the current state of the mage families or to speak about matters of grave importance. The current session was for both.
“You confirmed that this works?”, asked an old man with gray hair as he looked at the piece of paper in his hands.
“Yes, Rob. One can use the method written there in order to open the sixth gate of earth, water, darkness, and void, not that anybody can do the latter mentioned. The other one describes the method of opening the other elements. But as described: It needs a pure soul to open the sixth gate. So in the current situation, there are only 4 people in this room capable of doing so.”
The old man called Rob nodded slowly as he studied the writing. Although he seemed calm on the outside everyone in the room could tell that he was extremely excited. The other mages could understand this, as they were just as euphoric as the old man. Their families had lost the method to open the sixth gate of magic god knows how long ago. For the method to return into their hands, heralded a new age of magic.
Neln did not bring only these methods with him. He brought a lot more. Forgotten spells, alchemy recipes, manuals on how to draw ancient circles and methods of forging powerful artifacts. The only thing missing to complete the lost knowledge was the rebuilding of bodies through the use of elemental magic in order to give the body the elemental properties of the used element. Although the mages in the room had never seen such complex circles and instructions, they were experienced and learned enough to see that they were the real deal. The only problem was, that they would not see these things realized in their lifetime. Most of the things required a mage of the sixth gate in order to create them. Except for the genius Neln who was 74 years old every single archmage in this room was nearing their 145th birthday. Most of them were at the door of the sixth gate for 30 years, but even if they started to purify their magic energy now, they would not be able to finish it during their lifetime. Most of them could not even do it since they had trained in more than one element.
“We would need to change the education system within our families completely. The young ones would need to decide early on if they want to specialize in one element in order to reach the sixth gate one day or not.”
“That would be too dangerous. Our entire system is built around mages having multiple elements. If we change it so drastically a lot of our production lines will be no longer supportable.”
“We have an entire generation in order to change and adapt! And Neln brought methods which will revolutionize our production anyway! We will have to take a few losses in order to gain massive profit later on but it will be worth it!”
Neln looked calmly the discussing mages in front of him and sighed. They had already completely forgotten his plan of action for the future. Neln could understand them since all this knowledge was something the mage families tried to recover for at least a few thousand years, but at the moment he had no patience for that. He looked down at the sheets of paper with a desperate gaze. He was deeply impressed by this little gift of Rild. When the young mage ran away, Neln himself went into his room in order to catch a trail. That is when he found a thick stack of paper on the table. Rild wrote down ancient knowledge and a plan of action for the three families.
As much as Neln was thankful for the knowledge he was also furious. The worldmages were sitting with this knowledge for a few thousand years at least. Why did they not share it? Why not make it public? The world would be far better prepared for the eaters than it is now. The most ridiculous thing is that they did not share this knowledge even after they were dying. Neln saw the archives of the worldmage before Solana started sorting them out, so he knew that half of them was missing. Neln was not stupid and he knew that Rild teleported everything useful out of the castle, but for what reason did he do it? What did it matter who would get the knowledge if the world was dying anyway? Neln calmed down and stopped thinking about these questions. It was no use thinking about what had already happened. After he collected himself he looked up at the still discussing mages and clapped his hands.
BOOM BOOM.
It was as if two explosions went off in the tiny room. An old woman cried out from the sudden noise, before collecting herself and reprimanding Neln.
“There was no need for that! You could have clapped just normally and you would have everyone's attention.”
“I'm not sure about that. Back to the topic. The plan proposed by the worldmage. We will vote now” answered Neln in a calm voice.
The old mages frowned when they heard Neln. The plan would consume all the resources the mage families had. None of them wanted to see something like this.
“Surely with this new knowledge we will be able to stop the eaters and there will be no need to...”, started an old woman named Amanda.
“Don't fool yourself. We need time in order to gain power and we do not have it. We need to create this time. And before someone of you says something stupid like 'But we can fight in order to create more time and do not need to flee' let me remind you of a little something. Five of you are in this position at the moment because the eaters killed your predecessor. Out of the other seven, five, including me, were already at the front and fought the eaters. How many of these people truly believe we can stop them long enough to train mages of the sixth element reliably?” Nobody answered Neln's questions. “That's what I thought. Yes, the plan will devour ALL our resources, even the ones we have saved up over centuries, but it is our only hope of survival or at least I'm not seeing another one. Also before you start the 'What does the worldmage even know? Sure he is the guardian of the goddess, but he is extremely young. He has no life experience' line of arguing, let me remind you what would happen if he was born into our families.”
The mages were silent for a while. If he was born into the three mage families? With his talent, he would sit right here with them as one of the council members. Even if he was young his talent would be enough to garner the respect of everyone. Maybe he would not be able to really vote in the important decisions due to lack of experience, but they would at least listen to his proposals and give him advice in order to mold him into a great leader one day.
“Vote. NOW!”, demanded Neln in an angry voice. “My vote is 'yes'”
“Yes”. “Yes”. “No”. “Abstain”. “No”. “Abstain”. “Abstain”. “Yes”. “Abstain”. “Yes”. “Yes”.
The votes were cast. All in all, there were six 'yes', two 'no' and four 'abstain'.
“In that case, we will do nothing. You need at least seven votes in order to...” started Amanda, until Neln interrupted her.
“I have eight votes.”
Neln pulled out three envelopes out of his robe. The envelopes had the sigil of the three mage families engraved upon them. When the old mages in the room saw these sigils they gasped. There were only three people in the entire mage families who were allowed to use these sigils. These three could override every decision of the council.
“You- You went to the archons?” asked an old mage in disbelief. “If you have the votes of two archons then what was this vote even for?”
“To have a discussion. Even if it is already decided it was important to gather all of you in order to let us all discuss what we were thinking about it.”
The old mages said nothing. Amanda sighed as she started her question.
“I presume you have the votes of lord Velin and lord Zestrum? There is no way lady Agate would vote for a plan proposed by the worldmage. We all know how much she hates them.”
Everybody in the room knew about Agate and her story. There was definitive proof found, that the worldmages or 'devils' were responsible for the death of her eldest son. She hated them even after the truth about them was found out.
In Amanda's view, Neln's plan was still not decided in stone. If Agate opposes the plan with everything she has, then it would be very difficult to realize it. Agate was the oldest living member of the mage families as she was 230 years old. Even for a mage, she was beyond ancient. How was she able to survive so long? The first reason was that like the other archons she used an artifact to forcefully open the sixth gate of light. She chose to endure a lifetime of agonizing pain in order to act as a protector for the families. The second reason is, that she is the keeper of one of five great artifacts in possession of the mage families. Each great artifact required a mage of the sixth gate to wield it and Agate wore the so-called 'Luminous Mantle' which enhanced her already powerful light magic even more. One has to know, that those who opened the sixth gate of light or water tended to live far longer than other mages. The healing powers of these elements kept the body in a far better condition than one would assume. The facts that Agate was the oldest living member of the three mage families, a keeper of a great artifact and an archon, made her probably the most influential person in the mage families since the other two archons had no great artifact.
Neln was looking at Amanda with a shit-eating grin when he heard Amanda's question.
“Nope. It's true that my grandfather gave a 'yes' but lord Zestrum abstained. The second 'yes' is from lady Agate.”
The entire room was dead silent.
“That is impossible. Lady Agate would oppose literally everything as long as it had the words 'devil' or nowadays 'worldmage' in it. There is no way that she would accept the plan of a worldmage.” said Rob with an unbelieving voice.
“Well... you see there is a little known fact... Well actually right now only me and she know about it” started Neln in a complacent voice.”As you know I was one of the people who attacked the worldmage palace and after Solana killed him and we got in, both the church and the mage families started looting the place. I had pretty good luck and managed to find the quarters of the worldmages first. Maybe because I ran like the wind through the halls. Well, Rild teleported everything he deemed useful out so we did not acquire a lot, but in his quarters I found a very interesting book on the table. I pocketed it because it looked beyond ancient but quickly forgot about it because of the other important matters.”
With these words, Neln once again pulled something out of his robe. This time it was a very big and heavy book. The thing looked like it was older than the world itself. On the cover of the book were the words “The worldmages”.
“Every single worldmage and their deeds are recorded inside the book. An interesting one is the 35th since it is also the founder of the Kelliar family. But I would like to direct you towards the 56th. The one before the current one.”
Neln put the book in front of the council as he awaited their reaction.
“That is...!”
“Yes. Sen Sorlis. Agate's son was never killed by the worldmages. He joined them. He was the 56th one. With this it was quite easy to get her approval. In fact after she found out, that we killed the apprentice of her long-dead believed son she was quite furious. Although she had a better mood after we told her that we resurrected him.”
After this Amanda could not say anything. I looked like Neln's proposal was going to go .trough.
Neln looked once again at the council as he started to speak.
“With this, I think I have gained all the votes I need. Amanda, I think you should supervise the project since you are quite talented in such things. Objections?”
Amanda sighed as she looked at Neln. The gray mage was leading this entire assembly the entire time. The future was already decided even before they assembled. She just shook her head before asking.
“Don't you want to take command? Why give it to me?”
“Because I want to open the sixth gate of magic and I need to act as a deterrent towards the kingdoms in the north. They are already trying to invade us. Those idiots think we have the secrets to stop the eaters. And for some reason, they think they will be able to defeat us if they just unite into an alliance. I personally suspect it is a plot of the church. But this is unimportant right now. Amanda your goal is to produce at least 200 ships in three to four years. You have all the resources and manpower of all three mage families at your disposal. Failure will lead to the deaths of many. We will call this project “Savior's Fleet”.”

“So for the past two days, he has only stared at a piece of rust and a piece of wood?”, asked Solana as she eyes towards Rild who was attentively looking at the rusted sword he got from the mysterious temple.
“Pretty much,” answered the knight.
Solana has just arrived in town and due to pure luck chose the same inn as Rild and the others. After exchanging greetings with Tyler and Reston she wanted to scold the young worldmage for running away, but could not do so since he completely lacked any remorse for his actions. He justified that he had to do it since the old mages would not let him go because he had not opened any gates of magic. Although Solana wanted to protest that it was for his own protection, Rild not wanting to continue the in his opinion pointless discussion, just ignored her from then on and concentrated once again on his staff and the rusted sword.
It was already dusk when Solana heard a slight knock on her door. She went to open it only to find Rild has already let himself in. Without letting her speak he sat down in the middle of her room and beckoned her to come near. Solana already knew what he wanted to do since this scene was familiar to her. She wordlessly sat down and stretched out her hand. Rild took it and the next second the world changed.
Solana found herself in a round room made out of white stone with red mortar between them. Around the room were eight doors of different colors. Once again she has entered Rild's soul hall. Solana looked around a bit. Last time she was too shocked from entering another mage's soul hall so she did not take the time to look around. Every mage had soul hall unique to their person. Solana's hall was gray and Neln told her that his was yellow. In the end, nobody knew, what the colors were standing for, since sometimes two completely different people had the same color, while twins, who were practically identical, had different ones. Some speculated that it had something to do with the character or the burdens the person was carrying since the color of the soul hall could change throughout their life. In the end, these were all only hypotheses.
Solana looked first at the doors. She knew that normal people could see at most six doors. The old woman knew only of one person who could see seven doors. It was her dead daughter in law who also was Neln's daughter. Of course, there was Rild who could see all the doors, but Solana did not place him into the “normal people” category.
Before Solana could finish that line of thought she looked down. He mouth dropped as she saw what was under her feet. There was no floor. Only black magic essence was flowing unceasingly around. Solana could see that if she did not stand upon the magic essence but inside it, then it would be somewhere up to her knees.
“Do- Do you even sleep? How did you already collect such an amount of magic essence? Just a bit more and you can open a gate of magic!”
Solana finally looked upon the owner of the soul hall. Then she saw the answer to her question. One of the souls was in deep concentration as it stared up and forced drop after drop of magic into the soul hall while the other was drawing a spell. Solana knew the spell the soul was drawing. It was a completely useless waste of magic energy in the material world and something that would exhaust the soul in the soul hall. After a while, both souls stopped doing what they were doing and sat down next to each other.
“Ready”, said one of them.
Solana nodded as she stepped near. The next moment a sword appeared in her hands.

When Solana opened her eyes she was once again in her room. The old mage needed some time in order to stabilize herself. After leaving Rild's soul hall she felt exhausted. Probably because she had to split his souls alone. Without Neln she had to do twice the work. When she got hold of herself once again Rild was already leaving the room.
“Wait. Teach me how to take people into your soul hall!” she asked before the young mage could leave.
Rild stopped as he turned around.
“When you take the hand of the other person pull a bit of their magic into your body while you enter your soul hall. Once inside, draw this spell. You should understand how it works.”
As Rild said this he drew a shining magic circle into the air for Solana to remember. After that, he left.
Solana attentively starred at the circle in the air trying to commit it to memory. Fortunately for her, the circle was not overly complicated and she could learn it before it disappeared.
Once back in the room he shared with the priest and knight, Rild took out the last bottle of soul nectar he had and started drinking it. A few moments later he was in deep meditation. He had to nurse all his four new souls to health before he could split them one last time.

A few more days passed. The entire group was sitting at a table in the inn. Waiting for their food and drinks they discussed in a hushed voice on what to do next. Better to say Rild said what they had to do and the other listened.
“The problem with the mansion on my teacher is, that we need to find it.”
“You don't know where it is? How is it possible?” asked Tyler.
“It is possible because my teacher detached it from space in order to make it more secure. He and I had a beacon placed inside so we could teleport there if needed, but since I'm reborn, I am no longer attuned to it.”
“Why do we even need to find the mansion? Don't we need the grave for his body?” murmured Reston
“Yes, and the grave is in the garden of the mansion. Also, I think the mansion contains a small amount of eight element magic essence which I need desperately if I want to recreate this body into one, which can open all elements.”
“Why did you bury him there and not in some sort of worldmage graveyard? Do you guys have such a graveyard?” asked Tyler.
“It was his wish. He wanted to be buried in his home. And we're lucky it is like this.”
“Lucky? We may wander for months to find an always moving mansion and you call this luck?”
“Well, the other possibility would be that I buried him in the crypt of the worldmage castle. You know the one overrun by eaters. Yeah, a loooot easier to get in.”
As they were discussing another person sat to their table.
“Alright, I heard something about a moving mansion?”
Solana smiled at their newcomer.
“Fai, it is so good to see you.”
Rild looked at the fairy. Three years ago she killed him and now they met once again. To be honest, Rild did not know what exactly he was feeling when he was looking at her. In the end, it was her who killed him. Rild was probably the only person alive to face his murderer. Compared to the others the fairy changed the most in the three years. In Rild's eyes, she looked far more mature than three years ago.
As Rild was contemplating how he should treat her, the waitress brought their food and drinks.
“Well, all are together now. I'll drink to that!” proclaimed Reston in a jolly voice as he raised his mug.
Fai grinned as she looked at him sheepishly.
“As far as I have heard, you would drink to anything for the past two years.”
Reston looked at the fairy with a calm gaze and grunted into his glass.
“Just shoot your mouth off for now. Once we start training again I'm gonna beat the shit out of you!”
“Bring it, old man. Maybe this time your back will allow you to land a hit.”
Rild frowned as he heard the exchange. He looked at Solana as he asked.
“Are those two not on good terms?”
Solana smiled as she shook her head.
“No, no. They are on very good terms. This is just how they are talking to each other.”
Just as Rild wanted to retort that this is not normal, Tyler interrupted him with a question on his own.
“I've been meaning to ask. What's with your extreme regeneration rate and the fact that your blood contains such a high amount of magic.”
“I have a theory. I've been resurrected by recreating my body from a drop of blood. As far as I know, this never happened before, so I am not sure, that this is the reason. Nevertheless, I think that I am more magic than human at the moment. So that would explain why my blood has so much magic inside it and the healing could also be explained by it. My body just uses magic in order to rebuild itself since it is magic itself. Since I've been meditating without break and you pumped water magic into me when you healed my body, it absorbed the magic and changed it into flesh.”
Fai listened to the exchange between Rild and Tyler with an interested look. When she heard what Rild said she raised her brows in surprise.
“That is also probably why you are so much in harmony with the world. Since magic itself is part of the world, you are at the moment also part of it”, she said as she starred at Rild.
“I am part of the world?”, asked the young mage as he looked puzzled at Fai. He knew that fairies were far more in harmony in nature and the world than humans, but he did not know to what extent. Even if the worldmages had some books about fairies, one had to note, that they were an extremely secluded race, which did not leave their forest very often. Information about them was never very detailed.
“I don't know how to explain it to someone who doesn't feel it. It is as if you're a pretty color or a good sounding melody, I guess? Not quite, but something along those lines. Normally only the most powerful and ancient fairies can achieve something like this.” Her face contorted for a while. Her next words were more hissed than spoken.”I met one once. So I know how they feel.”
One moment later her face returned to normal.
“I have a question for you. Can you help me grow stronger? Can you help me improve my darkfire?”
Rild thought for a moment before he answered.
“Yes and no. I can do so, but not at the moment. It can be quite a while before I can do so.”
“I'm willing to wait.”
Solana looked at the exchange between the young mage and fairy and sighed. Out of the people here, she was the only one who knew about Fai's past. The young fairy was solely driven by a desire for revenge.
“Well, what funny little group we have. An old bag of bones, a drunkard knight, a pariah priest, an arrogant guardian of the goddess and a battle maniac fairy. Our happy little companionship” thought the old mage.

The group did not notice, that one table away a pair was listening to their conversation. The two of them looked like twin children, one boy, and one girl, but that was not the most notable thing about them. Besides their platinum hair and their golden eyes, they both had a clear crystal embedded in their forehead. Strangely enough, nobody seemed to notice the two of them.
“Hey Rii, you heard that? His body is made out of magic. And the girl is also very interesting. She seems to be some kind of mixed elemental. Shall we catch and dissect them? Who knows what kind of knowledge we'll obtain!” asked the boy.
“No Riis. Let's watch them. I want to see if they can evolve a bit. That will give more data. Then we can dissect them.” answered the girl.