The silence in the lecture hall had become a tangible thing, thick with the weight of cosmic history. Professor Ironwood remained perched on the edge of his great oak desk, his gnarled hands steepled before him. He seemed less a teacher and more an archivist of apocalypses, reading from a ledger written in starlight and sacrifice.
"The release of Aethelgard's hoard was not a gentle rain," he began, his voice a low rumble that vibrated in the stone beneath our feet. "It was a tsunami of raw creation, a storm of potential that did not just fall upon the world it seeped into it."
He paused, his flinty eyes seeing not us, but that primordial dawn. "And the world, in turn, began to dream. From this new, fertile chaos, life stirred. In the shadowed vales, creatures of living crystal first clicked their facets into the light. From the storm wracked skies, beings of crackling energy and feather took flight."
A hand shot up from a student in the front row. "Professor, are you saying the beasts we fight in the wilds, the ones that threaten our cities... they're all..."
"Children of the Primordial, in a sense," Ironwood finished, his tone not unkind. "The ambient mana that reshaped our world birthed them. They are living echoes of realms Aethelgard consumed, given new form in our soil. When you face a Corrupted Tusker or a Shadow Stalker, you are facing a fragment of a dead universe, given will and hunger by our own world's vibrant life force."
A murmur of uneasy realization spread through the room. The dangers we trained to face were suddenly imbued with terrifying, cosmic significance.
"And humanity," Ironwood continued, his gaze sweeping over us, "was not merely a bystander. Bathed in this constant, shaping energy, the latent potential within our ancestors awakened. What we call Affinities are inherited memories. Fragments of laws from dead universes, now finding expression through us. You do not merely learn magic; you remember it."
This reshaping was not uniform. "Where the mana ran deep with the essence of growth and ancient wisdom," Ironwood explained, "one branch of humanity became the Elves, stewards of the Enchanted Forest of Eldarathia. In the north, where the mana was heavy with the memory of unyielding stone, another branch was tempered into the Dwarves of the Ancient Mountains of Construa."
Wren, unable to contain his curiosity, whispered a little too loudly, "So are they better than us? At magic, I mean?"
Ironwood's smile was thin. "Different. Not better. Their cultures and physiologies specialized, like tools forged for a specific purpose. We humans remained generalists, adaptable. Our potential is, in theory, more volatile."
He stood then, and the air grew still once more.
"Finally, there is the matter of the artifacts." His voice became hushed, reverent. "Divine Artifacts are scattered across the cosmos. Aethelgard collected them, the ultimate trophies from worlds that produced something he could not simply unmake. The seven he left us are the last, perfect jewels salvaged from the ash of ended ages."
He shared them intentionally with the three nascent races a shared arsenal against the darkness he knew still waited.
"But they are not passive instruments," Ironwood stressed, his eyes blazing with intensity. "Each artifact contains a soul, a consciousness forged in the heart of a world now lost to time. They are not wielded; they are partnered with. To be chosen by one is to be deemed worthy of carrying the entire hope, the entire legacy, of a civilization that is no more."
A stunned silence held the class. Then Lira's quiet question cut through the stillness. "Professor, what happens if one of them chooses someone unworthy?"
Ironwood's expression was grim. "History does not record such an event. The artifacts have slept for millennia. It is believed their judgment is absolute. But it is a fearsome responsibility. To wield such power is to have a dead world's final wish placed upon your shoulders."
He looked out at our stunned faces, his final words hanging in the air.
"They are out there. And they are waiting."
As the class finally dismissed, frantic chatter erupted around me. But I sat still, my mind reeling not on weapons or other races, but on the being at the center of it all.
Aethelgard.
The name echoed in my mind, now imbued with impossible meaning. This was not just some powerful creature from a fable. He was a concept. A force of nature that had been lonely? Curious? How does the embodiment of avarice even hesitate? What did he see in our speck of a world that made him stop? That made him care?
The heat in my chest, the Dragon Soul Ignition, pulsed softly, a constant, warm reminder. A terrifying new thought crystallized in my mind, cold and sharp. This dragon, this Primordial who sacrificed everything was his choice the reason I was here? Was my reincarnation into this world not some random accident, but part of his long dead design? If this spark inside me truly was a piece of Aethelgard, then what was my purpose? Why had he brought me here?
The weight of that possibility was suffocating. The being who reshaped reality might have personally orchestrated my existence here. For what? To continue his work? To clean up a mess he left behind? The questions terrified me, but in the deep, quiet part of my soul where the ignition smoldered, I felt a strange sense of rightness, as if a lost piece of a cosmic machine had finally clicked into place.