Chapter 124. The Firsts


[Mana Pool: 3067/3067]


Adom opened his eyes and exhaled slowly, his breath misting slightly in the cool air atop the temple. The meditation had worked perfectly—his reserves were completely replenished. He stretched his arms overhead, working out the stiffness that came from sitting motionless for hours.


Time to see what was inside.


Adom stood up and walked toward the edge of the roof, where a set of stairs had emerged when the temple rose from the ground. The steps led down to what appeared to be the main entrance—an archway so massive it made Adom feel like he'd somehow shrunk during his meditation.


Before heading down, he tested Wam and Bam, flexing his fingers inside the battle gauntlets. Wam emitted a faint blue glow at the knuckles, while Bam hummed with a barely audible vibration. Both responding perfectly—just for good measure.


"I'm ready," he said to no one in particular.


The descent took longer than expected. Each step had been designed for beings three times his height, forcing Adom to carefully navigate his way down. By the time he reached the bottom, he'd counted seventy-three steps.


The entrance loomed before him—a doorway that stretched upward at least fifty feet, with stone slabs thick enough to withstand a siege. The doors themselves stood partially open, with a gap of about three feet between them—more than enough for a human to slip through, but barely a crack by the standards of whoever built this place.


Adom approached the opening and peered inside. Darkness greeted him, though his enhanced vision picked up faint glimmers of the same purple-blue light he'd seen in the runes above.


He hesitated at the threshold, suddenly aware of his size relative to the structure. The gap between the doors made him think of how insects found their way into houses—squeezing through cracks in foundations or tiny spaces between boards. Or a mouse finding its way into the walls of a house.


A mouse. Valiant.


The little beastkin navigated a world like this every day—everything oversized, built for creatures many times his height. Beds like vast fields. Tables like plateaus. Doorknobs positioned at the level of bookshelves.


Adom had never really thought about how the world must look through Valiant's eyes. Sure, the beastkin had never known anything different, but his entire life experience was shaped by that perspective—constantly climbing, jumping, finding creative ways to interact with objects designed for much larger beings.


He made a mental note to be a bit nicer to Valiant when he returned to the Arkhos. Maybe ask him about his perspective on things. It seemed important now, standing here dwarfed by architecture built for giants.


Adom raised his hand, weaving a simple pattern. A sphere of light materialized above his palm, casting a warm glow that barely penetrated the shadows beyond the doorway.


The giants' civilization grew more complex. Their numbers increased. They spread across landscapes that gradually became more recognizable—mountains, forests, plains that resembled the continent as Adom knew it today.


Still no magic.


Then the murals changed.


A new panel showed dark forms descending from the sky. At first glance, they resembled humans, but as Adom looked closer, he noticed wings, horns, twisted limbs. One figure in particular dominated the scene—larger than the others, with multiple wings and eyes that seemed to follow Adom as he moved.


"Demons?" he wondered aloud.


The next panels told a story of violence. The winged beings attacked the giants, who fought back with stone weapons and brute strength. But they were outmatched. The demonic figures wielded what could only be magic—dark energies that curved and twisted through the air, striking down giants who collapsed like felled trees.


Adom quickened his pace, following the narrative as it grew darker. New attackers joined the demons—massive scaled creatures that breathed fire. Dragons. Birds wreathed in flame. Phoenixes. And shadowy entities that seemed to drain the very life from giants they touched. Umbras.


The giants were losing. Badly.


Panels showed them fleeing, hiding in caves and valleys. Their numbers dwindled. Those captured were forced to labor, building structures for their new masters. Chains bound their limbs. Their faces showed suffering Adom could feel even across the millennia.


"This isn't how the story is supposed to go," Adom muttered, his unease growing.


The academic consensus placed giants as powerful, dominant beings who shaped the early world before humans. Not as victims. Not as slaves.


Yet the evidence before him told a different story—one of subjugation and survival against overwhelming forces. A story where giants weren't the conquerors but the conquered.


Interesting.


"No way," Adom said, leaning closer.


The next panel showed an argument. The first mage gesturing toward the sky, toward what might have been the demon territories. The others shaking their heads, making countering gestures.


Then betrayal.


It happened suddenly in the narrative—one giant stepped behind the first mage and drove what looked like a spear through his back. The mage's expression showed not pain but surprise. Betrayal.


Blood poured from his wound—but not red blood. Blue, glowing like the ocean he'd emerged from.


Adom felt his stomach tighten. "After everything he did for them..."


The next panels showed the first mage falling, his body crumpling as other giants—those he had saved, those he had gifted with magic—surrounded him. Not to help. To finish what the first traitor had started.


Adom could almost hear their shouts, the thud of weapons against flesh, the first mage's cries of confusion and pain. The murals seemed to vibrate with violence, the subtle movements of the figures now more pronounced, more disturbing.


"This isn't right," Adom muttered, a strange protective anger rising in him for a being dead for millennia. "This isn't how it should have ended for him."


But the story wasn't finished.


The next panel showed the first mage's broken body lying on stone similar to the temple floor. His blood—still that luminous blue—pooled around him, flowing into channels carved in the ground.


Where the blood flowed, it changed. In some channels, it thickened and formed slender, graceful figures with pointed ears and lithe bodies.


"Elves," Adom breathed, recognizing the distinctive forms.


In other channels, the first mage's bones—broken by his attackers—dissolved into the blood and reformed into stockier, hardy figures.


"Humans."


And in yet others, strands of the mage's hair—impossibly long and flowing—twisted together with blood and bone to create shorter, sturdier beings with magnificent beards.


"Dwarves."


Adom stepped back, trying to process what he was seeing. "We came from him? From his... remains?"


They were smaller than giants but inherited the magical abilities of their unwilling progenitor.


"Hah. We didn't win through strength," Adom muttered. "We won through cunning."


The war raged for generations, depicted in panels of increasingly apocalyptic destruction. Mountains shattered. Forests burned. Oceans boiled. The very fabric of reality strained as the ancient powers unleashed their full might against each other.


When it finally ended, all four races were decimated. The few survivors retreated to distant realms, too weak to maintain their hold on the mortal world.


The Primordial Age had ended. Just like that.


Adom took a deep breath, processing.


Nothing in the historical texts suggested humans had manipulated ancient powers into mutual destruction. The official narrative credited human courage and magical prowess—not cold-blooded strategy.


The next section of murals showed the aftermath. With their oppressors gone, humans emerged from hiding and began rebuilding. Cities rose. Fields were planted. Trade routes established.


But humans, being humans, couldn't maintain peace for long. The panels showed new conflicts arising—not against ancient powers, but against each other. Kingdoms fought kingdoms. Mages battled mages.


Dwarves emerged from their mountain sanctuaries, only to find humans had claimed much of the surface world. Elves ventured from forests to discover their sacred groves converted to farmland.


Instead of cooperation, the three races fell into patterns of competition and sabotage. Elven spies stole human magical innovations. Dwarven raiders destroyed human enchantment facilities. Both races seemed determined to keep humans from advancing too quickly.


This was common knowledge. The dwarves and elves actively sabotaging humans. Magical knowledge declined generation by generation. Techniques were lost. Apprenticeships interrupted by war. Libraries burned. Within a few centuries, true magic was practiced by only a tiny minority.


Until another figure appeared.


A human, ordinary in appearance, was shown meeting with a creature of shadow and light—similar to what the first giant mage had encountered, but neither entering him nor following him. Instead, it seemed to be teaching him, whispering secrets.


"That's not an umbra," Adom realized. "It's something else entirely."


The human listened, learned, and began practicing magic unlike anything his contemporaries knew. He rediscovered lost techniques. He created new ones. He taught others.


Adom recognized this figure immediately. "Law," he whispered. "The First Age. About three thousand years ago."


Law, the human who rediscovered magic and brought it back to humanity. The founder of the first magical academies. The creator of the modern runic system.


But the Academy taught that Law had discovered magic through study and meditation—not through the guidance of a mysterious entity.


The murals showed Law teaching others, codifying magical practices that formed the foundation of current systems. Under his guidance, human magic flourished again.


War with elves and dwarves followed, but this time, humans held their own. Law's trained mages turned the tide.


The narrative continued through the ages. At each critical juncture in human history, the same shadow-light being appeared, guiding a key figure through a potential catastrophe.


During the Great Plague of the Second Age, it guided a healer to discover magical cures.


During the wars of the late Second Age, it helped a peacemaker create the Concord that prevented magical destruction of the continent.


In the early Third Age, it showed a runesmith– ancestors of runicologists– how to contain the Void Breach that threatened to consume the eastern kingdoms when the laws of magic were transgressed.


"...What are you?," Adom whispered, looking at the shadowy figure.


The murals approached more recent history. By the architecture, and desolation, the monsters roaming, and the chaos, Adom's eyes widened as he realized this was his time. The late Fourth Age. The start of World Dungeon.


The final sequence of murals showed a beach at night. An old man crawled across the sand, his body emaciated, reaching toward the sea as if it held salvation.


A tall woman appeared before him—thin, with flowing black robes.


Oh.


They seemed to converse, the old man pleading, the woman considering. Then they clasped hands—a deal struck.


The next panel showed the transformation. The old man's withered body straightened. His white hair darkened. His wrinkled skin smoothed. Youth returned to him.