208 An Old Acquaintance and the City of Sand (1/2)
”The secrets of the Elemental Planes? I don't know either; you should go find the mages for information instead. Why are you acting so surprised? Even I, Ayer, am not someone who knows everything. If it seems like I have a lot of knowledge, that's only because I've had such a long life. The history of the Four Elemental Planes is even greater than that of the mortal plane. The Goddess of Creation Eich had used them as the foundation for creating all the other planes, and I wasn't even born yet at the time. How could I possibly know?”
When I asked Ayer about the ancient secrets of the Elemental Planes, I received such an unexpected answer. And when he mentioned the Goddess of Creation, the black-clothed icy Death God was actually filled with a nostalgic expression.
”The Four Elemental Gods may have a pretty name but they're really nothing more than warehouse managers working for the Goddess of Creation. Eich entrusted them with the power to control part of the very Elemental Planes themselves, but they definitely do not possess the power to truly rule over the Elemental Planes. Hehe! Nobody is able to rule over any Elemental Plane, as that would mean that that individual has the power to rule over one-fourth of the entire world and its living creatures.”
And when I checked this information from other sources as well—Margaret gave it to me in a friendly gesture—it also proved the veracity of Ayer's words. The most obvious evidence, however, was that when the Four Elemental Gods were sealed, the Elemental Planes still existed and went on as usual. If an Elemental God were to die, a new Elemental God would naturally be born again in just a few hundred years.
Theoretically speaking, the Goddess of Chaos Cynthia inherited part of this power from her mother Eich. Cynthia would be able to control the Four Elemental Gods and indirectly control these planes; Cynthia's Will was still affecting the Elemental Planes, which was why the Earth Elemental Plane displayed many traits of Chaos.
The Earth Elemental Plane was far different from what most people thought of it. This wasn't a world devoid of nothing other than sandstorms and earth elementals, but it was rather the opposite. As the most ancient elemental plane of the four, its natural resources and specialties were incredibly abundant.
Various ancient species continued to reproduce successfully here, and precious gems and rare minerals were commonplace. Buried under the ancient hills were valuables that would be impossible to find in any other plane.
Of course, the most common type of resident here were elemental creatures related to the earth, but they were different from the humanoid elementals in the mortal plane. The earth elementals here weren't accustomed to humanoid shapes; their shapes were, instead, wondrously strange and abnormal. Some took the form of dragons while some were typical stone giants. There were also giant crabs or insect shaped elementals; typically, they would choose to imitate strong existences that they had seen before.
Although they boasted of differences in appearances and species, they all possessed one thing in common; all these creatures were part earth elemental, and had the ability to devour each other and evolve into stronger existences.
According to stories, in the very beginning, Emordilorcan had been a weak stone giant. Because this place had a high amount of elemental power, the body parts of these elemental creatures made for excellent magical materials.
Any place with benefits to be gained would attract intelligent species. If there were enormous benefits to be reaped, it was only natural that there would be those looking to strike it big while not fearing death. After the ”warehouse manager” Elemental Gods were sealed, these Elemental Planes were just like warehouses with their doors left unlocked and wide open; there were numerous methods to invade them. Various factions had already set up their own permanent outposts in each of the Elemental Planes.
In an area known as the Karo Hills was the outpost of the Mage Country, Arlodant. Hundreds of mage towers and magic contraptions created a defensive energy field, and the semicircular dark purple magic barrier blocked all the sandstorms from being able to affect ”Karo City.” Karo was also the largest non-native settlement in the Earth Elemental Plane for the nearest several thousand kilometers.
Various species could be seen walking in Karo's streets. Although most were still humans, elves, beastmen, and other common species from the mortal plane, there were also some demons from the lower planes. You could even see a few machine lifeforms or ethereal lifeforms from other worlds. Of course, there were also goblin merchants that could be found literally everywhere. However, there was one species among them that was one of the rarest to be found in the mortal planes—half-elementals.
They always had complex reasons for coming into existence. Some were the descendants of high-level elementals and ordinary species while some had been ordinary species elementalized by the Elemental Plane, but their most obvious traits were their physical appearances. Their skin colors would always be rather eye-catching, with speckled, tan skin, or fiery-red skin, not to mention that they typically had various crystals embedded in their faces. Their appearances could be rather frightening.
Yet due to their bodies' partial elementalization, they were also natural-born elemental mages. They had excellent innate element-sensing abilities, and with just a little training they would always be able to become superb elemental mages. They didn't even have to worry about their element's magic turning on themselves; they always grew quickly in power.
For the Mage Country, apart from all the special resources to be gained here, the Earth Elemental Plane's half-elementals were excellent seeds that could join their ranks. As for the earth magic archmages, the Earth Elemental Plane's high concentration of earth element density was the best cultivation location for them of all. With all sorts of rare elemental creatures and resources here, how could they possibly give up on coming to such a location?
But, recently, Karo had met with some trouble.
The Earth Elemental God had returned. These uninvited guests finally had to face the homeowner.
Obviously, Emordilorcan, who was still the master of this plane in name, wouldn't allow his home to have uninvited guests. More and more earth elemental creatures suddenly changed their attitude towards Karo, and attacks by elemental beasts were becoming more frequent.
Due to the Elemental Tide's increase and the return of Emordilorcan, the sandstorms became stronger in magnitude as well. Karo's magic barrier was keeping out the sandstorms by now using 50% more energy than the same time last year.
”This won't be good if it continues.”
It was becoming harder and harder to travel to and from the Earth Elemental Plane, and the magic power required to move between planes and the magic upkeep of Karo kept increasing as well. As a half-elemental archmage who was born and raised in the Earth Elemental Plane, Atadia had much on his plate to worry about.
Dozens of years ago, Atadia had joined the Mage Country and became an acolyte, and now, he was a Gold-rank archmage. Atadia couldn't be more familiar with the city of Karo, but recently, he kept feeling more and more uncomfortable, as if this beautiful city filled with the culture of magic was a restraint upon him. Somewhere in the wilderness, there was a will that was summoning him.
And it wasn't limited to only him. In the past three months, there were over a dozen acolytes that disappeared into the sandstorms, leaving only their mage robes and staves behind.
”Emordilorcan? How troublesome.”
As a Gold-ranked archmage, Atadia was no novice unaware of what was going on. The only existence that could influence the entire Earth Elemental Plane to such a degree could only be that legendary Earth Elemental God.
Since Atadia was no weakling, he could still resist this summoning in his soul, but those novice acolytes found it impossible to resist. Every half-elemental was precious, and losing them like this was painful for him. Yet this wasn't even the biggest problem. Two days ago, an acolyte had gone wild and actually rushed into the magic mechanism area, attempting to break the magic barrier device, which was rather shocking.
”There's still no response from our Mage Country? They should at least send us a few more archmages to help control the situation.”
”No. The Mage Country has also met with its own trouble. The Bardi Empire suddenly started a series of small conflicts with us, and most of our strongest mages have left for the frontlines. From what I gleaned through my personal channels, similar problems are occurring in the Wind and Water Elemental Planes. Add on the fact that transport and travel between the Elemental Planes keep increasing in difficulty, and perhaps not only will we not receive more aid, but we'll probably even receive less assistance than usual.”
”If there's a problem with the current dimensional traveling, then can't we borrow the goblins' dimensional traveling services? Their time-space tearing devices should still be usable, right?”
”Their 20% fixed rate of failure is just too much. It's still okay to transport resources, but it's too dangerous to use for anything living. Also, those goblins recently changed their rules, and have actually been making us purchase 'insurance;' otherwise, they won't transport anything for us, and any losses incurred won't be paid by them.”
”Insurance? What's that?”
”Something that's been getting popular recently among the goblins. It seems to have been spread by the Underground goblins. That's a system where you pay a certain amount to the goblins as a deposit, and if an accident occurs where you incur losses, the goblins will pay you for your losses.”
”Isn't that a good thing? Then you might as well buy it. We've always sucked up any losses ourselves in the past.”
”The problem is that even if we purchased their insurance, they wouldn't give us any money back. The archmage Edwin in charge of dimensional transportation has been incredibly angered by them recently.”
”Why's that? Don't the goblins always stress a merchant's honesty?”
”They claimed that we put special magnetic items into the products we were transporting, which affected the dimensional teleportation. They are saying that we were at fault for the failed teleportation, and even requested that we pay them for their losses.”
”What the hell? If certain special items can't be teleported, shouldn't they tell us beforehand? Only telling us after the fact; then what about the next time? I doubt that archmage Edwin would let them use that excuse again.”
”The second time we had even worse luck. We met with a dimensional storm, and half our resources were lost.”
”This time, the goblins should have paid up.”
”No, they didn't, because their insurance contact had an additional clause stating, 'losses caused by uncontrollable outside factors will not be paid by us.' A dimensional storm is a natural disaster and is counted as such an uncontrollable outside factor.”
”Then why are we still purchasing that insurance or whatever!? Isn't it just a merchant's trap? Aren't we buying it just in case we incur losses during the teleportation?”
”…Yeah, we only found out about it after being on the suffering end. In order to receive payment for our losses during teleportation, we were supposed to buy a special 'teleportation insurance.' In the end, for the third attempt, archmage Edwin ended up signing every single additional insurance option.”