Soul of Searing Steel

"Those four fairy ladies are the doppelgangers of the four Fairy Queens in the eternal world."

Turning to glance at the corridor within the palace, Israel's gaze lingered at the direction where they left.

"The Four Elemental Fairy Queens slumber—no," he said softly, "They are the true form of Fairyland itself. Those four powerful fairies construct the element cycle of that half-plane to make it resemble a small world and attach itself outside the Mycroft Continent… Even until now, I don't understand the Truth and concept contained within, but their ability had unquestionably reached Legendary hundreds of years ago, their depth now far beyond typical Legendary."

Joshua nodded. He had heard about information related to that before.

In the pre-existence, Fairyland had always been mysterious.

When the Northern Empire was first invaded by the Abyss, the nation had lost each skirmish on each turn, losing a great amount of land while the Imperial Capital almost fell too. It was that time when Dimore asked for the fairies help and led an extraordinarily gifted girls to what was later the Ashen Lands. There, working with the dwarves to build the Naya Fortress, they had swiftly groomed the Valkyries through combat even as they resisted the demons' attacks.

Valkyries were powerful beings that could enter contracts with the fairies to become enchanted warriors. Each Valkyrie wore armor expressly forged by the dwarves with a little help from the fairies themselves, having gone through highly difficult training since young. Through those excellent weapons and their contract with the fairies, they displayed extraordinary martial ability and mana prowess, delivering a lasting contribution to the war against the Abyss and at least breaking four large-scale demonic ambushes.

Towards the end of the war, Four Elemental Valkyries who were rumored to have help from the Fairy Queens could even employ Legendary-tier combat ability and high-level magic. Possessing great fighting ability, normal demon generals were beaten into submission and fled under their care. They were a two-against-one force in the first place after all—if not for the sheer number of the demons and the fairies being incapable to endure the decaying scent of Abyssal soil, those Valkyries would have counterattack against the Abyss like the other Legendary forces, instead of staying within Naya Fortress.

"Your divine armaments—Ling and Ying, right? They've actually received help from fairy technology too. The essence of their beings are artificial souls imbued on weapons, and to a certain extent, they are affiliated to artificial fairy items. They would probably make the fairies explode in delight if they come—they've never seen new kin in years after all."

Israel opened the door to Fairyland as he spoke.

Facing the center of the palace was a huge hanging mirror three-meters tall. The Emperor extended his right hand, and the runic ring on his index finger emitted streaks of translucent bolts—pure mana radiance condensed to its very limits. However, the seemingly fragile mirror did not shatter when it was touched by the light. Instead, a pale-blue vortex revolving rapidly appeared over the surface of the mirror that expanded in seconds to form another door large enough for a person to enter.

"Come. My teacher should be waiting for us at Fairyland."

Without wasting words, Israel briskly entered the door heading to another dimension. Joshua naturally followed. Amongst the pair, one frequently headed traveled between the Mycroft Continent and Fairyland, the other had gone through many battles and seen much—what otherworld had he not seen? Which was why they moved immeasurably swiftly without any delay.

While Israel activated the door towards Fairyland in the old palace with Joshua in tow, the Four Elemental Fairies gathered in the top floor of the palace's dark hall.

It was an unilluminated place with no lighting at all. Indeed, the stone palace built a thousand years ago did not have any light—the only things that provide luminescence were those four happily flying fairies apart from the mana elements adrift in the air.

Four bright specks of light—golden-red fire, soft-blue water, light-green wind, and black-brown earth flew in different angles, paths, and speed from the stairs in the depths of the palace. Along the way, shards of mana light brightened the dark stairs, corridors, and halls—those little fairies that approached Supreme tier emanated lifeforce from their bodies incessantly, giving life to the mana runes hidden within the walls.

Soon, mana dust filled every corner. The fairies that had returned to the great hall on the second fall virtually gave life to the all the mana runes around them. The elemental phosphorous illuminated the four walls, making the aged stone wall sculpting and paintings visible—all of which told the story how a heavily injured youth was saved by four minuscule human figures that flew and danced cheerfully.

"Ah, feels like we've really saved a huge bother whenever I see these paintings," Fluorescence the flame-red fairy said. While her tone appeared to be a complaint, her expression was telling she was very proud. "Never thought that a human child saved randomly would actually become Emperor, I'm just so incredible—by the way, how many generations have passed until Israel boy here?"

"Don't know."

"Not sure."

"Tu… Don't understand."

The other three fairies replied indifferently, with the water-element fairy sighing. "By the way, what are we doing here? We can't leave the Eversong Lake seal and Fairyland at first because the elemental mana concentration was too low. But now that the Great Mana Tide has come, mana concentration was raised exponentially—we should be able to go out too."

As she spoke, she whirled around in the air in agony. "How boring. I want Israel to accompany me to see the outside world!"

Setting in a corner, the wind fairy did not mind the self-adoring fire fairy and water fairy about to die from boredom. She mumbled rhetorically as she discussed some questions with herself.

"That old codger and that young man Israel brought seemed to have entered Legendary threshold, eh."

The little fairy was drawing and writing in thin air, with runes assembling and dispersing as the fairy named Tempest frowned thoughtfully. "This way, don't I have to design two more Legendary cards… so troublesome, but fun!"

In front of the fairy, countless sporadic runes, mixed with wind elemental magic assembled into hundreds of mana cards the size of human fingernails. The cards glinted respectively in white, blue, purple, and orange-gold light. The white ones were the most numerous, making up one-third of the cards while the orange-gold were the fewest—not more than twenty levitated in the air.

As the wind fairy considered, two more blank orange-gold cards appeared out of thin air. "When the mana concentration outside stabilizes, I'll go collect data of those two and make their cards!"

Those mana cards had slightly obscure lines of description written in beautiful fairy words, with incomparably exquisite portraits.

[Holy Light Pope Igor (Clergy—Legendary)]

[Cost 10, Attack 7, Health 7, Cannot be attacked]

[Summon: Destroy all non-clergy Servants and Protection on the field. Cannot be targeted by spells before the next round.]

[Death: Destroy all Servants and Protection on own field, heal 7 Health for allied Hero]

[—Untouchable, searing and holy splendor.]

An old man who stood on a peak, looking at the sun above.

[Grand-Scale Craftsman Flo Ironfinger (Neutral—Legendary)]

[Cost 7, Attack 4, Health 5, Guardian]

[Summon: Acquire 3 cards of Divine Items]

[Using buffs on this Servant would have exponential effect]

[—The best craftsman of weapon is naturally the best wielder.]

A powerful dwarf, wrapped in thick armor and sitting upon a magma throne.

There were many other Legendary cards buoying in the deck, such as [Siren King Alor], [Merman of the Depths Godard], [Nature's Magister Galanoud] and so forth. And now, the two cards that were floating in front of the little fairy was an elderly man whose back was emanating with pale-blue dimensional ripples, and…

"Eh?" The wind fairy blinked and mumbled, vexed. "I actually didn't saw his face? Curious, why would I subconsciously avoid seeing his face…"

Meanwhile, the earth-element fairy that had only been communicating exclusively in 'tuturu' beside them, stared at the three friends she had been with for who knows how long.

All of them are useless, she thought.

Crippled bunch. One is a narcissist, one lacks affection, one is obsessed with card games—crippled bunch.

Fairies were no ordinary lifeforms—they were natural elemental bodies formed from mana convergence points, originally having no form or desire that resembled intelligent life. But perhaps due to long periods of interaction with humans and since they were just doppelgangers of their true form stationed for almost a thousand years in the little palace, they became like this after the long, boring wait. Apart from herself, the other fairies had developed eccentricities—how depressing.

"Tuturu (I'm going to rest)." Shaking her head, the earth-element fairy who believed her self to be normal floated to another corner in the highest level of the palace.

In a half-plane tethered to the world's outer layer beyond the world of Mycroft, two human figures appeared amidst the appearance of a pale-blue screen of light.

After traversing the dimensional passageway, Joshua swept a glance over the unfamiliar world known as mystery itself. It was Fairyland he did not travel to even in the pre-existence—his ability had been sub-par, and when it was finally sufficient, Fairyland had fallen to the Abyssal Invasion.

However, the spectacle the warrior saw was out of his expectation.

Unlike the delight that the four fairies displayed, their homeland was a vast darkness equal to the starry universe.

Black land floated. It was not solid soil however, but layers of particles of dirt and ground that were adrift. A faint golden-red flare wafted below it, delivering waves of searing warmth while dull gloom filled the sky, filling the world with vapors. Wind that signified particle movements slowly drove along in this bizarre world, while innumerable lights that represent a quantum leap of energies glinted in it like stars.

The ground that never solidifies, the endless winds, the omnipresent flare and the water that fills the world. Four monumental will slumbers at four corners of this little world with many other small, scattered will encircling those four. They noticed the portal opened in the distance, but seemed to have no intention of greeting them.

Israel did not hide anything. Joshua sensed that this was indeed a half-plane built by the partnership of four great beings. The four great elements—earth, water, flame, and wind became its cornerstone while light and darkness gestate within albeit without the support of champions as their pillar. The warrior had a feeling that if a Legendary-class Fairy Queen that represent light and darkness was born, the seemingly fragile and unstable half-plane would gradually complete and become a genuine small world, while the six Fairy Queens would become nascent gods of that world.

A unique but certainly possible approach for ascension, he thought. Every Legendary mustn't be underestimated as expected.

"The environment here in Fairyland was actually very beautiful. The four elements were distinct and had a simple, unblemished aesthetic. A brush from the Great Mana Tide shattered the earth elements of this land, maiming the earth-element queen and injuring the other three to varying degrees. The other fairies are now caring for them. But themselves being this very world, the Fairy Queens' injury would show in the physical world like this—outlandish and chaotic."

Though Israel's expression was unfathomable, anyone could have sensed his anxiety. "I had advised them to hurry and hide within the world of Mycroft so that they would not be assaulted by more Mana Tides, but they dryly refused… It actually doesn't affect ascension, and yet they simply don't want to."

As His Majesty grumbled about the fairies' capriciousness and stubbornness, a sheet of dimensional ripples cascaded beside the two, and a white-haired elderly man emerged from within in the very next moment.

"You two are here." Nostradamus appeared in fine spirits; he raised his hand, refusing Joshua's congratulations.

"It's fine." He smiled. "This old man is just ascending into Legendary—a far cry from you, monster. There's time to celebrate later, we could even drink in Winter Fort Academy and not go home without getting drunk. However, the matter at hand is urgent."

The old mage was right. If it were a stranger there would be one or two lines of nonsense. On the other hand, the trio present now were very familiar with each other. Swift and decisive men all, it saved a great many courtesy.

And so, in the very next moment, with the Legendary mage twisting the dimensions, the trio reached the edge of Fairyland in an instant.

"That's not quite the way you do it before, mentor." Israel felt the novelty of the warping, and recalled the sensation before thoughtfully. "It's the same as walking through a dimensional doorway but its activation is faster. There isn't the apparent oscillation from the dimensional fissure, neither is there the shockwaves from the rapid movement."

"I barely understood that after developing into Legendary… It's just an instinct now. If there's a chance, I would write its principle into an actual spell formula to let the guild study it," Nostradamus replied in summary.

Such was the origin of many high-level spells. When powerful ascend, the sublimating of their own life essence would grant some instinctual spells and abilities which usually suits them. Through the systematic study of the principles behind such spells, a brand-new powerful spell would be gained.

As they explored the Truth, the mages themselves become part of it.

Still, the chatter did not last long.

Standing by the horizon of Fairyland, the trio looked up towards the Chaos of the Void.

Fairyland could be described as a small fledging world, but it was now still an incomplete half-plane form. Its horizon has no global screen of light and no barrier, and was directly linked to the endless void in the depths of the Multiverse. The Four Fairy Queens' power built four elemental barriers, recycling as it blocked any threat from the outside.

Originally, the fairies could view the endless stars—and the endless worlds—in the Multiverse by the horizon of Fairyland, and imagine what interesting existences out there. It was a good way for them to kill time with their drawn-out lifespan, but now, an immeasurably huge, contorted dark space that blocked probably eighty percent of the view by the edge of Fairyland made all the stars dim and lacking in luster.

Not even the light emitted from the Great Mana Tide could permeate it.

Staring at the darkness, Joshua knew that beneath the shell of that shaky space that appeared about to crumble was a famous high-level map in the preexistence. The [Multiverse Sacrificial Grounds] had been the greatest wonder forged by all civilizations in the Glorious Era and a crystallization of all wisdom. In comparison, Starfall Era wonders like the dimensional hub that connects ten thousand worlds, the Void Star-Observatory that was originally stately or the Sentry Array were as laughable as child's play.

In the pre-existence, Joshua had not participated in the first wave of explorations in the Multiverse Sacrificial Grounds—or, to be precise, the exploration had nothing to do with them. The warrior recalled that it was after the various factions of the Mycroft Continent had completely studied them that the maps were released to the world.

[Origin by fire, birth by steel, soul as firewood, body as fuel, wisdom unquenchable, order eternal, legacy oscillating, unto this day]. The proverb had exactly appeared on a monolith at its center. Furthermore, many ancient records that had not been completely translated in the preexistence described the earliest religion and path that civilization had trodden.

Although it was unlikely that the Sage's whereabouts and records of the Three-hundred Lost Years could be found from it, vital information unquestionably could be acquired from the monolith—even precious historical legacy.

Sometimes, history itself represents a monumental power. It is only through knowing your own past and origins that civilization could advance steadily and not fumbling around, lost in the darkness.

"Other factions would soon discover that dimensional anomaly," Nostradamus said calmly as he watched the dark distorted space it. "It might be a colossal portal to another world or a fallen path towards the Abyss. Whatever the case may be, the Empire's power could not claim such a scale of dimensional fissure for itself. We need to combine all interested factions across the entire continent to explore it. Of course, it would not take a long time—it might be two years at most, and finished before the second Mana Tide.

"Such a magnitude of dimensional passageway and yet concealed so interestingly. How many years had it revolved around our world?" Israel nodded. "There may be secrets of the last era within—whatever the case, its existence itself is of tremendous value!"

A dimensional anomaly, able to revolve in secrecy amidst the Void for at least a thousand years but was undiscovered, and probably would have stayed unseen if not for the Great Mana Tide. The technology that symbolized existence would attract people like moths to a fire—it would not take long for a powerful exploration team to finish assembling.

Joshua, too, generally understood why he was pulled here. "So, you two are counting on me to explore the dimensional anomaly when the time comes?"

Mage and Emperor broke into laughter in perfect tandem. "No, Joshua," Nostradamus said, shaking his head. "Not just you but you and me. Israel has to preside over the Empire, which is why we'll partner up in the exploration."

"After all, you're the only one who had gone to multiple worlds and returned successfully." Israel shrugged, smiling. "Igor expressed his envy more than once that a character such as you would actually appear in our country."

"Or would you decline?" The Emperor pressed on.

Of course not.

Joshua shook his head—as Israel had said, how could he possibly refuse?

Since returning from the world of Grandia and ascending into Legendary, the world did not have anything that could pique his curiosity and competitiveness. Still, the Multiverse Sacrificial Ground was undoubtedly a target worth challenging.

Joshua looked up, ahead of the edge of Fairyland, the distorted space that blocked endless starlight.

Challenge of the unknown, he thought, is really great.