As dawn stretches over the horizon, a clear blue sky is visible above the tree by the pond. Several small birds who made the solitary tree their home chirped and sang their sweet songs as they greeted the start of a new day. A gentle breeze passed through a sleeping figure of a naked girl under the tree. Her pretty face resting comfortably on her left arm that served as her pillow.
Jean slowly opened her eyes from sleeping, she felt completely rested and invigorated. The playful songs of the birds above her made her feel safe and happy. Stretching her arms with a satisfying yawn, Jean finally got up fully awake.
“Good morning little birdies” she greeted with a smile to the singing birds resting on the tree’s branches.
“I guess you guys are my first friends in this strange world huh? Well, I am glad to have such a cute frie~ Eh?!”
A look of shock was painted over the young girl’s face as she felt something wet and warm dropped over her head. Slowly she reached above her head and felt her hand touching something soft and moist.
“What the f***?! Why you little vermin! How dare you poop on me?!” An angry Jean shouted, causing the birds to flee noisily as if laughing at her.
She went to the pond to wash her hair and remove the “present” her “new friends” left her. Deep in thought she once again assesses her situation with a much calmer mind this time.
“Okay, so this is a different world… somehow I got transported to after dying from Covid… let me review what I know then…” she mused as she rethought everything about being isekai’ed from what she read about in her manga collection and from anime that she watched.
“Hmm… basically, being sent to another world grants the person a new and healthy body” she then checked her naked form and nodded in approval.
“Definitely I am healthy… but… it’s still small” Jean sighs in frustration as she looks at her still small breasts.
“Next, let’s see if I have magic…” Her excitement is clearly visible on her face, as she thought of the prospect of having the ability to cast magic.
Slowly she closed her eyes and cleared her mind. Listening to the gentle breeze around her, the warmness of the pond around the lower half of her body, the gentle light of the new day bathing her whole being. It was then she felt a strong mana swirling inside her body. A mana with different colors from white, red, blue, gray and black and obviously different powers. A small smile formed on her lips, her excitement of the prospect betraying her thoughts.
Slowly opening her eyes once more, Jean raised her right arm, opening her palm. A small ball of orange fire floating above her hand. With a thought, she fired the small fireball towards a large rock just a few meters from the pond.
BAM!
The fireball completely obliterated the rock into tiny pieces, but at the same time Jean felt exhausted for some reason. She once again tried another on a different rock. Once again she felt exhausted.
“I see… casting magic, saps your strength… such are the rules here. I bet that the larger the magic, the more it saps your strength… I got to think on how to efficiently cast spells that won’t drain me too much.” Jean pondered as she finally emerged out of the pond.
“But first, let’s see how much mana and magic I possess”
Jean studied her surroundings. Aside from the group of rocks near the pond where she blasted her small fireball, there is nothing significant on the land around her except for a small hill a little farther from where she is, near the crater from where she woke up.
“Ah… well, there is no harm in trying.” She thought as she aimed her right hand towards the direction of the small hill.
Focusing all of her thoughts towards hitting the small hill, she fired her spell.
A black streak of pure energy erupted from her outstretched right hand, like a beam from a railgun so huge and wide that her whole body looked like a small doll. The black mass of pure energy sped towards the hill, cutting the land on its path like a hot knife on butter, the very air around the spell cracked with energy, like sparks of lightning, except not electric blue but black as obsidian. A tremendous explosion followed as the massive back beam hit the hill, forming a huge crater, completely pulverizing the hard mass of land.
“Whoa…” uttered Jean in complete astonishment, her eyes wide with an unimaginable wonder before she collapsed unconscious beside the tree, exhausting all of her strength and once again falling into a deep sleep.
……………
A conclave of mages was hastily called by the grandmaster of Spireforge Academy the moment he woke up very early the next day. All fifteen masters are in attendance inside the faculty conference room, despite the ungodly hour, all were alert and very much tense as they were already somewhat briefed by the situation by the young acolyte Marco. All classes had been suspended and the acolytes were ordered to monitor any further disturbance in the mana.
Grandmaster Finas spoke first, making sure that all of the masters had their attention solely on him.
“My brothers, last night I felt a powerful backlash of mana surge.” Finas started, his eyes fixed on each and every one in the room, letting his words sink into every master, letting them feel the gravity of the report.
The masters shifted, and murmuring started to fill the room. Finas remained silent, he was expecting this reaction from all the masters here.
At length Finas raised his hand, motioning the masters to hear more of what he had to say. The room once again fell silent.
“Let me tell you this bluntly, since there is no other way to say this… I know that none of you except me had felt the powerful mana backlash… it is because you are all too weak to feel it.” Finas stated matter of factly, causing the masters to once again shift about and murmur.
“It is not to berate you my masters, nor am I telling you that you are lacking in skill and talents, no, on the contrary, it only means that a force of godly power has descended upon this plane, the mere fact that only me, a Balekon was able to feel it, means that this is indeed a grave threat. I would be happy and relieved if I found out that one of you had felt even the slightest tinge in the air, then all of my worries would be put to rest… but alas, it isn’t so… so now here we are, at the verge of destruction.”
An air of uneasiness filled the faculty room. The masters are now pale and sweating profusely. They have read about this in their old books. The very same incident happened more than five hundred years ago. Now they all understand why the grandmaster was brutally frank and blunt in his words.
Finas was pleased that his masters were quick to the uptake, he had chosen his masters wisely, there may be hope yet. He scratched his short beard in approval.
“I understand that you all now have an idea of what has transpired last night, no?” Finas paused for a moment and took a deep breath, as he steeled himself to speak his next words.
“A portal for a Primeval God was successfully opened!” Finas declared with his powerful voice.
All of the masters stood up in unison, the very words they dreaded to hear were just spoken.
“Grandmaster, we mustn’t waste more time, we have to prepare… a Primeval God means war is coming!” One master shouted. The rest of the masters shouted their approval, they are all in agreement that preparations must be made at once, or the world as they know it will end.
“I will go and gather heroes from all the land to stand with us. The rest of you must train our acolytes with combat magic, others will cast a protective spell around the whole city.” Finas ordered his masters who after bowing before him quickly left the room to carry out his orders.
Finas then turned to his young protege, giving him a sealed scroll. “Marco, I trust you to hand this scroll to his majesty the King himself. No other hands should touch this scroll, do you understand me boy?”
“Yes grandmaster, even if I die, only the king will touch this scroll! You can count on me!” Marco declared as he bowed low before his teacher and hurriedly went on his way.
Finas then went back to his room, he picked up a special satchel which holds some of his most important books and clothes. For the first time since he became a Balekon and Grandmaster of the academy ten years ago, he will be setting his feet outside of Spireforge. He needs help, he needs heroes to stop the end of the world.
“So the second Godsbane War is about to begin…” With those ominous thoughts hanging in his mind, the thirty year old Balekon finally descended and exited Spireforge Academy.
