Novaris: Adventure in the Shattered Fang Continent

Novaris. Septer. 904. AGC.

Their parents were Joseph and Sandral Siandel, and they had been clergy of Luxana.

Sandral, their mom, was a Moon Touched Elf Cleric in the Church of Dreams, while their dad, Joseph, was a Human Holy Warrior in the Order of Moonlight. They had been two loyal followers of the deity who lived out in the middle of nowhere, acting as ambassadors of Luxana to villages.

Then, their mom got pregnant and was asked to be part of Project Nodel, which was named after their planet’s moon, as symbolism that it was the key to retaking it. Their parents loyal followers as they were accepted, though they had been a bit worried at first. Their worry came from the fact that they were having twins, which was something that had caused problems during the last two experiments that created the Moon Angels and Moon Touched. Furthermore, there was the fact their mother was Moon Touched herself and knew about the many things that had gone wrong then. The mother knew that if two siblings were empowered simultaneously, they would merge into one.

However, Luxana had reassured them that she would only imbue her power to one of the kids, specifically Jasmine. This was because the goddesses preferred girls over boys and, when given a choice, would pick a lady every time.

Either way, with the reassurance of their god, the couple joined Project Nodel and were taken to the capital of the Novarian Alliance.

It was at that point that Ravnica wished to end the discussion, as she concluded it was enough to explain why they were reawakening their bodies. The issue was that Arelion and Jasmine weren’t having it. After all, that didn’t explain how they had come to be two people stuck in one body with two different godly powers. So, after some back-and-forth argument, pointing out that they could probably look up the answers later on or ask another cleric once they were free, the Grand Cleric gave up and continued the story.

Essentially, around six months after being taken to Luminant, the Capital City of the Novarian Alliance the city came under attack.

The attack had been unexpected as they couldn’t believe someone actually had the gall to attack the capital. However, once the culprits were seen, the attack made sense.

A coalition of the darker gods had formed. They brought Celestials, S Rankers, A Rankers, and even one of each god's mortal leaders—the Divine Archons.

Due to the surprise attack and the sheer force brought to bear, the invaders managed to breach the city and began kidnapping or killing all those whom they found belonged to Project Nodel.

The breach didn’t last but minutes before gates to each of the seven gods' holy realms opened.

As soon as the gates opened, their deity's own Celestials and S Rankers came through, causing the dark gods to call for a retreat.

In total, the dark forces had taken 350 of the 1000 mothers who were part of Project Nodel.

The alliance's forces pursued and managed to recover some, but many were killed outright by the dark forces instead of letting them fall back into enemy hands again. Overall, only 50 of the captured moms were recovered alive, while 38 were taken hostage, with the rest being killed.

From there, Ravnica said the rest of the captured children and mothers died, well, all except for one. However, though Luxana could tell the baby was alive through their connection, she wasn’t able to locate it. The goddess tried to search for the lost child, but without any idea where she was, there wasn’t much she could do. So, as time passed, the search diminished in strength, but they never truly gave up and were always on the lookout for anyone with silver hair.

Of course, the search ended in success, as indicated by Jasmine’s presence. The issue is that they don’t know what happened after Jasmine was taken, so neither Ravnica nor Luxana could explain the cause of the twins' current problems.

Without anything else to divulge and Arelion still unconvinced by the whole, Luxana didn’t know a thing; they let Ravnica continue her explanation of their awakening bodies.

Ravnica explained that the rest of the children in Project Nodel and so, by extension, Jasmine and Arelion had to progress like the rest of the mortals, which meant reforging their bodies slowly but surely with purer and purer mana. The process could be as fast or as slow as someone was willing to make it by withstanding the pain that came with it.

Now, most mortals without access to a higher power like a god or monarch could not jump ranks as easily as clergy or warlocks can. This is because the purest mana they can get a hold of is always kept at a certain amount that never actually goes above a certain threshold. This is done so that if they decide to unleash all their purified mana, they don’t end up burning their bodies to dust.

Something clergy, warlocks, or anyone with access to a higher power can do. Now, the trade-off is that these mortals are free to truly do as they wish, while clergy or warlocks are often bound to a being, and the fact is that if they go too far, they can very much kill themselves by jumping ranks.

That meant that as long as clergy or warlocks didn’t overdo it, they could progress in the ranks much faster. This leads to Jasmine’s and the others from Project Nodel’s special circumstances.

Though they, too, can jump rank, at first, they are stuck behind the limiting factor of other mortals without clergy due to not having access to a lot of Luxana’s mana. However, as they ranked up and had access to purer mana, whether straight from the goddess or by making their own, they would then be able to progress faster. However, it wasn’t recommended that they jump ranks even then, as their bodies still couldn’t be fully healed with normal magic. The issue wasn’t as big of a problem at later ranks when they did have access to more of Luxana’s mana, but until then, it was best not to tempt fate.

Now, Jasmine and Arelion were the oddities in this because, according to Ravnica, it was clear to Luxana that her connection with the girl was an unlimited one-way street in Jasmine’s favor. This allowed Jasmine to pull as much mana as she wanted, letting her jump ranks more easily, and she should have also been able to heal herself relatively fast. Of course, she hadn’t, and she still experienced the drawback of her body slowly recovering after the damage from the rank jump.

Ravnica pointed out that Jasmine and Arelion had still jumped ranks, which meant their body was indeed reforged at a faster rate. This was odd since, at full strength, they were now at Mid D rank in power, which should have been impossible once the reforging was done. And since Ravnica had been unable to explain what was causing the oddity, they had moved on.

The twins began their training in earnest. It started slowly, but the training kicked up with the passing months.

At first, slow exercises were used to improve their movement while building muscle and endurance. The problem was that the twins didn’t notice a difference, which led to how many holes Ravnica’s explanation had. There was obviously something different about them, and the cleric was in the dark with them.

After the light exercise came the actual workouts. This just reaffirmed that Ravnica’s rant was a theory more than anything. They didn’t blame the woman as they definitely were a special case, even for those in Project Nodel. Arelion even speculated that their body not healing even with access to the deity's mana might be a handicap from their strange existence.

Anyways, the training was based on movement and further weight training. They would jump around their training room, going through loops and doing various flips while also lifting heavy weights. According to Ravnica, the training they were doing was similar to that of those who were trained to achieve D Rank. And after seeing how well they were doing, Ravnica decided it was time for actual ranker training.

Actual ranker training did actually make them feel a bit exhausted. The training took the simple gymnastics they were doing and moved it to something regular mortals could never do. Things that would have broken bones from sheer fall height or twisted muscles from irregular movement were part of the course. Strength training was also crazy, as they were sure they could probably lift a horse at their current level of strength.

Moving on from exercising, they started proper combat training. Jasmine was told that even if she wanted to be a primary caster, it was important that she learn some melee weaponry. The case for this was that ignoring melee was what many focused casters did early on and met their end as a monster rushed and ripped their faces off. So, she was given the staff.

Later on, she would be given a magical staff that would help her channel her magic while at the same being able to be used for melee combat. The staff she practiced with was a bit shorter than her, which, according to Ravnica, was meant to help with its use. Speaking of Ravnica, the dragonkin finally got into the training herself. The cleric had been alive for a long time and, though not a master, was proficient with staffs and daggers, among other things.

Now, training with Ravnica hurt. Luckily, the pain turned to skill as Jasmine and technically Arelion began learning how to use the weapon. They learned to twirl, smash, slash, poke, and many other moves that would work against humanoids. Ravnica also told them they would need to learn how to fight monsters.

It was some time after they had been training and when they both were proficient with staffs and daggers. Arelion having taken the training further by also learning to use short swords with the odd rapier lesson here and there since, according to him, it was essential to have a wide variety of killing methods for the right occasions.

Weapon lessons aside, it had been a surprise when they had entered the training room one day and were met face-to-face with a two-headed bear who promptly began chasing them around. The thing wasn’t a D Rank threat, but it was still a hard-fought battle since it was their first monster beast. It also didn’t help that they couldn’t use magic. Thankfully, Ravnica was watching them in case something went wrong.

After running around fighting the bear with staff to keep it at bay and switching to daggers for quick rushes of stabs, they did manage to kill it.

Which was when they both felt something weird. It was a feeling telling them to approach the bear and drain it. In fact, it was so strong that they were on their way to “drain” it or whatever it meant. Sadly, Ravnica beat them to it and stored the body away, congratulating them as if nothing had happened. Thankfully, when the body disappeared, so did the urge, but it was something they needed to look into and definitely not tell Ravnica.

The training continued as they fought a few more monsters in between standard combat lessons. Each time, the urge came, but each time, they managed to hold it off.

Finally, one day, Ravnica told them it was time to start their magical training so they could integrate it with their combat styles. This excited both of them, as they had wanted to use magic but had been worried about hurting themselves with the powerful and pure mana in their souls.

They had attempted to search their small library for any tomes about magic, but oddly enough, they couldn’t find anything. And with only vague memories from when the orphanage gave them a brief lesson in mana, they didn’t want to do anything that might devolve into accidental rank jumping.