>April 7, 2058
Ayane and Ryuzen were given separate quarters for their time at the capital
Ryuzen: (knocking after opening the door) I'm coming in.
Ayane: (dryly) You were supposed to ask, not state it.
Ryuzen: (shrugs) Well I'm already in. Now that we have a secure place—
Ayane: Are you finally going to tell me about those things from earlier?
Ryuzen: Yes. And I know you have a lot of questions but first just hear me out.
Ayane: I was waiting for you to keep your word.
Ryuzen: It all started after our first meeting, on 18th March. I like to go on long drives when I have things to think about and so naturally I took one of Kaito's cars and hit the road.
Ayane: So Kaito knows about your one week absence?
Ryuzen: (grins) No— I never said I asked for the car. Anyways, after about an hour of driving aimlessly I decided to head for the ocean and as I expected there wasn't one.
Ayane: I know that most of our oceans are now land and that is causing a shit ton of problems as there are no more import/export through the sea. So what did you see there?
Ryuzen: In front of my eyes was completely new land that had its resemblance to Earth but at the same time was very different. I was surrounded with new flora and fauna but was lucky that the land was flat enough for me to drive through. After being blinded by my scientific curiosity it was too late when I realised that I couldn't refuel.
Ayane: (chuckles)Is that why you had to walk back?
Ryuzen: Kind of but remember we are still on day one I only returned after like 7 days. My saving grace was this random motorbike like thing in the middle of nowhere, it was clearly a vehicle but was so clean without any exhausts, pipes or wires. It took some time before I realised whatever is powering it, it doesn't need a start button. After figuring out how to ride it, I now had a new vehicle that seems to have infinite power and can probably hit speeds of 250 kmph. Not only that but it felt like it was adapting to the terrain.
Ayane: ^ Learning human vehicles are no easy task and often require training while he says to have figured out to ride an alien bike in no time. Truly a Ryuzen thing to do. ^
Ryuzen: After riding it all night like a maniac, at noon on 19th March, I spotted civilisation in the distance and to no surprise it wasn't a human settlement. I was in a Dwarven town.
Ayane: (whistles) Damn! you really do just stumble upon interesting things on the go huh.
Ryuzen: I guess so because I found myself in a peaceful village with buildings resembling architecture from 16th century Europe. I was in the main city of the Kragmor county, Vanhalden. There I was taken to the Guild which is basically a police force for the Dwarves.
Ayane: How could you even understand them?
Ryuzen: Oh I could not understand anything, I was cuffed and forcibly taken to a random place where I met Daigo, Takuro's brother. He was the Guild President of the Kragmor County and had a translating device to speak human, only then did I find out that the random bike I found was called a strider and belonged to Daigo.
Ayane: (bursts in laughter) So you basically stole a Sheriff's bike and got arrested for it and you made it sound like you were escorted or something.
Ryuzen: (bummed) Yeah but after I told him everything that happened he was actually grateful for returning his bike and offered a stay at his place. We slowly got acquainted and I learned a lot about the Dwarven culture, their dynamic with the Elves and their war against the Demons but most importantly I was able to get access to his private library where I learned about the mana and spells.
Ayane: So the big lightning thing you did was from there?
Ryuzen: Not exactly, many Dwarves are not good with spells instead they can do something different with mana—Body Enhancement. They can manipulate mana to increase their physical stats.
Ayane: And he just taught it to you? just like that?
Ryuzen: You really need to have some patience Ayane. The next day[ March 20 ] Daigo offered to measure my MP after seeing my interest in mana.
MP or mana points are a measure of one's mana capacity and they are divided into 6 tiers:
Spark - 100 to 9,999 around 60% of people
Ember - 10,000 to 99,999 about 25% of people
Torrent - 100,000 to 999,999 about 10% of people
Ascendant - 1 million to 999 million about 3% of people
Celestial - 1 billion to 999 trillion only a couple thousand people
Tempest - Quadrillion+ only a handful of Elves.
And I had 617,443 MP putting me into upper half of Tier-3 which is quite rare.
For comparison the High-Demon Vanharkas at the new world meeting had about 3,260,000 MP putting him at barely Tier-4 hence his strength.
Ayane: So that makes him about 5 times as strong as you?
Ryuzen: Maybe, I don't exactly know the correlation between one's mana capacity and their combat strength.
Continuing, for the next couple of days I learned basic body enhancements from Daigo which is how I was able to move and react at superhuman speeds. But on the night of 23rd, Daigo was called out for an emergency and he left in a hurry. Soon after his departure there was an attack on the manor, a demon attack which is no coincidence. It looked like the target was Daigo's daughter.
Ayane: And you valiantly fought and saved the day.
Ryuzen: Pretty much. There were 4 Brutes and a Demon, I enhanced my body and used an axe I found to take down the brutes but for the Demon ooooh did it look good.
Ayane: What looked good?
Ryuzen: Let me show you, (extends his arm and starts using the spell indoors, Ayane flinches) By the surge of ancient tides and the fury of boundless oceans, awaken the endless roar break and devour all! Valken Echo of Seas: Riptide Howl!
Ayane: AAAAH! why the hell would you do that? I get it you used a spell, you didn't have to show it. Not only is it dangerous but what if somebody got alerted.
Ryuzen: Don't worry because the guards outside will not come in no matter what.
Ayane: And why is that?
Ryuzen: Cuz I told them we were going to have a lover's quarrel.
Ayane: You wish you were worth the emotional energy it takes to quarrel.
Ryuzen: Alright it's serious time. After the whole saving his daughter thing, Daigo and I became well acquainted and he even felt indebted to me, which was perfect for me to set some things in motion. I gave a letter to Daigo and asked to deliver it to Dwarf King on 3rd April which was 10 days from then.
Ayane: What was in the letter?
Ryuzen: The letter read,
"I, a human, will soon establish an alliance with the Elves. Once that is secured, I will arrive at your gates to extend the same hand to the Dwarves. Neither they nor you will be aware of the other—until it's already done. This letter will not reach you unless I succeed with the Elves first. That alone should tell you the weight behind these words. I propose the foundation of a Tri-Species Alliance—Elves, Dwarves, and Humans—united before this world descends into inevitable war. With it, we won't just survive what's coming. We will shape what comes next."
Ayane: (stunned) That is a bit too much. You haven't even met the Elves yet how would you be so sure?
Ryuzen: (with a cold smirk) I wasn't. That's exactly why the meeting had to go my way. When you can't predict the outcome, you design the conditions. To that end I trained a bit more and left Vanhalden on the evening of 25th march the only catch, my destination was a Demon outpost.
Ayane: Why in the world would you you venture alone into a demon outpost and how did you even find one?
Ryuzen: The Demons were able to orchestrate an attack on the Guild President meaning this wasn't a one time thing and as expected the town of Vanhalden was facing demon invasions almost everyday. They were basically in a small scale war with each other and hence had locations for their potential outposts. Of course Daigo would not be okay with such a thing but I still managed to convince him to give me one of them Striders.
Ayane: Wh—[CC=7]
Ryuzen: Once I reached the Outpost I made a deal with its commander, the High-Demon Vanharkas. I was the one that gave him the information about the meeting, the plan of attack and everything. I did it just so that I can catch the Elves attention, indeed I wasn't aware of who would represent them but I did know that they will be an Elf and all Elves have similar racist beliefs when it comes to magic. An inferior being using a spell in less than a month after the worlds merged would be more than enough.
Ayane: (jaw clenched and kind of angry) As much as you want to take pride in that plan of yours, you do realise that your actions killed several of our soldiers right?
Ryuzen: The world is a mess Ayane, death is inevitable...
And leaving it as is, is sure to make things much worse than they are. I had to make a decision and I made it. Maybe there were better ways to do it but there isn't enough time and I am not even part of the IC anymore. And the plan worked. I made the Elf Princess summon me, I made a deal with her, I made a deal with her that ensures humanity's safety and I got us a bodyguard for the journey.
Ayane: I guess you are right about the condition of the current world but why would we need a bodyguard though? also all you got us was a spy.
Ryuzen: Yeah same thing. We needed them because we were going through locations that were potential outposts and I didn't want to take the risk after backstabbing one of them.
*All in all, he learned about mana, the Elf and Dwarf history, and about the demons. he planned the meeting and the attack, planned the princesses deal and got access to the highest level of knowledge and training, planned the invitation from the Dwarf King and the formation of a tri alliance powerful enough to overthrow any and all opposition. Truly magnificent
Ayane: I knew your competence and there were rumors about how you were the prime reason for Kaito Nakamura becoming not only the President but also a part of the Vanguard, you truly are as they call you The Phantom Hand. The amount of control you had over such an unprecedented and inexplicable situation while the rest of us were clueless is truly fascinating, but this isn't time for compliments.
Ryuzen: What? why? I was enjoying those. Please continue, shower me with more compliments. Oh wait I know what time it is, it is time for you to get out of that fucking lab and join forces with me.
Ayane: I can't disagree anymore. From this moment forward I will help you in your future endeavors . But I want you to promise me that whenever your plans involve risking lives, you run it by me before executing them.
Ryuzen: Yeah sure, it was a gamble even for me and I have no intention of gambling our victory.
Ayane: I also want to know everything you know about mana, I want to learn shit too.
Ryuzen: Of course Ayane chan, I can't have a weak subordinate now, can I?
Ayane: Listening to all of that I feel like the King isn't just out on 'some work'.
Ryuzen: ^ She sure lives up to my expectation, dump all this info on anyone else and they wont be connecting dots after 2 mins ^
If I could take a guess, he is out holding a meeting with the Royal Council, The Noble Houses, Military and other Orders maybe even the Guild to convince them of this alliance I'm pretty sure he is on our side.
Ayane: I sure hope so. All this information is giving me a headache, so if you could take your leave I'll have some rest.^ You can't be the only one who gets both time and informationto plan stuff ^
Ryuzen: Sure your highness! ^ well I should give her time to process it, but I think she just wants time for her own plans ^
*Ok although I was waiting for our dear Ryu's intellect to shine this was way beyond my expectation and to think that all this happened in less than a month after the entire world changed and that it happened when I wasn't looking is just crazy. It is enough to even give ME a headache.