A Lesson in History

"Hmm, you want to know about Relics?" Red asked.

"Yeah, what exactly are relics?" Erica asked. Her friends also looked at Red with curiosity. Yes, Erica had brought home friends for dinner and as usual Red had cooked a scrumptious meal.

"You are asking me, a civilian about relics? Shouldn't you know more about this topic than me?" Red jested.

"Stop messing around Red." Erica hit him with a towel, showing faux anger.

"Okay, okay. Don't kill me now." Red laughed. "Do you know how abilities arose in the first place?"

Erica and her friends nodded to imply that they didn't.

"Okay listen up then. Ability users have been among us since time immemorial. In the ancient times, goes hearsay, that they were few and far between. However, this is just a myth! In the ancient era, there weren't any ability users at all!"

"What? That is totally different from what my dad told me." Said the ability geek.

"Well, one story goes like this. In the beginning this world did not belong to humans. On this world existed myriad beings that we today call mythological creatures and gods. They exerted immense power over reality itself and the world was plunged in chaos. Eventually, humans suddenly appeared on this world. Not much is known where they appeared from, some say from the sky, some say the earth molded itself into human form and became life, some say it was the planet's cry for help that echoed through the universe.

However, the crucial bit is that humans had arrived. They were vast in number and very clever. They could come up with tools and weapons that the Gods have never thought of. Yet, they had no power of their own. They could not wield reality as the gods could and thus they only ended up as pawns and slaves to these beings of myth.

Yet, one day humanity revolted. Few humans, managed to hoodwink the gods, trick them or through sheer effort kill them and gain freedom for humanity. These leaders who led humans in revolt were the so called first people in modern myths. Adam, Manu, Izanami, Pandora and so on. It turned out that when these leaders killed the gods and beasts, they acquired the power of the gods themselves, the abilities to wield and manipulate reality.

When the plundered the treasures of the gods, they discovered various other items that also gave humans abilities. These were meant to strengthen the armies and legions of the gods. Abilities that we know as the strength type, augmentation types, elementalists and so on. Humans who revolted thus kept growing more powerful, absorbing the powers of the gods and mythical beasts and eventually all Gods were overthrown.

Over time the gods became myths and the beasts that lorded over humans were forgotten. A hierarchy developed within humans. With no external threats human squabbling turned inwards. Factions jostled for power and wars were waged. In the process a lot of ability users were killed, their bloodlines extinguished. Humans had returned to being a society of primarily ordinary people with ability users either hiding themselves or maintaining an uneasy truce. Over time, human populations grew and with it the number of ability users passed down as well. Due to intermingling, often human offspring of those with abilities might not have power themselves but their long line of descendants did. Now abilities are so intermingled within our genes, that they often erupt spontaneously in people."

Red looked at the students, who were in awe from the story. Then he continued on.

"Those humans who killed the beings of myth, the gods themselves became known as Godslayers. They had abilities that could dominate over all others who weren't like them, inheritors of the powers of the Gods. They had become the royalty over the humans and their offspring who inherited their abilities or parts of their abilities became the Royal Bloodlines. While they might have been originally noble, the same couldn't be said of their offspring, who bred an inherent superiority over others and started thinking of themselves as Gods.

The upheaval of the Gods was a turbulent time, many of the treasures and inheritances of the Gods had been lost in the war. On extremely rare occasions some of these treasure gardens and inheritance trials would be found. Thus those not of the Royal Bloodlines too managed to gain abilities that could on occasion even compete with and eliminate the Royal Bloodlines themselves. These places are what we now know as relics. The Border Foundation was established by those people who gained from the relics. In secret they banded together, consolidated and began a process of killing the Royal Bloodlines.

Initially they had hoped to steal away the abilities of the Royal Bloodlines, but they discovered that it wasn't possible. The ones they had killed were merely descendants, they weren't the gods themselves. It is rumored that when a Royal Bloodline was extinguished completely, the power of the God would manifest for an inheritance at a new relic. However, these relics never spawned for a long time, yet they are now suddenly rising up.

Today's world has changed. It isn't the unorganized mess of the past. The world has regimented countries, ability users all have allegiances to countries or other organizations of some sort. Powerful ability users have been part of a familial heritage of generations. The rise of Relics today, where abilities that could easily overthrow the structures of society maintaining an uneasy peace could be inherited has let to a scramble by countries and organizations. The Border Foundation has thus risen up this time to regulate the relics so that they don't lead to a full blown war.

But this kind of peace can only continue as long as countries and organizations are afraid of the Border Foundation. Today it certainly is one of the most powerful organizations of ability users in the world, but who knows what the situation would be once the relics open. The world is thus about to change. It is a time of opportunity never seen before, but also a time when the world will go into upheaval."

Red stopped and sipped a glass of water, tired of speaking. Erica and her friends remained silent, deep in thought.

Erica was contemplating in her heart. The constant beats from the necklace made her fearful. She cautiously asked Red. "Do any Royal Bloodlines exist today?" Rika and the others were also curious about this point.

Red looked at Erica for a moment before smiling. "Not that I am aware of. With the existence of the Border Foundation, no Royal Bloodline user could possibly even consider coming out in the open. It would be a death sentence for that person. With the efficiency of the Border o, even if there are any Royal Bloodline users, they have probably been kept in the dark about their abilities by their family or are underground, biding for their time to get stronger. I'd wager that there probably aren't many if any surviving right now. If any do turn up, it would probably be a relic inheritance."

Erica had a chill in her heart. She decided to keep quiet about her ancestry from everyone. Even Red. She remembered her mom's words. To disguise herself as an Ice Elemental user. She had always thought that she was an ice elemental user anyway, so she didn't have to act any different.