A very brief history lesson.

Noctiria was once a prosperous world—ruled by many magical kingdoms that were built all across the world. As the name suggests, magic was the dominant force in driving these kingdoms forward. A sizable 10% of the population were those who were born with arcane blood, and thus were raised with care by the kingdom in their schools into the new generation of arcana users that will eventually take over in running the kingdom. 

The rest, the 90% who were not lucky enough to possess arcane blood, the ones who were dubbed by the Arcanists as "normal" people, were only given the most basic of education, relegated to basic lives as farmers, shopkeepers, innkeepers, and labourers, responsible for the most basic of tasks within the kingdom and nothing else. For what other use could they possibly have if they couldn't even control magic?

Among those who were neglected, one man stood up. His pride as a man did not allow him to sit around and watch as he, his friends, and his generation of "normal" people grow up to become simple men. No, he had ambitions. He was determined to change this dynamic of power once and for all, and bring up his generation of "normal" people to have their own aspirations, instead of being made to follow the lifestyle given to them by the kingdom. He was driven by the belief that no one should be condemned to a life of simplicity just because they were born "normal". This man's name was Darius Colorado.

Through a series of passionate speeches he gave to the "normal" masses, he rallied a large group of like-minded individuals and led them away from the established magical kingdoms to build a new civilization far away—one that rejects the magical hierarchy, one that was composed completely of True humans, a new term that Darius had proclaimed to describe "normal" humans like him who weren't chosen to have magical capabilities.

Thus was born Cadenhold, the first city of True humans, tucked away in the forest.

In the beginning, their survival was a struggle. They had no access to Arcana, the energy that the entire world had relied on for tasks that normal men simply couldn't do, and without it, They were, essentially, crippled. At first, their homes were small and simple, built from whatever easy material they could get their hands on, and it seemed like all that Cadenhold would ever be, was just a small, insignificant civilisation, struggling to survive while the advanced kingdoms of magic thrived. But Darius did not falter. He believed that Cadenhold could achieve greatness, even without magic. He was determination to find something—anything—that could possibly be built up so that one day, true men can stand on equal grounds against the magicals. After all, life couldn't be that unfair, could it?

It was then when a brilliant mind in his group who Darius had assigned to research a solution to their problems, built something incredible.

It was the motor.

Just the simplest motor. Just a small, pathetic contraption, powered by nothing but mechanical motion, a device so small and weak it couldn't be used for any work. Yet this small, humble little device, was able to answer all of Darius's worries, for it told him that there was a way to harness and control energy without relying on Magic. 

With the motor as their foundation, the people of Cadenhold had finally made progress in building their future. From the motor, one after another, an unstoppable wave of new inventions, which we know now as technological advancements, were made, from the motor, to the light bulb, to the battery, to more significant inventions, like an electrical generator. 

A new era had began for Cadenhold. Hope surged through the hearts of the people. For the first time, they believed that they had the potential to grow so that, one day in the distant future, they could rival the sheer might of the magical kingdoms. 

Inspired by the success of Cadenhold, True men from across the world who heard of their progress were also influenced, and soon, other new towns, comprised entirely of True Men, began to spring up across Nocturia, in hopes of following in Cadenhold's footsteps.

But the Magicals were not so easily swayed. The Magical Order, the governing body that had long ruled over the magical kingdoms for as long as humanity has existed, could no longer ignore this rising influence of Cadenhold. At first, they dismissed Cadenhold and its followers as a mere nuisance, a small bug in the grand scheme of their world. But soon, they realized that Cadenhold posed a very real threat of disrupting the peaceful order that they have maintained. All of a sudden, the men that they relied on for food, for managing shops, for dumping all their hard labour work on, were rapidly deserting the kingdoms to join the many towns that were following in Cadenhold's footsteps.

In an attempt to stomp out the fire that was spreading, the Magical Order sent their army of arcanists to destroy Cadenhold, to snuff out the growing influence of technology, the new power that dared to compete with magic. With a well thought out plan, they struck Cadenhold with the full might of their armies, and within a single night, Cadenhold and its inhabitants were razed to the ground, leaving nothing behind but charred ruins and the memories of what could have been.

But against all odds, one survivor remained: Darius's own son, Lysander Colorado. On the night of the attack, his father had thrust a book into his hands before ordering Lysander to escape Cadenhold. The book that was entrusted to Lysander was Darius's own personal diary, containing all the years of knowledge and technological innovations that Cadenhold had invented.

Under a disguise, Lysander travelled across the world, delivering the message of Cadenhold's destruction to the Towns that had followed in its footsteps, as well as the decades of knowledge in the book that had been entrusted to him by his now dead father. These towns quickly caught on, and these small towns run by True people, soon transformed into large towns, then and into bustling cities as large as Cadenhold once was, and even built on top of what Cadenhold once achieved, triggering another age of increasingly rapid technological espasions.

The Magical Order had thought that destroying Cadenhold would be the end of this puny technology nonsense. But they had made a big mistake. Sure, they destroyed Cadenhold. But they failed in destroying what it stood for. 

In the next few years, the magical order tried many times to take back control of the "normal" people through intimidation and violence, launching large scale operations to "liberate" any cities that embraced this newfound power of technology. But the influence of technology just kept growing, attracting more and more "normal" people from their kingdoms to join these cities as True men, until almost all of these "normal" people were no longer swayed by the simple life that the Kingdom of magic gave to them. By then, even the power that the magicals possessed could not go against these cities without making undesirable sacrifices.

And that was how, begrudgingly, the Magic Order was forced to stand down and adapt to life as it was.

And so, the Cities of mankind were left to survive on their own, and the Kingdoms of magic were left to survive on their own. That was how they agreed to live.

However, everybody knew that beneath the surface, the tensions between the Cities of Mankind and the Kingdoms of Magic hadn't vanished: they were just being ignored, and just a slight nudge in the wrong direction could threaten to spark the conflict once again.

And that nudge was made.

For the Magical Order had once agian grown feaful of the growing development of technology, especially the weapons they have developed over the years. From the Gun, to the grenade, to the bomb, to the tank, to the fighter plane, the Magical Kingdoms had come face to face with a power that could potentially end their existence. 

Thus, the Magical Order took action, and carried out a number of political assassinations against the former cities, now megacities, in hopes of slowing down their growth, and among one of them, they made the biggest mistake they ever made: they deliberately targeted and killed Andreas Colorado, a man who held much influence in the megacities for being the last remaining lineage of their founder, Darius Colorado. 

And that was the sole factor that set off a chain of violent reactions from the True people.

The very next day, the Cities of Mankind declared war on the Kingdoms of Magic.

And that was how the war started. And kept on continuing. For 8 years.