Keys of the World

Cenara was a Silver Knight over three hundred years old. The reason she could live that long was simple—she was a High Elf.

Different species had different base lifespans. Humans, for example, could live up to 150 years. Elves had a maximum lifespan of around 450 years, while orcs rarely lived past 80. Of course, these numbers were only theoretical. Almost no one actually reached the full extent of their natural life.

However, there were ways to extend one's life—by breaking through higher cultivation realms. The lifespan gained from increasing one's rank stacked on top of the natural limit of their race.

That was why an elven Silver Knight like Cenara could still look youthful at three hundred, while a human of the same rank could never hope to live that long.

But Cenara wasn't particularly gifted. Despite their long lifespans, elves didn't inherently have better odds of being born with knight or mage talent.

Three factors determined a person's potential as a knight: bloodline, environment, and luck.

Bloodline was the foundation—an absolute baseline. Without it, no amount of environmental support could help. One could live in a land brimming with energy, but without the right bloodline, talent wouldn't awaken out of thin air.

Even so, having the right bloodline didn't guarantee anything. For the hidden potential to bloom, environment played a crucial role.

For instance, someone might be born with the rare genetics necessary to reach the Ultra Rank. But if that child were born in a desolate place like Silver Flower Island, their potential would remain dormant. The methods required to awaken it wouldn't exist in such a remote land.

That's why talent was more common among noble families. They could provide not only the right environment but also the nourishment and conditions needed to awaken dormant bloodline traits. It's one of the many reasons why knight talent was far more prevalent among the aristocracy.

Between bloodline and environment, one could say the former was essential—but useless without the latter.

Children born in regions with higher aura, such as the Flicker Empire or the Elven Empire, had a much greater chance of awakening knight talent. However, this didn't necessarily mean those regions had better bloodlines—just better chances of drawing out what was already there.

Even with the right bloodline and favorable surroundings, talent was never guaranteed. The conditions only increased the odds. Whether or not someone awakened their potential depended, ultimately, on luck.

So, what exactly were these bloodline genetics that allowed one to break through knight ranks?

The best way to describe it is as tickets for a lottery to obtain the keys. Bloodlines are the tickets for winning keys, which are the talents.

These genetics acted like tickets to keys that unlocked the path to supernatural knight strength. A person could only win a key in a lottery held by the will of the world. It could not be created out of nowhere.

Theoretically, there is another way to gain knight talent, which is by stealing another person's key, but there are consequences for that. Stealing it usually referred to demonic methods—taking over another person's body to cultivate using their key. But such practices came with severe consequences. Those who walked that path were hunted by every major empire, and the inconsistency between soul and body made cultivation extremely unstable and dangerous.

In simple terms, it was as though the world itself had set up a quota—a limit to how many people could awaken supernatural power at any given time. Only those with specific genetic bloodlines—tickets—could participate in the lottery for a chance to win the talent, a key.

The lottery for the keys was controlled entirely by the mysterious will of the world, with only high-ranking mages able to observe it, but not directly interfere with it.

And no one could increase the total number of keys issued. That number was fixed. Only high-ranking mages, after countless years of research and divination, could even begin to grasp the intent behind the world's will.

However, it was possible to increase the chances of winning the lotteries.

One method was to have more tickets—by having children with knight bloodlines. The other method was to directly enhance the chances of winning the lottery, but this option was only available to the most powerful noble families and the higher-ups of the great empires.

Most noble families only had one way to increase their chances: by having more tickets.

This had led to a monopoly—descendants of the lucky few with high-ranking talent had a much greater chance of being born with the tickets to win higher-ranking talent keys.

This was the true reason the same noble families had ruled the great empires for so many years. It was also why individuals with high-ranking knight talent bloodlines were expected—no, obligated—to produce as many descendants as possible, to increase the family's chances of having more tickets in the lottery for better and more numerous talents, or keys.

Each child born to a high-bloodline family was like a ticket to the grand lottery. The more tickets, the better the odds.

It was said that the world might not even issue more than one or two extreme-rank keys in a year. So, it wasn't surprising that noble families did everything in their power to increase their chances.

To enter the lottery, the child had to meet certain conditions. The ticket would not be recognized if the child was born through unnatural means. The child had to be conceived naturally. It wasn't possible to simply clone the same fetus multiple times to increase the number of tickets. Additionally, both parents had to be talented, or else the rank of the ticket—or bloodline—would most likely plummet.

These secrets surrounding knight talent had been uncovered over countless generations of research and practice. And this was only the surface. Each empire and noble family had its own unique methods to improve their chances in the talent lottery.

For noble houses, providing a rich environment and a pure bloodline was easy. The hardest part—and the most fiercely contested—was increasing the odds of actually winning that world-issued key.

This was another reason why high-ranking knight talent was so rare in remote islands and smaller regions. Those places lacked both the knowledge and the techniques to enhance their chances in the lottery.

In summary, the path to knight talent followed a process.

First, a person had to inherit the bloodline from their parents. The quality of that bloodline determined the "tier" of the lottery they could enter. For example, if a fetus inherited a mythic-level bloodline, they would qualify to participate in the Mythic Talent Lottery—a chance to obtain the key for Mythic Knight potential.

If they won that lottery and were born into the right environment, their talent would awaken in full. As the child grew, with training and success, they could display the qualities of a Mythic Knight if they exhausted their potential. Mythic would be their limit in life.

And if they lost the lottery?

Then no matter how good their environment was, the path of the knight would remain forever out of reach.

If they won Mythic talent, their abilities could still be suppressed if they were born in a poor environment. Even someone who won a Mythic key might only manifest as a Legendary or even Golden-ranked knight if the environment was lacking. There are ways to unlock the full potential of a higher-ranked key, but such methods are rare and incredibly difficult to execute.

In this entire process, bloodline remains the most crucial element. But the lottery is equally important—because even if someone is born with an amazing bloodline, if they lose the lottery and never receive the key, they remain an ordinary person. This is where noble families and powerful empires hold a significant advantage. They've developed methods to increase the chance of winning.

The lottery process happens in an invisible cascade, determined at the time of conception. It unfolds from the highest tier downward. For example, a fetus with an Absolute Rank bloodline first enters the Absolute Rank Lottery. If they lose, they are placed into the Extreme Rank Lottery. If they lose again, they proceed to Super Rank, then Ultra, then Mythic, and so on.

The progression continues all the way down.

All of these lotteries occur in an instant, unnoticed by ordinary people. Only ultra-ranked mages and the most ancient noble families are even aware of this hidden process. With their knowledge and resources, they've found ways to subtly interfere—pushing the odds just a little further in their favor.

All of this—the bloodlines, the lottery, the environment—has allowed the noble families to dominate for ages, seemingly unshakable in their position of power.

But that's not the whole story.

Once every few million years, it's said that the Will of the World resets all keys—a complete reshuffling of fate. The slate is wiped clean. All previous keys are rendered invalid, and a new generation of chosen ones emerges. This event often marks the fall of great empires and the rise of new powers. Even mighty civilizations like the Flicker Empire have rarely survived more than a few million years.

When the reshuffle happens, the noble families lose everything. Their bloodlines become meaningless. Their secret techniques to influence the lottery stop working. From nothing, new names rise. Someone who was completely ordinary one day might suddenly find themselves blessed with Absolute Rank Talent the next.

No one knows how the world chooses these new first key holders. The process is a complete mystery—even to the most ancient of mages.

But that's all in regard to knight talent.

The story of mage talent is entirely different.

Unlike knight cultivation, which is sanctioned by the world's will, mage cultivation goes directly against it.

Mage talent didn't originally exist. It only came into being during one of the ancient reshuffles, when a keyholder defied the reset. She managed to carry her key from the old era into the new one, preserving it through sheer force of will and unimaginable power.

Her key became unique. It gave her descendants the ability to communicate with the Will of the World, albeit in a limited way. These descendants became the world's first mages.

All mages, no matter how distant, are her descendants. And unlike knights, their keys are never taken away during a reshuffle. They persist. Survive. Endure.

This is why mages are considered so precious.

After a reshuffle, when all knights lose their strength, only mages remain—still connected to their powers, still able to wield magic. For any empire hoping to survive the chaos of a reshuffle, nurturing as many mages as possible is the obvious path.

The inheritance of mage talent remained one of the world's greatest mysteries.

Unlike knight talent, which followed bloodlines and environmental factors, mage talent was completely unpredictable. One might be born to a parent with Ultra-ranked mage talent, yet not even inherit the bare minimum. Meanwhile, another could rise from a humble commoner family, born to two completely untalented parents, and receive an Absolute-ranked key for mage cultivation.

There was no pattern. No logic.

This was something most commoners didn't understand. Many falsely believed they could improve their family's magical lineage by having more children with someone who already possessed mage talent. But their efforts were futile. The world simply didn't work that way.

…

Cenara narrowed her eyes, watching the human man walking toward her with a confident stride. She felt a flicker of confusion.

How did he know?

She had been careful. Her desires were buried deep beneath the surface, yet somehow, he'd seen through them with ease.

It made her uneasy. And excited.

She once served as part of a merchant crew that frequently traveled to the Flicker Empire. She had spent over a hundred years among humans—years she remembered fondly.

She missed those days.

No... she missed human men.

Elven men were beautiful, but too delicate. Too polite. Too cautious. Too refined.

They lacked the raw, impulsive masculinity she had come to crave.

She hadn't always been like this. Her tastes had changed after decades of living among humans. Their bluntness, their passion, their reckless confidence—it awakened something in her.

But all of that was taken from her a few years ago, when trade relations between the empires soured. She lost her job, returned to her birthplace, and tried to move on. She even attempted dating again, but the elven men left her feeling nothing.

And now, fate had dropped this human man onto her path. Her thoughts had strayed—she let herself fantasize just for a moment, and somehow... he noticed.

"Hello!" the man said with a bright, charming smile.

Cenara smiled back, though her heart pounded slightly. "Hello! Welcome to the city. It's very rare to have humans visit us!"

"Yeah, I just arrived yesterday," he said.

"I hope you're enjoying your time here."

"I'm not, actually," he replied, half-joking. "People on the streets seem to dislike me."

She chuckled softly. "Don't take it personally. They mean well, but they're just not used to humans. I used to be like that too, before I lived in the Flicker Empire."

There was a pause.

Then he dropped a bomb.

"I don't have a place to stay. Can I live with you?"

Cenara blinked. What?

They had just met. No ordinary person would say something like that, let alone expect a yes. And yet...

He was calm. Confident. As if he already knew what her answer would be.

And the scariest part?

He was right.

Edric could see it in her eyes. He didn't need spells or magic. Her thoughts, her desire—it was written plainly across her face. She wanted him so badly it was almost laughable.

"This woman has some serious mental issues," Edric thought. "Which only makes this more entertaining."

Of course, as an Ultra-ranked Knight, he had no fears. He had time to waste—and this little game intrigued him.

Cenara pretended to hesitate, to think carefully, but in the end, her smile returned.

"Of course," she said, with a soft gleam in her eyes. "It's my duty to welcome guests to our city."