Chapter 1:

 A Simple Boy in a Simple Village

I was born the 7th and least important child of Beznik, the tribal leader of the Krasniqi Clan, and my mom was an unimportant woman named Shpresa from one of the smaller tribes in the South East of the Krasniqi territory. The Krasniqi Clan resided in the Southern-most tip of the mountainous Dukagjina region. Because of the gigantic mountains covering the border, it was impossible to go farther south than this.

The country we were in was called Dardania. It was divided into three main regions: Llap in the north, Drenica in the center, and Dukagjina in the south. Because Dukagjina was mountainous with barely any arable land, and had no neighbours to trade with except for the north, partially, and no dungeons, it was the poorest and most backwards region, and within this poor and backwards region, I was in the poorest and most backward part, far away from the nearest village-city called Prizren.

Drenica and Llap were far more urbanized and non-mountainous and with plenty of dungeons and divided into kingdoms instead of tribes. The most prosperous kingdom and city was Prishtina. Prishtina was where all the action happened. 

If a citizen of Prishtina saw a Krasniqi tribal member dying on the side of the road, he wouldn’t even deign to lower his sight. Though everyone in Dardania spoke Shqip, the peoples of Drenica and Llap thought of Dukagjinans as below them.

Now back to me. 

My name is Arben Krasniqi, son of the Shief Beznik of the Krasniqi Clan. I was bullied and ignored by my family. There were several reasons for this. 

Firstly, I was the youngest and lowest born of all my 7 brothers.

My father had a lot wives, and my mother was one of the lowest born of these wives. 

Secondly, the usual body type of a Krasniqi warrior was normal height and heavily built with huge traps and arms. But my body type was tall with long arms and an athletic body, so I was seen as weak by my brothers. 

And thirdly, and most importantly, my radicalness.

Life in the Krasniqi region was extremely conservative. Even saying the name of the Great Albin Goat God incorrectly or in vain could lead to getting executed. And of course, this type of environment lead to any change and innovation at all being almost impossible.

***

“Bab, please listen to me!” I said. “The Long Great Line of Battle is a bad formation and has so many weaknesses and lack of advantages. If we reformed the organisational structure a little, for example by---” I was punched in the face by Beznik. “How dare you insult our traditions! The Long Great Line of Battle has been used since the beginning of the Krasniqi Clan! I will not hear more of your heresy!”

I left my father’s tent in indignation. 

Outside, the sun hit my face and blinded me for a moment. It was a bright summer day, which meant that the Week of Wars was coming soon. The Week of Wars was a period during good weather where the clans in the region would go to ‘war’ with each other. 

In reality, it was just two rival clans creating two long front lines opposite each other and throwing a few spells at each other, and sometimes engaging in duals. There were very few to none casualties, and the battles never ended in victory nor defeat and were mostly for show. At the end, usually the two clan leaders would agree to peace until next year, or not even bother to agree to peace but just leave when everyone got bored and the weather turned bad. Sometimes the clans wouldn’t even bother fighting if it started raining.

“Hey what happened?” I heard a feminine voice say from behind me. I took my eyes away from the sun and turned towards her. 

Behind me was Elvana, one of the village girls, carrying a basket of berries. She looked so beautiful in the sunlight. Sadly, my father had already promised her to my biggest brother and the heir, Mehmet.

She put down her basket and walked closer to me. 

“What did you do this time? Haven’t I told you to stop talking so much?” she said and gently held my swollen cheek where father had punched me. 

Elvana was my only friend. One time when we were kids, during a raid, I stabbed a slave-catcher in the groin and killed him because he was trying to kidnap her. Ever since then she has treated me kindly.

“If we don’t change we won’t survive,” I said. “Has everyone forgotten what happened last year? Am I the only one with a normal functioning memory?” 

“Arben, please calm down. If the others hear you talk about that disgraceful moment they will get mad. Please lower your voice.“ 

That was how it was. You weren’t even allowed to talk about mistakes and improve from them. 

“Forget it. I’m going training.”

I went over to my private spot in the forest which had a little flat ground and a lake. Five days ago I had made a special hook and tied a rope to it. And was now training quickly throwing it on a big tree and climbing up as fast as possible. 

Learning this would have so many tactical uses. 

First off, when hunting, our warriors would be able to easily escape big land monsters by climbing the trees with this hook. Or even during battles, groups of soldiers would be able to wait in ambush from atop the trees and fire spells from above.

After training with the hook, I did my ghost sparring. 

The traditional Krasniqi fighting style was to basically just have one machete, andfight with that. 

Shields were thought of as cowardly, so they weren’t used. I guess not wanting to die is cowardly. 

But I had come up with an entirely new fighting style. 

From hard wood, I had created a lance 2/3 the length of my body, with small hooks at the end, and I I had one machete. I would then hold the lance with my left arm and in a staggered stance lean all my weight on my left leg and jab powerfully with the lance. Then I would use the machete in my right hand for close combat or finishing blows, though I could also deliver a finishing blow with the lance. I would also use the hooks on the lance to pull at my opponent and then with my machete in my right hand attack any openings I created. 

From the outside this fighting style looked weird, but it was very effective. Currently I was even creating leather armour to protect the spots that were exposed with this stance, mainly the left side of my body. I also had three daggers on my back that I could use as throwing knives, or use to replace my machete if I dropped it.

I then did my magic training. 

The first thing I did was just lay on the ground, ingvisualize and feeling my mana flowing throughout my body. Then I would get up, stretch my arms,  and from my finger tips create the biggest and fastest FFireball I could create and fire it at the thelake. Then I would create the biggest and fastest EEarthball I could create and fire it at the lake. Then I would create the biggest and fastest WWindball I could create and fire it at the lake. 

I would keep repeating this cycle until I had no more mana left in my body and almost was passed out. 

After that, I would do my physical training which was mainly calisthenics and some weight training.

Here is what I knew about magic at the time, based on what I had heard and what I had theorized myself: Magic is a kind of energy manipulation, but how it exactly works is unknown..

There’s 4 ways of using magic: Through Incantations, Imagination, Magical Items, and Magical circles.

Incantations were lines you would say which would create the same spell every time. I didn’t like this type of spell-casting since you had to memorize the lines and it took time to say them, and the effects of the lines were unchangeable. And the more advanced the spell, the more lines there were.

 Everyone could do Incantations, which made them widely popular. Though the Incantations you could do depended upon your mana capacity and magical skill. 

Your mana capacity is how much magical energy your body can store, and your magical skill is how well you can use that magical energy.

Then there was Imagination Magic, something I learned on my own.

I would concentrate and visualize exactly what magic I wanted to use, then I would get a sensation like blood pooling where I chose to cast the spell on my body, that is, my hands, and then I would cast the spell.

When using Imagination Magic to cast spells, there were four phases: Shape, size, velocity, and activation. 

So while visualizing what magic you wanted to create, you would first add mana into the shape, then mana into the size, and lastly mana into the velocity. Then activate. 

When I activated a spell, I would do this strong visualization of the spell flying away. I was the only one in my village who could use Imagination Magic. My theory was that your ability to do Imagination magic depended on how good you were at visualization. 

And then there’s Magical Items and Magical Circles. 

Within Magical Items, there’s Magical Implements and Magical Items. 

Magical Implements are things that amplify already existing magic, for example a wand or staff.

Magical Items are things that have magic themselves, either in a finite form or slowly regenerating form. A magical ring for example is a magical item.

And then there’s Magical Circles, which are complex patterns that have had mana added to them, and do very specific things.

When it comes to magic itself, in my view the types of magic there is is pretty much endless since I think magic is just a kind of energy manipulation. 

But traditionally magic was divided into the following: Defensive/Offensive, Elemental (fire, wind, water, earth), Healing, and Summoning.

I was not sure how mana-capacity and magical skill in a person worked. There were a lot of theories, but I was still undecided as to which one was the right one. But I figured that I could probably increase my mana capacity and magical skill through sheer training, so I just did that.