Regnum Aetern: Dual Rebirth

Chapter 130: Conceptual elements

Hearing Adrian’s question, the Vampire, Ralz, turned to look outside the cave. There was a reminiscent look on his face.

"...I am not a monster."

His voice sounded weak when he said that. But the next moment, he fixed it and spoke in his usual polite tone.

"To answer your question, I would first like to know if you have heard the term Umbra factor. So, have you?"

Adrian lightly shook his head.

That was the first time he had heard the term being mentioned.

"I thought so. To start, you must know that mana has the property to evolve things to a higher quality or existence, correct? Now, there are extremely rare cases when some parts of a being’s body evolve and gain unique traits due to being constantly exposed to mana. These body parts are called Umbra Factors."

Then he pointed at himself.

"Umbra factors are usually hereditary and can be passed on to the next generation. This is exactly how races inhabiting Feralscar, like us vampires, the demons, or those asuras, came to be. They all had a single progenitor in the past who populated the race."

Adrian furrowed his brow.

From Ralz’s explanation, those who gain an umbra factor are dubbed monsters. He hadn’t explicitly stated that, but it was clear enough from the explanation.

But before gaining these umbra factors, they—or their progenitor—must have been a normal person. Which meant that the progenitor vampire must’ve been a human, considering Ralz’s physical traits resembled humans the most.

’That’s a lot like the vampire stories back on Earth.’

Although vampires had been fictional creatures back on Earth, and different stories had different lore about them, the most common vampire lore was that the first vampire was a human who turned into a vampire because of some sort of curse or witchcraft.

Adrian didn’t know what to think about that now.

Pushing the topic to a corner of his mind for now, Adrian asked something else he was curious about.

"Can you tell me more about these umbra factors?"

The vampire readily nodded.

"Of course," he spoke with a hint of enthusiasm. "The Umbra factor of our kind is called vampiric blood. Our blood allows us to drink and digest blood to restore mana. It also allows us to use mana to regenerate ourselves. Oh! But it has a drawback that we must drink blood within certain regular intervals or our blood will digest itself, causing us to die a horrible and painful death."

’I see... no wonder he risked saving me just for my blood.’

Moreover, there was something else that drew his attention. It was the part where vampires could digest blood to restore mana.

During one of the lessons with Sir Avalon, Adrian had learned that in this world, if something was forcefully broken down to its smallest unit, it would turn into mana. This was a universal fact that was applied to everything that existed in this world, including living beings.

But now was the first time he had seen it actually happen.

There was something else he was curious about. He wanted to know how similar the vampires of this world were to the fictional vampires back on Earth.

So, Adrian asked something else.

"Can you vampires do things like manipulating blood or controlling people’s minds by looking into their eyes?"

The vampire made a strange face.

"Child, you are rather curious, it seems. But what is with the strange things you keep asking? Things like whether you will become a vampire if I suck your blood or whether we can control someone’s mind by looking into their eyes."

But then, he paused.

"Though we do gain the ability to manipulate blood. It’s also one of the traits of our vampiric blood. Once we reach Phase Five, we obtain the derived element, blood, of the density path. So no, I don’t have—"

"Stop there." Adrian suddenly cut him off. "Repeat what you just said."

He thought that he had heard something strange. Ralz tilted his head in confusion before speaking.

"It is also one of the traits of our vampiric blood?"

"No, it’s the part after that."

"Once we reach Phase Five, we obtain the derived element, blood, of the density path."

Adrian furrowed his brow.

’I can understand the derived element, blood, but...’

"...Density path? What is that? Aren’t there only six major elements? Water, Fire, Wind, Earth, Light, and Darkness?"

Every derived element is derived from a major element, and those six were the only major elements.

Ralz looked at him strangely and then pressed his hands to his temples and let out a sigh.

"Ah, humans... I really wonder how they can still achieve this much with such an attitude."

After muttering that to himself, he turned to Adrian and spoke calmly.

"Child, let me ask you a question. What are the elements?"

Adrian tilted his head.

’What are the elements...?’

Thinking for a bit, the explanation that Sir Joran had given him during his first day of training suddenly came to mind.

’Using mana, one can manipulate the elements that make up the world.’

Adrian opened his mouth and answered.

"Elements are the components that this world is made of."

The vampire nodded with an encouraging smile.

"Very good, you are correct. Now tell me this: is the world made of fire, water, wind, earth, or things like that?"

’Of course, it... is...’

Adrian paused just as he was about to nod. The answer would be yes, but if he thought a bit deeply, then that answer didn’t really feel that correct...

Ralz smiled as he saw Adrian’s reaction.

"You have guessed it, right? The world is not made of tangible things like that. It is made of a mix of concepts. Concepts like space and time. What you call the wind major element is actually the concept of pressure. It is just that wind pressure is the most natural thing to create. The same is true for all other major elements..."

After that, Ralz went on with his explanation. The vampire seemed to be a rather talkative kind.

’I wonder if all vampires are like this.’

To summarize what Ralz had explained. The world was made of eight concepts. Time, Space, Temperature, Density, Pressure, Materialization, Negativity, Positivity.

Leaving aside the concepts of space and the concept of time, the other elements were like this.

The major element fire, is actually the concept of temperature, and having an affinity to it gives one the power to control temperature. It is just that fire is the easiest thing to produce with temperature.

The major element wind was the concept of pressure, having derived elements like gravity. Wind pressure was just the most natural thing to create with this affinity.

The major element water was the concept of density, allowing one to have control over an object’s state, like solid, liquid, and gas. Adrian remembered it having derived elements like mist and ice. Water’s density was just the easiest to manipulate.

The major element earth was the concept of materialization. It was the act of turning mana into physical matter. According to Ralz, everything that physically existed was all because of the concept of materialization. It was just that earth was the easiest and most common thing to materialize.

And then there was light and darkness. Light was the concept of positivity and stability. Darkness, on the other hand, was the concept of negativity and chaos.

After thinking for a bit, Adrian asked with a frown.

"Something doesn’t make sense. If the fire element is the concept of temperature, then can’t we create ice by lowering the temperature? But I have never read about something like that."