Amber Sword

"First, I want to clear up a misunderstanding. Actually, these Destiny Cards were not created by me. As you can see, their era is far older than the history we know," Tu Men spread his hands, with a Destiny Card resting in his palm – though only the back, with a complex Holy Rune drawn upon it: "You see this mark, it's the original sample of the Holy Rune. I simplified them based on some superficial knowledge I had and compiled this knowledge to teach humans, elves, and miner people."

"Wait—" Tu Men raised his hand to stop Brand from speaking: "I know what you want to ask. Clearly, as a descendant of the Bastor and miner people, enemies to all creatures yearning for light, why do I want to help humans and elves?"

He smiled: "Actually, it's very simple. As a Travel Mage, I already see things differently from ordinary people. Of course, this is just my own perspective, but it's related to my own deck – at that time, I was too young, only wanting to pursue the laws and truths of this world single-mindedly, hence my deck is called 'Unity of All Things'. By embracing this deck's meaning, everything other than the most fundamental nature in the world had no significant difference in my eyes."

After listening to these words, Brand sat back again, pondering for a moment, and asked his question: "Honestly," he asked, "I don't quite understand your meaning, can you put it more plainly."

At this moment, he had completely abandoned the idea of leaving, only vaguely sensing that the profession Tu Men mentioned might bring great changes to his future path. He didn't know why he had this thought, maybe it was a misconception, or maybe it was an unusual scent detected intuitively and instinctively.

Tu Men nodded: "Of course, I will explain it in detail to you."

He continued: "Speaking of the Travel Mage, one has to start with the Destiny Cards. The Travel Mages are the only group in this world who can reach the true essence of the Destiny Cards – this essence is the world's power. Each Destiny Card is a world displayed from a particular angle, neither a simple rule projection nor a superficial replication of reality – many such cards form a small world."

"Just like my deck 'Unity of All Things', this deck describes the essence of the world through the harmony of six elements, thus my deck's meaning: the power of rules."

"And another Travel Mage I know, his deck is called 'Unlimited Power', a deck composed of numerous red and black Destiny Cards, his deck's meaning is the pursuit of supreme power. The red cards can represent Fire, or Strength. The black cards can represent Dark, but also Death and Destruction."

"Of course, we all failed."

Tu Men smiled: "So the meaning of the cards is actually given by the deck; the wonder of the Destiny Cards is that they can express your thoughts about the world from multiple perspectives. Even your deck represents another self in your heart."

"As for why these cards exist and where they come from, actually we all don't know. The earliest Travel Mages should have emerged in the dark era, passed down among the Matatania people. I even suspect this profession itself was born from that society."

"Rumor has it that the Matatania people are a nomadic tribe, always migrating from one place to another. Their understanding of the world differs from ours. We think the world is vast and infinite, encompassing infinite things and knowledge, but in the Matatania people's worldview, the world is a small, narrow concept. They have a larger concept akin to our 'world', called 'Uhs', and this term is the origin of the word root for 'infinite' in Elf Language and Kruz Language. In the Matatania worldview, Uhs contains countless tiny worlds, and they are always wandering through one world after another."

"I suspect they misunderstood the relationship between the Guardian Land and the entire world, forming this notion. Of course, humans of the past had limited understanding of this world." Tu Men suddenly smiled and said: "I accidentally babbled too much irrelevant stuff. It seems I really struggle to change this old habit."

Brand thought for a moment and asked: "I also heard of the Matatania people, maybe now I know they were the earliest Travel Mages. But what does this have to do with me?"