'I wonder if it's going to rain.' Callum sits cross-legged in the flower field just outside his family's cabin. "Family" in this instance is just him and his mom but that still counts. Hanging high in the sky and far in the distance is a slowly undulating and absolutely massive river, twisting between clouds like an endless snake. Beneath it, barely visible from this far away, rain falls heavily on the forested mountains. 'I don't really want it to come over here, but I guess I can't really control it.' He doesn't really like rain. It's not a strong dislike, he wouldn't go inside if it started raining, but he wouldn't be happy about it. It's dawn, and the sun has barely risen above the mountains.
Deciding that's enough sky pondering for now, Callum's mind turns to the reason he's out here. He closes his eyes and concentrates on the heart-sized lump of mana beating in his chest, conveniently right next to his actual heart. With each pump it circulates mana through metaphysical pathways all around his body; Callum focuses intently on that circulation while his mana-heart beats faster and faster. Each beat louder and louder in his head until his mind is swept away and the beating stops.
Callum opens his eyes to a pitch-black world. The sky is dark like tar and the ground twinkles like the night sky. Everything feels upside-down, but strangely it isn't disorienting. Callum has been here many, many times before. This is his Palace, or at least that's what everyone calls it. A mindscape formed by the subconscious of every living creature on the planet. Although it manifests differently for everyone, two things are consistent: Only you can enter your Palace, and trials await you inside. Callum has been routinely entering his Palace in search of something. He isn't sure what, but the feeling that he needs to find something won't go away.
He looks out across the empty void, lights winking in and out of existence beneath his feet. 'Something is missing. It feels like there's a hole here, where something was but obviously isn't anymore.' He walks aimlessly, examining the ground and sky as he goes. Outside his mind, his body emits gentle but firm waves of mana that rustle the flowers in his immediate vicinity, carrying petals into the air. They travel with the waves before being dropped suddenly at a seemingly fixed distance.
Several hours pass as Callum wanders without finding anything. He closes his eyes and breaks his concentration, pulling himself back to reality. 'Nothing again.' He frowns, but this isn't new. He has repeated this for months with no progress and no idea what else he could do. 'Maybe I just need inspiration, something new. Which I guess makes tomorrow convenient.' Tomorrow he sets off for "Grand Frontier Academy", a school for every aspiring adventurer and ranger and soldier etc. to learn to fight and do magic and well basically anything. Normally going to GFA would be the step up from graduating high school or something like that, but Callum has zero formal education. Never too late to start, and 17 isn't even that bad. At least his mom taught him lots of the basics over the years.
'Let's stop thinking about that, I don't want the nerves to catch me.' Callum attempts to stand, but falters a bit. His legs are asleep. Twisting on the ground, he reaches back and finds a wooden straight-sword lying among the flowers. He grabs it and hops up from the ground, legs a little less tingly than a few seconds ago.
'Next on the docket…' He takes a readied stance with the wooden sword and inhales deeply, holding it for a moment before exhaling. He repeats this a few more times before steadily stepping into the next position and breathing again, repeating the whole process over and over until he has moved in a semicircle from his starting position across the field.
"Hoooo…" Callum exhales deeply before starting over again, quicker this time, reaching his previous position in half the time. Without stopping he starts again, quicker again, and again and again. Repeating and repeating in the same circle while slowly increasing in speed, twisting and pulling and slashing the air over and over. Petals swirl around his blade and the wind carves patterns in the grass. While speeding up, he slowly moves toward the center of the circle he'd been dancing in. Repeating again and again he reaches the center, and in one final flourish he slashes the wooden sword down to his side, dispersing the swirling petals. The ground has been carved with a distinct pattern reminiscent of a Camellia flower. Callum pants lightly as sweat drips from his whole body. He pulls up his shirt to wipe his brow, but finds that it's also wet.
"Haha… Haaah" He chuckles lightly and sighs before collecting himself. 'Again.'
He readies the wooden sword.
....
"Cal!" Callum's concentration is broken by a call from just outside his vision.
He looks back toward the voice. A woman stands on the cabin's porch with her hands on her waist. This is Linnea, Callum's mother. Her hair is strikingly blonde and her eyes are deep forest green, heavily contrasting with Callum's light brown and dark brown respectively. Her ears are sharply pointed and slightly horizontally slanted. Callum's are not. She is tall, Callum is sitting on the ground.
"Dinner is ready, come inside soon sweetie, you need to eat a good meal or you won't be able to wake up tomorrow." She motions towards the cabin. "You've been dancing out here since noon, I wouldn't be surprised if your body gave out!"
"Well it wouldn't be the first time, and you can go for far longer." Callum shoots back with a tired grin.
"Yes I can, because I've been doing it for many times longer than you have. While I'm happy you're dedicated to training, we can't have you collapsing on your first day." Linnea smiles back while expressing her concern.
Callum nods without a response and turns to walk over… Or he would have if his legs didn't do exactly what his mom thought they'd do, sending him face-first into the flowers. He looks up to the porch and gives a wry smile.
"Haaaah…" Linnea sighs deeply and turns toward the house. "Just come inside when you can, it's pasta tonight."
"I won't take long." Callum assures her as she walks back into the cabin, leaving him alone with his thoughts once again. He flips onto his back and stares back at the sky, now tinted orange by the setting sun. The light reflecting off the river in the distance casts fractals across the landscape below and around it. He sits for a few minutes just taking in the scenery.
'There's nothing like it.' Only colors fill Callum's mind.
*******
Almost 800 years ago, a great comet struck through the solar system. Path uninterrupted, it pierced straight through the sun leaving it as a crescent. The humans who viewed the astronomical event could only describe the comet as a "Dark Star", a pitch black yet perfectly visible streak on the night sky exploding into golden radiance, and it stuck. When the Dark Star came, it infused the entire solar system with "magical energy", which humans would later call mana.
Every bit of life that existed during and after the Dark Star, Human or otherwise, was infused with mana. That same magical energy caused changes to the very fabric of their being. It was an extremely accelerated and drastic evolution. The planet changed as well; mountains rose and fell, forests turned to labyrinths, great rivers flowed through the sky, and the seas deepened. The world and all its inhabitants became largely unrecognizable from how they would have been before the Dark Star, save for those who were born before it.
Nearly every kind of explicitly humanoid race is a descendant of regular non-magical Humans, who died out a few decades after the Dark Star event. From the most "normal" looking Humans to the barely humanoid Arachne, their distant ancestors were Humans without any additions. I'm sure you can guess that this would cause a little bit of conflict.
Following hundreds of years of turmoil and adaptation, the Humanoid population which had at first plummeted to less than half, stabilized at around 360 million worldwide. Despite this obvious setback among numerous others, Humanoid society has largely advanced to where it is in our modern day. It's peaceful, especially when compared to years past.
Callum lives in a peaceful age.