Professor Jaxon considered the question for a moment before answering. "Because of the physical difference and nature. The elves, with their long lives, drifted toward the deep forests and discovered the mana tree that had taken root there and flourished. The beastkin followed their own instincts and built their own settlements within those same forests. Dwarfs moved to the mountains and carved their lives into the stone, using their extraordinary strength to forge weapons that no one else could match. Humans settled on open ground, and because they had no extraordinary lifespan or natural strength, they compensated by developing techniques and knowledge, and that foundation is a large part of why the world we live in today is as advanced as it is." He said this evenly, without pride or bitterness. "That separation only developed further due to different ways of living, different values, different histories. That is how it became so difficult to stand together even when the threat is the same."
Alex unclenched his fist. He knew all of this already. He had not learned anything new, not yet.
Professor Jaxon glanced at the clock on his wrist. "We have about ten minutes left. I'll finish the second theory as well, since it is considerably shorter."
He clasped his hands loosely behind his back and walked a few slow steps before stopping again.
"The second theory is quite different. It does not claim we all evolved from a common ancestor. Instead, it begins with nothing. An absolute emptiness. And from that nothingness, the gods appeared, each carrying a power so vast that even our strongest warriors would not amount to even a fraction of what they possessed. The gods had no enemies. They could not die. They were forbidden from killing one another because they all came from the same original source. And so they did what beings do when there is nothing to struggle against: they grew bored."
"So they created a world. They separated land from water. They brought a sun into existence to drive back the darkness, and when the darkness returned at night they lit the sky with moons and stars so it would not be absolute. They shaped the barren land with their hands, raising mountains and valleys and peaks. They filled it with plants and creatures and birds."
Professor Jaxon's hands tightened at his sides for a moment, then loosened.
"But their boredom remained. So they created beings in their own image. The first were the beastkin, shaped after the gods' own form but given tails and fox, beast-like ears in honor of the beasts they admired. But the gods felt they were too primal. So they created the elves, removing the tail, making the ears long and pointed, and granting them extended lives in the hope that a longer existence would temper what they saw as wild behavior."
A few quiet taps came from somewhere in the classroom. Alex could tell without looking that it was coming from the beastkin students nearby.
"Then came the dwarfs," Professor Jaxon continued, his jaw tightening slightly, "shorter in height, with rounded ears and a physical strength that was not natural by any ordinary measure. And yet the gods were still not satisfied. So at last they created humans, shaped most closely after themselves, with small ears and a height to match the elves. And because they feared that a being so much like them might one day rise to challenge them, they shortened human lives."
"Even then, some gods were not finished. They created dragons, giving them a form unlike anything else, great scaled bodies with wings and long tails, and paired that form with an intelligence they had withheld from ordinary beasts."
"The gods were entertaining themselves," the professor said. His eyes moved across the room, and for just a moment something flashed through them, something close to anger, before it settled back down. "They were simply creating because they could. And the beings they created, the ones shaped after gods themselves, were dying constantly, too weak to last long against the wildlife that surrounded them. The dragons fared better with their wings and their strength. But the others suffered. So the gods created one final race, giving them different coloured skin and horns and considerable strength, hoping to create something entertaining to watch. But the demons did not fight the beasts as the gods expected. They turned on the humans instead, and the gods considered this a sign of blasphemy."
"The humans and the others had built altars and prayed for generations, and the gods had ignored every one of those prayers. But this time, they finally made a decision, even though not all of them agreed on it."
"They gave the world the status window. But because some gods feared that the beings might one day become too powerful to contend against god themselves, they added a condition: everyone would begin at level one and earn whatever they gained by their own effort. With the status window came mana, and with mana came the gates, and with the gates came the practice of rewarding those who cleared them."
Professor Jaxon finished and exhaled quietly.
Alex settled back in his seat. He had known all of this too. Both theories, in detail, in varying versions across different books. But listening to the professor tell it this way, without interruption, had filled in small gaps that he was slowly forgetting. It had not given him what he was actually looking for, the answer to why he could not level up when everyone else could, but at least listening to the professor made him revise his already learnt topic.
He kept that thought to himself and waited for the class to end.
"Any questions?" Professor Jaxon asked.
The boy with the oval glasses raised his hand. "Professor, in the first theory there's no mention of dragons. Why not?"
"Good question," Professor Jaxon said, and he sounded genuinely pleased by it, though there was a slight hesitation before he answered. "Because in the first theory dragons did not exist at the beginning at all. The prevailing interpretation is that they came through the gates at some later point in history." He tilted his head slightly. "Does that satisfy you?"
The boy nodded.
Professor Jaxon looked across the room. "Anything else?"
No one spoke. He smiled and reached into his dimensional space, withdrawing the attendance sheet.
"Then I'll take attendance now and we'll go over what we covered today. There will be a mini-test tomorrow on this material."
A wave of groans spread across the room.
***
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