Will and Elfaria were left outside the Serfort orphanage as infants, two children with nothing to their names but the name of the place that took them in.
In a world where magic reigns supreme, someone with no mana isn't just a loser. They are treated as subhuman. And so, even before their journey started, the gap between Will and his childhood friend was massive. While Elfie was a little prodigy, inventing new ice spells at just two years old, Will had absolutely no magic. Or so everyone thought.
The truth is that Will is special. His body actually holds magic, storing it so deep inside his core that he cannot release it normally. Sadly, to the rest of the world, he was just a magicless nobody.
Yet even still, Will made a promise. At five years old, he and Elfie swore to ascend the Regarden Towers together, to see the true sunset.
Why the true sunset? Because in the world of Astoria, the sky is fake. Five hundred years ago, invaders from above, known as the Celestial Host, came very close to destroying the world. Literally close. The dwarf and elf kingdoms were pretty much wiped out. To keep these monsters from plunging humanity into endless darkness, the magic queen Mercedes, together with five strong mages, created a powerful barrier above Mercedes Corliss, the sorceress's tower.
Those five became the first Magia Vander. However, their barrier needs to be maintained even to this day. The Regarden Magical Academy trains magicians to become strong enough to do exactly that, and among them the five strongest hold on to the Magia Vander title. Their presence at the top of the tower places them in the upper echelon of today's society. Beyond the fame, they are also the only ones capable of touching the actual sky.
So, as romantic as it gets, Will and Elfie wanted to achieve this incredible goal together. But first, they had to survive.
Ten years before their story truly began, Will and Elfie were ambushed by a magical beast, a runaway from an attack by the evil Tomb of Ruin, the Gothia cult, whose whole purpose is to shatter the false sky barrier and accelerate a fated day, believing the invaders will liberate the world. To achieve that goal, the cult did the only thing that made sense to them. They initiated a massive war that caused the death of many mages, even some of the Magia Vander. This tragic event would later be known as the Day of Doom's Descent, or Doomsday. And it would also be a moment in time where Elfie would literally escape death.
Being a prodigy, she thought it was wise to take herself and Will into the woods to apprehend a weird monster that was on the loose. With Will knowing zero magic, she proceeded to promise she would protect him at all costs.
But the crystalline beast wolf wasn't any ordinary creature. It was specifically made to kill mages.
Don't get the wrong idea. Elfaria did incredibly well. Using her ice magic, she created ice clones and then shot a multitude of ice missiles with her Terras spell. But this monster was built different. Without even trying, it reflected everything back at her.
Yet Elfie didn't give up, because of her love and her desperation to protect Will. She stood her ground, risking her life. And before she was struck down and killed by her own spell, a young Will jumped in to protect her.
Though he had saved her, someone still needed to stop the monster before it finished the job. And it was here that Will, for the very first time, activated his true power and leveled up. Hearing the voice of an ancient witch from within, with the single word awaken, Will instantly absorbed Elfie's magic and created a sword of ice.
This hidden magic is none other than the fifth element, Wis, which allows Will to absorb magical spells and integrate their ability into himself or into his sword. The action is called priming. Once it is done, the absorbed ability is technically forever primed.
Will had unknowingly made Elfaria's power his own, unlocking Terras Wis, which is insane, as this once magicless kid could now create ice missiles and even clone himself. It was a huge level up, and together the two of them instantly killed the beast.
However, because Will's body was too weak to handle the backlash of Wis, he ended up forgetting the event entirely. When he woke up, he was once again a nobody with no magic.
Elfie obviously loved him before he ever showcased that new power. Even so, she decided not to divulge what she had witnessed. And so, instead of trying to figure out how to use Wis, Will spent the next decade honing his swordsmanship.
He became very, very good at it.