In the Elemental Plane, inside a meditation chamber of the Black Tower.
Felt, a First-Ring Wizard, held an element crystal, drawing out its elemental energy and converting it into mana.
Within moments, the element crystal was completely drained, reduced to an ordinary grayish-white crystal that he tossed disdainfully into a corner.
He turned to absorbing the sparse elemental energy in the air, but his mana recovered at a crawl. He could not help cursing under his breath. "It's all those damned Outer Heavenly Demons' fault for stealing the energy. Now the Black Tower has to concentrate the elemental energy and lock it away. We can't spend mana freely anymore."
Times had changed.
Element crystals were scarce and had long since become a true supernatural currency.
Although the wizards on the Black Tower Continent numbered in the trillions, they could broadly be divided into two categories.
The first were geniuses with supernatural talent, those who stood out from the masses. They enjoyed full resource allocations from the Black Tower, completely unaffected by the general scarcity of elemental energy.
The second were mediocrities lost among the masses. Even in the era of Law Sharing, they had not the slightest hope of attaining the Dao, yet a mere handful of element crystals ruled their lives. They occupied the lowest rungs, toiling in mind and body, only to vanish like bubbles after death, returning everything to heaven and earth.
They complained that the Black Tower was unfair, blamed their frustrated ambitions on the Heavenly Demons, and wished they had been born in an age when element crystals were worth less than stones.
Little did they know that, in the past, people like them would not even have qualified to access supernatural knowledge.
"..."
Ten thousand years passed.
Compared with the Dark Plane, the Elemental