Essence Crystal

The Essence Crystal is a magical crystal that was found near Lily Pond Palace in 1653, only a few years after Elves arrived in Navavia. It can be used to cultivate Essence.

History
Nobody knows where the crystal came from. It was first found near Lily Pond Palace in 1653, during a time where Elves were still struggling to get used to Navavia and were still recovering from the First Merfolk War. It was brought to Lily Pond Palace and people tried hard to figure out what it was. People later figured out that it was able to cultivate an invisible force that Elves refer to as Essence. Essence is said to be what makes up everything around them. It gives physical things life, such as the elements or animals, and it also is linked to emotions.

After people realized this, they used a forgotten technique, combining techniques and practises from their own cultures, to transfer the stone's power to four other stones, so that every tribe could have a stone containing essence. They then realized that the essence reacted differently to people of different races, so after this every tribe got their own element, gemstone and official color.

The original Essence Crystal fully recharged its power and was kept safe in Lily Pond Palace. Because of this, when Lily Court was founded, they were able to cultivate Essence and nobody objected it, since they were the most powerful and influential ones anyway.

However, many people wanted to steal the Essence Crystal and have all the power to themselves. Before, Lily Court's main task was to protect the Essence Crystal from being stolen and from being used to do bad things. But a few generations ago, during the reign of Empress Ainyar, she got tricked by a man who pretended to love her to get to the Essence Crystal. She then made the decision to risk her life by leaving Navavia, taking the Essence Crystal with her. She is the only one who ever succeeded in permanently leaving Navavia and returning to the Mortal Realm. She married an ordinary human and had children with him. Their eldest child was given the Essence Crystal after Empress Ainyar died and later on gave it to their own child. Empress Ainyar's granddaughter has two daughters of her own but loved them both equally and refused to give the stone to just one of them. The Essence Crystal felt her turmoil and split itself in half, so she cold give one half two both of her daughters.

When Empress Ainyar left, unexpectedly, all of the other gemstones lost their powers since they couldn't channel it from the Essence Crystal anymore. People had to learn to live in ordinary ways again, but a member of the Orchid tribe called Yandan hated being ordinary, so she seduced the heir of Lily Court, waited until he became Emperor, killed him as well as every other member of Lily Court, except her three children, and became the sole Empress of Lily Court and Navavia. Her first order as Empress was for the four tribes to hand in the gemstones, since if they were used together they still had some powers. At first it didn't make a difference to the tribes since they had already lost their powers before, but Empress Yandan went even further and started a reign of terror.

The people of Navavia are still hoping that through a miracle, a descendant of Empress Ainyar, their rightful Emperor or Empress, will show up and save all of them.