Myrdal Herseim

Myrdal Herseim is an ancient sage whose public reputation as the greatest elementalist of his century conceals his existence as an avatar of Prometheus. He arranges Theodore Miller's contract with Mitra, leaves prophecies and elemental teachings across centuries, and uses Sloth to reduce the world's mana concentration so that humanity can eventually live beyond the reach of gods, demons, and dragons.

Biography

Academy, Magic Contest, and National Service

Myrdal enters Theodore's life through the original copy of Introduction to Elemental Magic. The book's appraisal identifies its author as the only human known to have called an elemental king, while contemporary records treat him as a genius of an earlier century who would have gone still further had he lived longer. When Gluttony consumes the original at Bergen Academy, however, it reports that Myrdal personally accepts a “Connect.” Theodore meets an old man of overwhelming presence rather than replaying the author's life through Synchro; the later revelation that Myrdal is still alive confirms that this first encounter is a connection accepted by the living sage, not the Fountain of Wisdom remnant seen much later. (Chapters 20–21 and 115)

Myrdal examines Theodore's temperament before giving him any power. He rejects fire, wind, and water as poor matches because Theodore is neither recklessly self-consuming, purposelessly free, nor adaptable enough to abandon his fixed course. He instead recognizes the earth-like perseverance behind Theodore's “stupid honesty,” calls the forgotten ancient earth elemental Mitra, and allows her own favorable response to complete the contract. Myrdal does not become Theodore's contracted elemental, transfer an elemental ruler to him, or force Mitra to obey; he acts as the knowledgeable intermediary who opens the meeting and approves a bond that both contractor and elemental accept. (Chapter 21)

Mitra then accompanies Theodore beyond the academy, through the Mana-vil Magic Contest and into Meltor's service, making Myrdal's brief intervention a durable part of Theodore's career. Her earth affinity supports his early field work and contributes to his growth as a magician, while later revelations show that the apparently fortunate contract was one part of Myrdal's long preparation for a successor capable of completing the Prometheus plan. Myrdal is not physically present at the contest or Theodore's early national assignments, and those achievements remain Theodore's; his agency lies in selecting the elemental affinity and establishing the ancient contract that Theodore continues to develop through his own choices. (Chapters 21–39, 59–83, and 319)

Elvenheim, Kargas, and the Pirate Archipelago

Myrdal's older relationship with Elvenheim becomes visible after Theodore helps stop Laevateinn. More than a century before the crisis, Myrdal had visited the cabin above the world tree and foretold the birth of the sixth dancer, the awakening of forgotten beings, the disaster produced by two competing nations, and the distant guest who would avert it. He instructed the elves to guide that guest to the Fountain of Wisdom. The fulfilled prophecy establishes deliberate preparation, while his status as a valued Elvenheim guest rests on another distinct feat: unlike high elves who require the world tree's help, he had called an elemental ruler through his own power. (Chapters 69 and 115)

When Ellenoa guides Theodore into the Fountain, the Myrdal who rises from its blue water is explicitly a form reproduced by the stored wisdom and called a “fragment of memory” by Gluttony. This remnant carries Myrdal's presence, knowledge, foresight, and intended message, but it is not his complete living self. The remnant says that the living Myrdal cannot move “at this time,” even though he foresaw Theodore's visit; elsewhere, records place Myrdal three centuries in the past while the prophecy is already at least a century old. These facts distinguish a recorded proxy at the world tree from the still-living, long-lived being who created it. (Chapters 115–116)

The Fountain remnant knows Gluttony's former designation, recognizes it as one of the Seven Sins, and pressures it into permitting a single intervention. When Theodore objects to being handled without explanation, Myrdal bows and apologizes rather than demanding submission, but he also refuses to disclose secrets for which Theodore is not yet qualified. With Gluttony's Ego allowing contact, the remnant pours a vast body of Myrdal's knowledge into Theodore and legitimately releases Gluttony's fourth seal. The result is Gluttony's Overwrite function, whose maximum use can trigger Transmission; it is a transfer of authorial knowledge and access through the grimoire, not the transfer of Myrdal's elemental-ruler achievement or of his contract with Geros. (Chapters 115–116)

Myrdal also diagnoses the danger created by Theodore's rapid accumulation of powers. He says that Laevateinn, artifacts, treasures, and power drawn through Gluttony exceed the capacity of Theodore's human “vessel,” predicts that collapse will begin in three years and end in death by five, and explains that the Fountain has only lengthened the grace period. His advice is deliberately experiential: Theodore must leave the repetitive cycle of a magician who merely fights and consumes, travel widely, collide with other people, and again choose the difficult wilderness he once endured. Theodore carries that warning into Kargas and the Pirate Archipelago; Myrdal does not direct those adventures scene by scene, but his diagnosis frames why passive accumulation is no longer a safe path. (Chapters 116–120 and 121–156)

Myrdal's later arrangements further clarify the scale of his elemental legacy. He had contracted Geros, an ancient wind elemental and fragment of Zephyrus, then transferred that contract to his only disciple, Titania Herseim. Titania says that Myrdal taught her the wisdom of nature and the reality of elementals rather than human magic, and she eventually delivers his Deeper Theories about Elementals to Theodore. The Unique original was written for one reader, requires an ancient-elemental contractor, and promises Genuine elemental magic and maximum understanding when consumed. Calling an elemental ruler, transferring Geros's existing contract, arranging Mitra's separate contract, and transmitting knowledge through books are therefore four related but non-identical acts. (Chapters 316–319 and 324)

Prometheus and the Eastern Apocalypse

Five years later, Myrdal's hidden instructions draw Theodore and Titania toward the Southern Continent. Titania undertakes the expedition to fulfill her teacher's direction to “put the south's distress to rest,” and Geros becomes the prepared key at Sloth's Cage of Chronos. Without Titania's command or prior knowledge, the ancient elemental identifies himself as a surviving piece of Zephyrus acting according to Prometheus's will, opens a passage through the time-stopped darkness, and then becomes unresponsive. Theodore correctly attributes this concealed function to Geros's previous contractor; it is a delayed arrangement embedded by Myrdal, not Titania knowingly activating Prometheus's plan. (Chapters 337 and 345–346)

Inside a pocket where time still moves, the group meets the living Myrdal seated at the center of the space. This is neither the Fountain's watery memory nor a soul summoned from Gluttony's records. Gluttony identifies him as Prometheus's avatar and says he has deceived Sloth; Myrdal asks to be called by his human name because his last work is finished and says he has only about fifteen minutes left. He greets Titania as his only apprentice, creates earth chairs inside the abnormal space, and makes clear that his long human history and the Promethean function operating through it have reached the same final moment. (Chapter 346)

Myrdal explains that Prometheus's “first fire” was humanity's ability to perceive and manipulate mana. The gift enabled aura, magic, nations, and human transcendents, but it also bound later humanity to a world still threatened by upper species and dimensional powers. As Sloth's host, Myrdal has drained the continents' mana for thousands of years: dragons will cease to be born, dimensional gaps will close, and magic, aura, and natural transcendence will diminish. He presents this as a completed safeguard until humanity can explore beyond its planet. Clipeus's manifestation as a hatchling, rather than an ancient dragon capable of stopping the operation, is taken as evidence that the material world has accepted the plan despite its cost to dragonkind. (Chapters 346–347)

The human identity Myrdal built is not merely a disguise without attachments. He says he lived for more than a thousand years while pretending to be human, left knowledge at Meltor's magic towers and a memory fragment at the world tree, and planned both Geros's transfer and Theodore's message. Yet he also admits that accepting Titania as a child was personal. He refuses her feelings because he considers himself a puppet unable to take responsibility for her life, asks her to be happy, and reveals that he altered Prometheus's original route: rather than burn every world tree and kill more than half the high elves, he denied his programmed instinct and found another way. His independent compassion modifies, rather than erases, the mandate that shaped his life. (Chapter 347)

At the end, Myrdal asks Theodore to banish Sloth and protect humanity's future. He stops the Cage of Chronos from within, transports Theodore, Titania, and the dragons outside, and warns them that only five minutes remain before its collapse. Sloth then releases the soulless shells of collected transcendents, leaving Theodore and his allies to execute the final banishment after Myrdal's own story has ended. The later Eastern catastrophe is an indirect consequence, not another action by a surviving Myrdal: Gluttony explains that the coming fall in mana concentration threatens Lust's reproductive purpose, provoking her to activate descendants across the East in a last attempt to produce an upper species. (Chapters 347–348 and 357)

Myrdal is not separately identified in the later Akashic sequence. The Akashic Records contain investigators who have assimilated into the cosmic consciousness, and Chapter 394 names figures such as Simon Magus, Solomon, Seimei, and Blundell among those who retain some personality and help reconstruct Theodore. It never names Myrdal or presents the Prometheus avatar as one of them. The source-grounded distinction is therefore that the Fountain of Wisdom preserves Myrdal's deliberately planted memory fragment, his books preserve authored knowledge and messages, and the living Myrdal reaches his end at the Cage; none of those forms should be labeled an Akashic representation. (Chapters 115–116, 318–319, 346–347, and 394)

Appearance and personality

Myrdal appears as an old man with long white hair and a flowing white beard. His hair is compared to snow on a mountain peak, his eyes are clear blue like the sea, and his shabby body carries a presence as vast and immovable as a mountain range. At their first Connect, that presence leaves Theodore unable to move a finger; the Fountain's reproduced form retains enough of it to weigh on Theodore even after his growth. At the Cage of Chronos he is again physically recognizable by the same white hair, wrinkles, beard, and deep eyes, confirming the continuity between the living man and the representations patterned after him. (Chapters 21, 115, and 346)

He usually presents himself as a warm, teasing sage. Myrdal laughs like a grandfather, strokes his beard, and offers lessons through questions rather than simple declarations. That manner can also feel manipulative: he prepares meetings centuries ahead, withholds the Seven Sins' secrets, and arranges conditions that Theodore experiences as someone else's puppet game. When challenged, however, he does not hide behind rank. He loses his laughter, acknowledges Theodore's position, bows in apology, and then states the boundary he still believes necessary. His courtesy is genuine, but it coexists with a willingness to maneuver people toward a future they cannot yet see. (Chapters 115–116 and 319)

Myrdal's final conversation exposes emotions that his long role had suppressed. He is sardonic toward the dragons and proud of the plan's completion, yet gentle with Titania and openly sad when his end arrives. His refusal to destroy every world tree shows that the Myrdal identity can resist Prometheus's prescribed solution, while his admission that he lacked the courage to stay with or properly leave Titania makes that compassion morally incomplete. He is therefore neither a detached prophecy machine nor an ordinary benevolent teacher: he accepts enormous civilizational costs, modifies the worst route available to him, and entrusts the remaining danger to people whose freedom he values only after shaping much of their path. (Chapters 346–347)

Magic, abilities, and martial skills

Elemental mastery and contracts

Myrdal is remembered as the greatest elementalist of his century, the author who opened a new door to the elemental world, and the lone human credited with calling an elemental king or ruler through his own power. The corpus does not name that ruler as Geros. Geros is instead an ancient elemental derived from Zephyrus whom Myrdal previously contracted and later transferred to Titania, while Mitra is the separate ancient earth elemental whose compatibility with Theodore Myrdal recognizes and whose contract he permits. His achievements include ruler-level summoning, ancient-elemental contracting, contract succession, affinity diagnosis, and elemental scholarship without making those mechanisms interchangeable. (Chapters 20–21, 69, 115, 316–319, and 324)

Through Introduction to Elemental Magic, Myrdal sharply raises Theodore's elemental proficiency and opens the affinity suited to him. Through the Fountain, he leaves knowledge too extensive for Theodore to understand immediately; through Deeper Theories about Elementals, he outlines royal and ancient elementals, divinity, and the difference between gods and elementals for the single ancient-elemental contractor qualified to read it. The latter book promises Genuine elemental magic, but Theodore initially stores it because even his eight circles and experience with Mitra are insufficient for its theory. These transmissions demonstrate Myrdal's teaching and preparation, not an automatic grant of all his personal power. (Chapters 21, 116, and 318–319)

Foresight and long preparation

Myrdal sees at least centuries ahead with enough precision to predict Ellenoa, Laevateinn's awakening, the international conflict around it, Theodore's intervention, and his arrival at the Fountain. He also prepares a book for a future reader defined by the ancient-elemental contract he arranged and directs Titania toward the southern crisis where Geros can open Sloth's Cage. The exact mechanics and limits of this foresight are not explained. His need to use stored messages, qualified conditions, and other people's voluntary decisions shows that foreknowledge does not amount to unrestricted action or direct control over every outcome. (Chapters 115–116, 317–319, 337, and 345–346)

Memory fragments, authored records, and Gluttony's Transmission

Myrdal persists in several media, but the narrative identifies them differently. The Chapter 21 Connect is accepted by the living Myrdal; the Fountain creates a water-shaped reproduction from a deliberately deposited memory fragment; and his original books transmit knowledge or messages under Gluttony's rules. At the Fountain, his intervention unlocks Overwrite, allowing Theodore to borrow an author whose power Gluttony extracted, with full use leading to the grimoire function called Transmission. This does not mean that the Fountain remnant becomes Theodore, that Myrdal transfers Geros there, or that either representation is an Akashic investigator. (Chapters 21, 115–116, 318–319, and 394)

Prometheus avatar and Sloth's host

As Prometheus's avatar, Myrdal carries a mythological intelligence and mandate through a human-seeming life of more than a millennium. His decisive capability is strategic rather than a catalog of combat spells: he becomes Sloth's host, uses it to drain continental mana over thousands of years, deceives the grimoire long enough to arrange its banishment, and maintains a normal-time refuge within its Cage. Inside that refuge he can stop the Cage and transport the group to safety, though he says he cannot ordinarily interfere with normal space in the same way and has only minutes of existence remaining. The plan's completion therefore consumes both his accumulated position and his life. (Chapters 346–348)

Relationships

• Theodore Miller: Myrdal recognizes Theodore's earth-like perseverance, arranges his contract with Mitra, and later leaves prophecies, knowledge, a warning about his overfilled vessel, and a book written for his future qualification. Theodore benefits from these preparations but repeatedly resents their manipulative quality. At their final meeting, Myrdal names him the protagonist capable of becoming a transcendent and entrusts him with banishing Sloth and protecting the human future. (Chapters 21, 115–119, 318–319, and 346–348)
• Gluttony: Myrdal knows Gluttony's older designation and the purposes of the Seven Sins well enough to make the grimoire visibly nervous. He secures its permission to transmit knowledge and legitimately release its fourth seal, then later reveals how he deceived Sloth and prepared Theodore to complete the plan. Their exchanges show wary familiarity and negotiation rather than a contract between them. (Chapters 115–116 and 345–347)
• Mitra: Myrdal calls Mitra during his first Connect with Theodore after judging earth to be the magician's proper affinity. Mitra chooses Theodore favorably and forms the bond; Myrdal acknowledges at the Fountain that he allowed the contract. She is Theodore's ancient elemental, not Myrdal's former elemental ruler or a fragment he transfers from himself. (Chapters 21 and 115)
• Titania Herseim: Myrdal accepts Titania as a child, teaches her nature and elemental truth, and makes her successor to Geros. Although some of her later tasks and messages serve his long plan, he says accepting her was not merely instrumental. At their final meeting he calls her his only apprentice, cannot accept the life she wants with him, and asks her to be happy before sending her away. (Chapters 316–319, 324, and 346–347)
• Geros: Geros is Myrdal's former contracted ancient wind elemental, a surviving piece of Zephyrus. Myrdal transfers the contract to Titania but leaves a hidden Promethean instruction that Geros later executes by opening the Cage of Chronos. This transfer is separate from Myrdal's historical summoning of an elemental ruler and from his mediation of Mitra's contract. (Chapters 69, 316–317, 324, and 345–346)
• Ellenoa: Myrdal predicts Ellenoa's birth as the sixth dancer and makes her role part of the route leading Theodore to the Fountain of Wisdom. The source shows no extended personal relationship between them; her importance is as the prophesied high elf whose guidance allows his memory fragment to deliver its warning and knowledge. (Chapters 69 and 115–116)
• Sloth: Myrdal becomes Sloth's host and uses its accumulation of mana to complete Prometheus's plan, while also deceiving it and preparing the conditions for Theodore to expel it. The relationship is instrumental and adversarial rather than loyal: Myrdal harnesses the grimoire for millennia, then spends his last strength opening its Cage so that others can overcome its defenses and banish it. (Chapters 345–348)
• Clipeus: Myrdal treats the Dragon Lord with deliberate provocation because the plan ends the future birth of dragons, but he also acknowledges the species' long defense of the material world. Clipeus's constrained hatchling form confirms that the world will not authorize him to stop the mana decline, and he ultimately agrees to help Theodore finish the banishment despite the extinction it implies. (Chapters 346–348)

Items

Myrdal has no separately cataloged named personal item in the supplied corpus. He carries a staff during the first Connect, but it receives no proper name or independent mechanics. Introduction to Elemental Magic and Deeper Theories about Elementals are named original books authored by him, yet neither is present in the planned item catalog and they are therefore not linked as item articles. The Cage of Chronos is a cataloged mechanism associated with Sloth that Myrdal infiltrates and stops; it is not his personal possession. (Chapters 20–21, 318–319, and 345–348)