The coachman whipped the horses' leash with a yell, urging them to start walking. The wagon rattled with every feet it traveled.
Lieren gripped the rim of his book even harder, making sure it doesn't fly off amidst the rocky and unpaved path. Unlike the main capital of Hamaha — where the hospital Lieren stayed at was — which had paved road all around, most of the country, especially roads that doesn't connect to the major cities, are unpaved, making traveling by land more difficult. Not to mention lengthy and just an uncomfortable experience for the uninitiated.
Lieren was such uninitiated.
"You're gonna make yourself sick, y'know?" Harita Sezukumu, Lieren's guide and ward, muttered from beside him, where the lean man sat.
Lieren himself was sitting at the corner of the carriage, on the back to the left, to be precise. It was Sezukumu's suggestion, something about keeping him safe while minimizing the risks and all that. Lieren doubted the man almost like an instinct, even outright telling him so. Sezukumu only smiled in return, his feline eyes turning into slits. It made Lieren's hair stand on end.
To distract himself from the creepy man's presence — better yet, just forget him entirely — Lieren immersed himself in his book, pouring all his attention on it.
The Theory of Mana and It's Machinations Vol. 1: By Ramel Karentes.
Lieren flipped a page, carefully reading each word and digesting it just the same.
Mana, as described by the doctrines of the land of the great Vritra, is the essence of the universe itself, it's greatest force; the most beautiful, powerful, and terrifying existence there is, except, of course, the Vritra themselves. It encompasses everything, everywhere, and everyone. Though the form it takes, and the manifestations that it appears in may differ depending on person, place, and other factors present. There is no doubt that the presence of mana could be found anywhere, except for the unfortunate and pitiful Insigs.
Through the blessings of the Great Arcana, the omniscient being at the heart of mana itself, we, humans, formerly weak and helpless, learned to harness it's blessings, performing them ourselves.
The machinations of mana — magic, in other words, can be split up into five categories: augmentation, detachment, transmutation, materialization, and manipulation. Now, a regular adorned — of capacity — normally fits into one category, specializing in it and could thus use it with the greatest efficiency and accuracy than all the other categories. Adorned like these, for example reinforcement-users, would have the highest likelihood to further advance in their given field. However, that is to say that they do not branch off into other areas.
Branching off into other categories allows for variability and unpredictability; a common and well-accepted aspect of magic. This can be done by the use of creativity—a necessary attribute for any aspiring mage. Developing a spell that uses more than just a mage's inherent mana affinity would decrease the efficiency, power and speed of it, but gives the mage more options to pick from. The more branches of magic an ability uses in order to function, the harder — and thus longer — it will take to master said ability. Though, this depends on the adorned. Some can take lifetimes, while others can take a year, at the very least.
Meanwhile, a mage could just as easily choose to specialize in their inherent affinity, reducing the amount of time they would need to master their chosen ability and their overall control and precision over it with great efficiency.
An adorned, having stepped into the realm of magic, must then choose what ability — known as spells — they would like to develop. These can range from the quintessential body augmentation to more fantastical abilities like flight. What kind of spell and what aspect it could have is heavily dependent on the inherent talent of an adorned.
A spell, the epitome — but not only — application of abilities developed through mana is how magic is conducted. The most common form of this is the magic circle, a variation and offshoot of both runic and ritual magic that spawned off as the combined efforts of many sorcerers from days long past. The history of magic circles date back to the first century, marked by the discovery of mana.
Summoning, or rather channeling a magic circle, requires vast knowledge and insight into the specifics of mana. Furthermore, one must also familiarize themselves with the modern runes used in the more modern forms of magic, developed as an effort to simplify the, at the time, complicated and inefficient system that mages used in the first century. Using a magic circle requires the mage to summon, unsurprisingly, a circle, which the mage can fill up with various modern runes and, in some exemplary cases, even self-made ones. This then produces the popular magic, commonly seen with the spellcasting folk.
The desired effects of the magic circle is dependent on the runes used to form it, along with the caster's concentration on the casted spell. One can make it reach far, move fast, sweep low, and even track or follow a given target, if the mage is skilled enough. As long as the runes used to cast the magic circle is in order, kept stable enough for the spell to operate properly, and have proper harmony with each other, as well as a suitable source of mana, then a magic circle can be cast — no problem. The key is familiarity and balance.
Now, as powerful and omnipresent it is, there are still rules that one must follow when conducting magical functions. There are restrictions involved with handling mana, not because of the mana, but by the user, in other words, us.
Now, as a philosopher, sorcerer, and powerful magician myself, I would like to give you, the reader, some of my personal insight…
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS AN "ABSOLUTE" WHEN IT COMES TO MAGIC.
Each adorned will have a different ability, and that adorned will have their own values, their own morals, and their own principles by which they base their life and character on. These rules, the rules that govern each individual, are what could be said to be the rules that, if they are adorned, will center around their ability — their restrictions.
Restrictions, in simple terms, are the self-imposed and subconscious rules that one places on an ability or self in exchange for power, accuracy, or speed. Most, if not all, mages use this to compensate for the lack efficiency with a given spell, empowering it by placing conditions on it. Restrictions, like the formation of spell themselves, are vast and nearly infinite. Each restriction depends on the adorned. One chooses what the conditions are when developing an ability. It could be many, it could be heavy, it could be life-threatening, and, most of all, it could just be plain annoying.
Restrictions act as substitute for an ability, compensating for what the user lacks. For example, imagine you are a thief that has a stealth spell that grants you invisibility. An ability that, according to modern magic theory, will take an enormous amount of mana to operate. Suitable conditions that can be placed, with the highest payoff of reducing the cost required to keep the spell active, and increase the overall ability to hide the user from view, will most likely be on the lines of:
1. If the user (you) is touched even once while the spell is active, then spell deactivates automatically.
2.There is a limit to the number of people that can be affected.
3. The invisibility in only effective in a set radius. The farther it is from the predetermined radius, the least effective it is.
4. One of the user's senses (taste, sight, hearing, etc.) is unusable for the duration of the spell.
5. A cooldown period after the spell is cast.
6. A set duration, by which the user MUST abide by, no matter what.
7. The spell cannot be cast in the presence of certain people.
8. The spell only works for certain body parts, i.e. the legs and arms.
9. A chant, preferably a long one, that the user MUST say aloud to cast the spell.
10. The spell can only be activated if a chosen person/people is/are present.
11. The spell can only be cast on certain times, like midnight.
12. The spell does not work on people that you have made physical contact with. Or, turning this around, it could be…
13. The spell only works on people you have made physical contact with before.
These conditions, some of which are applicable on other spells, as well, are just few of many restrictions that can be placed on the given example—the invisibility spell—to reduce the cost required or raise it's effective range and the quality of the spell itself. It's restrictions like this that make and brake a spell. However, I argue otherwise.
I believe, with all my being, that it is not the spell or restriction that constitute to the mage's victory or defeat, but the creativity and thought put behind a given ability. After all, in the end, it is the mage who made said ability, developed it, and placed the restrictions on it, whether that be intentional or not.
Lieren blinked a couple of times, his eyes dry and his stomach having been flipped amidst his reading. This has never happened before, and that made being sick all the worse.
"I told you, kid." A snarky voice said from the left, but Lieren was too busy to pay attention to it, doing his best not to hurl the food Kronesta had so graciously bought for him.
The rattling certainly didn't help.
Eventually, after a few minutes, the carriage stopped. Lieren immediately disembarked, hurling the food he had been treated to just before he had left. My apologies, Lady Kronesta.
Sezukumu rubbed the boy's back, holding out a handkerchief. However, just as the creepy man was about to hand it over, Sezukumu suddenly yanked Lieren by the collar of his shirt, sending the boy tumbling backwards.
Lieren landed with a grunt. "Hey, what gives?!" He rubbed his mouth with the handkerchief in his hand. "…Huh?"
A shout from the front of the carriage pierced the atmosphere.
"Bandits!"