For the entire month of Mitrayasna – five weeks of nine days in the calendar of their Republics – for every single day from the weekdays to the weekends, from daybreak till twilight, Elwin and the Fradihta learned the principles of Quansmithing, and even before that, reformed their understanding of the world. Much of what they learnt was supplied by advancements in metallurgy, the philosophy of metals and how they behaved alone and together.
Elwin and his fellow Artens had to relinquish their childhood concepts of the Elements, and familiarize themselves with a clearer and more nuanced view of what they called 'matter', which was discovered, or rather, re-discovered by Dmitri and Alexander Kosmogorov.
Matter itself, they learnt, was made up of a myriad of things called atoms, and each possessed a unique voice. When large collections of atoms came together, they behaved in certain ways called 'states of matter': as solids, liquids, or gases, and if they were given particularly enormous energy, as plasma. The Elements of the FOUNDERS corresponded to these specific states of matter – earth for solids, water for liquids, air for gases, and fire for plasma.
"So what the FOUNDERS originally taught us were ways to control these states of matter?" asked Isaac. All this time, he was so conflicted between the simple stories his father told him and what he observed working at the hospital – what all those terms that doctors and medics so often used meant – terms like Pyroton or Hydroton.
"That's right."
"So fire, water, earth, and air don't make up the world, but atoms do instead?"
"Correct," answered the Quanmaster. "Fire, water, earth, and air are in fact aspects, or characteristics, of those atoms when they come together in reality. That is why each of what we call the Elements can be influenced and controlled by different methods. Does anyone know what those four methods are?"
Elwin and Katherine shot up his hand. This time, Elwin wasn't going to relent. He held it up with such fervor that Katherine sighed and put her hand down for the first time.
"Yes, gentlemahn in Admiral's Legacy."
"It's Dance for Fire, Rhythm for Water, Melody for Earth, and Song for Air."
"Bravo," praised the Quanmaster. "Looks like you paid good attention in Professor Aionia's class."
From my father first, actually, Elwin thought, smiling. Yes, he might not be as good as others in proficiency over his Maht. But he had something others did not: knowledge and curiosity, and with them, he was going to make the best Quan of them all, a Quan that would do the work of a thousand people!
"How many types of atoms are there?" asked Rayo, a table below them.
"We've discovered 92 as of our current year. However, we suspect there are many more we've yet to discover."
"Ninety-two of them?" Isaac exclaimed, flabbergasted. That was more than just a world's worth of difference! "But with so many, how do we even tell them apart? They're too small to see with the eye or feel, don't they?"
"Yeah, how do we know those atoms are even real?" added Cassius.
The Quanmaster held up his finger.
"You might not be able to feel them individually at your current stage of mastery, but we Quanmasters do, and so do the grandmasters of the Mahamastra."
"You can feel them?"
"With years of practice, most certainly. But we do not 'feel' them as one touches a grain of sand. Instead, we can recognize their voices – the tune that each type of atom plays among the cosmic fugue."
"A tune?"
"Correct. Each atom sings a specific tune, a series of notes, which we can categorize. Before the concept of atoms were formalized, we Quanmasters for thousands of years heard many voices among earth and metal, each of them different and unique. But alas, we too were influenced by the dominant philosophy of old. We thought that these voices were simply different personalities of earth, and categorized the voices only to the extent we needed to forge the Quans. We made no further foray into what those voices could mean for an underlying reality."
"And Dmitri and Alexander Kosmogorov were the ones who finally found them?"
"Yes. In fact, Dmitri could have been the only person who could have started such an endeavor. He was not beholden to the maxims of Quanmasters, nor was he skilled enough in the Mahamastra to hear such voices on his own. Because of this, he relied solely on experimentation to isolate and categorize his atoms. He took apart the various substances he knew through serendipitous accidents and the wisdom gleaned from those he met at Ascension. He asked many questions and sought their answers. If he purified something, how much did the substance weigh? When he burned something to combine the Four Elements together, did they end up with the same weight, or were they different? Where could those differences in weight have come from? Why did sparks of lightning form when he rubbed antar with cloth? Some fish in the sea used lightning to catch their prey. Was their lightning the same as the lightning in the sky? How were they made? Were they made by the interaction of the Four Elements? His questions went on and on. But over a period of three decades, he managed to isolate 27 different substances from the interaction and purification of the Four Elements. Unfortunately, scholars at the time, as Professor Aionia would have already explained to you, saw Dmitri's findings as apostasy to philosophy and the FOUNDERS."
"That's ironic."
"Ironic indeed, because the FOUNDERS never insisted that the Elements which were controlled by their Arts were the only building blocks of the world."
Quanmaster Montgomery's lesson gave Elwin some pause. If the teachings of the FOUNDERS had been misinterpreted through time, then what other ideas were out there that needed rescuing?
"Alexander Kosmogorov then had the brilliant idea of grouping these many atomic types based on their similarities. And through his thorough analysis and incredible skill as an orator, he managed to resist the efforts of academies to shun him, and even took to demonstrations in public to convince the people of the existence of atoms. And it was through these efforts that whispers of his findings eventually made way to the Quanmasters, who recognized that the framework that he developed matched their experience with handling different types of earth."
"So the Quanmasters helped him?"
"Yes. They provided Alexander Kosmogorov with experiential data and gave him the opportunity to experiment at their facilities, so he could perform Atomionic reactions that he could not at the academies. It was there in the forge that the fire of Experimental Philosophy ignited as a second sun."
"Wow..." every Fradihta listened in wonderment.
"And the rest is history, as you see," articulated the Quanmaster, "though not all the world has learned its nuances, we now use our knowledge to create fertilizers, medicines, and other incredible treasures which would only have been dreamed of in the ancient world. Now, each of us leads a quality of life better than emperors of those antiquated empires."
"Dr. Montgomery," asked Isaac, "you said there were as many as 92 of those atomic types. Do they all have their own names?"
"Correct. We call these 92 atomic types Atomions in short. Although each of them plays different tunes to us, many can be grouped together using the similarity of their individual notes and beats."
"So if you know and practice a whole lot, can you basically wield every Atomion in existence?" piped Lucian, hunger in his eyes.
"Not quite. The tunes of each Atomion becomes more complicated the further they increase in mass. So far, no one has experimentally demonstrated that they can control Atomions heavier than iron, because beyond it, the voices escape our abilities to recreate."
"What do you mean by 'escape our abilities to recreate'?"
"In that we can hear and recognize their tunes, but we are unable to reproduce them. In order to move or combine the Atomions, we need to play them their individual tunes in specific ways with our Quans or our heads. Yet we currently cannot do for Atomions heavier than iron. Perhaps the FOUNDERS TERA and SERA knew a way to overcome this long ago, with their Melody of the Two Earths."
Elwin's ears pricked at the mention of one of the Epitomic Forms.
"Dr. Montgomery," interjected Katherine, shooting up her hand, "Is that why our currency is in gold and silver? And not in any of the lighter metals?"
"Incisive observation. To all those who could not hear her inquiry," he answered, "gold and silver is beyond our ability to tamper with the Arts. We have to use traditional methods such as physical pounding or cleaving, which makes alterations more tiresome."
Katherine shot a glance at Lucian. Lucian let out a miniscule 'hmpf.'
"Now then!" the Quanmaster declared, "you shall be enlightened to each Atomion of metal in earnest!"
Armed with this revolutionary new framework for perceiving the world, Elwin and the Fradihta learnt about each Atomion of metal and their characteristics. Because the tunes of each Atomion had to be grasped through hands-on work and not through speech, the Fradihta were brought to the TERATANIS – the great forge upon the third level of the ziggurat – to impress their knowledge upon reality, after soaking up knowledge all morning. They grew familiar with the different melting and treating points for metals; that some were more brittle than others; that others required special care and handling when under heat and cold; and also that these metals could be fused with other Atomions, such as charton, to strengthen them and make the solid behave differently from their original form. Leonardo had said that learning at Aeternitas was like drinking from a fire-hose; only now, Elwin realized he was not speaking in jest.
Elwin tested and heated up various metals; he mixed them in crucibles, and pounded them with hammers to create new Alleia. He found the heat of the forge sweltering even in the autumnal breeze, his forehead never free of sweat and his arms sore with strain; others were too, and even the prodigious Katherine Heriz could not produce or satisfy every criterion the Quanmaster had set out for them. But he was ever patient with their mistakes, stumbles, and always predicted when a dangerous mishap was about to fire. Elwin looked on with admiration as the Quanmaster knew to do exactly what and how at what intervals and what timings for each and every single one of the metals and their combinations; he used all four Mahamastra to help them, including Gurunmastra to carve and sunder the metal pieces, Tahamastra to roast them in fire, Mashurmastra to dowse the radiant heat, and Ayumastra to incorporate the atoms of the atmosphere into the metal. Knowing now that those Four Mahamastra best influenced the four aspects of reality – states of matter – made it so much more intuitive for Elwin to predict what they could do. He was surprised to find that molten metal felt surprisingly like water when he tugged on them with his mind. He could not wield it, of course, because that required a magnitude of skill far higher than he could exercise as a Fradihta; but he knew that there was so much more to the world that could be open to his influence, and he was delighted to learn that controlling water or soup as he did at The Marlin wasn't everything. He saw glimmers of the vast potential of the Arts in the way the Quanmaster performed a feat that was unexpected – as a chef conjures some new dish – often to the delight of the Fradihta from their tiring day of work. Quansmithing, and metallurgy, was not only a philosophy in his hands, but also a form of art.
There was yet another person in whose hands the forging of metals exuded beauty, and it was none other than Mirai. She alone finished the tasks before everyone else; metals and earth seemed to move as incarnations of her soul, and the Quanmaster always assessed her creations and found them exceeding his satisfaction. She was of course, very far away from the Quanmaster's own skill, but many times Mirai's proficiency led to suspicious glances being thrown at her direction; some of envy, and many of belief that she hid a treasonous past, and was attempting to reclaim her family's secret power, whatever it was. Elwin's heart stung each time such a look was thrown, and he felt his strength and will sap from him, because it was due to him that such suspicion fell upon his friend. But there was also a secret fire in Mirai's eyes when she worked away at the metals, and Elwin thought she must have a motivation of her own to prove herself.
But just what was her secret?
Just what was her past?