Interlude: Himura's Research - Part 2
𝗛𝗶𝗺𝘂𝗿𝗮 𝗦𝗮𝘁ō
I grabbed the third book called "Basic Guide to Magic.
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Mana, a mysterious thing that we are born with. It can make or do anything we want as long as we know the magic language known as arcanum.
Currently, we only have 5000 years of recorded history but it seems mana has existed before then. Many religions theorize that their god is the one which brought mana, our greatest weapon some might say.
Many skeletal remains here show evidence of evolution as we slowly become more dependent on it to the point we can't survive without mana.
In the early years when the term mage was created, most if not all always tried to learn as many spells as they since they considered mana the most versatile tool.
Himura believed such a thing as well.
However, in this era, mages have been split into certain archetypes like fire mages or wind mages which, although making them strong in certain situations, also made them not so versatile which lowered the standard of a mage.
4800 years later, Kliyer was founded which used to be more of a militaristic country focusing on weapons research to even this day. And as their visions for improvements widen, the birth of artificers occurred.
Artificers, individuals that bridge technology and magic together, their weapons grew and their neighboring countries grew cautious.
Eventually, they were forced to focus on things like industry and residential to hide their weapons, this of course is just a theory from speculators.
Mana comes from our soul which makes it a second body of sorts that we cannot control. Using Arcanum as the bridge, we can cast spells that do a variety of things like setting things on fire or putting it out.
And like our own body if we are using too much or having too much mana will cause problems. If you cast a spell that required a large amount of mana to get your desired effect which you can't provide, you will get "Mana sickness" which lowers your body to freezing temperatures or forcefully stopped every function in your body causing you to die.
Or if you have too much mana, this can cause "Mana Overload" which makes your body's temperature rise or make you slowly bleed until you explode on the inside
There was a small note under it that says:
This depends on how severe it is so be careful of how you cast your spell!
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There was a lot of basic knowledge about spells but I skipped most of them since I didn't even know if I had mana.
I found himself in a particular section of the book titled "Summoning"
I was only interested since Alice is a summoner herself.
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There are a lot of ways to summon and create whether by using a magic circle or the universal spell, riᦓꫀ, the universal summoning spell.
Every creature summoned is considered a homunculus, a living soul in a body suspended in time.
If a mage is to summon a wolf, they would have to offer its fangs, fur or claws then imagine the details of the wolf and after casting the spell, it would start remaking its body starting with what the mage offered.
An average summoner would be able to summon about 5 basic creatures before having some problems. A summoned creature is given different-sized shards of our soul so that they can connect with us and give them command but summoning too many creatures can make you brain dead at best and destroys your soul, killing you without even knowing it at worst.
Note:
Homunculus: Creatures that are alive but at the same time aren't. The most common homunculus are summoned beings and resurrected beings
Resurrected beings: In contrast to the name, it doesn't actually mean you are alive again instead your soul is put into a replica of your body before it was killed and is perfectly healthy without any scars or wounds but since being resurrected means going against the natural order, you become unable to age as one of the effects of going against it.
'This means Alice may look like a small 15-year-old girl, she may actually be twice that age.' I thought as I skim the book.
A spell becomes more difficult and costs as the number of letters it has. Since spells are comprised of arcanum and common and because it is the bridge for our body and mana to connect.
To put it in simpler terms, If a spell has a short letter count, the bridge is narrow making the mana pretty little which makes the spell often more straight forward while higher ones make that bridge wider which lowers our mana pool ( The total amount of mana one has ) but also makes it more flexible and versatile.
Of course like our body, we can also improve our mana which although makes that bridge the same, the amount of mana that flows through becomes far faster.
For example, the spell known as ᭙oᛕ creates a dim thin shield of any shape the caster wishes, and ᭙ꪖll creates a thick shield and invisible but when it makes contact, glows dimly which can be any shape. The higher version of this is ᦓꫝiꫀlᦔ, which creates an invisible liquid-like shield where the caster can shape it into anything then lastly the last recorded spell of this kind is called ᥇ꪖ᥅᥅iꫀ᥅ which is similar to ᦓꫝiꫀlᦔ but this time the invisible liquid becomes as big as a small lake at the minimum.
The greater the power always means that more mana is needed.
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I soon reached the end of the books after skimming most of them so now I reached for the last book titled: The gods of this world
.
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Gods and goddesses are former mortals who manage their physical body and mana into one but usually, this locks them out of any other spells and only makes them use spells that corresponds to their godhood.
For example the goddess of love, Cleo most adept at spells like ᦓꫀᦔuᥴꫀ, ꪑꪖtᥴh, ᥴꫝꪖngꫀ, ᦔiᦓᧁuiᦓꫀ, ᥇᥅aiꪀ᭙ꪖᦓꫝ, ᠻꫀꫀꪶ and many more spells that truly fit her title as the goddess of love.
Currently, the gods and goddesses that are known are:
The God of Creation, Dlutris -
Governs the continent of Tiru and....
The God of Foreign and Mystery, Hu -
Governs the continent of Hellken and....
I decided to skip these ones.
The God of Earth, Urg -
This god technically governs every continent that had land but thankfully Urg is a generous god so he let the other gods govern most of it excluding, the underground and mountains.
The Goddess of Water, Aquaris -
Governs the sea and any kind of form of water. The lakes and rivers have become territories shared by Aquaris and the god who governs the land. She also blessed aquatic creatures
The Goddess of Wind, Hush -
Lord of the sky and the one who blesses those who can fly like dragons and birds.
Urg, Aquaris, and Hush are the only religions that are on good terms with the others due to what they govern.
They are also gods that don't govern territories like:
The Goddess of Love, Cleo -
She watches over the entire known world of people as their love blossoms sometimes even matchmaking if she wishes so.
Unfortunately, she does not watch over us mortals reproducing which let mortals be born with a half and half race (Half-elf, half-orc, etc) in their blood, and most of the time, these reasons are not acts of love.
The Goddess of Living, Liv -
The creator of all living beings is one of the strongest gods if there is a hierarchy between the gods. These living creatures are what govern everything from the land, sea, and sky.
The Goddess of Hunting, Kul -
She governs the forest and is close to the Urg because of it and like Urg, anything with vegetation is also allowed to be governed by other gods.
Not only that she is also adept at hunting creatures, thousands of years ago, Kul and Liv were not on good terms due to their opposite nature but eventually after observing the living creatures and how they survive, Liv eventually chose to stop their hatred for one another.
God of Entertainment, Megu -
A god very close to Liv due to what he governs. Years ago Megu inhabited a small continent known as Mig but for some reason, Megu disappeared leaving it a godless land. It was a definite fact that Megu did not die since if it did happen, the apostles, popes, and bishops that are much closer to Megu will know it which lead to theorized that he left for another world.
With Mig now a godless land, the continent became nothing but abandoned cities and large forests and where most strong monsters live.
Thankfully, Urg still governs it so it was still safe to die there. If you somehow die in a truly godless land, there will be no afterlife for you since every god has their version of the afterlife.
For example, if you die somewhere only the goddess of love can take you. Your soul will be taken by her and will be put in a world of pleasure of what they desire.
These of course are theories as no one knows much about the afterlife and in a truly godless land, your soul will be in a place with nothing but pure black and soon, you will lose yourself by the amount of time you are in the darkness, this, of course, are also theories.
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I closed the book with a complicated expression about that last line.