I had already written this, but for some reason it didn’t upload and I lost it. So I will be concise.

A healthy mind on a healthy body has a lot of issues. Chief among them was my desire to write a lot because, well, I myself like it when I wait a week and have an hour of reading ahead. Unfortunately my skills are not high enough to write 400 pages, nearly a book, in two months and keep a high standard of quality. The chief issue is that I normally take months to fully think a setting, mainly all that makes the book fantasy, and I came up with the idea for the book shortly before beginning to write. I was developing the setting as I wrote and while I do think my characters weren’t all that bad, the things that rely on the setting, the story and worldbuilding as well as detailed character interactions based on the setting, suffered. The story as it is makes it difficult for me to continue the story without a lot of effort, and as such, I find it easier and less time consuming to rewrite the book.

This rewrite wouldn’t change much of what has happened, but how it happened. I would also add a lot of little things that would improve the quality of the book. I fully expect the novel to be nearly unrecognisable and maybe even many times longer by the time I reach the current point of the story. An example of one of these changes would be that I never did explain why Akairyuu likes Godzilla so much, which I was going to explain but should have been explained earlier.

The issue here is that it is a very daunting project, and not exactly short, so in order to keep my motivation I would alternate between this project and another. The other project would be a sort of indirect prequel to Son of the Archangel, with a setting that is nearly complete. This story would probably update weekly and I would allot time to this novel and to the rewrite every day, when it doesn’t interfere with my studying. The rewrite would update more sporadically, being a more difficult affair, but I would be working on it even if you didn’t see it.

Now, I have an exam tomorrow and then I’ll have finished Midterms. So by Sunday I hope I will have the first chapter of the new story done. If not by the next Sunday I will have it, and if not I allow all of you to spam me until I write it. Then I’d most likely write a chapter of variable length every week, aside from my work on the rewrite. I hope that you can be patient with me as I am in college which soaks a lot of time, even if it is less stressful in my country than others. I shudder at the thought of U.S. student loans and how much stress they must bring to the average student. Or I’m wrong about the stress, who knows.

Anyway, my wandering mind aside, I wish I can keep writing material that will entertain you, and thank you for your continued support.

Ps. Here is a sample of an incomplete and not exactly correct vision of how magic works in this new novel, from the eyes of an in-universe lecturer. Don’t worry if you don’t get it, I was inspired by quantum mechanics and a desire to spit in the face of realism, so it is very weird.

The first rule of those who study the Fayd is that the Fayd is unintuitive, if you use common sense you will be mistaken more times than right. Why?

Because the Fayd is not part of the universe. Let me stress that, the Fayd is not part of the universe in any way or shape. It is not a dimension, not another plane, nor anything like that, it just so happens that within the area in the Sea of Chaos that our universe was born there is also something called the Fayd. And we long discovered that the laws of physics are local. What does that mean?

It means that between universes the laws of physics can change, they are not multi universal. And while there are many universes the Many Worlds Theory has been disproven, these other universes are not parallel. Heck, some may even be perpendicular. Any similarities between universes are due to the incomprehensible rules of the Sea of Chaos.

Don’t try understanding those, once a man tried to learn from a Daemon God about them. He died before he made any headway. They are too advanced for our current level of science to begin studying them. Maybe in a few thousand years, but not before. They are the quantum physics to our Aristotle. Heck, he surrendered when trying to understand the Fayd, much less the Chaos.

Now, returning to the subject of the Fayd, what is the Fayd if not part of the universe? We aren’t sure. Yes, really. Fayd studies started a few decades back, there is much we don’t know. We do know however that the Fayd is a region of the Sea of Chaos that encompasses several million universes. We also do know that the laws of the Fayd aren’t fundamental, but interactive. And this is where Fayd studies divert from physics.

In physics you have electromagnetic laws, those laws cause that when there are two electric charges they interact in certain ways.

In the Fayd you have a law that says that these two daemons fight each other, and no matter what the daemons wish for they will fight each other, and this determines how they are. Even if they didn’t want to fight initially they will end up fighting, and this can manifest in many ways. They will lose their temper around the other, they will feel a compulsion to fight each other that they can’t fight. But they will fight.

Let me put another example. There is a law that says that this water daemon is unharmed by fire, and thus you can’t harm it with fire. Even if you use a fire that makes water explode, like magnesium fire, or a fire hot enough to vaporise water. It doesn’t matter because the law says that this daemon is unharmed by fire, and the nature of the fire is irrelevant.

Interactive laws affect how different daemons or the Fayd, and our local physics though that is a much more complex affair, interact with each other. What matters in the Fayd is not the fundamental composition of the interacting beings, but how those beings interact. In other words, what is fixed on the Fayd is how things interact, the nature of things is much more malleable.

That said due to how many interactive laws there are the Fayd and daemons are pretty constant, so that is not much of an issue. Basically things are defined by their interactions, instead of their natures affecting how they interact with others. Unless they become True Daemons, but that is much more advanced than this basic course.

And this is why there are things like resistances and weaknesses. So leave common sense on the door of this classroom, otherwise you won’t understand anything.

First lesson on Fayd Studies, introduction.

What is a daemon? Daemon is a modern term for these beings born of the fact that most reported demonic possessions were actually daemonic possession, so they named them daemons. Simple but not indicative of their nature.

Daemons are most times described as creatures of the Fayd, but that isn’t exactly right. A daemon is something made of Semi-Inert Non-Quantum Unstable Matter, colloquially referred to as SINQUM, or Fog. Semi-Inert Non-Quantum Unstable Matter is quite the theoretical and complex concept, but I’ll try to make you understand exactly what it is.

Last lesson I stated that the Fayd has interactive laws and Semi-Inert Non-Quantum Unstable Matter is the reason why. Let us dissect the name.

Semi-Inert means that in the absence of interactions with Fayd-Exotic Force, meaning everything not native to the Fayd or SINQUM affected by Fayd-Exotic Force, it doesn’t do anything. This means that the natural state of the Fayd is an completely still and even soup of SINQUM.

Non-Quantum means that there are no, theoretically, elementary particles for SINQUM. Rather, SINQUM is akin to an infinitely divisible fluid. This part of the theory is disputed. The reason for this is that similar volumes of SINQUM have produced wildly different results under experimentation, depending on who and how many performed the experiment. This lead to the theory that upon interaction SINQUM divides in a particular state of differing energy and mass values depending on what SINQUM interacted with. Another, more recent theory, is that there are quantum particles in SINQUM, just that SINQUM can generate itself ex nihilo under the right stimuli. This theory means that Non-Quantum would become Non-Conservative, or SINCUM.

Unstable Matter. This is a consequence of the NQ part of SINQUM. That is to say, since SINQUM doesn’t have fixed values of mass-energy, the results of transforming SINQUM into forces of our own universe isn’t 1=1. In other words E=m*c^2 isn’t correct, it is just as easy to make an ordinary match flame as making the match itself despite that making no sense in our universe.

And this is why the Fayd has interactive laws, because SINQUM does not react with SINQUM, only with Fayd-Exotic Forces, or our universe’s local laws of physics.

Now, you have probably forgotten that we were talking about daemons, so let me repeat what daemons are. Daemons are all things that are composed of SINQUM that isn’t in its natural state. You think that definition is broad? You’re right, because daemons are all you know about the Fayd. Everything you can see of the Fayd is a daemon, because the act of seeing SINQUM causes it to become a daemon.

Second lesson on Fayd studies, SINQUM and the nature of Daemons.

Hello everyone. Last day we studied SINQUM and the strict definition of daemon. Today we will study the origins as well as a broad categorisation of daemons.

First, how are daemons born, if only by interacting with daemons can humans come in contact with the Fayd? The answer is in the name, Fayd, faith. Yes, the name is that dumb.

Faith, oh faith. The most despised enemy of Fayd studies for a long time. To understand the complexity of this affair we must give a standardised definition of faith. In Fayd studies faith is the ability to believe something regardless of proof. In other words the Fayd is affected by every single belief that humans hold.

Monsters under the bed. The world began with the Big Bang. The classic elements. The periodic table of elements. Religion. Science. Those last two are not as divided as pop culture would make you think though, see the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.

Each and every one of these and more affect the Fayd. That means that in the Fayd there are daemons that are monsters under the bed, there are Big Bangs, there are elementals, there is uranium, gods and demons walk and there are gravity daemons.

Simply having enough people believe something will cause a daemon to be born along those beliefs. Believe in, say, Zeus? A Zeus daemon will be born in the Fayd, but instead of being the god of the sky, he is the god of lightning. Believe in the existence of uranium? A uranium deposit will appear on the Fayd, and still be a daemon.

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

Unlike popular thought daemons need not be sapient, sentient, alive, or even have powers. And by sapient I mean with mental and cognitive capabilities on the level of humans, which is part of another definition of sapience. There are three according to Cambridge.

Finally, regarding belief I will say that it is a fool's endeavor to try and create a daemon through controlling what people believe, since faith is a guideline by which the daemon is born, not a rule. As for why faith crosses universal barriers? You have arrived at the trillion euros question, please give me an answer someday.

Now, we have established that daemons are born of faith and we don’t know how faith crosses into the Fayd. But how do daemons contact our universe? After all if mere belief creates a daemon, why aren’t there more daemons on Earth? Is there something barring their way? To answer this question I must give you a new property of SINQUM. Despite being either Non-Quantum or Non-Conservative SINQUM has density. Or rather daemonic SINQUM has density.

Daemonic SINQUM is slightly different from natural SINQUM since it isn’t homogeneous or even. That is to say the Fayd has an unknown fixed volume homogeneously filled with equal quantities of SINQUM, and when affected by FEDs it splits, forming a void between particular clumps of daemonic SINQUM. This decreases the density of SINQUM within a certain volume, even if SINQUM is still Non-Quantum or Non-Conservative. In other words daemonic SINQUM is less dense than natural SINQUM, no matter its mass-energy values. If this sounds weird it’s because we still don’t fully understand it.

Daemons with a SINQUM density below natural SINQUM can’t cross the universal barrier, natural SINQUM also can’t cross that barrier. But a daemon, through the Self-affirmation Principle can gather more SINQUM towards itself than it was born with, increasing its density. If that Self-affirmation is strong enough the density of daemonic SINQUM can actually surpass that of natural SINQUM.

But Teacher! Doesn’t SINQUM have a fixed volume? How can it’s density increase beyond occupying all space? You may ask. Good question, and the answer can find a simil in current physics. A black hole. Beyond the critical density a daemon will collapse all of its SINQUM into a single point, becoming something else. I will explain later what this something else is.

In other words, a SINQUM singularity can cross universal barriers, and these are the daemons that open the way of interaction between the Fayd and the universe. This explains why we aren’t just swimming in daemons. That and we have the Steel Bulwark, but that is something completely different. That is something we made a long time ago, before that we had many more daemons walking amidst us.

Keep in mind that this is not a question of power in the part of the daemon. It only requires enough faith to collapse the SINQUM, the quantity of SINQUM is irrelevant to this process since the collapsed volume can be between 1*10^-99 litres and a million litres, for example.

Now, I have mentioned a certain property of daemons, the Self-affirmation Principle. Brace yourself, this is where things get weird. So, a daemon is not only daemonic SINQUM. This is why we can even speak of daemonic SINQUM density by the way. If daemons were only SINQUM, they would be only the individual clumps of SINQUM, but they are several clumps. What connects the clumps? Why, what formed the daemons to begin with! Fayd-Exotic Forces! In most of the cases that is faith. So daemons are a mix of SINQUM and faith, and the more faith there is in a daemon, the greater its density. Until now, this is clear.

What isn’t clear is that the faith that composes the daemon is not human anymore, but has formed the Self of the daemon. That faith defines the daemon and fixes, or affirmates, its existence. So if a daemon, because of whatever processes that take place in the Fayd, accumulates enough faith it’s existence will become fixed. This happens when the critical density is reached, and this process is the Self-affirmation Principle.

Once they have reached this state throw everything I said about the nature of daemons changing, while these daemons still mostly obey interactive laws they don’t change. This allows them to ignore certain interactions, like the compulsion to fight I mentioned earlier. Instead they have an instinct to fight, but the water daemon is still unharmed by fire.

Now, Self-affirmation is different in sapient daemons. The processes that create sapient daemons allow them to, in essence, create faith for themselves by living. Meaning that if a sapient daemon lives long enough they can reach the critical density without need for outside Fayd-Exotic Forces. Normally though, it’s a mixture of both.

And finally we leave behind the heavy theory, and begin with the categories.

The first method of dividing daemons is by SINQUM density and Self-affirmation:

1. False Daemons. Daemons below the critical density. These daemons are still influenced by faith, so their natures can be altered. I remind you that by nature I mean how they interact with others. These daemons can’t naturally cross the universal borders and can only be let in by daemons beyond the critical density. If found within the universe the only difference is that False Daemons do not have a complete Self affirmation.

2. True Daemons. Daemons beyond the critical density. These have completed their Self-affirmation and are immutable by faith, but sapients are still subject to change, meaning they change like humans. In fact sapient True Daemons are similar to humans, in a way.

The second method is by quantity of SINQUM, or energy. While theoretically you can produce infinite energy from a single clump of SINQUM, in practice it is difficult to go beyond certain values. These values are normally in the following interval, (10, 50) Joules of energy per cubic nanometer of SINQUM. Thus the quantity of SINQUM is measured by volume of SINQUM clumps, not to be mistaken with total volume. There are seven classes of energy:

1. Below human output in energy. Daemon grunts.

2. Roughly human output in energy. Daemons.

3. Energy between a normal human and the energy of a speeding train. Daemon soldiers.

4. Energy between a speeding train and a low yield nuke. Daemon commanders.

5. Energy in the range of a nuke. Daemon lords.

6. Under world class energy. Anything between nuke and world consumption of energy in a year. Daemon princes.

7. Above class 6. Daemon kings.

This classification is much more subjective and disputed than the previous, as it’s not as rooted in facts. In fact there are many versions of energy rankings, but this one is the one used by the military, so we are teaching it. For the safety of your sanity I’ll say than anything above 4 is very rare, so don’t go paranoid.

There are other daemon classification but we will explain them along mages.

Third lesson on Fayd studies, properties and classifications of daemons.

Today’s lesson is less difficult. Today I am giving you a rough explanation on elements, as well as listing the most important.

Before we continue I’d like you to remember that in the Fayd laws are interactive. Thus a Fayd element is distinct from one of ours. In our universe something is made of iron, but in the Fayd an element is an interaction. For example, the fire element is not something daemons are made of, but how a daemon interacts with fire. Useful to know is that every daemon has every element, without exception, since all daemons have all interactions coded into them from birth.

I also have to mention that elements can mix, but they do so in percentages. So mixing 50% fire and 50% water won’t make steam, but a singular interaction made of 50% water and 50% fire. This is important for the following.

It is highly important to remember that if a daemon is benefited by an element it will always be affected by it. Some believe that this isn’t an axiom, but those who don’t do this die fast. So, what kind of interactions are there? There are seven:

Neutral. They are affected normally, as they would in our universe. Since this is more of a composite reaction that encompasses many possible interactions, it is by far the most numerous one.

Weak. They are harmed more than they should. Instead of receiving first degree burns from fire they receive third degree burns.

Resist. They are harmed less than they should. Only their hair is singed, but if they are too cold, they will still be warmed.

Null. They aren’t harmed at all. They aren’t harmed at all, but they are still warmed.

Absorb. They actually heal or recover energy from attacks with that element. Obviously they benefit from interactions with the absorbed element.

Reflect. They send back the harmful effect, a double edged sword since your enemy may absorb that element, but useful otherwise. Still warmed.

These responses can mix. For example a daemon may absorb 20% of an element and null the rest. Or reflect 30% and be neutral to the rest. But normally they have a single one, and it is very rare to have both weakness and resistance to the same element, for obvious reasons.

Now I must explain yet another property of daemons that can’t be explained unless you know of elements.

Say that a daemon is immune to fire, and another has flames that burn everything, how do you resolve this paradox? The answer is Priority, a nebulous and poorly understood property that determines which nature wins. While we don’t understand it we have learned to measure it, and we have given it a scale. From 10, the lowest Priority ever recorded, to 10,000 the highest possible. That the highest is 10,000, for the record, is an axiom known due to a certain element. We call Daemon Gods to those between 8,000 and 9,999 Priority. And nobody believes Daemon Gods are actual gods, by the way, it’s a name.

Before I list the Fifty Two Common Elements I will explain the Big Three.

First, Information. The ability to sense SINQUM and daemons, it should be obvious but sentient daemons have it by default. Every mage must have this element or, well, or nothing, it is a must. All data perceived of the Fayd and SINQUM comes from the use of Information.

Second, Ether, Aether, etc. This one is a weird one in that it is both an Earth element, and a Fayd element. When SINQUM enters the universe it doesn’t interact with it by default. Indeed, some daemons, True ones, are of the spirit type which can’t interact with the material world in any way. But something that does happen when SINQUM contacts the universe is the creation of Ether. Nobody knows where Ether comes from, our universe or the Fayd, but it is a physical element. We even have Ether detectors, used to trace daemonic activity. The function of Ether is the materialisation of SINQUM, in simpler words, it allows SINQUM to interact with the material world. But for a daemon or mage to use Ether, they must have the Ether element, that allows them to interact with Ether.

Oh, I say material world, but there isn’t, as far as we know, a spiritual realm in our universe. We say material because while SINQUM doesn’t interact with the electromagnetic force or the force of gravity, we are not so sure about the nuclear forces. This means we can’t say with security that SINQUM doesn’t interact with matter and energy despite all signs showing that it can’t.

And the third of the Big Three. This one isn’t as fundamental for us to experience the Fayd, but it does have a huge influence in our understanding of it. The Transcendent element. The Transcendent element is important because it isn’t an element per se, but it is. It isn’t an element because it isn’t a type of interaction but a way of interaction, but it is an element because it does exist and access to one single ability of this element opens the way for all others. So what is the Transcendent element? It is a way of interacting that has the highest Priority possible in the Fayd, in our scale, the Aurelius-Ptolemy scale by the way, 10,000. It is one of the few things we know of that limit the Fayd. So any spell of the Transcendent element will always interact neutrally with everything in the Fayd, unless they have barriers of the Transcendent element. In which case it depends on who has the strongest faith. We think. Probably.

Fourth lesson of Fayd studies, elements.

We finally reach this lesson. What most of you are interested in, mages. Now, a mage is someone who uses magic but we won’t be explaining magic yet, just where mages get their magic from. There is a reason for this weird order, which you will see later.

But I will give a simple explanation first. Magic is the ability to use faith and skill to manipulate SINQUM causing phenomena by the mage’s own ability. If the mage doesn’t need to use faith, or isn’t the origin of the phenomena they are called powers.

So how do humans get powers from the Fayd? As it should be obvious now, from daemons. So I will just give you the types of mages and their source daemons. There are five ways.

-Harmonised Mages or Objects of Power Wielders. These mages derive their power from an object daemon, that is to say an un-living non-sapient daemon. Say that in the Palaeolithic a tribe believed that a certain statue granted power over fire to their tribesmen and the statue got a True Daemon. Then the tribesmen got power over fire and had their magic unlocked. Object daemons that can grant powers or magic are called Objects of Power, requirements to use them vary.

-Pact Mages. These mages establish a symbiotic relationship with a non-sapient True Daemon, again granting them powers and unlocking their magic. The most common way of making such a pact is through an interactive bond, such as a familiar bond. These usually require for a previous mage to create the bond, but some daemons have the ability to naturally form these bonds.

-Contract Mages. Pact Mages but with sapient True Daemons. Be very wary of what daemon you pact with, there is a reason it is discouraged. Remember Faust.

-Daemonhost. These are the weird ones since they involve a very weird kind of daemon, which bizarrely for what’s usual aren’t True Daemons. A daemonhost is a person possessed by a False Daemon, or very, very rarely a True Daemon.

There are two kinds of daemons that can possess humans. First demons formed by belief in possession. These daemons are weird in that they need to interact with humans but normally they can’t since they aren’t True Daemons, so they use a loophole. They latch to a certain person’s faith and begin to exclusively feed on it. Then once they are accustomed to it they trace the faith back to the universe and begin to unite with the person, becoming part of the universe. At the end of this process the human and daemon will fuse into a mage. There are several problems with this process, mainly whether the human can survive the process or not, never mind the fact that the new mage would very likely different from the human. It is possible however for a human of strong will to resist the mental pollution while being transformed, to the point the human can become a mage and then be exorcised leaving his mental faculties intact. The second type of daemon is a personal daemon, it works exactly like the first daemon, except they are daemons born of belief about a person that seek to become the person. As such the second type will only possess one person ever.

Humans who have had their possession advance until they become mages are under heavy risk of mental pollution, so this kind of way to acquire magic is not only impossible to purposefully seek, but extremely dangerous.

-Finally, Lineage Mages. Lineage Mages are those descended from one of the four previous ways of getting magic and for some reasons inherited the magic. Normally this comes from mages who have had their bodies altered in some fundamental way with SINQUM, in a way that their descendants inherit the alteration. This kind of alterations are very rare.