Note: Apologies in advance for the infodump. There are no required reading plot points in here, just details on Cato's experiences that wouldn't fit into a normal chapter.
Also this was originally meant for this weekend, posted early, so there will likely not be a chapter this weekend or it will be late.
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General
Time certainly flies quickly, it's been months since I've come to this world and I've barely noticed it. It's scary how used to hot weather I've become, the midday sun is considerably hotter and wetter than I'm used to; but I barely sweat at all now. Just the other night, I actually felt cold. Even if it was raining with chilly winds, the house was still at the level of a summer afternoon back in England.
The Inaths celebrated Cel Inci three days ago. This is a year end festival, paralleling Christmas without the Judeo-Christian roots. Like any other festival, Cel Inci is an excuse to eat and drink to the heart's content... for those who can afford it. In certain ways, Cel Inci is more like a modern Christmas with its shopping sprees, delicacies and alcohol; compared with a more contemplative religious festival.
It doesn't signify a new beginning or start like our New Year does either, I guess that would be because there are no seasons here, or extremely mild ones. Cel Inci is more a way of counting time and an excuse to have some fun. Apparently pranks are traditional, Landar enchanted every piece of clothing with a strip of rainbow coloured lights. It took hours before I could step outside without looking completely stupid.
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Religion and Stories
Now that I think of it, I've never heard of any religions. I'll have to ask-
Apparently, there aren't any at all! Landar hardly understood the concept of a religion, her closest understanding of a divine being is the First. Which is interesting, because I think they probably descend from a society with a secular tradition. When I asked, it turns out they do have myths and legends and stories, just that all of them appear to be about the legendary golden age of the First. And the attendant heroic figures and mythical characters.
The first and supposedly oldest myth is not surprisingly an origin story. What is more surprising is that it isn't a creation myth. The traditional story tells of the coming of humans to this world and doing battle with the spirits of magic before the Hero Legan defeated the spirits in single combat. Thus slain, the world became safe and the humans lived in the world given to them by Legan. This of course poses the question of where the humans came from but there is no story that explains that. I suppose this is similar to how no creation myth tells the origin of the godly characters like Legan anyway.
Another interesting legend is the story of the Tsar and their rebellion from the First. Rather than a legend, this seems to me like a historical account, distorted and exaggerated over time. Perhaps more detailed records exist somewhere since the First and the Tsar definitely existed. This story recounts how two brothers, called First and Tsar unsurprisingly, studied and perfected magic over many long years. As they studied magic, the brothers came to disagree over how magic should be used, with the First wanting to control the external world and the Tsar wanting to control the internal self. And so the two brothers fought each other, destroying the land in the process. Once they were weakened, the spirits that Legan slew returned to punish these two brothers and killed them. These spirits are now the monsters we are fighting.
Obviously, this is a transparent metaphor for the war between the First and the Tsar but mastery of the external world against the internal self is so vague as to be useless for determining what the First and Tsar were capable of. Nor are these spirits the actual explanation since the ending draws material from their origin story, which is unreliable, and uses it to turn the story into a parable. I had to have Landar explain it, the story concerns how people are supposed to work together instead of fighting. I don't think that's the real reason for the war.
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Politics
As I've noted before, Corbin is subservient to Minmay in this feudal structure. In many ways, Minmay is the lord of this region and has the power to declare and enforce laws as he sees fit. So how can Corbin get away with such blatant ambition without being removed by Minmay?
It turns out that nobility have restrictions on their power, Minmay isn't a king and can't do whatever he wants. Firstly, he cannot interfere with the workings of the Order of Knights although he does retain a large influence over the actions of the local branches. Secondly, he cannot award or remove hereditary noble titles without the permission of the king, Minmay can only give a strong suggestion. And such actions are very rare, noble titles are created as exceptional rewards or to fill a vacated position; removing the inheritance right of a noble title is deemed a higher punishment than execution, one of the few ways of vacating said title.
Thus all Minmay can do is levy special taxes or exert his economic influence against Corbin, but making such a dispute too obvious causes Minmay's standing to drop in Ektal's court, so engaging in a tariff war to destroy Corbin's economy is also a last resort. It won't remove Corbin herself anyway and the towns in this world are far more self-sufficient than any town on Earth. Corbin can survive without trade quite easily, having at least some natural resources and smuggling to fall back on.
Minmay himself is also one of the mid-ranked nobles in Ektal's court. As a Chancellor, he governs a region of five major towns, two market towns and a series of smaller villages and mining communities. And of course Minmay city itself. This is quite a substantial region quite similar to our ancient city states and their satellite towns, it could be mistaken for a small country if not for Minmay's political subordination to Ektal.
I wonder if it would be possible to acquire funding from other nobles despite having an agreement with Minmay. Minmay's negotiation person might not like the way I will have to give up a large portion of the profits. On the other hand, the Minmay region is large enough to be a testbed for my ideas and inventions. They will naturally spread across borders anyway.
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Magic
Lifeforce
I've heard it said that our lifeforce is made of magic. That... doesn't answer anything, now that I think about it.
What does the magic do in our bodies? Since I can survive off the food here in Inath, either my lifeforce is doing something to keep me alive or the organisms here have all the amino acids. And a number of key vitamins. Which implies they have the same biochemistry, which is obviously extremely unlikely to have a different root from Earth's. Given that I have noticed a number of traditions being the same, from counting time, , I suspect Earth and Inath have a common root somewhere. Evidence of panspermia? Perhaps even migration from a society after the seven day week concept? If I can answer this, I might be able to find a way to get back to Earth. Ideally that would be a two-way bridge that connects both worlds.
This all doesn't help answer the question of what lifeforce does. All I know is that lifeforce is a magical effect like any other, except that lifeforce gains magic over time instead of losing it.
I shall have to investigate more on this matter.
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Magical Materials
I did some simple tests with Landar's magic on magical materials. It does appear that elemental water dissolves anything. I noticed it takes longer to dissolve polymeric substances like wood and textiles, while simple salts and metals disappear like sugar in hot water. I confirmed that wind eye starch is somewhere in between these two extremes. Water appears to have an affinity for smaller compounds over bigger ones, although I suspect this observation is not complete. After all, if that was the case, Water would dissolve the gases in the air and saturate instantly.
Elemental water can be saturated, refusing to dissolve more material. Based on attempting to compare the weights of saturated salt and wrought iron solutions from the same amount of starting elemental water, I suspect the saturation point is based on the total number of atoms. I can't be sure but the added weight ratio of about 1.06 is somewhat close to the ratio of molecular weights.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
A few basic experiments showed that making composite materials is more complicated than I thought. Dissolving a piece of cloth and some iron then dispelling generated a tangle of iron filings and fibres. On the other hand, the grains of iron are of different sizes. I suspect that crystallization of the iron is happening as the amount of elemental water decreases and simply dispelling the water causes the crystals to crash out too quickly. This will require some development work to come up with a process that makes large single crystals of material. Similarly, I also need to find a way to separate dissolved compounds in a mixture, as well as conduct chemical reactions between dissolved material.
This sort of investigation would require some laboratory glassware, ideally volumetric, and would start by attempting to obtain pure compounds of various sorts. Unfortunately, Minmay is too focused on the three main projects I suggested and I have to fund this on my own money. It does not help that only one local glassblower master can meet the standards I need for glass containers and even his work is wanting.
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Source of Magic
It has been explained to me that we manipulate magic in the surroundings and in our lifeforce to generate effects. Where does the power to generate said effects come from? How can lifeforce recharge it's pool of magic? Where does the magic come from? There are no answers of course, just questions to keep in mind for the future.
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Magic Tool
I've discussed with Landar the process of casting magic. While creating an alchemical enchantment that can cast spells other than raw magical blasts, which are barely spells at all, is very difficult, I believe this is possible. In consultation with Landar, we have created a list of basic magical functions for a non-human spellcasting mechanism. The end goal will be to create a configurable magical construct made of smaller parts that will be able to create a spell given a source of magic. I will call them magical tools.
Transfer Magic. This tool will move magical power around, from a source to a final area for other spellcasting purposes. This can be further subdivided into conduits and drains, where conduits is the tool that does the moving and drains are the portion that absorb magic for transmission along the conduits. A related tool will be to move entire magical constructs, including structure. Essentially pushing spells around.
Magic containment. What Landar calls stabilization of a spell, I think is actually just a containment of the magic inside. When unconstrained, magical power simply disperses into the environment like a gas. The most basic technique is to bond all the magic to each other such that it becomes a fixed shape and individual bits of magic cannot escape. There are some other ways but those are all niche and complicated and can be left for later. One of those is structures used by alchemy to bond magic to physical objects. Ems have no need of this since they are extensions of the person's lifeforce and remain under the caster's direct control.
In a way this is the first magical function that any mage learns. But there is no reason why more advanced functions or even magical material creation functions cannot be imparted. In fact, these form the main part of the spell. The individual functions are complex enough but spells are often delayed or based on various triggers. For example, the all purpose fireball spell is usually time delayed or solid object detection based.
Thus tools that impose the structure of a particular magical function can be divided into a few categories. Functions that create a desired physical or magical effect, of which all the various operations of casting spells fall under; functions that are sensors and triggers for a spell and functions that are internal logic linkers between different sensors and the operational functions.
I almost fainted when Landar explained that mages created spellcasting steps for various spells based on nothing more than testing until they worked. There is no... uniformity when it comes to casting spells that do more than 'go there and do this', the caster just makes up the logic on the spot, directly linking desired triggers to end functions. The most complicated operation I have seen is in an alchemical enchantment of a lamp, where the same trigger toggles the lamp on or off, which is nothing more complicated than inverting a logical state. A Not function. I have not seen a single magical spell that required an And or Or functions.
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Summoning Stones
What are these summoning stones and why does everyone think they are different from normal magic? Landar and Chakim simply accept the fact that these stones are artifacts of the Tsar that no one understands. And no one knows how to make them, the only source is looting ancient Tsarian ruins or perhaps old battlefields.
One would think that these stones were used as weapons, given their offensive applications. The vast majority of summoning stones are used to attack a target in many varied forms, the Ritual class in particular are famous for their destructive capability.
On the other hand, there are a few stones which aren't combat focused or whose purposes no one understands. One functions a bit like a torch, generating light in a controllable cone, which most spellcasters can mimic to an extent using liquid light. The moveable light source is aptly named Dancing Lights but it is considered only a training tool. Another creates an image of a small bird which records sounds near it then immediately plays it back, and since no one has understood how to make the bird move, it is useless. One can only guess at the controls, having been lost to time.
Even stranger is how that larger and higher ranking summoning stones aren't more powerful. Of course anyone knows of the destruction a Ritual stone can wreak but I suspect that even Minor Phantoms can do the same thing given the same power. Summoning stones can absorb unlimited amounts of magic to power their effects and the more power given to it, the larger and more powerful the effect.
This isn't limited by the rank of the stone, in fact no one has found any limit on the ability of summoning stones to utilize magic. Summoning stone ranks are based on the minimum amount of magic required to activate them, not the size of the effect, corrected for magical power. For example, even the Minor rank Sword can be used to generate many blades or a single larger blade that exerts more force.
And of course, summoning stones do not actually summon anything, not in the way I have appeared in this world. They generate holograms and deadly effects but I do not see any stone doing things that aren't possible with normal magic. I haven't figured out how Tempest Bolt can shoot lightning but there should be an explanation. The stones simply do all the spellcasting work when provided with power, and make controlling the magical effects much easier.
What I suspect is that Summoning Stones aren't magical weapons as I understand it. Not the way the bowgun and the single shot wands are. They only assist the caster in creating and controlling complex magical effects. They are magical foci or spellcasting assistants. Or a bit like a very complicated, hyperspecialized magical tool. After all, this was how I got the idea.
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Magical Language and Reductionism
With all of that, I foresee the need to create terms to describe and classify magical effects and concepts. Every field begins this way and develops its own terminology. I don't see why magic should not have the same.
The easiest way to begin would be to divide the process of casting a spell into individual steps and breaking down all known magical effects into the smallest component parts that can work independently. There should be some overlap and these discreet units will form the basis of the first magical terms.
Then we need a way to link the terms together with concepts to describe the process of using magic in detail. Only then will we have the ability to really ask questions about how magic works.