Ever since we sentient creatures gained the use of magic, there has been one prevailing question: what is mana? The easy answer is... bullshit. Mana makes no gods damn sense. Whatever rules govern this world just don’t apply to mana, and there are four examples of why for generations we have made no progress on defining one of the most integral parts of our lives.
Example one: water and ice. Mana comes in several forms. Depending who you ask, unaligned mana, the type most crystals you can buy hold, may be considered “pure”, and any alignment is a signal of it becoming “corrupted”, but the evidence to back up that claim is generally “my dad said so”. Alignment in mana is important, but only to ritualists and fringe mages, because channeling mana through spells usually converts them into the correct type. This becomes a problem when you start seeing the effects of spells. The easiest example of what we mean comes from two spells, water bolt and ice bolt. The simplest forms of combat magic from the water and ice trees. Water bolt uses a small amount of the water in the air and some mana to create a projectile to fire at your enemies. Ice bolt does the same, but also has to freeze the water. Two super basic spells that have the same mana cost, but one manages to have a greater effect. It’s dumb and I hate it.
Example B: Mana’s state. When researching mana, you hear a lot about the different states of mana. There is ambient mana in the air, mana crystals in monsters or just underground, and liquid mana. The problem comes from crystals. Crystals are less mana-dense than liquid mana, and take more space than the liquid form, similarly to the relation between ice and water, but ice floats. Crystals don’t. Crystals are less mana dense but more actually dense.. Why? I don’t fucking know. Hey, you, get me another bottle.
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The third thing about mana that makes it impossible to understand is the magic of our sibling dimensions. Ignoring all of the hellscapes you can find using dimensional magic, there are a few dimensions that are close enough to our own that someone will end up wandering in from there. They are often only here for a short while, usually as a layover point between walks, but sometimes they may talk to us. Almost every single one gives us a different explanation for how magic works for them. Some don’t have any spells to guide them, some don’t have any idea what alignment is, and one said that all magic is borrowed power from gods. This is annoying, because they can cast their magic in the exact same way in our dimension, while not having the same limitations that we have. One, who had the exact same physiological properties as us, just ate a mana crystal. Just fucking popped it into his mouth and broke it with his teeth. Why are the limits we have universal but not multiversal? I want to eat a mana crystal without dying. He said it tasted like candy! I want that! What-[Speech ended due to violent vomiting]
-Archmage Erico’s drunk introductory speech to the University of Mana Studies and Applications new students