Chapter 9—Magic Arts
Micaela loved how smoothly things moved in the Enclave. All it took was one request, answered in a few hours, and she could get an entire lab built just as quickly. It was like the place was always in motion, and rather than let one piece stall as the others moved, it made sure that piece stayed in motion too. It was as simple as that. From the moment they left Keke’s show, she just needed to know what she was missing and the Enclave brought it together fast enough that she didn’t wonder what was taking so long. It felt like nothing could keep this beast still, and as she walked into her new lab, she almost understood why Cerulean was so afraid.
The lab was a mix between the one from Cerulean, and, she was sure, the one New Dawn had worked in. Nother mobile lab there was a chamber in the back, and a set of consoles in front of it for reading the math of luminance. It was small for now. She didn't think people would be rushing in to experience her experiments, but from where they were starting it would more than do. The New Dawn part of it manifested in what she could only call a magic circle etched into the floor beneath the chamber. It was what filled her with the most trepidation because she had to work forward from here. But that could wait, she couldn't take a step until the Graduates arrived.
Of course, because she thought that and because the Enclave stayed in motion, the door came open and the three of them poured in. Khalaf emerged from King and stretched, unnecessarily, and they soon found spots that made her feel like a teacher on the first day of class. Fang, for one, sat on a bench near the door, as if she needed to be on time for another meeting. King moved to the bank of consoles, taking it in and surely seeing how she mixed Cerulean with the book she had finally got to read. Ace stood in the middle, neither ready to leave nor all too certain this was where he needed to be. It made her laugh because this felt entirely right.
“So what are we here for?” Fang asked, reminding Micaela that no matter where she sat, she was going to lead.
“I figure we have some stuff we need to talk about. This Grading Ground thing is important, right? And knowing you, you want us to get the best outcome out of it.” Fang nodded. “Which likely means the highest case of success, in this case, let’s call that graduations.”
“It’d help,” Fang nodded again. “I imagine the grounds are meant to test us, but the Enclave can’t afford a lot of failure. To make matters worse, we don’t get trained for the grounds, we get trained for New York.”
“Which means that the grounds are probably worse.” Micaela replied. That meant a whole lot, but she tried not to think about it too much.
For Numbers, from what she heard, New York was mostly Grays. For her and the Grades, based on what Keke said, New York was the demons that lurked further in. She didn’t know about the Numbers, but if a squad of Grades could have trouble with one demon then they didn’t measure up to the soldiers of Cerulean. Considering what her last night in Cerulean looked like, she didn’t want to imagine what New York was now. Regardless, it led her to only one conclusion.
“Our worst needs to be at least Grade C.”
The room nodded. Khalaf chuckled.
“Which is funny in its own way. Back when I was around, the Grading Grounds didn’t exist.” New York was a different place fifteen years ago. Still just a young hell.
“It probably changed seven years ago.” King replied. “The three of us might have been too young to learn about it, even while training, but seven years seems like the time frame.”
“And we can assume things changed again, based on Cerulean’s expectations. Something has happened in the city that we’re just blind to.” Micaela sighed.
How the hell did you prepare for the unknown? Could an illuminating mind answer that? She supposed that wasn’t where her mind should be, not when there were other answers on the table.
"What we can say is that the world had to adjust pretty hard, pretty fast. Where the Enclave failed is that it kinda couldn't." She held up a luminance band, or, weapon band as most people called it. They didn't even know the proper name and hadn't begun to learn how it worked.
That the Enclave could make these or even the prototypical “practice” bands, was a surprise.
“The bands and halos were New Dawn’s attempt to adjust, and together they probably work well, but they’re incomplete.” Could she even make a halo here?
King elaborated, “The bands are a form of dark construction, where as the halos are a form of light.”
“Let’s solidify our language,” Micaela stopped him. “Magic. We’re dealing with magic here.” His eyes said he wouldn’t argue, but still didn’t quite get the distinction. Khalaf laughed, maybe getting it or maybe finding this display amusing. Micaela went on.
“We should think about how we have to explain this to normal people. You, I, and Khalaf can get it. But what about Ace and Fang?” Not that those two were normal.
Ace shook his head. “I can follow along, but I don’t feel like I can really grasp it until I use it.”
Fang shook hers, “I think I may be a step above Ace, but I can’t wrap my head around light.”
“Will calling it magic change that?” King met Micaela’s eyes.
“I think it’ll change the frame of mind. Gupta was a physicist, so for him, and heck, for us too, we’re thinking about concrete energy.” She replied.
“Which makes it funnier, because is energy ever really concrete?” Khalaf grinned.
“Yes, but that depends on the matter. Still, it can be defined like with your glyphs. It’s all just math. When you know how to use the math you can do different things, but most people don’t. Heck, even with all I know I couldn’t make a plane fly.” Micaela springboarded off his words either way.
“So calling it magic,” Fang started. “Puts it in its own box? Maybe. You’re not learning it from the point of a physicist, you’re learning it from the point of learning magic.”
“Which means!” Micaela said excitedly. If Fang was getting it then they could keep moving. “We just need to focus on a few major components.”
“Luster, Luminance, and Refraction.” King offered. Micaela gave him a thumbs-up.
“Not Umbra?” Ace asked.
King shook his head. “While New Dawn used…dark magic to make the bands, what we should do is try a different approach. A lot of how New Dawn designed the bands was based on the fact that it used dark magic.”
“Like the null-light state,” Micaela nodded. As New Dawn’s book described it, it was a form of forging that required the least amount of Luminance to manifest. “It exists because they use darkness to move the light. Without a null-light state, you'd burn through a person's luminance." And that was its own roadblock. Maybe she could fix that if she understood Umbra, but there was only one person in the room who could. She was looking at Fang now and could see her searching for the words. King was too, coming in at second place. The spear of hell had taught them a lot, but not nearly enough.
“If Umbra is absence, then anything that isn’t your luminance is absence…” King started.
Micaela held out her hand, “Which is not something we need to move into. For you three, it’s important, but for most of the Enclave all Umbra does is cause problems. It erodes the light in one form or another, making any light magic weaker. The halos were meant to balance that in a way, giving the user complete access to a God’s luster and an umbric barrier to use it without getting overtaken, but that’s where we have to take a step back.”
“Unless we go and grab a god, we have no access to Luster.” King nodded.
“Which is our biggest problem because, like I said, there’s only a few components we need to focus on, starting with Luster. Let’s simplify our language again, not the undead memory of the first society, but, divine energy.”
Ace crossed his arms at that. “I feel…we might be leaving something out if we drop that part of it.”
Micaela nodded. “You’re right…but we can’t factor in how the knowledge of Luster plays into what we’re teaching. Especially considering its more divine power than knowledge source nowadays. But, if we make a distinction between Raw Luster and Refined Luster, categorizing them as Luster of the First and Luster of Dead Gods, can we then say that there’s any raw luster left in the world?”
Ace uncrossed his arms but still thought about it. She decided she’d let him. She didn’t want to throw away all the details herself, but some lessons were better meant for classes down the line. Maybe there was something to be gained from seeing the luster from the perspective of the first society, but here in the third, she could only understand why people saw gods. Gods were where they had to start.
“So no access to godly power then,” King prompted.
“Right, our biggest problem. Whether we’re a Lightbearer or a Refracted Harbinger, we need divine energy to make this work. Lightbearers incorporate that power into themselves naturally, while Harbingers are artificial. This is the next step in the evolution of light magic, and we can’t reach it.”
“Actually,” came Khalaf. “I don’t think all your doors are closed. You say you have no divine energy, but there are two gods in this room.” He looked from her to Ace.
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Micaela laughed, “I mean technically! But look at us, who’s going to mistake us for gods?”
“Let them see your divine face and there’ll be no mistakes.” Khalaf smirked.
King shook his head, “I think the issue would still be belief. Not in the case of a harbinger, I don’t think we can use Micaela or Ace to make one. But for a lightbearer, I think belief plays a role. It…deepens the connection to the luster.”
Micaela gave him another thumbs up. “Let’s talk about Queen Adale for a moment. Her little paradise in hell worked because everyone there believed in her. This strengthened her and strengthened them. They had no doubt about her power so it was inherent to them. If I transformed in front of someone then they see a normal, albeit, very attractive girl, turn into something they have no reason to see as a god.”
“Well…” Khalaf grinned and Micaela shuddered. “What if you give them no choice?”
King perked up at that, and that made Micaela shudder worse than before.
“What if we terminate their Luminance and reignite them?”
“Wow, that sounds more horrible than I imagined.” She rubbed her shoulders. “We’d be turning them into Grays you know…and while we’re on the subject of luminance and reignition, we don’t exactly know how to do that.”
“Then let’s take a step forward to refraction,” Ace said. “If we start talking about this in terms of lessons, you don’t get to luster before you get to refraction, right?”
Khalaf cleared his throat. “Illuminating. Bending. Adorning. Bestowing. Forging. Guiding. These are the six refraction points, the six ways of moving your light.”
Ace continued, “And didn’t Cerulean jobs train you to refract? Where as we used luminance bands. Are you going to teach refraction to them too?”
Micaela thought about this while the lab was being built. Refraction would take time and they only had a day or so before the Grading Grounds opened. On one hand, she didn't think it was enough to just leave things to the band, but on the other, she wondered what choice they had. If there was a middle ground, she could do something, but from where she was she couldn't even figure out what refraction points they favored.
“It’d be too hard without knowing what to train people on.” She said as much with a sigh.
“What if you do know though?” Ace offered. She perked up and he continued. “You and King favor Illumination, right? It’s not a surprise considering King’s highest score has always been his mechanical score, he understands the technical stuff better than me and Fang. But, he’s not as agile as me, neither is Fang for that matter. And our leadership scores don’t really compare to hers.”
King nodded, “I see what you’re saying. What if we can draw a parallel between our scores and refraction? But there’s a problem. Assuming Umbra works the same way as Luminance, wouldn’t Fang favor illumination too? A good leader has a good mind.”
“I think it still works!” Micaela replied. “What if we see it more like a combination than a singular point. Say, Illuminating and Guiding for leadership, Illuminating and Forging for Mechanical. Princess Brigid favored Forging and Adorning and I’m pretty sure her lightbearer form was fully mechanical.”
“It was,” Fang said. “And she summoned weapons too.”
“It checks out then.” Micaela beamed. They had the potential to get lost there, but now she felt like there was only one path ahead. “For agility, what if we were to say Guiding and Bending?” She looked at Ace.
“I think that makes sense,” He said, but not with the energy she expected.
“You have your doubts?”
He shook his head, “It’s more that I don’t really know enough. I can see the path I have to take to reach my destination…that’s how I see it. And my body can easily follow that path. I guess a part of me is wondering why there wouldn’t be some form of illumination in there.”
Khalaf floated over beside him. “Does one think when they ball, or do they just ball?”
Ace cocked an eyebrow.
Micaela laughed and spoke, “I think what he’s saying is that it’s a difference between following your instincts and thinking up the path forward. Illumination focuses more on processing than movement does.”
“Einstein can’t take Lebron on the court.” Khalaf nodded. Micaela sighed at him as he floated away, but found herself smiling still.
“Either way, that was a good idea Ace, and a good starting point. I can work up a correlative system, in the meantime, but I think we can decide our first step and get back to the question you originally asked. Let’s start with a luminance band and train from there. While it does offer us access to all points, what we can guarantee is that some people will still be better than others. So, I think that brings us to our final focus point, luminance itself.”
“Is there much to talk about?” Fang asked.
Micaela thought there were a few things to discuss, that she and King had yet to discover and that New Dawn’s book couldn’t answer. Still, considering the subject of this meeting, she thought there was only one thing to say.
“Let’s simplify Luminance like we’ve simplified Luster. Again, rather than the memory of our humanity let’s call it something else.” But what? She hadn’t thought about that yet. Luster made sense because it came from Gods, but what was the memory of humanity?
"The soul is the body, right?" Khalaf seemed to be on that same line of thinking. "That's why the grays can still go about, causing problems. Well, what if we play with some common language here and say, Luminance is spiritual energy." He pointed a finger at her and cocked it back like he was firing a shot. She tilted her head and he sighed. "Kids these days don't remember the classics."
“Maybe not…but, divine energy and spiritual energy…I think that works. New Dawn even correlates luminance to qi, so you we’re not too far off.” Micaela paced and spoke. “Alright! Lesson one then: How to connect to and control your spiritual energy!”
Did this make it better than the physics? On one hand, you didn't need to understand electromagnetism or pair prodution, but on the other, it took it out of the physical plane. She shrugged, if magic was the language they were using then there was no point fighting it.
“Now, all we need is students.” She said, hoping that the graduates had an answer for that.
“I think I can find one or two.” Ace replied, and she let out a sigh of relief.
Fang stood, “I believe I have my own lesson to teach.” She set off at that, leaving no chance for questions.
Ace made a call and about ten minutes later, two young blonds appeared. They were younger than Micaela, she could tell from their fresh faces but had the sharp eyes of the two that waited with her. Numbers 219 and 255. She didn’t like looking at a face and only having digits to attach to it. She did like 255’s face though. The girl had a fury behind her eyes that made Micaela shudder, and she wanted to see where that fury would take her. She wondered a moment later if that was the Adale part of her talking, but shook it out of her head as she welcomed them.
“I’m glad you two came.” She smiled.
255 sneered back. “I don’t see why we should have. Are we really going to answer to him just because he graduated?” She looked from 219 to Ace. 219 smiled.
“Not really answer to him, sis. I think it’s better to say we’re listening to what he has to say because he graduated. He’s seen worse than us after all, and when he came back he proved he earned it.”
255 rolled her eyes but didn’t object. Micaela took this as her chance.
“I’m going to be frank with you two. What I’m about to say will sound insane, but I called you here to teach you magic.”
Both of them laughed in both disbelief and derision.
"Magic?" 219 looked from her to Ace, doubt finally finding a way in.
“What, you’re going to teach us how to pull rabbits out of a hat? Is that going to help us graduate?” 255 cackled.
“So you two are normal then.” Micaela smirked.
255 frowned. “What does that mean?”
Khalaf’s voice filled the room from nowhere, “It means that you’d probably jump if you saw a ghost.” He rose from King then, and sure enough the two of them jumped.
“Wait…am I really seeing this?” 219’s mouth hung open.
“Yes. The legend himself, in the flesh! Almost.” Khalaf cackled. 255’s eyes said she was ready to fight.
“What is that? What’s going on?” Her hands dropped to her hips like there was something to grab.
Micaela explained from the top, leaving out all the unnecessary details. Still, taking these two on a trip from the Enclave to the battle with the Priest-King and Corrosion didn't ease them nearly as much as she could have wanted. She wasn't surprised, but she needed them a lot more calm than they were. 219 thought over it quietly, but 255's head was spinning.
“Demons… Kingdoms… Gods…” She murmured.
“But,” came 219. “There’s a part about growing stronger in there. We can get a lot stronger.” His eyes shined.
255 breathed out her worries and looked deep into Micaela’s eyes. “If Luminance is spiritual energy, we don’t need our bands to fight? We can fight like those royal guys from your home base?”
“Ew, former home base. But yes.”
"Whatever then. I'll do it." 255 tightened her fist and seemed to be joining her brother.
“First things first,” Ace replied. “What names will you two choose when you graduate?”
Micaela wanted to know why they’d choose new ones if they came here with their parents. Their eyes said they didn’t care though.
“Hope,” came 219 without a moment’s doubt or hesitation.
255 was still thinking though, clearly having never given it thought. Maybe she did plan to hold on to her birth name at first, but posed with the question, she found it unworthy. If it was a name she had to earn rather than be given, maybe she wanted something stronger.
“Andra,” she said after a moment longer.
“Then Hope and Andra. I look forward to teaching you two how to use magic!” Micaela grinned, more than ready to put her lab to work…
Elsewhere, Fang joined Magician and 244 as the latter terminated his luminance…
[Chapter 9 ends…]