Transactions of the Royal Society of Mages

Special Volume 2 of 3

Published on the 50th day of Spring 1209

Editor's Note

Below is the second of the letters received by the board of publications from the now infamous Kharon of the River Styx. Their identity is still unknown but you should be reassured that the gold guard reports no sign of ongoing death mage activity in the kingdom. They vehemently denied all rumors of its use in Cinder in Winter. This is perhaps evidence that the claims in Kharon's first letter were true or simply that the letters were sent from somewhere far outside the kingdom. Regardless, their ideas have caused an uproar within our readership.

It is with this context in mind that we consider the content of their second letter. They have reimagined the very nature of magic itself. Many bold claims are made in this letter. I could not replicate or refute many of these claims but decided that I could check one of the most outlandish before publication. I have confirmed the presence of a small fragment of death aspected material within the remains of ten monster cores in our collection. It is smaller than a grain of rice and almost indistinguishable from other crystal fragments but it is present in every sample I inspected.

The presence of death magic within every magic core may be disturbing to some. But as mages we must look into the unknown with bravery and not disregard or disbelieve what is plain to see before our eyes. We should listen to what this Kharon has to say and rigorously test their ideas against observation, as we would ideas from any other source.

With best regard,

Thadious Opel

Mage of the seventh rank

Premier and Chair of the editorial board for the Transactions of the Royal Society of Mages

***

A Taxonomy of Mana

Manuscript received on the 11th day of Spring 1209

Manuscript accepted for publication on the 48th day of Spring 1209

To the Esteemed Royal Society of Mages,

In my previous letter I described a spell to change matter into other forms. In this letter I will describe the unexpected results of using that spell to carefully inspect monster cores and the profound implications for our understanding of magic itself. First, I must caution anyone to not attempt to replicate these experiments without substantial preparations for safety. As will become clear when I describe what can be found inside cores there is a high chance of explosion.

Cores have been the subject of extensive study over years. Malloc and Herby looked at the materials left behind and found diamond, graphite, and water to be the most prevalent. They noted that air, water, and earth cores contained high amounts of a heavy metal they called gold steel as it looked like steel but was as heavy as gold. Hestia then made the logical conclusion that there were likely gases that were being missed and performed experiments to determine their properties. She crushed a core within a hardened, sealed container that had been evacuated of air. She found that the mixture of gases released were extremely light and flammable. The prevailing theories are first, that the core contains a connection to some external source of mana (Melloc and Thevin), second, that the core has a form of crystalized mana at the center that slowly replenishes (Zimerson), and third, that it generates new mana through unknown alchemy (Davornack).

I can confirm these results, though the truth is much stranger than any of these theories. The core is constructed in alternating layers of a type of graphite that is composed on a signal layer of atoms in a particular arrangement. This material has an extremely high strength for its weight and so thousands of layers can restrain substantial pressure. These layers alternate with layers of diamond which is a different arrangement of the same kind of atom. Deeper in, there is a network of channels carrying two gases under extreme pressure. One is the lightest material in existence, the other makes up a large part of the air we breathe. The critical thing to know about these gases is that when they are burned together they form pure water. Similarly you can derive them from water by passing magic lightning through it.

Once I safely released the pressure in these channels I was able to inspect deeper structures. Here is where the cores start to be differentiated. Fire, light, lightning, metal, and life magic cores are identical to my method inspection to a degree where if I didn't know their color, I could not tell them apart. Water, earth, and air cores have an additional macro structure of interest. They possess between five and twenty disk shaped rings made of gold steel that actively spin around the core. Air cores tend to have the fewest, with between six and eight, water cores tend to have the next most, with eight to fourteen, and earth cores tend to have the most, with twelve to eighteen.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Now that I have described the internal structure of the core I will briefly discuss what processes are known to generate mana. I will conclude by attempting to relate this to how each core might generate its own mana.

Anthem and Barlyweather cataloged several phenomena known to impact the mana regeneration rate of different mages. Here is a brief summary of their findings. Rivers and the ocean increase the mana regeneration rates of water mages while still pools of water do not. Notably, these also increase the regeneration rates of air and earth mages, though to a lesser extent than water mages. Fire is known to increase the regeneration rates of all mages though the extent of this increase depends on type. In descending order of magnitude: fire, lightning, metal, light, life, air, water, and earth.

I will add three observations to these findings. First, as noted in my previous letter, unstable materials in death craft items increase my own mana regeneration rate. Second, the reaction of acids with water or bases increases the regeneration rate identically to a fire. Third, a heavily laden and fast moving cart will increase the regeneration rate identically to a fast running river.

What would explain these observations? In light of the structure of the cores themselves we can come to certain conclusions. In all cores there were many reaction chambers where the two gases would be able to combine. These chambers didn't burn them but instead passed the lighter glass through a crystal material that generated a small amount of lightning. This reaction of the two pressurized gases generates mana inside the mage of the type that a camp fire would outside the mage. In air, water, and earth magic cores, the lightning and much of the mana produced by this reaction is used to hold and spin the discs of gold steel. The movement of these spinning disks generates the same type of mana inside the mage that a river produces outside the mage.

The generation rate of mana from chemical or combustion reactions is extremely simple. The amount of mana produced is proportional to the energy released in the reaction. So, combining the gases to make water releases heat, pressure and light. A reaction like a campfire produces substantially more heat, pressure, and light but it does so outside of the body so the mana it produces disperses before it can be collected by a mage.

From substantial experimentation with spinning disks, I have determined that the generation rate of the mana that rivers produce is proportional to the masses involved and their relative speed raised to the forth power. So large objects moving quickly produce more mana. The rate is also inversely proportional to the square of the distance between the objects. This means that it is the water in the river moving relative to the stationary rocks of the riverbed that generates this mana. In the ocean, it is the chaotic mass of water moving past other water that generates so much mana. Critically, this means that even relatively light objects, gold steel rings for example, moving very fast while very close to each other will generate as much or more mana as extremely heavy objects moving slowly, even if both are in close contact.

Here, astute readers may ask where the water from combining the two gases goes. The answer to that question is as simple as it is shocking. Once combined, a small channel of water exits the chambers and proceeds to the very center of the core where it passes through a structure that uses death mana to break it back into the two separate gases. At the very center of every core is a small flake of the same extremely heavy materials that make up death craft items. Yes, these shards constantly emit both death magic and its poison. Be reassured that the amount of poison is tiny and the core itself contains all traces of it. This is why it is not harmful, contained as it is within the core. Its purpose is to generate the death mana required to constantly cast the matter restructuring spell I use. This spell drives the whole process that makes cores work.

With these observations we can come to certain conclusions about the nature of magic itself. The elemental taxonomy of mana, formalized by Aostrolf and his apprentices over one hundred years ago, is clearly incorrect. The inability to differentiate fire, light, lightning, metal, and life cores clearly disproves that they produce or channel different substances. Rather, they all produce the same substance, which I will refer to as light mana. Further, the commonalities of air, water, and earth cores suggest that they too produce the same substance, which I will refer to as space mana. Note that the spinning rings in space magic cores are driven by light mana, consuming and making it unavailable to the mage. As of the writing of this letter I have not been able to inspect a death magic core but as I am loath to propagate the misconceptions about it I will henceforth refer to it in my letters as atomic mana. There may be other mana types, in fact I suspect at least one more type exists, but the three types present a much clearer and simpler picture of reality.

You may ask why light mages cannot cast fire spells and vice versa. I suspect that this can be explained by their channels which form the bases for enhanced senses. As we extract channels from monsters for our magic items, so too must we have channels to direct and focus our mana. Indeed, an earth magic core can be used to power a water magic item with reduced efficiency (see Evelyn et al). I suspected that the reduced efficiency has more to do with the surface layer of the cores connecting better to the different core types. This led me to perform an experiment where I took a light magic core and replaced its surface layer with the surface layer of a fire mana core. The result was that the light magic core could be used in fire magic items with full efficiency.

Human mage channels must somehow narrow the possible ways that the light mana, space mana, and atomic mana can be used. This likely improves our ability to control magic within a more narrow range. Indeed this model also predicts the existence of multiple-element mages where their channels allow for it. Such people are extremely rare but there are enough documented cases to support the theory. However, not all pairs should be equally common. Fire-lightning mages, for example, should be relatively common while fire-earth mages should be extremely rare based on how the spinning gold steel in earth magic cores use up all available light mana to generate space mana.

In conclusion, I have presented a new set of categories that better explain observations of the different kinds of magic. Instead of nine elements, there are only three fundamental mana types: light, space, and atomic. These three types can explain all known observations of the effects of mana outside the control of humans or monsters. This, of course, presents a logical next step for research. We need to understand how magic is controlled by humans and monsters alike.

Respectfully,

Kharon of the River Styx