0:085 on the 66th day of Winter

I sat in my workshop both more and less freaked out than I was last night. First of all the hydrogen didn't blow up and also didn't stick around for long. As a gas, hydrogen is extremely light so it tends to float on top of the air. An hour or so of normal circulation and the air was mostly back to normal. So that was that one worry alleviated. I got a change of clothes and some breakfast and now I had to actually consider what had happened.

I activated a very small component of comparatively large structures within a mage's core. The phenomena I observed were, in order, carving a big hole in the wall, transforming the surrounding material by adding protons, and releasing a staggering amount of hydrogen gas. So, what could explain these effects? Well, my first thought had been death magic. If it split the nuclei of all the atoms in the rock down to the point where they were only protons and neutrons then the electrons would attach themselves to the free protons to make hydrogen and the neutrons would just drift off. Maybe the rock transformation was the result of just some leftover protons that didn't pair up with electrons.

However, if this was what happened then I would expect to see a bunch of extra neutrons in the surrounding materials leading to unstable isotopes. None of the materials had extra neutrons, which killed that theory. Which of course led me to think, where did all the neutrons go? I couldn't find any sign of them.

Regardless of how it happened, the end effect was clear. About a thousand kilograms of granite got instantly vaporized. My brow furrowed in concern. I was really glad all of my previous attempts had failed. How much material would I have vaporized if one of my dozens of experiments to activate the whole system of fractals in the core had succeeded? The fractal structures made up about one twentieth the mass of the core. It took a while of measuring with tools and with my microscope to roughly estimate somewhere around five times ten raised to the twenty third power atoms in this core. That means about one times ten to twenty second power atoms make up the fractal structures. It was about this point in my calculations that I dropped my charcoal and started shaking.

If an experiment that triggered one hundred atoms led to the vaporization of one thousand kilograms of matter, and if the effect scales linearly with mass, then triggering the full core would vaporize roughly one times ten to the twenty fifth power kilograms. That's more than the mass of the planet I am standing on. I walked over to the hole again and started to thank my stars just how unbelievably lucky I am. If my circuit had not failed over and over again just at the moment I went to trigger it… wait… I'm not that lucky. Nobody has that kind of luck. Nobody except mages dealing with a quantum wave function. The circuit failing was actually like a spell that was cast to prevent me from triggering the fractal.

I had to sit down at that realization. Something about how mages controlled the outcome of wave functions, and therefore cast spells, was a result of a function built into the core that could be least capable of destroying the world. Our magic was powered by a doomsday trigger. No wonder the demons wanted to kill us off. This could be the exact realization that set them on a path to genocide. I broke out in a cold sweat and started to hyperventilate. Every mage was a walking time bomb that could destroy the world at any moment. It was as I was ruminating on the likelihood of my impending demise that Schrodinger came trotting up to me. He gave me a few sniffs and then jumped in my lap for some pets.

"I just figured out something really scary." I said while moving to pet him. I had to concentrate to keep my hand from shaking. As I did my heart started to slow back down and my breathing evened out a bit.

"Thanks friend." I said. "That actually helped a lot."

I just sat there petting him for a while letting myself calm down. I loved cats. I had always loved cats, even if the apartment I lived in on earth didn't allow them. I could have moved, I should have moved, but I never did.

"It's ironic." I said.

"I named you on a wim after the iconic thought experiment but I remember reading somewhere that Erwin Schrödinger himself didn't like cats. Perhaps that's why he thought of putting one in a box with poison that would be triggered by the decay of some radioactive source."

I said it in a joking tone but there was something bothering me about Schrödinger's cat.

"You know" I said. "That's not so different from the situation we find ourselves in." Slowly, it started to dawn on me how much that was true. We were the cat with the whole world as our box. The mage core was the poison that would kill us all at the flip of a switch. The only thing missing was what would trigger the kill switch. Then the answer struck me like a lightning bolt to the forehead.

"We are triggering the end of the world any time we see an undesirable outcome of the wave function with our mage senses." I said.

Schrodinger looked up at me as I had stopped petting him. I went right back to hyperventilating and had to stand up. Schrodinger jumped from my lap with his tail twitching in annoyance. I started pacing the workshop as I ran my hands through my hair. Thinking back to the light experiments I ran with Arin I realized what had been happening.

"She wasn't picking the outcome she wanted, she simply got rid of all the world's where the outcome she was looking for didn't happen." I said. "Got rid of them by reducing the world to an expanding cloud of hydrogen." Every time I used my magic I was killing an infinite number of my parallel selves! More than that, I was killing everybody in the world in every branching world where I didn't get my way.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

I stopped pacing. I wasn't simply lucky having the circuit fail over and over again. This is just the only world left after I destroyed every world where my circuit didn't break because of a huge coincidence of quantum tunneling. My stomach emptied itself on the floor. This morning's breakfast smelled awful as I tried to think just how small a fraction of a fraction of the wave function that was left with anyone alive in it after all that. But it's not just me. Every mage in the world is doing this, every time they cast a spell.

That thought strangely gave me some comfort. I didn't start this and I am contributing only a tiny amount to the overall pruning of the wave function being done by human mages. This has been going on for hundreds, if not thousands or millions, of years and we are all still here. Hence there is no reason to expect that the world is going to end anytime soon. No matter how hard I tried, unknowingly, to push the doomsday button last night there was always some small part of the wave function where I wasn't able to. So what about everyone in the other branching worlds? They don't care because they're already dead. Theoretically, nobody ever experiences a half destroyed world. They are simply there one moment and gone the next.

I closed my hand and used my magic to form a small grain of iron. There's another infinite number of deaths in worlds that have forever diverged from this one. The thought made me sick again. This was too much. Messing with these forces was too dangerous. What if the demons were right and human mages were going to destroy the world for good someday? What would happen if two mages tried to bring about two contradictory outcomes? I thought back to what I knew about mage duels. They often ended with explosions that kill one of the mages or some other very random effect. I had heard of a few that ended in a random heart attack or brain aneurysm.

Maybe that's like me trying to push the doomsday button. If you try to eliminate all worlds where you don't see your opponent die then in some of those worlds you blow yourself up and don't see anything. At some point, if you got enough mages together, the outcome they want to bring about would become less likely than the spontaneous combustion of the world itself.

I just sat on the floor for a while trying to get my breathing under control. On the one hand, I felt proud to have found a plausible theory for how mages control their magic. On the other hand, I almost wish I hadn't. How could I use my magic with what I now suspected. But I had to report for light mage service tomorrow. I would need to use magic. I took a deep breath and tried to think about this rationally. There were probably millions of mages on the planet, all casting spells every day without issue. I am a drop in the bucket compared to all that. Rationally, there was no danger from using my magic. I would just have to be extremely careful in any future research.

***

0:020 on the 67th day of Winter

Today was the day all of my preparations would prove worthwhile. Or not. I could walk in there, only for the death magic detectors to go off and then they would kill me. I checked and rechecked my gear, lasers, helmet, signal rod, flashlight, cloak, and fire-starter. I should have felt confident but I didn't. Central command was a large stone building covered in artistic statues depicting scenes of ancient battles. I paused on the street in front of the building to admire the works. Unlike most stone statutes on earth, at least when I was alive, these were painted by masters. Vibrant shades of red and gold featured prominently.

The scenes were meant to inspire bravery and self sacrifice. Maracoth the destroyer was there along with Celesteve the plague. Other than a mild appreciation for the artists, the scenes of violence and death only made me feel the weight of duty. I was here to fight for humanity. I was here to serve. I was a clumsy soldier in the iron legion and I couldn't serve as a death mage so that left me with this.

I shook myself to break out of my thought spiral. The entrance doors were swung wide open, even on the cold morning. A river of people were flowing into and out of the building going about their business. I slipped my way into the flow, trying to maintain space around me as we all moved into the entrance hall. I winced a bit as I crossed the threshold but no alarms went off. So far so good.

Inside the building were vaulted ceilings covered in murals of yet more battles. The long hall was lined with large desks, each with a sign above it and dozens of clerks to speak to. There were long lines in front of the clerks for Death Benefits and for Recruitment. I made my way farther down the hall until I spotted a desk with a sign saying Mage Service.

Approaching the clerk I got in a line of less than a dozen teenagers. I was reminded that my awakening had come extremely late meaning I would be one of the oldest trainees. Great, I would already stand out like a sore thumb. There was a young woman in front of me who was nervously chewing her hair and looking around. In front of her was a boy who couldn't be older than thirteen. They were clearly scraping the bottom of the barrel on the draft. Desperate times I suppose. It really only matters how strong their magic is and if they are willing to fight for the lives of everyone in Cinder.

When I got to the front of the line the clerk greeted me.

"What can I help you with sir?" he asked.

He was an older gentleman with glasses and smile lines.

"I am here to report for mage service." I said, handing him my draft letter. He looked at it briefly before checking my name off of his list.

"Here you are, all is in order." he said.

Then he reached behind him to retrieve a bundle of clothes.

"Here is your starter uniform with insignia for a first circle light mage." he said. "You're a light mage, no?"

I mumbled an affirmative reply. I've got to do better. I am a light mage. I am a light mage.

"Take it and proceed behind me, up the stairs to the third level. Changing rooms and where to put your clothes will be marked. After you're in uniform, follow the signs for testing."

With that he looked to the man who got in line behind me.

"Next!" He said.

I took the bundle and moved to follow his directions. Arin hadn't told me that there would be a uniform but I should have guessed it. Well that eliminated my helmet and armor, at least for now. I climbed the stairs and found the changing room, quickly getting out of my armor and stowing it in the provided compartment. I kept my lasers and utility belt and put my backup safety goggles around my neck. This was a setback but I could still make this work. I exited the room and saw the sign for testing. I knew this was coming. This was going to be my first major hurdle to passing as a light mage.