Sarah smiled. “Pretty good I’d say. But it all depends on you. Whether you still have enough energy for me to go over the last topic that I wanted to tell you about?”

“Is the last topic magic?” Sam asked.

“It might be.”

“Cool, I’m game. Is this the part where I can finally make fun of you for saying ‘levels’ like it’s a video game?”

“Maurice told me he gave you the basic explanation of what levels were. Knowing that, what other name would you give them?”

“Good question. For starters, I’ll change it from levels to ranks. Then, starting from rank zero, all the others ranks would have a cool name like tiger, or heron. Side note, I nominate the third rank to be called dragon, but only as long as no dragon actually appears during that rank.”

“How would that make it any better? Now, instead of simple numbers, you have meaningless titles that you have to translate back into numbers anyway. Also, there’s no level zero.”

“I’m willing to concede to your first point, but not to the second.”

“Level zero doesn’t make sense because it won’t be half of level 1.”

“Second argument I’ve heard today on the topic. I’m not convinced. Someone who’s been at level 2 for a long time is probably already past the point of being twice the whatever of level 1.”

“Core capacity.”

“What’s that?”

“Core capacity. That’s what the levels designate. Starting at level 1, every subsequent level has twice the capacity of the previous one.”

“Capacity for what?”

“Magic.”

“Right. Duh.” Sam palmed his forehead. “So what the hell is magic, and why does it need to be stored?”

“I can’t tell you that.”

“Why not?”

“Because magic is intuitive, you can’t explain it, only experience it… Like color!”

“And?”

“And nothing.”

Sam squinted his eyes and pursed his lips. “C’mon. Give it to me. I can take it. Does me being a Thread-Weaver mean that using magic will be very painful for me or something?”

“What?! Of course not. I don’t actually know what being a Thread-Weaver entails, except that it has something to do with threads, which is also something that I know nothing about. But I’m certain that it doesn’t mean that using magic will hurt you. Magic doesn’t work like that.”

“So how does it work?”

“I told you, it’s intuitive, you can’t explain it.”

“C’mon… there’s no way that no one is out there trying to learn magic or understand it before they had their Awakening. Give it to me straight. Is there something wrong with me? Is my head going to explode if I try my hand at magic?”

Sarah chuckled. “Of course not. Don’t be ridiculous. The only possible way for just magic to hurt the person using it doesn’t apply to you because you’re a Taken. But you’re right… There are people, mainly ningani and deshars, who, despite magic being intuitive and most people agreeing that it’s useless to teach the practicals of it before a person had their Awakening, still try and learn about it beforehand.”

“So you really don’t want me to teach me about what magic is in practice because you think it’d be a waste of time?”

“Pretty much. You’re going to get your magic in a couple of days at most. So it’s no use beating your head against the wall when you already have a lot of other stuff need you need to learn about.”

“Like what? You just said that I shouldn’t waste my time learning about magic.”

“Not all magic. Just magic in practice. The thing in itself, right?”

“I don’t know how this at all relates, but you have your terms on backwards. Experience can never reveal to us the thing in itself. You’re taking about me not knowing about the perception of magic and interaction with it beforehand. But fine… I get it. I’ll just let you tell me what I need to know and not worry about it. So what can we learn about magic that isn’t a waste of time currently?”

“Theory, of course. But just the most fundamental terminology. No reason to overload you with information, right?”

“Too late for that, I’m afraid. This is like our fourth, I think, topic of exposition. And I pretty much started today with information overload already.”

“Right… then, should we stop for today? Pick it up tomorrow?”

“Don’t you dare. Right now, the chances that I’ll fall asleep tonight are pretty low. But if we end now, without me having even the basic knowledge of what, to you, is pretty much a natural law. Then I’m for fucking certain not going to sleep tonight. Don’t forget, you promised to tell me what Ruler is finally. After I had to spend the whole day hearing people mention the term without making fun of it even once!”

“That’s pretty admirable. Must’ve been hard for you. So, Rulers: you need to be level 10 in order to become a Ruler. Is the concept of levels clear enough to you, or should we go over it again?”

“Nah, I think I got it. It basically measures the size of your core, right?”

“The capacity.”

“What’s the difference?”

“None. Except that if you say size, people who care about using the ‘correct technical term’ will… correct you.”

“Are you one of those people?”

“No. But plenty of the teachers here are. I’m just prepping you. Anyway, so yeah, broadly a level is just a linear designation for how much magic you have, rounding downwards. The levels go from 1 to 10 and stop there. As in, there’s no level eleven.”

“Instead you have Rulers?”

“Exactly. Only level 10s can become Rulers.”

“Why is that?”

Sarah shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“Of course not. I’m only level 3. You know how far off that question is for me? You’re only told this stuff once you get to level 8. But… it’s probably got something to do with threads, though.”

“Threads? The things that I…’m named for? The magical equivalents of string theory?”

“Yeah. And don’t ask me to tell you what they are cause I have no idea except that it’s a very advanced high-level sort of information. Something about being a high enough level before you can see them and only then you can begin to study them. Except that Thread-Weavers can see them from the get go. And the only reason I think that becoming a Ruler has something to do with threads is that, supposedly, Thread-Weavers that reach level 10 have nothing blocking them from becoming Rulers like there is for regular people.”

“So I’m guaranteed to become a Ruler?”

“If you reach level 10, yes. At least, that’s the way I understand it.”

“So you, for example, aren’t guaranteed to become a Ruler? Despite the both of us being Taken?”

“I will become a Ruler. It’s just a question of how much time it would take me after I reach level 10. Us being Taken doesn’t have anything to do with becoming Rulers, just with our pathways, which are—”

“Wait, before we move on. I wanted to ask, what actually is the difference between a Ruler and a level 10? Is it also about having twice the magic capacity, just in a different name?”

“No, at least I don’t think so. The only thing that I actually know about Rulers is that they are able to externalize their magic.”

“So you don’t know how to become one or what it even means to be one. Can’t you just ask google?”

“This is confidential military information. You’re not going to find it on google.”

“Sure, maybe not on google. But without google, how are you going to get to the War Thunder forums? Ask Jeeves?”

“I don’t know what either of these things are.”

“Fair enough. So if we can’t ask the internet about the Ruler stuff, who can we ask?”

“Rulers, I suppose. Maybe level tens trying to become Rulers.” She shrugged her shoulders.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“Anyone you’re familiar with? Or are they all already in bed at this hour?”

“There are only twenty-three Terran Rulers, and the only two who are currently not stationed at the front are not exactly at my beck and call.”

Sam made a sour face. “Twenty-three? That’s the worst, or at very least second worst, number in the twenties. How many do the other races have?”

“Way more than us. The elves have about a hundred, I think.”

Sam pursed his lips and sharply inhaled. “Sound like if the elves picked a fight with us we’d be in pretty dire straits.”

“Eh,” Sarah said with a wave of her hand. “We were always the weakest nation, if not race. If the elves wanted us gone, they wouldn’t have helped us in the first place. And honestly? The amount of Rulers that we have isn’t really that big of a strategic deficit. We had way more back in the years following the Integration and our numbers should more than double in the coming decades. Really, our biggest ‘national’ worry is not having even a single Chosen.”

“Right, Chosen… You mentioned them already, no? So what are they?”

“No fucking clue. Compared to my knowledge about Chosen, my knowledge about Rulers is overflowing. They’re just stronger than Rulers, that’s all I know.”

“Yeah, I figured as such. But you do realize that it doesn’t make any sense right? A Ruler is the guy at the top, the head honcho, the big cheese, the grandmaster, the sec—”

“I get it.”

“Point is, per the name, a Ruler is the person in charge. I mean, if you asked me beforehand, I would have told you that Rulers are stronger because they are the ones choosing the Chosen.”

“Well they’re not. Chosen are the strongest. And while I don’t know why the Chosen are named so, I do know the basic explanation for the Rulers. Supposedly, in the pre-integration days of the other races, even the dwarves, they didn’t have any Chosen. The strongest amongst them were Rulers and since they were far fewer in numbers, they usually ended in charge of whatever polity they found themselves in, hence: Rulers. The first Chosen only appeared after the races’ integrations, but by that time, the name for Rulers had already stuck.”

“All… five of them came up with the name Ruler for the same thing?”

Sarah half sighed, half chuckled. “I don’t know. Maybe only one race came up with the name, but then all the other races copied them. Like how we basically took every magical term from the elves. We can look it up, I guess. But this can’t be that important to you, right? We’ve still yet to go over those actual magical terms.”

“Fair enough. One last question before we move on then. The elves have about a hundred Rulers, how many Chosen do they have then?”

“Only two. Same for the Imperials. The deshars have one and the ningani three.”

“So few, huh? Makes sense why you said that what we Terrans most lack is a Chosen then. Sounds like an extra one would make a pretty big difference war-wise.”

“Yep. So how about it? Should I put the two of us down for a bet on who will become the first Terran Chosen?”

“Nah, no way. That name’s too inegalitarian for me (not that Ruler’s much better). Although, I guess it depends on who chooses these great figures. Is it by a popular vote? A meritocracy? Sortition? Maybe if you’re chosen based on how good you are with cats. Then I would have no problem nominating myself.

“Like I said, what I know about the Chosen, and how to become one, is even less than what I know about the Rulers.”

“Which is just that they can externalize their magic and maybe something to do with threads. So what does ‘externalize their magic’ mean? Or is the knowledge too practical for me to know?”

Sarah shook her head. “Conceptually, you might not get it until you can sense magic, but it’s still considered theoretical knowledge. So, the act of using magic, moving it from place to place, is called tracing. And you can only trace through your own body, artifacts and other bodies, in that order of difficulty, meaning that the only thing you’re certain to be able to trace through is yourself. The point concerning Rulers is: once the magic leaves any of those confines, it starts to dissipate. Rulers don’t have that problem, they can maintain magic without being in direct contact with it, hence externalize. I don’t know how, I don’t know why, it’s just the one thing that everyone knows they can do.”

“OK… and dare I ask what tracing is in more detail?”

“Nope. Let’s move on. Remember, I was going to say something about us Taken before you, very rudely, interrupted me?”

Sam scratched his chin. “You’re gonna have to give me something more. Every second sentence of mine has been to rudely interrupt you.”

Sarah laughed. “OK, so what I wanted to say is that we Taken have perfect pathways. Explaining what the quality of pathways means isn’t that important right now. Just note that when I talked about different races being more compatible with magic, I meant that, on average, they have better pathways. So what are pathways? They’re the things connecting your core to your body. So technically, saying that you trace magic through your body is wrong because you can only trace magic through pathways. Which, come in two flavors: natural and artificial. Artificial pathways are what allows you to trace through artifacts, for example. Artificial pathways are also the most basic form of patterns, there is, since every pattern functions as one.”

“And what are patterns? Spells?”

“Not exactly. Imagine tracing as an electrical current that you can control. By moving it in a certain way, you can cause it to turn on a light bulb. In this metaphor, patterns are an electrical circuit. Instead of you having to direct the current all the way yourself, you just send it into the circuit and it lights up the bulb on its own.”

“OK… tracing is basically spell-casting on the go and patterns are spells that were written down beforehand?”

“Sure. Just… don’t use the word spell in a professional context, alright? The word is a unique to us Terrans, so the other races won’t understand what you mean by it. And many Terrans don’t like it because it makes us seem… unempirical about magic.”

Sam let out a small laugh. “I gotta say, that’s pretty fucking great. Magic is real, but you can’t talk about it in a certain way because it’s unscientific. That’s really precious. Anything else I should know about? Cause I still have a bunch more questions, but if you say that it’s too hard for me to grasp the answer yet, then never mind.”

“Last two terms.” Sarah held up her fingers. “First, is gathering, or interchangeably cultivating. The process by which we gather magic into the core and increase its capacity. The second one is imprinting, how we make patterns, obviously. So, for example, I got here so late because I was in the middle of imprinting a very important pattern, and if stopped midway, I’d have had to redo some of my preparation.”

“That’s a lot of knowledge that I don’t have any frame of reference to.” Sam sighed. “Is that it, then?”

“For the basics of magic, yes.”

“Good. So, now we only need to hope that I’ll manage to retain everything you’ve told me about today.”

“If you forget anything, I’ll be there to remind you.”

“If I join the academy, you mean.”

“Yeah, sure. But even if you won’t, we could still talk on the phone, right? Provided you’ll stay on New Terra. Why, are you reconsidering joining?”

“No, I already said that I have no other alternative right now. Besides, it’s like you said, what better place to learn about the differences between this world and ours, right? Well, except any old regular high school, I guess, or even elementary school, right?”

“Not necessarily. The academy teaches magic as though you have a theoretical zero amount of knowledge on the subject. Which is impossible considering the acceptance requirements, but still. It’s like you said how magic is basically equivalent to a law of nature, right? Well, most people know about gravity, but how many people actually know about Newton’s law of gravity until they study it at university? Mostly only those that studied physics in high school, so the university has to make sure to start teaching everything from zero.

“The same goes for everything that I told you about, not just magic. Everything that we talked about, people learn by osmosis before they’re taught about it at school, if they’re even taught all of it. So even if you knew all this stuff beforehand, you’ll still have to learn about it again after joining the academy.”

“Good argument,” Sam said. “But it doesn’t work on me. I had the misfortune of having to study some math in uni. If I hadn’t already studied high level math in high school, then I would have been hopelessly lost after the first two weeks. Well, I was hopelessly lost anyway… It’s just that I would have been even more so.”

“Did you have the entire resources of your university and its teaching staff dedicated to helping you with your maths?”

“No?”

“Then don’t draw any comparison. I’m ‘only’ a Taken, but I’ve gotten plenty of personal attention and help sent my way, even without requesting any. I’m pretty sure that in your case, the academy will make available to you plenty of private tutors and instructors, so you’ll have no problem catching up with the rest of us.”

“If you say so… My guess? I’m going to drop out after the first month once I discover that trying to catch up is way too hard for me.”

“We’ll see…” Sarah smiled, completely confident in her misplacing of the same notion onto Sam. She stretched back in the chair, spreading her arms up before looking outside. “Wow, it’s gotten really late, huh?”

“You tell me. I don’t have a watch and it’s not like I can tell the time by looking up anymore.”

“You still can. The skies might not be the same, but they’re still accurate.”

“Hmm… maybe. I don’t know… I’ll have to have a deep think on the subject… So Plato tells us that in order for something to be true, our belief in it must be justified. But does our belief count as justified if we’re basing it on an objectively false item? This, of course, results in a most disgusting mash up of ontology and epi—So what time is it?”

“Almost an hour to midnight.”

“Ooh, yeah, that’s one hour to bedtime for me.”

“Plus, you got to wake up early tomorrow morning. You have a full day of tests awaiting you.”

“Right… yet another reason for me to not be able to fall asleep tonight. What about you? Shouldn’t you be sleeping as well? Don’t you get up every day at four to stand at parade?”

“No, nothing of the sorts. Why? Is this you subtly trying to tell me that we should end it here for today?”

“Of course not. Once you get to know me, just round about the time when you begin to lose the last vestiges of hope that you still had for me, you’ll also find out that I don’t do subtle. Not because of lack of will mind you, just a total lack of the social graces required to act with anything resembling tact.”

“So you’d be fine even if we kept going for a couple more hours?”

Sam shrugged. “Up to you. Why, any more basic items of expositions that we should go over?”

“Nothing that you won’t be fine with learning about tomorrow or the day after that. But if there’s anything that you still want to ask, go ahead.”

“OK, here’s one question: Are you sure that you wouldn’t rather go to sleep already instead of spending any more time with me? Didn’t you say that you’ve had a long day? And while I don’t know anything about imprinting, if it takes weeks to prepare for it, then it can’t be easy.”

“It’s fine. I can go one day without sleeping.”

“I don’t doubt it. But there’s a difference between what you can do and what you want to do, right?”

“What I want to do, is to stay here with you, talking, until you tell me to go away.”

“That’s sick. Why would you wish such a thing on yourself?”

Sarah smiled. “Today’s the first time in eight years that I heard someone mention Britain. I don’t think you realize just how much fun I had talking with you today.”

“No… And hearing you say that is starting to make me very worried for your state of mind and warped personality. C’mon… serious now. If we have nothing else important to talk about, then there’s no reason why you have to keep me company instead of sleeping and recouping from the day you had.”

“And will you be sleeping and recouping as well? If you’re just going to have a sleepless night, then I would rather be here with you instead of leaving you alone to suffer all on your own.”

“Nah, I can’t abide by that. I’m no utilitarian, but this is a pretty simple case of doubling the total of suffering for no reason. If I can’t sleep, then there’s no reason for you to share in my suffering with me.”

“That’s not the point—”

“Sure, but I’m making it the point. Look, Sarah, I’ll be fine, I promise. Matter of fact, even if I won’t be able to fall asleep, some quality alone time would be good for me. Better than me feeling bad for making you stay awake all night keeping me company.”

“Fine… if you’re sure. Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure. I’m going to be just fine. Again, if you spend enough time for you to get to know me than you’ll find out that as long as it doesn’t inconvenience me, I care very deeply about people suffering as a result of their actions towards me. In other words, go to sleep or else I’ll start hating myself for forcing you to be here instead.”

Sarah gulped and, very reluctantly, stood up. “Alright. If you’re sure that’s what you want.”

“I’m sure.”

“OK, so until tomorrow, then. I’ll join you as soon as you finish with all your tests.”

“Just as long as you’ve had a full night’s sleep beforehand.” Sam got up as well, to accompany her to the door, which she used as an opportunity to guilt him into a goodbye hug. Half a minute hug later, they bid each other goodnight and Sam was, for the first time today, truly alone.