“So, patterns,” Dan said after Sam sat down, having returned from the bathroom, signaling their arrival on the last subject of their lessons for the day. “What do you know about patterns?”
“Pretty much only what I learned, or that we talked about as part of magical theory,” Sam said. “Some other miscellaneous information from various sources. Maybe, hopefully, some of what you tried to teach me four weeks ago, although I wouldn’t count on that.”
“Didn’t peek at the textbook or anything?”
“I might’ve. But only for a little while, still long enough to leave me with a despondent impression, though.”
“That’s to be expected. If you truly don’t remember anything I’ve taught you about patterns originally, then you must also not remember what I told you about the initial difficulty of learning patterns.”
“No, I remember that. Doesn’t mean I buy into it.”
“You should. There are three major difficulty curves when it comes to the study of patterns. And everyone struggles through them. The first is, appropriately, starting to study it for the first time. There is simply no way around it. Learning about patterns is like starting math from scratch. They’re both a language unto their own. Think about how much time it took you to get where you are today with your knowledge of math.”
Sam shrugged. “I’d have made a joke about kids being stupid and whatnot, but I really want to get started, so let’s just say I agree with you and we can move on.”
“Only once you’ve truly accepted my point about the difficulty. If I see you returning to despondence for no reason, I’ll bring us back to this discussion over and over again. I’ll do the same if you overly-criticize yourself when we come against the other two difficulty curves. Those are imprinting for the first time and using multiple conscious patterns efficiently, in case you forgot. You’re going to have trouble with both. Everyone does. So I don’t want to hear you complaining about yourself when it comes to these three difficult starts. Do I have your agreement?”
San nodded his assent, even if inwardly he wasn’t convinced. It’s a damn shame Yvessa isn’t here because I now don’t have an excuse to bring up a certain someone… Wait… am I developing a complex about a person who I’ve never met before? He shook his head. Nah, I’m just using her as a placeholder for my expectations of myself. If it wasn’t her, then it would’ve just been a made up straw man. Still, better keep the fact that I just referenced her to myself, though.
“Everything alright, Sam?”
“Yeah. Just made real certain that I finished internalizing your warnings. Can we start?”
Dan nodded and leaned back with his cup in hand. He took his signature long sip of the almost boiling liquid and let out a long breath. “We’ll start over from the beginning, no reason not to. But before we move on to the textbook and the technical information… I want to talk a bit more about patterns in general. Now that we have a much greater understanding of what magic is and how it works.”
“What is there to talk about? Anything we haven’t covered in your first ever lecture for me, we’ve gone over through magical theory.”
“Not everything, nowhere close. But close enough for the basics of patterns, I suppose. Perhaps I misspoke. I don’t want to talk about patterns, not straight away, but about how you are going to study them. Both with me and by yourself. I’ve mentioned three difficulty curves just now and they obviously correspond to the three main branches of what we’ll be teaching you about patterns in the academy: The patterns themselves; Imprinting them; And using them. All of these are practically different subjects of study, and we’ll get to the other two in due time.
“The topic of the patterns themselves can also be categorized into three different branches—sub-branches, I suppose—although this categorization is not as rigid, and differs from person to person and place to place. Roughly speaking, everything we’ve studied about patterns as part of magical theory can remain under those lessons, meaning that you won’t be studying those aspects as part of your ‘Patterns’ lessons or textbooks. That’s the first sub-branch, the theory of patterns. The second one is this textbook here”—he pointed to the much more informative counterpart of the solely exercises textbook Sam had back in his room meant to impart highschool level knowledge of patterns—“the practical technicalities of patterns. Leaving the theory behind, this is what you need to know about how patterns really work. And the last subject is… everyone has a different name for it. Per the academy’s guidelines, it’s termed ‘the optimal configurations of patterns on an individual basis.’ It’s pretty much which patterns give you the best bang for your buck from a combat perspective. Got all that?”
Sam nodded. “The distinction seems a tad unnecessary, but I guess that I can understand how all three of those are focusing on a different aspect of patterns as a whole.”
“The distinction is important if solely because it will determine where you will learn about those different aspects. Like I said, the macro-theoretical aspect will be a part of your studies on magical theory. The last aspect is only taught starting from the third year, once every student has a strong enough foundation in the other two aspects, as well as in imprinting and usage of patterns. What this means for you is that when we’re talking about you studying patterns, either on your own, with me, or with the general student body, we’re talking about you studying the second aspect. Of course, the mandatory Patterns courses also cover imprinting, but my point still stands. And it’s important that you remember that because your mandatory courses on the subject will remain wholly divorced from discussing the other two aspects during your stay here.
“And I want to stress that last part because it is both a boon and a drawback. Positively, it will mean that your study of the technicalities of patterns and theory of patterns will not be affected one by another for quite a while. The same, although to a lesser extent, will be true for imprinting and the usage of patterns. Negatively, this means that it’ll be up to you to draw the connecting lines between all these different aspects as you progress in your studies.”
“Why doesn’t the academy make sure to do that, then?” Sam asked.
“Because it deems that level of understanding of patterns as not necessary for your average cadet. And I’m inclined to agree with that viewpoint. The sad truth of it is that most of our graduates will never make it past level 8, not to speak of making Ruler. And it is for after level 8—your patterns for reaching level 9 and 10—that a comprehensive understanding of the subject is most important. Until then, the combat applications of a deeper understanding are much more meagre, and most of our students aren’t interested in pursing theory or a career in magical research.
“Of course, like I said, there are elective courses which seek to give our students, or at least set them on the path of that level of understanding. But, obviously, they’re very theory heavy and most people won’t get anything from a combat-prowess perspective out of them, at least in the short term. So it’s no wonder they remain relatively sparsely attended when compared to the ‘must-have’ electives. Still, ideally you’ll be take the same number of these courses as I’m planning on the Twins taking, as the three of you are very much in the camp of being best served by having a deeper understanding of patterns as whole.”
Dan then stopped to consider his words before shrugging. “Not that it’s certain that you’ll attain that vaunted level of knowledge, nor that you’ll need it. It’s an ideal to strive for, more than anything. There are plenty of level 10s, plenty of Rulers even, who aren’t much more knowledgeable than your average graduate when it comes to the grand picture of patterns. Think of it—and forgive me if my example isn’t wholly compatible or correct, for I am not well versed in technological weaponry—think of it as being an aircraft pilot. Of course, they’ll be better served and be able to better perform their role by having a deeper understanding of all the different aspects of working the plane: chemistry, physics, the engineering, computing, and so on. But, at the end of the day, they’ll still be able to fulfill their role, and fulfill it admirably, by simply having an understanding that starts and stops at only the aircraft itself. The same is true for patterns, and even magical combat as a whole. It’d be best if every one of our elite soldiers had a comprehensive understanding of everything there is to know about their patterns. But most of them don’t, they just know how they work and what they do and how to imprint them, and they kill a lot of Epiraks with ‘just’ that.”
Sam nodded. “Alright, I get it. The distinction between the three aspects is important for the academy to be able to teach as many people as it does effectively. But to truly have a deeper understanding of patterns, I’ll have to do away with the division.”
“Ideally, you’d do away with any division whatsoever when it comes to magic. Less ideally but still an ideal is only to do so with both patterns and tracing. Which is still very impractical, even for an ideal, to build a curriculum around. But having a wide understanding of the all the different aspects of patterns and tracing that you’ll learn about, and combining all of those aspects together, is the best end result. One that you should definitely be aiming for.”
“I’ll try. But for that we’ll have to start—restart, I guess—learning about patterns finally, no? Everything you’ve told me up to now has been very much in the air without me knowing anything about patterns more than the basics.”
“Hmm… yes, point taken. So let’s start. Do you still remember the three different kinds of artificial biological pathways?”
Sam cupped his chin and bit on his lower lip in an effort of concentration. “I’m trying to divorce what you originally taught me from what I’ve learned in magical theory since then… Should I not be doing that, after what we just talked about?”
Dan shook his head with a smile. “No, it’s fine. It’s not like the three aspects are truly separate, it’s an artificial distinction. One that’s supposed to help with digesting the information. Think about your own studies that you specialized in, like math, for example—”
“I didn’t specialize in math.”
“I said for example. In this example, having this wide understanding of math as a whole will make you a better mathematician. But it shouldn’t prevent you from breaking down math into different subjects on the way there, and even after, as long as you remember that all those subjects make math a subject as a whole, and so they all must be connected and consistent with one another.”
“Yeah, I got that. I think. But right now I was mostly worried about keeping track of what I actually remembered of the technical side of patterns.”
“Don’t worry about that for now. Just tell me everything you know about the three artificial biological pathways.”
“Alright… So for the first two, you have the narrow and wide extension. This is one of those classic higher education styles of annoying naming conventions because they have nothing to do with the size of the artificial pathway itself. But rather from what kind of pathway it has been extended from. I don’t remember where exactly the diving line is, though, which is the technical aspect.”
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“It depends on the size of your core pathways. For the smallest possible core pathways, corresponding to somewhere between a level 1 and 2 core, every pathway that’s minor to your core pathways is considered narrow. For you as a Taken, it’s only the two most minor pathways that are considered narrow. You’re right, of course, there is a much more technical analysis to be done on what pathways count as narrow or wide between these two extremes. And while the effects of not adjusting your design accordingly on the pattern’s effectiveness are rather minor, it is of paramount importance when imprinting the pattern. You’ll luckily be exempt from always recalculating which of your pathways are wide and which are narrow.”
“I won’t be exempt from having to reconfigure my patterns when I want to imprint them through a narrow pathway, though. Even when the pattern is only applicable to be used through a narrow pathway. Because, for some reason, a pattern always has to be presented as though it is used through a wide pathway.”
Dan smiled. “Ah, I see you managed to remember that bit just fine.”
“Of course I did. I’m a human being, aren’t I? And as a human being, I have the privileged position of being left with a much deeper impression by information I perceive as negative compared to any other kind of information.”
“Then you should also remember the rationale for that, no?”
“I do. That adjusting a pattern for a narrow pathway isn’t binary, it changes depending on how narrow the pathway is.”
“Very good. Especially since I never told you about that rationale at the time. So the last type of artificial biological pathway is?”
“Isolated pathways. Only possible to imprint on the brain or the heart.”
“Only practical to imprint on major organs. It’s simply that the brain, and to a much lesser extent the heart, are the easiest organs to imprint an isolated pathway when compared to the rest. Theoretically, you could imprint every part of your body with an isolated pathway. It’s just very difficult when compared to regular imprinting—even on the brain, which is by far the easiest—and not practical in the least. The only organs you might want to have an isolated pattern operating on are the brain, the heart, and the lungs. Everywhere else, the gain in efficiency is simply not worth it. Remember why there is a gain in efficiency?”
Sam sighed. That point has been hammered into him both four weeks ago and in the last two weeks. “Imprinting through a pathway means that when you want to activate that pattern, you’ll have to trace through the pathway and the artificial pathway connecting to the pattern. Even if you’re very good at tracing, which I’m not, it costs time, which can be critical during a battle. And, it causes an increase in how much magic the pattern requires in order to operate—for all different kinds of reasons, most of which are above my grade just yet. Isolated pathways, however, have no connected entity with a magical pull to contented with, so if you trace to that a pattern imprinted through them, all the magic you draw will go there as fast as you can draw it.”
“Very good. That’s as far as we’ll take the discussion of artificial pathways for today. It’s very important for imprinting, of course, but I want us to talk more about patterns proper for the time being. We’ll go back to this in a week or two.”
“That’s less than what we went over originally. I remember you tried teaching me about how to calculate the necessary length the artificial pathway has to be to prevent accidentally tracing into the pattern it connects to.”
“Yes, I know, It is technically one of the first topics in your textbook, but since you’re not going to be imprinting anytime soon, you don’t have to study it right now. And you don’t have to know about it for what I want to teach you about patterns in the next month or two, at least. We’ll be going back to it much earlier than that, but for now, I just want to focus on patterns proper because it will help you—minimally, but still—when we begin with applied tracing next week. So, do you remember how to tell what the overhead cost of cycling through a pattern is as opposed to just tracing for its intended effects?”
Sam stopped to consider, really delving into the depth of his mind. He had a vague picture of the “scientific” diagram that was used to represent a pattern and of some of the icons that made it up. But nothing more than that. “No.” He clenched his teeth.
“No problem. Let’s start over on how to read your basic pattern notations. Every published pattern will have those, saving you the trouble of having to calculate it. After that, we’ll moving on to reading the pattern diagram itself. We’ll go more in depth this time. Last time, I just gave you the most basic diagram and only the five symbols. We’ll go over the rest of the common symbols today. Hopefully, we’ll be able to inject some substance into them by the time we’re finished, but if not, we will tomorrow.” He then bent over to open the textbook and give Sam the usual royal heir to the up-and-coming hegemon of the Hellenic world treatment.
With his Great ambitions not quite as shattered after the lesson today as they were four weeks ago—quite possibly because they had less time in the lesson and so hadn’t manged to get to the really difficult stuff—Sam left Dan’s building in a very optimistic mood. Things were moving up! He was finally beginning to really learn magic instead of just practicing the very basics of it (or reading about the very basics behind it). And with the promise of finally doing actual magic this time next week—giving a much needed proof that the new energy in his body could actually have an effect on the real world—Sam was positively giddy.
“I’m positively giddy,” he told Yvessa and Felix once he met them outside the mess-hall.
“At least someone is,” Felix said, jerking a thumb towards Yvessa.
“Why? What happened?” Sam asked her. Come to think of it, her brows were knit even tighter that they usually were.
“Nothing. Hopefully,” she said. “It’s just that my dad texted me that one of our cats was sick and they had to leave her at the vet. I’m just worried for him because Stylus is already sixteen.”
“Why’d you call him Stylus?” She held up her phone to show him a picture of him at the vet, looking like a brave little soldier. “Ooh! What a nose! Yes, I can see that. Why in English, though?”
She shrugged. “We’ve always named our pets in English. We do have a turtle named Aesop, I suppose. But he doesn’t count because my mom got him from her grandmother.”
“A turtle called Aesop?” Felix asked. “Are you allowed to do that?”
“Do you even know what the difference between a turtle and a tortoise is?”
“There’s a difference?”
Sam held his hand against Felix’s face to shut him up. “Felix, please. There’s a time and place for jokes that veer us away from the main topic and conversation and this one ain’t it. Next time, leave it to the professional.” He turned to Yvessa. “So what’s wrong with Stylus?”
“The vet said it’s nothing serious and she just wants to have him stay for a checkup. If all the tests come out clean, then it’s probably just a virus and there’s nothing to really worry about.”
“Let’s hope for that scenario, then. The vet is top-notch, I assume?”
“Yes. My parents have been with her before I was even born. She’s a Terran expat specializing in Terran cats, which all of ours are.”
“There’s a difference between elven and Terran cats?”
“Theoretically there is a difference between all shared animals, but it’s usually pretty minor, bordering on negligible. But with domesticated animals, where you have all these different breeds, the changes vary and matter a lot more. Especially since, you know, people want their pets to get the best treatment possible and each side simply isn’t familiar with the other’s breeds as they are with theirs.”
“Also,” Felix said, “the elves went even more fucked up with breeding cats and dogs than we were.”
Yvessa nodded. “That’s true, unfortunately. They’ve gotten better, but there’s still not as strict a regulation over there as there is here.”
“Well that’s depressing,” Sam said. “And it’s also doing my head in because it’s making me think about stuff that I really don’t have the time to wonder about right now.”
“Yeah…” Felix chuckled. “Better let those sleeping wolves lie for now. So, what got you feeling so out of character before?”
“I had a good day. What, I’m not allowed to have good days?”
“Hearing the way you talk sometimes… you would think not.”
“Hey. I resent that. I think any negativity I have towards my days here is appropriately placed, if not underrepresented.”
“So what made today so good, Sam?” Yvessa asked. “Patterns turned out to be easier than you feared?”
Sam shrugged. It did, in a way. Despite Sam spending a not insignificant amount of time during breakfast worrying aloud about his return to the subject. “I guess so. And don’t get me wrong, I’m definitely happy about that. But I’m also just happy with how things are in general. Today really felt like I was making progress, you know? And next week I’m going to start actual magic. I’m being tested for my progress towards level 1 this Friday. I wouldn’t say the future looks good, but it’s finally looking solid, taking shape and form.”
“That is good news,” Felix said. “And it’s be even better news if you hurried up with your studies and get close enough to our level. Most of our life nowadays is concerned with our studies and ever since we’ve been forbidden to talk about that when with you, we’ve steadily been going out of stuff to talk about.”
“What the hell are you on about?” Yvessa asked. “Yesterday you spent the entire dinner making a top ten list of the hottest male Rulers.” She turned to Sam. “Sarah told me that he even carried with it through their workout.”
“So?” Felix gave her a bemused look. “You’re just proving my point. That was an A grade conversational material right there, and I was forced to just throw it out yesterday like it was common fodder because we had nothing else to discuss.”
“Conversational material? You were mostly talking to yourself.”
“Not true. You all kept commenting from the sidelines whenever you disagreed with my picks.”
“To be fair,” Sam said, “I still don’t think you should’ve removed that Lasari guy. In a contest of visual appearance, the fact that he’s a virulent racist shouldn’t be taken into consideration. And he was hot.”
“Ugh, what do you know? Besides, you only learned who he was yesterday.”
“What can I say? Game recognizes game.”
Felix stared back at him blankly. “Is this a joke about you being as attractive as him? Or is this a joke about you being as big of a racist?”
“Wait. Why does me saying that I’m just as aesthetically pleasing as that guy has to constitute a joke?”
“Because for you to be seriously thinking that, would go against your personality and past statements? I suppose we can count it as serious if we count you as being delusional and a pathological liar, though.”
“Wow. Rude much?”
“I’ll tell you what’s rude. How late Sarah is.”
“Don’t try to change the subject. Only I’m allowed to do that. Incidentally, I’m changing the subject. Where is Sarah?”
“Her class ran late,” Yvessa said. “She’ll be here soon. She said that we don’t have to wait for her and we can start eating without her, though.”
“Oh, so what are we still doing here?”
“We were waiting for you…” Felix intoned.
“Well here I am.” Sam spread both of his hands forwards towards the mess-hall. “And I’m leaving the ball in your court, Polaris.”
“Great. Finally. I’m fucking famished.”
“You’re always famished.”
“So? I’m a growing boy. I need a lot of calories.”
“Learn to pack a snack, why don’t you? A little pick me up between meals.”
“We can’t all be like you. Not all of us have an obsession with beef jerky and the ability to eat it with relish.”
“You eat way more jerky than Sam does,” Yvessa said.
“Yeah, but I don’t enjoy it as much as him.”
“Maan…” Sam shook his head at the philistine. “I ought to school you for saying something like that. But, I’m heading that way. Cause I don’t want fish.” He split up to find a more palatable main course before rejoining them in search of a table. “Alright,” he said after texting Sarah where they were seated, “Sarah says she’ll be here in five.”
“Are we taking bets on whether she’s running to make it here in that time frame or whether she’s running to make it earlier?” Felix asked.
“Is her walking here and making it in five minutes completely out of the question?”
“We can add it as an option. A black horse, if you will.”
She ended up joining them in indeed about five minutes, but with her level of fitness, and with no one asking her if she ran, it was unclear who it was that would’ve won the bet were it made. She sat with a tired sigh next to Sam, who said, “Hey, that’s my line!”
“You don’t have a monopoly on being tired when sitting down to eat dinner.” She waved her fork at him.
“No, but I have clearly worked tirelessly to establish audibly sighing as a part of my public persona. A trademark, if you will.”
“You haven’t been reinforcing it lately, though.”
“Hmm… yeah, I can’t argue with that. Let this be a lesson to you all about the dangers of ceasing to complain about stuff. Any concrete reason you’re tired? Something for us to worry about?”
She waved him off. “I’m well aware of what shape you three’s brand of worry takes by now. And there’s nothing to be worried anyway. Just had a long day. Didn’t get much sleep, as you’re all aware.”
“And why is that…?” Yvessa said.
“Shut it. I don’t want to hear about that today. Oh! Right. How’s your cat?”
“He’s fine, thank you. He’s staying at the vet for the night, but hopefully he’ll be able to come home tomorrow.”
“That’s great. I’m sure he will. Now, Sam, how was your patterns lesson?”
“I’m slowly inching my way towards you guys being able to talk about stuff without it going over my head,” he said with a nod towards Felix. That didn’t satisfy her curiosity, of course, so Sam had to tell how his return to the subject went in way more detail. He couldn’t help but noticing the smug look on her face when he concluded by saying that it was overall much easier than he remembered from four weeks ago. And to Sarah’s credit, she managed to hold the “I told you so” all through dinner and halfway through their walk to the training field. It really sucked when you ended up proving the people having utmost confidence in you right.