Petra massaged Gwen's stuttering legs as her cousin squirmed and groaned.
"I am not a spell-bank, you know. Unless we're Adventuring, I don't stock up on those spells," Petra chided Gwen, who moaned as her masseuse's fingers worked over the inflamed flesh. "Transmutation Utility doesn't teach you the physiological and morphic aspects of these spells, so be careful with the revised Incantations. We can always get you a Transmutation Tutor in the future if you're so keen on getting up close and personal."
"It was an idiotic fancy." Gwen gritted her teeth as Petra worked over a knot.
"Turn around," Petra commanded.
Gwen flopped over like a slab of grilling fish flipped by a chef. The sorry sight of her suffering made Petra laugh as she began work on her hamstrings, working her way down to the quads.
"Is the Druidic Essence helping?" Petra asked. She had advised that Gwen focus on circulating her emerald Essence through her body to take advantage of its regenerative properties.
"OW—" Gwen took in a breath of cold air. "I-I can f-feel the soreness fading away, but you're doing God's work, Pats."
Earlier, her cousin had quite a shock when she opened the door to find Gwen transformed into a mass of convulsing flesh caught between the sofa and the coffee table. It wasn't until she poked Gwen with her foot in the buttocks that the girl began to scream blue murder.
"Three more days to go, and you get your break," Petra advised her. "Feel like doing anything this Sunday?"
"I think I am going to r-r-rEST!" Gwen whined when Petra pressed an elbow over her gluteus. "Delicately, Pats! You're breaking the girl!"
Gwen felt a sudden tingle as her Divination senses pinged.
"Er—Pats?"
Above her, Petra snickered.
[https://i.imgur.com/BJhWXZ0.png]
Thursday.
Gwen had practice, followed by Management coursework, followed by practice.
It was only thanks to her abnormally large mana pool and her Druidic essence that Gwen was able to pile together two sessions bisected by her Gen-Ed, which served to restore her mana.
From 0900 to 1200, she took to the practice field and focused on repeating her Conjuration incantations. First, she warmed up on cantrips, then moved her way up to Dimension Door, and finally on complex manifestations.
For her advancement toward the fifth tier, Magister Wen had prepared a new Incantation for Gwen, contributed by Magus Kumiko.
Based upon the altered Invocations used by Master Kilroy for Dark Tentacle and Faithful Hound, Wen had reverse-engineered three tiers of Summon Elementals: Minor, Lesser, and the namesake fifth-tier Summon.
At first, Gwen was disparaged that she was forced to acclimate her method to the mundane variety. When she mentioned this to Magister Wen, the helpful Magister intervened, showing Gwen that higher spells were the same formulas, only with more support structure.
Confidently, Wen informed the Void Conjurer that there was no reason why her Sigils couldn't process the usual formulas in Kilroy's Signature style, at least until tier 6, beyond which she would need to tap into supplementary mandala arrays developed especially for her altered-School.
The rest was a matter of familiarity, accuracy, stability, and speed.
Of all these qualities, speed was paramount to combat.
The time it took to manifest magical phenomena varied from Mage to Mage. Gwen's staple escape spell, Dimension Door, was tailored especially for Magister Kilroy's speed and took just over a second at her present stage of expertise. Faithful Hound, a defensive spell with many conditional modifiers, took almost two minutes. Comparatively, Dark Tentacles took about four to five seconds, while sustained barrage spells such as Warding Bolt and Call Lighting each took two to three seconds.
Gwen's display was well above an average arcanist but still far below an expert.
And the difference between a novice and an expert, Magister Birch explained, was their theory work.
For example, according to Magister Birch, the difference between "Summoning spells" and "Conjuration spells" isn't their similar function, but Spellcraft history.
Conjuration originates from the Latin term conjuratio, a phrase popularised during the shift between the Dark Ages of Middle Europe to the Golden Age of the Florentine Renaissance. For Europe, it was an epoch with many concurrences: the splitting of the Papal States into the warring factions of the Romagna; the birth of ocean-faring sorcery which began the age of colonisation; the rediscovery of Roman and Greek Faith Magic; the renewed interest in the notion of Republic—all of which made for haphazard progress. During its apex, Conjurers such as Johann Georg Faust, a German arcanist, discovered how to bind elemental forces onto human anima, allowing Humanity to 'control' and 'communicate' with creatures they once worshipped as divine.
Meanwhile, Summoners, or spells that 'summon' creatures or things, were founded under far less academic circumstances. Archives as ancient as Egyptian hieroglyphs told of 'summoning' ancestral spirits, divine avatars, elemental gods, and so on. The phrase itself is a corruption of the Latin evocatio, appropriated by the School of Evocation to mean the summoning of raw elemental power. For Conjuration, a Summon thus represented the translocation of semi-sentient and mindless creatures compelled, but not controlled, by the Summoner.
Unlike early Conjurers, Summoners infamously called forth all kinds of mayhem and chaos by accident. From Succubi-beings that toppled nations to accidentally calling out Elder Elementals from the Plane of Fire to the spread of Vampirism—most of Humanities' mishaps had ambitious Summoners at their centre.
Birch's was a lesson well taught, for his warning closely matched her observations of "Summon Elemental", her new spell. When activated, a flood of leaping, howling, hooting creatures launched toward one's enemies, appearing and disappearing as her mana ran dry.
What interested Gwen was also the selection of "creatures". The minor creatures for "Minor Elemental Swarm" were swarms of sparks that flew toward her desired direction. The more mana she channelled, the greater the duration and volume of sparks that manifested. If she was willing to OoM, she could sustain the spell for a whole five minutes, thanks to her abnormally large mana pool.
Gwen then attempted the tier 4 "lesser" variant but could only sustain the spell for a minute. Interestingly, the sparks now resembled insects or at least a host of creatures that moved like a swarm.
As for the tier 5 variety, she had so far no success, only raging headaches from mana feedback.
Nonetheless, it was good practice for her progress toward the next tier of expertise. Every moment of pain, nausea and suffering were all a part of conditioning her mind for the exponential complexity of interwoven Glyphs.
For the growth of her Void Magic, Magister Wen had explicitly warned Gwen to leave her curiosity well alone until they could gather sufficient data. She had no desire for Gwen to be recorded in Spellcraft history as the first Void sorceress to waste herself during a mundane session of enthused practice.
When she exited, sweat-soaked and pallid from the privacy of her practice room, she was met by several of her peers from the Conjuration class.
"That's Gwen Song," she heard one of the students whisper under their breath.
Gwen looked up toward the group waiting along the exterior corridor and prepared herself to greet them. However, she instead received disparaged glowers ranging from interest to loathsome stares.
When she came close enough to inspect her antagonists, she saw their colour matched practice equipment and enchanted uniforms, as well as their similar facial features.
Either these were a troop of six brothers and sisters—or these young Mages belonged to the Clan-Sects infamous to China's magical community.
Gwen pulled her gym towel tightly around her bare shoulders, covering her collarbones.
"Clanners", as Petra called them, saw all outsiders as the enemy, and they jealously guarded their secrets while hypocritically coveting the skills and talents of Mages they saw as inferior. These folk, Gwen reminded herself, were the very ones that Michio Lee wanted to crack open like an egg to scoop out their secrets.
As the group approached, Gwen lowered her head and kept her gaze downcast, mindful of the slight tingling of her Divination Sigils.
The group passed.
Someone snickered.
Somebody else whistled.
Unsurprisingly, someone cracked a lascivious joke.
Gwen swallowed the humiliation. Lucky for her, several of her subjects had Mid-Term exhibition matches, and some of these folk were in her classes.
As such, her revenge was best served cold.
[https://i.imgur.com/BJhWXZ0.png]
"Miss Song, it's good to see you," James Ma, Professor and one of the overseers of their scholarship interview, greeted her as she entered the auditorium. "Is Mr Huang not with you?"
"He's Adventuring until next week, Sir," Gwen replied meekly, not wishing to appear to possess the come-offish air of the Mages who thought themselves superior to the NoM scholar.
This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.
The professor seemed more relieved than disappointed at Richard's leave of absence.
"I suppose we all have our priorities. Very well, take a seat."
Gwen sat.
Mayuree joined her a few minutes later, and the two cuddled up near the front. Unlike herself, the Diviner held no interest in Gen-Ed and needed only to pass the course. Comparatively, Gwen scribbled like a madwoman as Professor Ma dived into the history of magical governance.
"Following the Leviathan Accord by Meister Thomas Hobbes, Non-Magical Humans were given rights of their own, becoming an integral part of human society," the professor spoke with a clear, articulate voice. "To trace the history of Hobbes' writing, one needs to acknowledge the French Meister and father of modern political philosophy, René Descartes; himself informed by classical predecessors such as Plato and Aristotle, who saw the merit in providing Non-Mages with a fighting chance at making themselves virtuous in a Human society."
Gwen tried to imagine Plato, who also happened to be a fabled wrestler, as a Mage.
"Note that during antiquity, Mages were divine heroes, sons and daughters of the Pantheon of Gods, so we mustn't anachronistically judge their limited understanding of egalitarianism."
James Ma was an excellent lecturer, possessing a distinct aptitude Gwen admired. His gold-rimmed glasses glinted as he spoke, and the cadence and intonation of his speech made the somewhat dry lecture far more interesting than its subject matter.
Unfortunately, very few of her peers shared her sentiment for social history.
The class was meant to be three hundred strong.
Right now, there were about a hundred of them in the lecture, and half of them were either listening with dazed expressions or quietly engaged themselves with private affairs hidden in the back row. As an NoM, Professor Ma couldn't challenge the students bodily, meaning he had to do his best with passion and rhetoric, hoping that at least a few of the Mages graduated with enough knowledge to have some sympathy for their NoM brothers and sisters.
The first lecture was on Rights, or more precisely, on the "Universal Guarantee of Equal Rights to all Human Beings." Nonetheless, the passionate lecturer may as well be playing guzheng to the proverbial oxen.
"It was the British Oxford Think-tank, headed then by the Meister John Locke, who first roused the idea of universal human rights for all. He stated that human rights should be an existential creed—a moral principle, enshrined and protected by all."
"Note that Human Rights, in sharp distinction to the two-tier system of Mage and Non-Mage laws practised around the world pre-17th century, refer to the 'RIGHTS' to which a person is inherently entitled. This right is inalienable regardless of nation, location, language, religion, ethnic origin or any other status. This 'right' is an egalitarian, universal constant, the very thing which separates us from the Demi-humans. It is a rejection of the proposals made by Meister Darwin."
Mayuree snuggled against Gwen's arm, opened a bleary eye, and closed it again. Unlike for Gwen, the lecture was for Mayuree a sweet lullaby.
Gwen eagerly jotted down the keynotes to Professor's Ma's informative representation of what she internally termed the NoM-Mage Apartheid.
"Some of you will one day be given a demesne to govern on the Frontier. As steward representative of your Tower or Provincial governorship, you will hold the power of life or death over the citizens under your care. You may be the protector of a township, the Arbitrator of a district, the Paladin of a Tower, or even the Tower Master him or herself, presiding over millions of lives."
"It is then, and only then, will you realise that all humans, NoM, Mage or otherwise, bear the burden of upholding the rights of their fellow citizens. Yes—holding so many lives in your hands may prove a stressful affair, but it is necessary for the survival of mankind. Think! Why else does Humanity persist today as the most prosperous terrestrial race on Earth? The Mermen far outnumber us. The Elven race possesses far greater knowledge of Spellcraft. The Dwarves are more industrious and wiser. And the Dragonkin are to us, what Gods are to insects. BUT, why is it that Humanity, whose practice of Spellcraft only began in earnest during the Spellcraft Revolution at the turn of the 19th century, have such dominion over the continents? Why is it that we, who are weaker by all accounts, continue to survive and prosper, despite the fall of Frontier and city, year after year?"
As the lecturer's voice rose, the entire lecture now grew attentive.
"It is because of Good Governance!"
The lecture's interest instantly waned.
"The rule of Law! The respect for NoMs and Mages! The working together of all of Humanity! That is how we survived! We have produced more Mages in the last fifty years than all of Humanity's histories put together since the time of the Magi Moses and the coming of the Prophet Jesus Christ! Right now, more Mages are serving in the frontlines, the cities, studying to become Magus and Magisters like yourselves, than any other time in the history of the human race!"
"Good governance!" the professor reiterated. "That is the greatest power of all and the most difficult thing to master in the world."
Gwen completed her notes with a flourish. Her eyes glowed with passion and enthusiasm. Ma's lecture was fantastic! Such wisdom! Such sagacity! Such foresight! Gwen felt giddy with ambition, her skin crawling with goosebumps.
She could do it! She could bring forth a democratic utopia if she inherited a demesne! At the very least, she could make her subjets no longer suffer the yolk of unemployment and existential nihilism. She would endow her people with purpose and produce! She would make the Mages see sense in raising the NoMs toward meaningful participation in society!
But that was for a very distant future.
Right now, she was short on rent.
"Finally—there will be an excursion to District 108 and District 35 in Week Six." Professor Ma pulled out an image of a sprawling hive city shot from the air. Gwen recognised it as a 'forest' apartment block for NoMs on the Third Orbital Ring. "If you wish to participate, sign off a Security Clearance form 10-B outside the drop box beside my office."
After the professor concluded the lecture and finished issuing homework reading and reports, Gwen shook herself from the revelry of new knowledge and turned to wake Mayuree.
The girl slept sweetly beside her, curled up like a kitten, a sliver of drool leaking from one corner of her lips and forming a silvery thread across Gwen's dark yoga pants.
Gwen watched the Diviner's eyes flutter slightly.
"Is it time for lunch?" Mayuree asked groggily.
"You bet it is." Gwen chuckled, helping her companion into an upright position. "Let's go get some fish'n chips. I got another three hours of Evocation practice after."
[https://i.imgur.com/BJhWXZ0.png]
Friday.
The Tower technician that came to install her LRM Projector was a young bloke who grew increasingly sweaty in the presence of the "Flower of Fudan" and her cousin.
Unlike the bloke's interest in herself and Petra, Gwen found herself drawn to the technician's work, particularly the magical tools he used to melt the concrete, embed the mana cables, then re-seal the lot.
When finally the LR Message Projector was completed, Gwen thanked the man and gave him a few LDMs as a tip, which he politely refused.
"It's an honour," the young man explained, still starstruck from the looks of his breathlessness. "The order came from the Pudong Tower itself."
He then showed her how to power up the device and left his card if she had further need of his services. Gwen sent the man away with a smile, then stood for a minute to admire the international communication device.
Now, she could talk to Yue and Elvia, not to mention Gunther and Alesia. With a bit of patience, she could even commune with Opa and set Richard up with his parents.
But first, she had her final class of the week, Economics.
[https://i.imgur.com/BJhWXZ0.png]
As before, the Gen-Ed for Economics took place on the upper campus. Gwen quietly pushed through the door and snuck into the lecture hall; happily, the professor ignored her.
Mayuree waved, and Gwen walked up the aisles until she reached her companion.
"Hey there, Kitty." Gwen waved to the girl beside them.
Kitty gave a half-nod, then turned back to her note-taking.
Currently, the lecture was on the history of currency.
"… The first instance of Mana Crystals used as currency was undertaken unknowingly by the Church-Templars from the 12th-century Crusaders escorting members of the nobility on their pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Though the four major Crusades against the then indomitable Elemental Sultanates between the 12th century and the 14th century remained a failure, it nonetheless opened up the Mediterranean to commerce and travel, consolidating Papal leadership, galvanising medieval romance, philosophy, and of course—Economics."
The topic was right up her alley as she scratched her notes with an expert hand. Gwen was by now getting used to her data slate, which was just like a Kindle Paper-White, only powered by arcane mystery. Nevertheless, Gwen reminded herself that any technological device of sufficient advancement was no different from magic. The people of this world may call meteors from an alternate dimension—but her world had smartphones and the internet. A Mage may be able to conjure an amorous Incubus of some kind, but could they stream Gangnam Style their Message devices?
Below, the lecturer was unaware of Gwen's smug superiority.
"As it was near impossible to transport precious metals and large volumes of coinage, High-Density Mana Crystals, then the currency of Wizards, Warlocks and Sorcerors, became popular as a trading currency. Across the aeons, mercantile empires then rose and fell with the onset of disasters both natural and supernatural. Too much hoarding of crystals attracted Magical Beasts sensitive to such things as Dragons, while too little led to ambition and conflict. It was only after the Undead incursion of WWI that the newly formed League of Nations established the World Banking Regulations Body, where the G9, a collection of Western Nations, joined by the U.S from the New World, brought legislative recognition and fiscal management to crystal trading."
"As is common knowledge, Mana crystals, as a resource essential to Spellcraft and Magi-tech, is generated from Astral Rifts. HDMs are longitudinally perpetual but finite in volume due to the difficulty of harvesting them. As the backbone of a resource-backed economy, it is a perfect commodity currency. At any period, there is a finite volume of crystal producing regions, and this reserve is set against market trends and needs of our Tier 1 economies. Such predictability then affords the LDM and the HDMs their role as the currency choice of not only Humanity but Demi-humans as well."
Eureka! Gwen heard her old, economics-major self cry out.
Crystals are friggin Petrol-Dollars! No wonder the fiscally infantile economy of this world never collapsed! Before the Americans created a stranglehold on petroleum in her world, the world economy pre-WWII was rife with instability, exploitation, economic bubbles, and fiscally irresponsible governments printing currency like toilet paper. That was the whole hog! Why could the U.S quantitatively ease their economy almost indefinitely after the GFC? Why was it that the U.S could outspend the G19 on military single-handedly? It was because it had an infinite capacity for inflation without upset—for the only way to drastically devaluate the U.S dollar was to unpin its stranglehold over crude oil! So long as other economies used petroleum in their lifeblood, the Petrol-Dollar was immortal! In her old world, the banking industry had drunk the milk of carbon-paradise, and to exit its embrace was death.
Comparatively, "Terra's" economy functioned on the stuff of legends, the Crude of the Gods! Clean, self-perpetuating, virtually infinite Crystals growing from the Earth where the foundation between the Prime Material and the Astral grew thin!
It was as though the Reserve Bank was the Earth itself! A self-capitalised reserve bank with infinite capacity and zero interest rates! The financial systems of this world could operate like an inebriated motor-hoon, and they still wouldn't veer into bankruptcy.
Here, the only way for a nation to lose everything was to lose its Mages and NoM labourers, thereby its capacity to extract crystals.
No wonder no one saw the need to keep the NoMs employed and productive.
No wonder almost all gainful employment involved venturing into the Wildlands and fending off the encroachment of the wilderness, the Magical Beasts and the Demi-humans.
No wonder the socialism in this world treated the NoMs like bodies bred to fill gaps.
No wonder the capitalists had little regard for creating hegemonic conglomerates.
No wonder slums like Blackheath were a dime a dozen in Sydney.
In its particular way, this world had already reached a self-perpetuating equilibrium; its macro and microeconomics balanced by a resource that was infinite and self-regulated.
No wonder—Gwen felt a sudden sadness overcome her weary soul, no wonder only the NoMs engaged in disorganised finance. No wonder the Frontier was rural and exploited. As a Mage, all she had to do was open up new vistas on the Frontier and all the currency that grew within her demesne—
Ws her's alone.
For the lack of a better phrase, her money would fall from thin air!