Alex asked where they were going once, but after receiving a terse reply to be patient, he didn't ask again.
Sam and Alex followed behind the regal celestial for a while. When the teenager bumped into his arm from walking so close, Alex glanced at him but let it be. He knew Sam had been through a lot and likely saw him as a lifeline.
The winding dirt path led away from the dark side of the Rift, deeper into the celestial side. After about twenty minutes, they arrived at a small meadow hidden within the trees. The grass was a vibrant green, and the mana vision in Alex’s Heavenly Eye clashed with the mundane view from his right eye. The cherry trees' colorful pink tops seemed to glow in the evening light.
Alex thought they were entering a clearing and hoped his eyes might get a break from all the mana in the trees, but he was wrong. In the middle of the meadow was a perfectly square patch that radiated vibrant mana, shining so brightly that Alex had to close his left eye.
“Woah,” Alex said reflexively. “What is that?”
“My garden,” Eura replied.
Before they reached the small wooden fence surrounding the garden, a man stood up from within its depths and quickly moved to intercept them. When he saw Eura, his expression softened, and he became less hostile. Eura bowed and greeted the man warmly before asking for privacy.
Soon, it was just the three of them, along with Valtherion. The little wyrm was curious about the plants but kept getting repelled by an unseen force. He flew to different positions around the garden, sniffing and trying to find an entry point.
“This is part of the example I wanted to show you before I begin to explain.” Eura held up his hands and gestured to their surroundings. “I want you to look at the forest that surrounds us and compare it to my garden.”
There was a pause as both Alex and Sam looked around.
“Let’s start with the garden. Take a moment to observe it. It’s beautiful, is it not? Every plant here is arranged precisely as the gardener intended. Even more interesting is the mana that flows through the garden. Alex, can you see it?”
Unsure of what he was looking at, Alex took a guess. “It’s brighter than the normal forest. Do the plants contain a lot of mana?”
Eura nodded, “Yes, precisely. These are spiritual herbs, and it is important that they are grown in the right conditions. For some, they must be grown in a specific combination of Qi, while others must be isolated by a certain distance. It’s a challenge to create a harmonious garden.”
“There are a lot of plants, though,” Alex said as he watched Sam. The teen was looking with interest at the surrounding trees. He walked to a nearby cherry tree and gently touched its large trunk.
“That’s the key point. Look at the forest around you. It’s chaotic, uncontrolled, but within that chaos lies a different kind of beauty and a vast number of different trees and plants.” He gestured to the small garden, “Much more than there could be in here.”
Alex frowned. “That goes without saying, right? A garden is always going to be smaller than a forest, but the benefit is that it’s controlled.”
“Precisely! The garden thrives on structure. The gardener decides what to plant, where to plant it, and how to tend to it. There’s a certainty in what will grow here. If the gardener plants a seed, there is no doubt about what will sprout from it. It’s predictable.”
Sam crouched down to look at the ground around the tree and Val flew over to look with the boy. Alex watched with his mana vision as he saw power flow from Sam into the tree.
Before he could ask, Eura continued. “In the forest, on the other hand, those trees have the freedom to grow wherever they want. They can reach for the light and spread their roots however they please. They may flourish, or they may wither, but it’s a direct reflection of their surroundings and resilience.”
“Okay, I’m guessing this ties back to magic somehow…”
“Think of the garden as structured magic. It’s well-defined, reliable, efficient, and much easier to begin using how you direct it. In contrast, the forest represents unstructured magic. It’s full of potential, yet less predictable and more wild. If you were to tame the forest, it might take many years of dedication and careful attention. Each of these has its purpose. Let me show you an example before we talk about which approach is better.”
Eura crossed the remaining distance to the garden with grace and crossed the unseen barrier without issue. Seeing that entry was possible, Valtherion redoubled his efforts to reach the mana-filled plants. Eura ignored the companion and stepped in carefully before plucking two flowers from the same bush. They had broad, bright yellow petals. Eura handed one of them to Alex as he returned.
“You mentioned that, through your bond, you have a skill to infuse mana into an object. This flower is meant to absorb foreign mana; as it does so, its petals will change one at a time to a different color. Please use that skill now until the flower is full of your mana.”
Alex did so, watching with fascination as the petals filled up one by one. It seemed surreal as they looked like the progress bar of a phone battery slowly filling up, changing from yellow to bright green. It only took him a few moments and close to 100 mana to completely change the color of the flower’s petals.
“Good,” Eura said. He held out his hand to take the flower and presented the second one to Alex. “Now do the same thing again, with only your natural control over mana. Don’t activate the skill.”
This time, the process was significantly harder. The task took more of Alex’s concentration and almost three times the amount of mana. Once the flower was filled with his mana, he breathed out a sigh and handed it to Eura.
“This is one of the easier examples to see the differences between structured and unstructured magic. You can think of structured magic as magic that is controlled and directed by the System. The System introduced it to allow weaker races to survive in a newly integrated world. There are a few different ways that structured magic can be learned. Most commonly, it’s through trial and error, teaching, or a technique manual- sorry.” Eura cut himself off. “Hmm, for the rest of this explanation, I’ll refer to things by the terms you know and that the System uses rather than the terms of my world.”
“As I was saying, these forms of structured magic can be learned in several ways, but what is consistent is that they are always presented in the form of skills. Structured magic is meant to be easy to use and quick to pick up, as it’s meant to be a method of survival in a chaotic and dangerous world. Much like my garden, you know exactly what you’re getting with the skills, and you can see a predictable form of growth with them since so much of System progression is guided through intent. The System has also put some safety measures in place with structured magic. Meaning that you can’t activate a skill if you don’t have the mana or stamina for it, as it would likely kill you. Instead, you might receive some backlash in the form of mana fatigue or passing out. This prevents many fledgling races from killing themselves early in the planetary integration.”
He mentioned the ‘integration’ when I asked him about broken worlds in the tunnels. Integration into what? The System? Is that what we’re going through is called?
“Unstructured magic is more like the forest. It’s wild and untamed, unpredictable, and often time-consuming to tackle. This kind of magic is the natural magic in the universe. It goes by many different names and has many different ways of being wielded, but the common factor is that this is the individual, personally shaping mana to produce magic. When you infused the mana into the flower without the use of a skill, that was unstructured magic. With many hours of practice, repetition, and focus, you could achieve the same results as the structured, skill version you performed.”
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“I think I see what you’re saying. What would be the point of me spending weeks or months learning to do that, if I can just do it so easily with a skill.”
Eura nodded, “That is part of it, yes. Because you are young and your world is likely in chaos, you must choose how to spend your time wisely. Should this ability become the focus of your training? Not likely. But, in some cases, for others, it might be the right path. While I’ve spoken about the benefits of each method, as with all things, there are also downsides. Structured magic’s greatest detriment is that there are a limited number of skill slots available to an Awakened.”
“There are?” Alex asked. Sam also looked up from his seated position next to the cherry tree.
“Yes. Through the System, an Awakened can only have ten active skills and five passive skills. Traits slots vary depending on the race of an individual.”
“Shit, does that mean we’re locked into the skills we’ve already chosen?” Panic began to rise in Alex’s chest. Not because he regretted the skills he was currently using but because he didn’t know what might be offered down the road.
Am I hampering my future growth by accepting skills like I have been?
“Yes and no. You will be able to drop the skills that you chose but let me come back to that in a moment. For now, I want you to realize that it’s often the people who focus on structured magic early that live long enough to become powerful. There are downsides, such as less flexibility and limited slots, but in a world filled with danger, the immediate use of powerful skills can save a life many times over. On the other hand, those who use unstructured magic are not limited by skill slots. Rather than learning just ten spells, if each one were to take up a skill slot, a mage using unstructured magic could learn hundreds. It may take him decades of practice and rigorous study, but they would be much stronger in the long run due to their knowledge and adaptability. Unfortunately, many who follow this path don’t live long enough in a newly integrated world to see the fruits of their labor.”
Alex fell silent, thinking of his use of rituals.
Living is definitely a priority. Should I use the consumable Shadow Serpent manual to gain some more skills?
“Now, I want to ask you both. Which method is better? Structured or unstructured magic?”
After a long silent pause, Alex spoke up, “Structured magic? While it makes sense to think about the long game, living to get there is more important. Isn’t it?”
Eura smiled and looked to Sam who was looking at a protruding root next to his foot. “Samuel?”
Alex looked over to the teenager and saw Val who had given up on breaking through the garden’s barrier and was weaving through trees in the background, chasing a colorful dragonfly.
Sam opened his mouth hesitantly, as if to speak, but shrugged and looked at his feet again.
Eura’s smile dimmed with sadness, “A combination is typically the best answer. Early, it might be best to learn more structured magic, but with the goal to set yourself up for a more unstructured approach in the later ranks. Alex, you’ve already been doing this without realizing it. You’re using a combination of skills to facilitate movement and your magic, while most of your actual potential and flexibility come from your use of rituals. Those are a less common form of unstructured magic.”
While that made sense to Alex, and he felt a sense of relief that he hadn’t ruined his potential on accident, something didn’t quite make sense. “Do the rituals still count as unstructured magic, even though I’m using the skill [Mana Thread] to lay the ritual circles?”
“Oh, certainly. The most common approach when a magic user reaches my level of power is to have their skills be ‘tools’ to facilitate or increase the potency of their unstructured magic. As long as it is your dedication, practice, and knowledge shaping the spell or ability through mana, then it is unstructured magic. There are even others who have skills to store the most recent copy of their used unstructured magic to be instantly used again through the skill. Even though the magic is coming through the use of a skill the second time, it can only copy the potency and unstructured spell that the wielder used prior, so the System still considers this unstructured magic.”
“I see…” Alex’s head swam. “So, by using the [Mana Threads] as a tool to create my rituals, it is still considered to be unstructured magic?”
Eura nodded. “I might normally encourage you to save such a deep study of unstructured magic until you are at a higher rank and to focus on structured magic for the time being. But, between your Titles shoring up some of your immediate weaknesses and your Trait giving you such a boost to magical control, my advice for you would be different. Even though it’s a more dangerous path to walk, you will see significant benefits from unstructured magic much earlier than others would.”
“So what are you saying? To continue my training with rituals?”
“Continue studying the rituals, yes. That being said, I don’t see their base form and traditional uses being a very sustainable kind of unstructured magic if you plan to focus on combat.” There was a pause and the celestial raised an eyebrow at Alex as if asking an unspoken question.
“What? Do I continue to focus on combat? I haven’t really given it much thought.”
I find certain parts of it fun, but up until two weeks ago, I had only been fighting as a means to survive.
No, that’s not true. I willingly entered those Rifts to gain levels and combat experience.
Wait. Do I like fighting?
It was an odd revelation for Alex to realize that he did find something satisfying about coming out of a life-or-death situation as a victor. The entire recent experience within the Epic Rift had put those feelings to the back of his mind, as his thoughts hadn’t been focused on winning but rather on surviving. It brought back clearer thoughts on the real reason he’d decided to attack the final camp before leaving the Rift.
He could have spent more time sneaking around the camp, or used his abilities to pass through the camp with minimal risk of getting caught. Instead, he’d tried to ambush the group and get more gains while striking back at his tormentors one more time before leaving.
Holy shit. I do like fighting. I like progressing and surviving.
Realization painted Alex's face. "And what if I do decide to focus on combat? Am I completely screwed since my whole class is for rituals?"
Eura failed to hide a quickly growing smile, "Do not worry much. Changing your class is a fairly easy matter."
Alex visibly relaxed a bit at this and his memory caught up with his briefly fear-filled thoughts. He remembered the conversation he’d had with Olivia about classes and realized that he already knew they could be changed and he wasn’t locked into his own class. Even more embarrassing, was that he remembered the System specifically saying, when he’d chosen a class, he could change his class.
"There are particular crystals that can be used to revisit class selection. Additionally, the System naturally handles class advancement much like it does skill advancement. You will be given the choice to evolve, advance, or drop the class. It will give you a preview of the different routes to let you know what the class will evolve or advance to, which will resemble the glimpse that it gave you when you chose your class originally. This is another reason why grasping the fundamentals and learning to utilize structured and unstructured magic is so important. Classes and skills can change, be lost, locked, or dropped. Your knowledge and the skill that you learn through dedication will not ever be lost."
Suddenly a bit more relaxed, Alex asked, “Okay. What about Sam? What should he focus on once we get out of this Rift?”
“Samuel, while I don’t know all of your Status, my eyes can see much. I think you’re on the right path. My advice for you would be similar to most others. Continue to focus on structured magic, but as you go down your path to power, continue to think of what sort of unstructured magic you will use and when you will begin to make the transition.”
Sam smiled and nodded. Alex could clearly see the relief on his face.
Even though he kept his distance from us, he was listening closely to the entire conversation. I am surprised he cares at all after what he’s been through, it’s impressive if he’s thinking about his future... He’s had even less guidance than I have. At least I got to read some articles from the AG app before making decisions.
Eura answered a few more questions for the boys, and Alex was able to convince the sect head to tell them the kind of unstructured magic that he used. He was unsurprised to find that it revolved around a sort of wide area, celestial projection magic. When Alex had tried to pry more information from him, he’d been politely chastised and informed that other high powered individuals might kill him on the spot for such an invasive question.
Alex had gulped and let Eura continue to guide the conversation, perfectly content to keep his life.
“Before we head back, I have a question that’s been on my mind,” Alex said. He remembered the lingering confusion he’d felt since he had first read his traits description. “Do you know who Zaamis is?”
Eura’s expression shifted subtly, his brow furrowing. “What makes you ask that?”
“Well, I told you how my trait works. But the description reads differently than my other skills and titles. It has some flavor text to it that says I am ‘the chosen of Zaamis,’ but I’ve never heard that name anywhere else. When we spoke in the tunnels, you mentioned a God overseeing the integration… so I wondered if-”
“No,” Eura said with a firm tone. “Only one God will oversee an integration. But, there are seven Gods who oversee the Wider Worlds, and Zaamis is not among them.” He glanced at the darkening sky and his expression became distant. “We should return. The evening meal will be served soon and I have an appointment shortly after.”
Alex wanted to press further, the quick dismissal and change in tone wasn’t normal for Eura and it made him more curious. It was also the same change in tone and demeanor that made him hold off on asking further questions.
He nodded, filling away the celestial’s reaction for later.
As they began their walk back to the sect, Val swooped down to perch on Alex’s shoulder. The little wyrm's presence was comforting as his mind churned with questions about unstructured magic, skill slots, and most of all, the mysterious Zaamis.