"The mana cycle?"

Thenio paused, trying to think. His head was starting to get fuzzy because he'd put so much magic power out into the crystal synthesis tool. It made it a little hard to remember things.

"Um...I know the basics. The world emits mana, and people and magic beasts absorb it. It gets converted into magic power inside their bodies. Then when they use magic, it dissipates and gets absorbed back into the world. Then it repeats again. Right? I remember my teacher saying it was actually a lot more complicated than that, but he said we didn't need to know the details until we got into more advanced magic."

"Right." Ariom nodded. He was watching Thenio closely, probably monitoring his rapidly decreasing magic power. "There are actually quite a few steps involved. And there are some parts of the process that we don't entirely understand yet. But as your teacher said, it's not something that most wizards need to know about.

"Alchemists and necromancers all have to study it, though. For enchanters, it depends on your area of specialization. But since I'm certified in alchemy and necromancy, I obviously had to learn it." He sighed. "And I guess you're going to have to, as well. It looks like it might be important for understanding how your magic works. I think you've put enough into that crystal, by the way. You can stop."

Thenio nodded and gratefully took his hands off the collector rods, then leaned his head back against the sofa. He was panting a little, and he felt weak and lightheaded. Early symptoms of magic exhaustion.

Ariom took the synthesis tool from him and checked the last magic crystal. "Still ice. The structure is less regular on this one, though. Well, that's good, in a way. It means your magic's starting to go back to its normal state."

He put the crystal and synthesis tool away. Then he took a small glass bottle full of pale golden liquid from his space pocket and handed it to Thenio.

"Here. Just sip this slowly. It's life attribute, so I don't think it will cause you any problems. But since we haven't actually tried it before, I want to watch and make sure nothing unexpected happens. Unexpected things seem to be your specialty, after all...."

Thenio made a face and took the bottle. He looked down at it, and his eyes widened when he read the label. "Ambrosia? Seriously? Isn't that...?"

"No, it wasn't expensive," Ariom cut him off firmly. "It can be if you buy it normally, but like I said, I got it from Focilo. And he has a unicorn, remember? A very old, very powerful, very grumpy unicorn. Sano can make this stuff by the barrelful, so Focilo has plenty of it. And he gave me that specifically for you to use. So don't worry about it. Just drink it."

Thenio looked at the bottle with trepidation, but he obediently unscrewed the lid. His hands were trembling a little. He wasn't sure if it was due to the ice magic, the magic exhaustion, or the knowledge that he was about to drink the most valuable medicine he'd ever taken in his life....

He sighed and took a small sip. It had a light, sweet taste that was reminiscent of honeyed fruit. That must be why the Forest People called it 'unicorn honey.' Unicorns weren't the only magic beasts that could make it, but they were particularly good at it, and most of the ambrosia available on the market was made in Ket'qe.

It was just purified water that was infused with life magic. But having a short ingredient list didn't mean it was easy to make. The magic had to be condensed in a particular way to create a sort of liquid crystal form that was able to stay dissolved in water without solidifying or dissipating. Only life affinity magic beasts and a few high-ranking life mages were able to do it.

Thenio swallowed the ambrosia and felt a warm, comforting sensation going down his throat and into his stomach. It was like drinking hot cider on a cold day.

He frowned a little at the remaining golden liquid. He was quite sure he'd never had ambrosia before. But for some reason, the taste and sensation seemed familiar.

Was there an ordinary drink that he might have had that tasted similar? He couldn't think of one. But Aunt Suliya liked to serve fancy, exotic things when they ate at her house. Maybe he was remembering something he'd had there....

"It looks like it's working," Ariom said, watching Thenio closely. "I can see it being absorbed into your magic circuit. No sign of instability so far. Ambrosia isn't normally used as a magic recovery medicine, of course, but I was reasonably sure it could function as one in your case. And it was listed in the Association records as a medicine that was confirmed safe for chaos morphs to use in moderate amounts. They didn't give any reason for why that might be, but I think we can assume that it's because the other chaos morphs tolerated life magic as well as you do."

Thenio took another sip and stared down at the bottle again. Other chaos morphs had also used this medicine? That thought made him feel a little strange.

Ariom turned to Amisi. "Tell Mideis that Thenio seems to be all right, will you? And that I'll come back to the workroom as soon as his magic has recovered a little." He looked back at Thenio. "I think you'd better come, too. This room has a barrier built into it, so I thought you'd be safer in here. But until we figure out what happened while you were drawing just now...I think it's better if you stay where I can see you. You can watch what we're doing in the workroom from the dragon box. The barrier on that should be enough to protect you."

"Oh. Okay." Thenio hadn't planned on spending the rest of the afternoon sitting in one of Iggy's boxes, but if that's what Ariom thought was best.... "Does that mean you can't fix Ice Queen's magic dampener?"

Ariom shook his head. "No, it's already fixed. It was just a small crack, so the repair didn't take long. But there's a flaw in the design, so just repairing it isn't enough to make it safe for you to be around her."

"A flaw?"

"Right. Well...it wouldn't normally be called a flaw, but it becomes one when you're involved. See, there are two types of magic dampeners. One of them is basically a wearable magic crystal charger. It collects excess magic power and channels it into empty crystals, so that it doesn't leak out into the surrounding area."

"Is that what those white crystals are?" Thenio asked, looking down at his sketchbook, which was lying on the sofa, open to the picture he'd drawn of Namyis showing them her dampening cuffs.

"Yes. But they're limited in how much magic they can absorb. So most of the dampening devices that high-rankers use also include the second type of dampener, which converts the magic power into a form called 'essence magic' in order to make it dissipate more quickly. So it still leaks out, but it's not in a form that bothers people. Most people, that is. You're obviously not most people...."

Thenio sighed. "So that's what was making my magic do...whatever it was doing?"

"Thenio's magic was going frozey like ice cream!" Iggy said, clearly trying to be helpful.

"Right. Frozen like ice cream," Ariom agreed, reaching over to pat the little dragon's head. "Or in other words, your magic temporarily became ice attributed. Absorbing essence magic seems to have a different effect on you than absorbing ambient magic does. I have no idea why. I never expected you would be able to absorb more than one type in the first place. All the magic eating creatures I know of can only absorb magic once it reaches a specific state of decay."

"So...what's the difference between ambient and essence magic?" Thenio asked, confused.

"It would take a while to explain all the details, so we'll save the full lecture for later. But I'll give you the short version: The first half of the mana cycle goes from mana to raw magic power to attributed magic power. The energy increases in complexity. Right?"

Thenio nodded. He already understood that much.

"And the second half of the cycle decreases in complexity. Emitted magic dissipates into ambient magic, which breaks down further into denatured magic, which is more or less the same as raw magic. And from there it goes back to mana. Those are the main stages of the cycle. But there are some more subtle steps in between stages. Essence magic is one of those. It's between ambient magic and denatured magic, and it's the simplest form where the magic attribute is still identifiable. That's where the name comes from—it's the form that contains the 'essence' of the attribute."

"The essence...?" Thenio frowned and looked down at his sketchbook again.

The essence of a magic attribute. And dream magic, the magic of knowledge....

Somehow he felt like there was a connection there, but he couldn't quite put his finger on what it was....

"Essence magic is something of an artificial form," Ariom went on. "It does occur naturally when magic decays, but only in small amounts. And it dissipates quickly. Using something like a magic dampening device is the only way to get a large amount of it. And the situation earlier was even more unusual because the person wearing the device was a sixth-rank sorcerer, and the device was damaged. The crack disrupted the enchantment matrix, so instead of sending magic power into the crystals, it was all going to the conversion formation. The result was an abnormally large cloud of ice attributed essence magic."

"Is that why Namyis felt so much colder than usual?" Amisi asked. "She made me cold whenever we met her before, but it wasn't as bad as today."

Ariom nodded. "Probably. A lot of magic beasts are sensitive to essence magic. That's why they still feel uncomfortable around high-ranking sorcerers who are wearing dampening devices. The conversion to essence magic really only benefits other humans. Chaos morphs aside, of course. Though I guess freezing is better than exploding...."

"Does that mean I can't be around high-ranking sorcerers at all?" Thenio asked. "Even if they're wearing magic dampeners?"

"I'm not sure." Ariom frowned. "It's probably safer to avoid them in general for now. But I think it would depend some on the individual. Namyis is a particularly strong sixth-ranker, after all. And even she might be all right if she had dampeners that relied less on essence magic conversion.

"But I haven't noticed you having any trouble around high-ranking life mages. You spent plenty of time around Uncle Bero, and he's fifth-rank. Focilo is sixth-rank. And a strong one, at that. He's not too far behind Namyis in the individual power ranking. And I'd bet my certification badge that Eteon is a sixth-ranker as well, though we still don't know what his original magic affinity is."

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Thenio sat and thought about that for a moment, while he finished the last of the bottle of ambrosia. It was good stuff. He felt much better and was starting to be able to think clearly again.

Though he was also starting to feel rather hot....

"Um...I think I'm getting warmed up again," he said, sliding the blanket off his shoulders. "So maybe we don't need the fire anymore?"

"Good...." Ariom sounded very relieved. When he got up to go turn the fire off, Thenio saw that the back of his shirt was damp with sweat.

"Uh...sorry about that..." he said, feeling a bit guilty.

Ariom shook his head. "Don't worry about it. I'd much rather sweat a little than have you freeze yourself to death."

"Why did I get so cold? If my magic changed to ice attribute, shouldn't I have been immune to cold like an ice mage is?"

"They're like that because they're used to it and can control their magic properly. There are cases of young ice mages accidentally giving themselves frostbite because they can't control their magic well enough."

"Really? That's scary...."

Ariom raised an eyebrow. "I'm not sure if a chaos morph ought to think something at that level is scary."

"Well...you have a point...." Thenio was quiet for a moment. "You were saying earlier that you had a theory about why my magic keeps changing. Does it have to do with essence magic? Do you think I'm reacting to random bits of essence magic floating around or something?"

"Well, not exactly," Ariom said slowly, coming back to sit down on the sofa again. "Like I said, essence magic is normally only produced in small amounts, and it breaks down quickly. I'm sure it affects you occasionally, but there shouldn't be enough of it floating around to keep changing your magic constantly. But after seeing how you reacted to it, I've thought of a couple of possibilities.

"The first one is that you're also reacting to some other form of magic that we haven't noticed yet. I think we need to do some thorough testing once Uncle Bero gets here. He's much more of an expert on different forms of magic than I am, because of his work with spectral beasts.

"The second possibility—and the one I'm most suspicious of—is that the changes aren't being caused by essence magic you're coming in contact with in the present, but essence magic that you've absorbed in the past. I'm wondering if it makes some kind of permanent change to your magic circuit. Like a scar. I showed you what the scans of your circuit look like, right? It's generally well-formed, but it has that strange furry look to it.... It's possible that the magic from the scanning device doesn't reflect cleanly off the circuit because it has a large number of these small scars that you've accumulated over the years."

Thenio frowned, considering Ariom's words. "I can see how that would explain the scans. But how does that make my magic change types?"

"I'm not sure.... I haven't had much time to think about this yet, after all. But maybe the distortion in the shape of the circuit is causing the magic frequency that it produces to keep changing somehow. It could certainly explain your general instability." Ariom shrugged. "Well, like I said before, the theory could be completely wrong. It doesn't explain why your magic would suddenly change while you were drawing pictures of Namyis. Or how you managed to produce a lump of magic ice when you're nowhere near sorcerer level. I really don't understand that...."

"Do you think Eteon would know anything? Or—" Thenio broke off, looking at Amisi. "Oh. I guess we haven't told Amisi and Mideis anything about what we learned yesterday, have we?" He looked uncertainly back at Ariom, not sure how much he ought to say with the taua present and presumably reporting everything to Mideis.

"No. We haven't." Ariom sighed and stood up. "But why don't we save that part of the conversation for later? It would make more sense to talk about it with Mideis present. And we don't want to keep Her Majesty the Ice Queen waiting for too long, now do we...?"

----------------------------------------

"I'm really sorry. I should have tried harder to get my dampener fixed before I came. Though from what Ariom said, maybe it wouldn't have helped that much.... Anyways, I didn't know it would be a problem. I'm sorry if I made the three of you uncomfortable."

Thenio blinked, staring rather incredulously at the woman apologizing contritely through the glass separating the dragon box from the workroom. As with all the boxes, the glass was enchanted to allow sound to pass through easily, so there was no problem holding a conversation through it.

But having a famous battlemage apologizing to him through the enchanted window of a dragon box felt a little surreal....

"Uh...no...it's all right," Thenio said awkwardly. "I mean...it really wasn't your fault...."

Namyis shook her head. "Even if I didn't mean to, I still put you in danger. It's only right that I should apologize for that." She looked down at the taua sitting on one of the platforms next to the window. "And Amisi, it's really all right to say something if I make you feel too cold in the future. I know I have that effect on magic beasts sometimes, so I don't mind you speaking up."

"Oh...okay...." Amisi was also looking rather awkward.

Iggy was sitting on another platform, watching Namyis curiously with his head tilted to one side.

She turned and looked at him for a moment. Then she tilted her head to the side to match him.

Iggy straightened his head, flattening his ears a little in surprise.

Namyis also straightened her head.

The two of them stared at each other silently. Then Iggy tilted his head to the other side. Namyis mirrored him.

He straightened his head. She straightened hers.

He tilted his head again. So did she.

Iggy straightened his head and looked up at Thenio, his tail waving a little. "Thenio, look! The ice monster is playing with me!"

"Yeah, she is. But don't call her a monster, Iggy. That's not nice."

"Oh." The little dragon looked puzzled. "But Ariom called her that, right? He called her a friendly ice monster, okay?"

There was an awkward silence. Mideis raised an eyebrow at Ariom, who was suddenly very interested in something on his desk.

"Oh, it's fine," Namyis said with a pleasant smile. "I've had people calling me a monster for years. I'm used to it."

There was an even more awkward silence.

"Ariom was just joking," Thenio said with a sigh. "It's okay to say it once in a while as a joke. But you shouldn't call someone that all the time. Her name is Namyis. Or you can call her 'Ice Queen,' if her name is hard for you. Okay?"

"Mmm." Iggy nodded agreeably. "Okay."

"Good boy." Thenio scratched the little dragon's ears encouragingly.

Namyis watched them, looking happy. "This glass is really great!" she said, turning to Ariom. "The familiars aren't scared of me anymore with this. Did you make this? Can you make me some?"

Ariom gave her a cynical look. "What are you going to do—just wear a glass box everywhere you go?"

She blinked at him innocently. "Can't I?"

"Of course you can't!" he snapped.

"Hmm...." Namyis put a finger on her cheek, looking thoughtful. Then she brightened again. "Can I hire you to make me some new dampening cuffs, then? You said these ones weren't good for magic beasts, right? So can't you make me some better ones?"

"No, I can't," Ariom said, glaring at her. "The enchanter who made those didn't design them that way because he didn't know any better. It's because the magic dampening techniques we have available now simply aren't adequate to handle magic power as high as yours."

"Well, couldn't you come up with a better technique? You said you were researching magic dampening devices, didn't you?"

"You think it's that easy to develop new enchanting techniques?" Ariom scoffed. "Besides, I don't do work for the military."

She made a pathetic face. "Aww...come on.... I'm sure you can do it! You came up with a new technique to do the enchantment analysis, didn't you? And you fixed the crack on my cuff so fast! I can tell you're really good at—"

"I don't work for the military!" Ariom snarled, cutting her off.

There was a tense silence. Ariom was glowering at Namyis, and everyone else was looking anxiously between the two of them.

But Namyis didn't seem particularly worried by Ariom's threatening expression. She simply tilted her head to the side and looked at him curiously for a moment, like Iggy had been looking at her earlier.

"Hey..." she said after a long pause. "You're Riomel's son, aren't you?"

Ariom immediately stiffened, looking even more hostile than before. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"Well...nothing really. Just...." Namyis straightened her head, her expression becoming serious. "If you grew up with a father like him, I can understand why you might not like the military...."

There was another silence. Ariom was still glaring at her, but a little bit of the hostility had faded from his eyes.

"If you feel that strongly about it, I won't keep badgering you," Namyis said with a gentle smile. "But if you happen to have any good ideas while you're researching...well...think about contacting the Magic Corps Research Center, will you? Most battlemages have to wear magic dampeners, so they'd pay very handsomely for any improvements to the technology. And it would mean a lot to high-rankers like me." She turned to look at Iggy and Amisi, her expression becoming rather sorrowful. "It's not like we enjoy traumatizing innocent magic beasts everywhere we go, you know?"

Ariom's expression became a bit uncomfortable at those words. He looked at her silently for a moment. Then he let out a long sigh. "Fine. I'll keep that in mind."

She smiled at him again. "Thank you."

Ariom gave a small snort and turned away. "Let's get going on our practice session. We've wasted half the afternoon already."

He went over to the work table, where three wooden practice dolls were laid out, waiting.

"First, we need to test out your stasis magic and make sure you can handle what I have planned," he said, glancing back at Namyis. "As Mideis was telling you earlier, the enchantment we're dealing with is extremely volatile. If you let up on the stasis at all, it's going to explode in our faces within just a few seconds."

"I understand," Namyis said, nodding. "Just tell me what you want me to do."

"Well, first...how fast can you create a human-sized stasis crystal?"

"Um...pretty fast? I've never really timed it."

Ariom scowled. "Well, we're going to time it. 'Pretty fast' won't cut it. Using any magic at all on this enchantment matrix will probably set off one or more of the trap formations, and once they're triggered, they'll explode within a second or two." He nodded at the practice dummies. "These dolls have an enchantment on them that imitates those traps. But instead of exploding, they'll just turn red. So the goal is to enclose the doll in a stasis crystal without it changing color. Understand?"

"Yes, I understand."

"All right." Ariom pointed at the closest doll. "Go ahead and give it a try."

Namyis raised her hand and snapped her fingers.

The doll was almost immediately encased in a large, rectangular prism. It hadn't changed color at all.

Ariom and Mideis both stared at it, looking almost as frozen as the doll was.

The room was silent for a long moment.

Then Ariom took a step closer, examining the stasis crystal with an expression that was half admiring and half irritated.

"Didn't even set off the triggers...." he murmured, shaking his head. "Okay...she's annoying, but credit where it's due. That is some gorgeous stasis magic...."

"Why, thank you," Namyis said, giving him a sweet smile.