Madam Beth starts her lecture with a question.
"Alright. Now to begin with, can anyone tell me what is mana?".
Everyone was silent for awhile, until one student raises her hand.
'Mana is what we used to use magic'.
"Then what exactly is magic?".
'Uhh, we use it to create elements based on our attribute using mana'.
Madam Beth looked pleased hearing the answer.
"Well, good answer. You may sit down".
"Now, like the student said, magic can be used to conjure the elements, based on our attribute. But there were different forms of magic within similar attribute.
"Look at the example such as, fire ball and fire explosion".
She then showed us two videos of instructors shooting fire ball and fire explosion
"As you can see, the spell fire ball, conjures fire element in a ball shape, and shoot it forward. While the spell fire explosion, the fire element was formed in an explosion from the ground upward".
"What is the difference the two? Now, take a look at each of their magic circles. The symbols on the magic circle is called magic codex. There are many similarities, and some differences between the symbols".
She then displayed the two different magic circles on the big flat device, with similarities highlighted in green colours and differences in red colour.
"As you can see, from the different symbols was a language to show the form of the element we would conjure".
"Take a look at this one symbol.
"This symbol is unique only to fire magic, and every magic spell of fire attribute has this one symbol. It's pretty clear this symbol denotes the element of fire".
"Every other attribute also has their own unique symbol that aren't found in other attributes".
Then, she showed us the symbols for magic circle that shoots a projectile forward, comparing the spells fire ball, water ball, earth shard, and wind bullet.
Each of them have one symbol that are found in their magic circles. The symbol meant "to shoot forward". She further explain how each symbols on the magic circle represents the form, speed and power in the conjured element. Symbols can represent, shape, speed, volume, power and et cetera.
'It is a programming language', I thought after digesting all the info she gave.
To summarise the lecture,
Magic circle aka magic Program was formed by the System to aid humanity in conjuring the elements. A philosopher said that God made humanity an image of Him, allowing us to conjure something out of nothing using mana just like God.
Relating to the Big Mana Bang Theory, in which all matters and energy in this world were originally was a single lump of mana that exploded forming everything in this world.
Mana is able to change it's form into waves, matters, and even something that behaves with particle-wave duality.
So in the philosopher word, the System let us use magic - to convert mana to different forms.
Who create magic Program? The system did. When we wanted to use magic, the system assisted by analysing the intent and knowledge of the user, and made a magic circle for us to use the intended magic.
There were assumed to be 10 level of authorities. Everyone starts with none.
This authority to the system allows us to use simple magic. Such as, fire ball. Its simply a ball of fire, shooting forward.
However, to make a fire tornado for example, it requires level 5 authority. And the Program formed by the system when conjuring the magic is also more complex, with more symbols and larger Program.
Morning Star spell, a magic that creates a miniature sun itself, require authority level 8, the highest level of authority of ever recorded by humanity.
And there are different rules to use magic in relation to System Access Authority Level.
First, the person need enough authority to use the said spell.
Example the fire tornado spell. It requires level 5 authority. If you are at the same level, with only an image in your mind, you can use fire tornado spell.
However, if you have level 4 authority, with partial knowledge on fire tornado spell (such as knowing how tornado is formed for example) you can conjure the fire tornado although weaker.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
You can completely bypass the authority level by using known recorded or memorised magic spell.
Memorising the magic codex allows you to use the said specific spell, although you still need the clear image and minimum mana to use them.
Partially recorded or memorised magic codex still requires lower authority to conjure the spell than when it was originally created.
Another way to bypass authority is to use mana cores of beasts to imprint known, complete magic Program into them.
For example, spells like fire ball can be imprinted into mana cores of lower ranked beast by imprinting the magic codex used for fire ball.
To use mana cores as magic activator, the full magic codex must be known.
Partial codex will not work at all.
For example, Morning Star was a spell created by Arthur Bloodfallen when he reaches authority level 8.
However, the Bloodfallen heirs all can use Morning Star although lower in power and quality at authority level 6, due to them memorising and recording the magic codex partially.
The spell has a very large multiple magic Program, and thus many magic codex implemented. The codex also constantly shifting position in the Program, making it almost impossible to fully memorise and record them all. The Bloodfallen family had recorded and memorised them partially.
However, they cannot fully bypass the authority level completely even by partially memorising the codex. Some authority of the system is needed to fill in the blank for them to use the magic.
And since the magic codex for the spell is only partially recorded, mana cores can't be used to activate the magic.
The authority can be upgraded by increasing your knowledge. Learning the magic codex (the magic circle/Program language), learning about natural phenomena, learning calculations all can increases one authority.
System only aid you using your knowledge by filling in the blanks, or interpret the images in your mind into the magic.
However, even if you have the magic authority, you still need the a clear image. If one never had seen how a tornado looks like and only screams 'fire tornado' you cannot use the magic.
Lastly, the person must have enough mana. For obvious reasons.
The lecture on how mana cores, and magic devices work will be given later.
Extra
While Authority unlocks more magic of higher levels, but level increases things like strength, the mana capacity, our processing speed, our intelligence and other things.
What about the rank of our attributes then? I have S+ water attribute what does it mean?
It seems that it just meant you have more firepower and higher casting and mana use efficiency. The difference in firepower between an E rank to and S rank is around 4 fold more powerful in relation to the mana used. And the mana use efficiency will also increases.
The mana requirement becomes an issue for those with low ranking attributes when casting higher authority magic.
Let say, in theory a person had E rank fire attribute and know how to use the spell Morning Star (Level 8 Authority)
Well, he can't. Even if he had level 8 Authority he will not have the minimum mana to use the spell.
The System will reduce the complexity of the spell or/and adjust the mana usage and that also reduces the fire power. But in general, the System can only make a -80% adjustment to the fire power.
The adjustment allows users with lower authority (usually by 2 levels lower) to use the spell by lowering the complexity of the magic codex which lowers the fire power by at most 70% in general, along with its mana usage.
An A rank Bloodfallen heir with Authority level 6 for example, can cast Morning star at 20% of fire power once. It could destroy just a small village (reducing it to dust) compared to the one that Arthur Bloodfallen used.
You can also boost the fire power of a spell by increasing the mana consumed by the spell.
For example, if someone with Authority level 6 use a fire ball spell (Authority level 1), he can boost the fire power by 3 times by increasing the mana usage.
However, he had to use 6 times more mana!
This is highly inefficient as the boost to power diminishes.
***
My brain is exploding almost overheated from what the lecture says. After all, she's cramming many things in this 2 hours of lecture. I read through my notes back, remembering the important details.
TLDR, rules of magic and magic codex: (this is the note written by Bell )
IMAGE OF THE SPELL IS NEEDED, EXCEPT WHEN FULL MAGIC CODEX IS MEMORISED/RECORDED.
Magic can be divided into with attributes (the elements) and with no attribute.
Magic with no attribute may be used by everyone regardless of their innate attribute given by the System.
Example: Mana barrier - a level 1 authority spell can be used by all students.
Mana cores can be used to activate magic, given that complete magic codex is imprinted into it.
Fully recorded/memorised magic codex: Can use the specific magic bypassing authority level.
*Magic of higher authority have ever-changing magic codex as the magic was in the process to cast, and some have multiple magic circles/Program, and they have very high number of codex used, so recording all of them is impossible.
Partially recorded/memorised magic codex: Can use the specific magic with lower authority.
Never memorised the codex, with high knowledge related to the spell: Can use the specific magic with lower authority.
Never memorised the codex, with low knowledge related to the spell, however with only clear image of the spell: Can use the magic with the original authority.
Increasing authority level will increase casting speed.
Increasing understanding and partially memorising will increase casting speed for spells under the same authority level.
Example: Mana barrier- Lvl 1 Authority. Students only need to have an image of layers of condensed mana forming a barrier to use the magic. However, my memorising the magic codex for the spell mana barrier, they can be casted faster and even stronger.
One can use a grimoire, a book that contains recorded complete magic codex for different spells, to do the recorded magic bypassing all authority level as long as you have the mana. You simply have to look at the grimoire while casting the magic.
This, however, will leave you open to attacks. And due to low authority level, the casting speed will be very slow as the system will form the magic Program.
However the records of complete magic codex is heavily restricted for offensive magic and that also means magic devices that uses offensive magic is also heavily restricted.
Skills are innate to every individuals, requires zero authority. Can be developed by training or is natural - given directly by the System. Having no magic codex-
But there's a theory that the magic codex is written in the soul of the person.
p/s: I think the at Authority level 10, you became God. Or perhaps the System itself is God?
___
Magic Program is like a computer.
The codex, the codes were written in it is the Program.
The System allows us to access the programme of this world, allowing us to add something that wasn't there into it.
The System also assist by writing the right commands, the right codes into the programme.