In the middle of the night, when my parents were asleep, I rather precariously and dangerously climbed up the back of a chair and up the shelves to get a hold of the first of my mother’s books, her 4-point magic grimoire.
Basically, a book like this could be considered a textbook for a skill, except it was written by the student themself. A large portion of it would be copied from their teacher’s texts–I found passages within that were attributed to Vorel, and also other passages which were probably from his teachers, that had survived transcription through the ages–as well as notes and theories by the student as a result of their study.
This made sense since the subject was an evolving theory, rather than any kind of confirmed fact. If something were objectively true, it would be copied exactly, with no additional information needed, and it would probably prompt the advancement of additional technologies like printing, at least if there wasn’t opposition to the knowledge being spread.
Unfortunately for me, the result was that I had a lot of theory, hearsay, and supposition, and not a lot of facts. Of course there was a lot of simple geometry about the shape of squares and circles, tricks and methods to draw magic circles as exact as possible, and other simple concepts that I already knew. I could fashion a simple compass and draw a perfect circle already, and I could bisect the circle at the center in any direction to get two opposing corners of the square. So long as I had a right angle tool, I could then make the line to get the opposite corners, and then form my square.
Alternatively, there was a method I could use with just the compass and a straight-edge, or I could use the Pythagorean theorem to calculate the side length of a square given the diameter of the circle, although that would be difficult without a good ruler. In any case, there were many ways to make a square in a circle. Vorel hadn’t hesitated to give me the basics in the lab because he probably couldn’t fathom a four year old having the knowledge to do this with any level of precision, but even without my mother’s grimoire I could have with Earth knowledge.
That wasn’t what I needed to know. I spent several hours squinting in the dark and deciphering my mother’s handwriting to correct my ignorance, not confirm my knowledge, and came away with some conclusions.
Clearly, there was little to no understanding of what periodic elements were, so it was hard to determine whether or not that was actually what was being controlled by magic. Now, strictly speaking, one needn’t know how something works in order to use it. Anyone could light a fire without understanding the principles of combustion, after all. In my old world, people could be taught how to use complex tools without understanding the underlying mechanisms. The beauty of magic circles and something like 4-point magic was that you can teach a student a method of using magic that had fairly reliable results without them actually understanding anything about it.
It stood to reason that I could therefore draw a magic circle, channel my energy into it, and cast magic. My concern was about the magic cost, which was to say, whether or not I had enough MP. It was clear that I could over-tax my body by trying to use more MP than I had, and from the sound of it, that would then eat into my HP until that hit 0, at which point it would be game over for Pilus, the level 2 human child.
Whether or not there was an inherent “truth” to magic circles was actually unnecessary. It was a language, and like any language, it was simply one way for humans to perceive reality. Children can be taught words for things they don’t fully understand and use those words to communicate ideas that are understood more fully by others. The use of language allowed humanity to share ideas that otherwise wouldn’t have been possible, and elaborate on ideas over time to develop technologies.
In my old world, I did some web development. I could make a website using markup languages like HTML, which only existed because someone had developed browsers which understood how to parse it, which only existed because someone else had developed internet protocols, which only existed because someone else had developed the electronics those things worked through, which only existed because people had developed a mastery over matter which allowed for fabrication. Anyone with internet access could read the contents of a website without any understanding of how any of the technology worked.
More importantly, reality itself was shaped by language. Prior to language, things like websites, the internet, and computers simply didn’t exist. Language facilitated an understanding about reality but also, in turn, altered it. In the case of human society, it altered reality quite substantially. Civilizations rose and crumbled.
In the case of this world’s magic, developing a language that allowed for this level of control over reality–which according to my appraisal skill had to do with a human’s MP–was paramount. Earlier attempts at language fell short in some way, and so it evolved.
One of the most interesting things I surmised from what I read was that each element used to be its own school of magic. People were taught specific spells for each type of magic, and overall magic was very limited by this. As people experimented with magic and got creative, they found the language they used for magic fell short. When the relationship between the elements was considered, eventually all elemental magic came under the heading of a single type of magic, which became 4-point magic.
This answered a lingering question I had about skills. The skills of this world also seem to be related to language, which themselves are reflections of the truth about skill acquisition, which has to do with a person’s level and skill points.
Imagine, for a moment, that each type of elemental magic was its own skill. One would have needed to learn Fire Magic, Earth Magic, Water Magic, and Air Magic. To advance all four of those have required 10 skill points each, which would be 40 skill points total. Nowadays, through the development of 4-point magic, one could advance in all types of elemental magic with the single 10 SP advancement of 4-point magic. By evolving magical theory in this way, it opened the doors for one to go on to master more magic in their lifetime, such as 5-point magic, which–I assumed–was likely developed or discovered more recently in history.
This also explained how general my father’s combat skills were. By changing the language around training with weapons from swords, axes, daggers, and any other types of weapons that could be wielded with one hand to a class of combat called “One-Handed,” a soldier could acquire more weapon proficiency with less skill points, meaning they required less experience overall.
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Yet remnants of the old ways of thinking survived, as one could see with master skills. This likely has to do with aspects of reality itself. Sure, a person could advance in a general school of magic like 4-point, or a general method of combat like one-handed, and could advance to a point of mastery in the school or method, but to display actual mastery, it required a specific context. For Vorel’s 4-point magic, he specifically mastered fire magic. For my father’s one-handed mastery, he specifically mastered sword combat. Clearly, one could imagine someone who was a master of swords being able to do a tremendous amount of damage with other one-handed weapons from the carry-over effect, which was here implied by the base skill itself, but in order to be the absolute best with a certain type of weapon, one would have to specialize.
All this summed up meant skills weren’t necessarily fixed. I assumed that over many generations, skills had evolved to become more generalized through the propagation of information and education. Perhaps there were even parts of the world where you could still see people with the old skills, who didn’t have access to the same evolution of language and as such an altered understanding of reality.
This also meant that skills could evolve further still. New skills could be created. The knowledge of how to simply had yet to be discovered.
* * *
“Are you feeling ok, Pilus?” my mother asked me as I stumbled out of my bedroom and returned to the land of the living. I had finally managed to get my mother’s book returned to the shelf before dawn and gone to bed, but was paying for it today. It was midday by the time I woke up.
Of course, I couldn’t tell her that I had stayed up most of the night to secretly read her grimoire. “Maybe I’m getting a little sick?” I suggested, as an excuse.
This was, apparently, the wrong thing to tell a mother of an only child. This kicked off a chain of fretting and fussing which finally concluded with her saying that maybe we should go to the Church for a cure, and then subsequently deciding that we must do so immediately before I perished.
I was in no hurry to involve myself with the Church, but the prospect of encountering healing magic intrigued me. So I feigned a cough, and agreed, which is how we ended up standing before the largest building in town in the middle of the afternoon just the day after visiting the second-or-third largest.
The Church was extravagantly decorated to the point of making the magical research institute look poor. Unlike the institute, this wasn’t limited to just the exterior. As we entered, the decoration continued to cover the walls, ceilings, and floors. Gold plating and stained glass was everywhere. It was, unquestionably, beautiful. It also filled me deeply with unease.
The kind of wealth accumulation at display could only speak to a certain level of social abuse and power. I didn’t particularly have fond feelings about organized religion from Earth, and knowing the history of religion there I was incredibly wary about what it would look like here in this world.
I needed to be careful, though, not to make assumptions and not to give away any hints of knowledge or understanding beyond what the average four year old would have. I did not want to get mixed up with this organization. Most especially because I planned on becoming a little heathen and practicing forbidden magic in the not-too-distant future.
The main thing I was concerned about was encountering someone who had the ability to appraise me. That seemed to me like something that someone at a Church might be able to do, especially to ensure that the Church could continue to exert control. Clearly, the Church had a monopoly on healing magic, as they had the power to forbid any other practitioners. Vorel had suggested that it was dangerous without special relics, but he had the skill. Had he got his hands on a relic, or was the Church spreading misinformation? Of course, Vorel had a tremendous amount of magical power, based on his MP, so perhaps he just brute-forced his way through and managed to survive.
As we walked through the Church, I didn’t encounter anyone with an appraisal skill, thankfully. Actually, we didn’t encounter much of anyone at all. The Church was fairly empty, but eventually my mother and I were approached by a priest. She explained that we were there for healing and told the priest my symptoms. The priest decided to cast a “cure all” on me–as opposed to a “healing” spell, since I wasn’t acutely injured–and took us to an altar.
Inscribed on the altar in a golden plate was a hexagram within a circle, a triangle intertwined with an inverted triangle. He very specifically set me in a certain location with regards to the altar, with one point of the hexagram pointed at me, and set himself opposite.
Placing his hand on the magic circle, he muttered a spell under his breath, too quiet for me to hear. From what I had read in my mother’s 4-point magic grimoire, I suspected they were the “guiding words” which directed the magic. The spell itself wasn’t actually that important with modern magic. In the old days, before magic circles, one would have been taught a specific spell name, and it was only through the precise chanting of that spell name that magic would be used. With magic circles, the potential of the magic was determined by the polygram, and the use of the magic was guided by the caster.
This is why practitioners of magic were fairly specific about their magic circles. While the magic was guided by the caster, there was a belief that the “wrong point” could be invoked instead, which could lead to disastrous results, particularly if you invoked the “opposite” point. My mother’s grimoire spoke of casting fire through the water point, but Vorel had hinted that you could invert healing and smiting or curing and cursing. I wasn’t sure I bought any of that, but I felt a bit differently with a point of a magic circle staring me in the face.
Still, the priest was likely an old hat at this. I could see from appraising him that he had double-advanced 6-point magic, so I wasn’t worried. I felt a warmth flow through my body, and wondered what it was–was the magic interacting with my own magic? Was it enhancing my immune system? Was it speeding up my metabolism? So many questions–and then the spell was over. I actually did feel restored of my fatigue, which was confusing. Could I avoid sleeping entirely with the right recovery magic?
Even though I knew I wasn’t sick in the first place, it was pretty exciting to have a spell cast on me. This was real magic! In a way, it seemed too simple. Could that really be all that was needed to save a life? Of course, on Earth, with the invention of technologies like guns, you could end a life just by pulling a mechanical trigger. You could wipe out a city with the press of a button and the dropping of a bomb. The evolution of language and technology was powerful in every direction, not just one. No doubt magic was the same. I considered again the priest’s 6-point magic skill and wondered how much cursing and smiting was necessary to gain his level of advancement, as opposed to just healing and curing people.
Afterward, Sharma dropped a little gold coin in the tithe box, and we left. I hadn’t seen a lot of monetary exchange in this world, just a little bit when I went shopping with my mother, but that was the first time I saw a gold coin used. “Wasn’t that a lot of money?” I asked her as we walked down the Church’s front steps.
She smiled at me. “Worth it for my baby boy,” she said, tousling my hair.
I looked back at the ornate Church, and frowned. If nothing else, I wouldn’t stay up too late anymore and concern my mother again.