Somehow, she managed to scribble a rough syllabus on a piece of parchment, after an hour and a half amount of back-and-forth. She wanted to spend a few hours discussing the Five Omnio Solids (which were what he knew as the Platonic Solids, another highly convenient renaming), and their philosophical underpinnings and how they related to specific aspects of the Empire’s bureaucracy. Archmund had argued back that if it wasn’t essential now, then it could wait.
(It wasn’t a great syllabus, but it covered what he needed to learn.)
- What is magic? (Halfway Done)
- What using magic actually does to your body and soul
- How to train magic effectively
- How to turn trained magic into full Skills
“So I’ve given you the theory, and you know the basic practice,” Raehel said. “You use magic through Gems, you feed Gems your magic to use their Enchantments, everyone has magic energy but nobles are the only ones who can do magic, et cetera, et cetera. Any specifics?”
“I have one,” Mary said. “What is an Enchantment, really? I know it’s the magic that each Gem is capable of doing, but Master Archmund here can use magic that isn’t the Enchantments of his Gems.”
“Huh. Do you know anything about gemcutting?”
Mary shrugged. “I can appraise mundane gems, but not all that well. I can tell the difference between a 50 mark gem and a 50,000 mark gem, but not between, say, a 100,000 and 150,000.”
“An Enchantment is analogous to the cut of the Gem. Most people think the physical cut of the Gem literally dictates the Enchantment it casts, which is an oversimplification, but it’s close enough to the truth. It’s the easiest path for magic to flow through a Gem, and so it’s the magic that anyone can use. Anything else needs Attunement. Awakening. The other stuff.”
“And Gemstone Gear?”
“I don’t use that kind of stuff,” Raehel said, her face scrunching. “But same idea, I think? The shape of the Gear is the same thing as its cut.”
Frankly, she reminded Archmund of himself. Good at memorizing things she was interested in. Bad at remembering anything she didn’t.
“So… Attunement,” Archmund said. “That’s the next big thing, right?”
“Oh yes, you know the word at least,” Raehel said. “What do you think Attunement is?”
She was talking down to him, just a little bit, but he couldn’t tell whether she genuinely was looking down on him or whether this was her idea of what being an effective teacher looked like.
It was such a softball question he felt like he couldn’t possibly answer it without sounding like an idiot.
“When you use a Gem a lot, you become Attuned to it.”
“Uh huh.”
“When you’re Attuned to a Gem, you know it well enough that you can start drawing out more of its power and using techniques that aren’t obvious.”
“Mmmmm… kind of.”
“And once you’re Attuned to a Gem, it’s hard to use other Gems because it’s changed your magic and your soul.”
“Uh… huh.”
She was going to keep doing that for everything he said. He could tell.
“Well, I’ve never had that last problem,” she said. “Or maybe I used to but then I stopped having it because I kept using more different Gems and got used to it. A noble like you is probably rich enough to use as much as you want, right?”
That just wasn’t true. Before he’d entered the Dungeon, the Granavale Household had maybe ten Gems total, at least five of which were under permanent lock and key, three of which were carried personally by his father. Now, of course, they could get way more, but still not a limitless amount.
He really needed a better understanding of their finances.
Archmund rubbed the side of his head. “How much did my father pay you, honestly?”
“The rest of my tuition, if I wasn’t on every possible merit scholarship. So probably enough for a decade of expenses?”
That told him nothing, still. It was a lot for her, but for him? Was that ten tax seasons, or ten percent of one?
“That was a rhetorical question. Speaking of.”
“Well, your understanding of Attunement is…”
Raehel pulled out a scroll with a diagram of the human body.
“It’s fine,” she said. “You’re clearly a beginner but it’s fine.”
He’d take that. She didn’t seem judgmental either way.
“The biggest limitation for any mage is the inherent constraints of their body and soul,” Raehel said, unrolling the scroll. The diagram was surprisingly detailed, almost like Leonardo da Vinci’s Virtruvian Man, but there were additional circles and spirograph loops in the marginalia, like epicycles in a solar system where the human form was the sun, or perhaps like a magnetic field diagram where the human form was the core.
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“Thankfully, Gems help you with that. The more you use a Gem, the better you get at using them, because your magical power infuses the Gem.”
He knew that as well from experience.
“Of course, the instant you use the Gem, it becomes Bound to your magic,” she said. “Your magic is in it, so it’s much harder for anyone else to use it effectively. Anyone who tried would be… well, mingling their souls, kind of. Way too close for comfort.”
Now that he didn’t know. He diligently avoided Mary’s eyes.
“You can think of it like a circular river,” Raehel said, looping her finger around the diagram along one of the circular whorls. She hadn’t noticed his flustered state at all.
“Magic flows from the soul,” she said as she pointed at a place above the diagram’s head —
“It gets transformed in the Gem,” and she pointed at a column of polyhedrons on the right side of the diagram —
“And returns to the body, which strengthens the soul,” and she finished by pointing at the diagram’s solar plexus before dragging a line back up to the head.
“In the Attunement state, the flow is smooth.”
“When you say smooth, do you mean continuous? Uninterrupted? A steady flux?”
She peered at him through her glasses, before glancing at Mary. “Does he always use such big words?”
“He does.”
Archmund opened his mouth to protest, but Raehel waved him off.
“It’s a steady flux,” she said. “The body and soul naturally exchange Numen, the element of magic, at the maximum natural capacity. That’s what it means to be alive. You follow?”
He nodded. “And Gems…”
“You introduce a blocker or barrier into that exchange flow. The magic still comes back to you, but when it passes through the Gem, it gets… polarized, and some gets shaved off to cast the Enchantment. The Gem also has a reservoir too, where it keeps a bit of your own power in it, so you can’t force all of your magic through it without filling that reservoir first. If you’re too weak, all of the power goes into the Enchantment without filling the reservoir much. If you’re strong enough or you’ve filled the reservoir enough, the rest goes back to you and strengthens your body and soul. That’s Attunement. You’ve filled the reservoir. You barely need to think to cast the Enchantments.”
“That can’t be the whole story, though,” Archmund said. “I’m definitely Attuned to my Gems, but I drained the magic reservoir when I was fighting through Granavale Dungeon. I didn’t stop being Attuned.”
Raehel’s eyes went wide, comically round behind her glasses. “Right. You fought your way through the Dungeon.”
“Didn’t my father mention…”
“Every young noble heir lies about fighting their way through a Dungeon for clout. Few start lying about it when they’re nine.”
He decided to ignore her sarcasm, though he wondered whether she was usually so bold with her students. Or was she bitter?
“When I went in, I was Attuned to one of my Rubies. When I fought the Monsters within it, I drained the power. But I could still use my Enchantments.”
“Once you reach full Attunement with a Gem, it becomes a part of you,” Raehel said. “A third component, as much a part as your body and your soul. Not being able to use the Enchantment would be like forgetting how to walk or how to clench a muscle. And — because of the resistance it introduces to the body-soul circuit, using a Gem almost always makes both stronger, like how exercising makes your heart pump more blood through your veins.”
It was a rather clean explanation of why Attunement gave stat bonuses. So clean, in fact, that there was an infinitely more interesting question on hand.
So the world of Omnio had some idea that the heart was responsible for pumping blood. How modern was that belief? The ancient Egyptians of Earth had thought the heart was the seat of the soul; Leonardo da Vinci had created modern Western medical knowledge by dissecting the dead. Thousands of years had passed between them, but it had only taken a few hundred more to develop the entire field of exercise science. Was the knowledge of the cardiovascular system ancient or medieval?
“I don’t like exercise much, but it’s a good analogy. You build up your strength and stamina so you can do more complex exercises, and if you try to do exercises you can’t handle you’ll drain yourself. If you try to do too many different types of exercises you can’t handle at the same time — in this case, trying to Attune to multiple different Gems — you won’t make much progress on any. You’re so much better off getting good with one, then getting used to others. Again, not a problem for me, since I’m a prodigy, but normal people need time for each Attunement.”
She really had a knack for rambling. But he supposed he couldn’t blame her. The temptation to go off on tangents was strong in his heart as well.
And yet.
Well, he was paying her good money for her knowledge.
He slapped his cheeks. Focus. Focus on the syllabus.
“What about Awakening?”
Raehel snorted. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here.”
She was starting to annoy him. He’d have to prove he could handle himself, which was something he hated having to repeat every time.
Archmund pulled out his Ruby of Energy and leaned forward in his chair. It floated above his hand. With the slightest twitch of will he set it alight, and it glowed its default dim orange.
“Alright, you feel Attuned to that,” Raehel said.
“You can tell?”
“Yeah, of course I can. The basic qualification for being a Master is having a sense of how magic’s flowing in the Numinous around you. I can tell you’re not forcing it at all.”
Jargon, jargon, more jargon. Geniuses, geniuses, geniuses. So many words to say that “really good mages could sense magic around them”.
Archmund changed the color of the Ruby’s light to red.
Raehel scrambled out of her armchair, hopping to her feet. She scurried up to the Ruby and peered at it over her glasses. It was as if he could feel her presence through the Gem.
“Alright. We can talk about Awakening.”
She studied the Gem very intently. “Can you do anything else?”
“I have two Skills, but…”
She gave him a bemused look. “Of course you do.”
“Mary, could you get us a pot of cold water?”
Mary stood, curtsied and went to grab it.
“So back to my earlier question,” Archmund said, “I’m Attuned to my Ruby. I’ve Awakened it. How come I drained its magic?”
“The base element is Fire, but the Enchantment is light,” Raehel said. She’d pulled a monocle out of her robes and was peering at the Gem through it. “Activating the Enchantment is as easy as drawing breath or twitching a muscle. But doing anything more is like learning how to balance on a rooftop, or throwing a fist, or pickpocketing.”
What was with her examples?
“It’ll take more energy to use skills you’re not familiar with, and you’ll be more and more efficient with practice. Generally speaking, at least. Assuming you are Awakened, after all.”
“What does it mean to be Awakened?”
“C’mon. You’re not seriously asking me that. Not after you showed me what you just did.”
“I’m serious,” Archmund said. “What does it mean to be Awakened?”
He didn’t get any choir of angels or sudden surge of strength or massive boost in triumph. All he’d gotten was the melting power of the Infrared Lance and a new entry in his stats.
If she knew the fundamentals of the universe, he would squeeze her for them. That was his right as a student.