06-11-2017, 03:51 PM
(This post was last modified: 04-18-2018, 02:03 PM by Dane Regan.)
"So, James, why are you heading to the Library?" Dane inquired.
"Oh, I just wanted to brush up on some magic. I promised to help teach a young lass down at one of the villages west of here, but I felt I should probably check the books first. Don't want to teach the wrong things, now do we?" James said while continuing the glance down the streets. He had a good walking speed, which Dane appreciated. Cepheya probably didn't care though. "What about you, Dane? And you Cepheya?" Cepheya turned her head sharply at the mention of her name, before looking back to the streets.
"I have a similar reason to you, except I'm doing more of a knowledge comparison. I'm pretty new here, so I want to see if you guys have anything to add to my research from back home. Hopefully, there'll be something I can use to get around my mana deficiency. And see if there's any other theory that could be useful." Dane explained. "Although, teaching Ceph some stuff might be worthwhile. I know she has more natural aptitude than me, at least. As is, she's just my ride. I think we'd both agree that a ride that can shoot lightning is much cooler."
"And he's my key to free food," Cepheya cheerfully interjected, before giggling a little. "Maybe if I keep getting all those apples I'll develop superpowers."
"Ah, but if your transportation is required for your meals, then is the food really free, or did you just work for it?" James questioned.
Dane laughed and spoke while Cepheya looked confused. "Shhhh. You're not supposed to tell her that." He said, exaggerating the seriousness of the message.
Idle chatter and conversation continued for some time until, finally, while backtracking near to where the group first met, James, spoke. "Ah. I think I see it."
Dane and Cepheya blinked. "How'd we miss that?" They commented in near unison.
Before they hadn't noticed, or maybe they had and just simply dismissed it. Or maybe it simply wasn't there prior to now. Any of those could have been the case for the inconspicuous alleyway. Luckily, at the end of it was the entrance to the library, much to Dane's relief. The alley itself was just generic, hidden off near a side road. It fit the description perfectly, it did look, after all, much too normal. Dane couldn't quite put his finger on why though. Hopefully, he'd find it easier to locate next time, should he return.
Dane tossed an apple up in the air, laughing as Cepheya scrambled to catch it, before succeeding with a loud crunching sound as it joined the fate of those before it.
"Yes, now I understand why the place has been called 'Unseen'," James said, taking the lead and entering through the wooden door.
The library itself looked unremarkable to Cepheya. Just shelves of books. Books. Books. Books. And more books. The shelves were just plain old dark wood. To Dane, however, the fact there were no discernable features besides books meant nothing. Books were, after all, the only feature of a library he cared about - besides the filing system and other book-related things. James, however, looked amazed. His head tilted back. Following his gaze, Cepheya looked up at the ceiling.
Plastered on the domed roof was a wondrous collection of artwork, flowing with the curves of the building. "Hey, Dane. Look up." Cepheya poked Dane with one of her wings.
"I saw when we came in, Ceph. But I'd rather focus on finding the books of interest right now." Of which there were many candidates. Assuming they all contained adequate contents pages, it could take a week to check them all. And maybe longer to get the information he wanted. It all depended on how much overlap there was between Dane's and the library's knowledge sets.
Cepheya sighed, wings drooping. "Don't be such a killjoy. Can't you just invent magic batteries or something using Omnilium now that you're a Prime? I don't get why you're so fascinated with going through all these books."
Dane looked up from a book he'd already taken from the nearest shelf. "Ceph. I'm not going to summon random stuff without knowing how it works. Admittedly, last time I tried to do that you appeared, which was worthwhile-" Cepheya looked away, hiding her face. "... but I have no way of knowing specifically what I'll get. Anyway, I'm pretty sure using the Omnilium just to wish for more strength probably won't work effectively. I really doubt that's what Omni intended for it. I can get plenty strong all on my own. Maybe I'll try that later. For now, knowledge is all the power I need."
"Then why do you carry two swords and a shield?" Cepheya snarked while James listened in on the conversation.
"They are just tools to apply my combat knowledge with. Just as magical knowledge will help someone a lot more than raw strength, having a good grasp of combat is much more useful than having a strong blade. Anyway, I said "for now", Cephy. I don't need these swords and my shield at the moment, I can just summon new ones as needed. All I need or want is more knowledge, at present, anyway. I could probably still win an average fight without weapons, but using pointy things usually provides a solid advantage." Dane paused and looked down at the book he was pretending to read. The words he did glance over mentioned elementary magic theory with some diagrams he actually recognised, which was reassuring. "And my weapons look cool."
"What, no. Surely knowing how to hit someone with a sword is useless without a sword of your own?" Cepheya looked towards James, who seemed to be idly browsing while listening in on the pair. He did, however, still notice her glance. "Right?"
James returned the look with an expression that tried to say: 'don't ask me'.
"OK, Ceph. If I swung my sword at you, what would you do?" Dane folded the book and placed it back on the shelf while talking.
"I'd dodge it obviously. I'm super fast."
"What if-" Dane pounced forwards towards Cepheya, closing the few metres between them in the blink of an eye, and stopped very close in front of her. He poked her nose before she could react, making her blink and go cross-eyed. "I attacked super fast?" Dane finished. The rush of air ruffled some of the books on a nearby table, partially or completely opening some of them.
A few mages, scholars and other occupants of the library scoffed at Dane disapprovingly, others ignored him completely - choosing to focus on their books instead or perhaps discretely listening in.
"N-no fair. I wasn't ready." Cepheya shifted from side to side, changing her weight distribution and shuffling her wings while scrunching her nose.
"If you want a rematch, we can do that another time. But for now, my point is: if you know how someone's going to fight, you can dodge a lot easier. If you're skilled with a sword or know the theory, yet use a spear, you can find the gaps in a foe's guard, dodge their attacks, and parry much more effectively than simply buying or making the best spear you can and solely understanding spears. If you know all the magical theory, this works even more so. All spells have parameters or weaknesses. Anyway, I'm going to stop disrupting the Library and get back to reading. Go for a fly if you want, Ceph. I'll go find you where we landed on Dalaran once I'm done."
"Pfft. I don't get bored that easily. I could totally stay here with you for the rest of the day. There might be something I want to read here as well," Cepheya replied, immediately spying a book titled The Magic in Footwork with speed arrows drawn down the sides. She'd definitely beat Dane in a duel once that Dante's Abyss event was done and over. She could train while he tired himself out in that competition. Fair or not, she wanted a victory over him. Though he'd probably feel cheated should she reveal the tricks she had hidden up her metaphorical sleeves. Not that she planned to anytime soon. But if needed, she figured it might be worth it for a well-deserved victory. He'd find out eventually.
The trio went about their business in the library for the next hour, with Dane blitzing his way through the large collection of books. So far, at least in the first bookshelf, there wasn't really anything really new. Just slight additions and minor contradictions to his already large plethora of magical knowledge. All of which he'd noted in a second notebook he made for himself, though none seemed very important.
There were two main types of magic Dane knew of; Core Magic and Field Magic. And perhaps there would be others mentioned in other books here, and he just happened to pick the shelf corresponding to what he already knew. There were a lot of other books after all, and what he'd found so far almost covered his entire magical knowledge, with the exception of some of his own experiments and theories which could have easily all be wrong - he never had the funding or resources to do large-scale testing, nor the required mana.
Core Magic, also known as Linked Energy Manipulation and very rarely Self or Innate Magic, was about directly using your own mana to control your body and influence your immediate surroundings. Field Magic, which was much more complicated and, despite not using the user's mana directly, it required them to have more than a certain threshold; a threshold Dane was painstakingly close to, yet could never quite reach. In the past, Dane had researched his magic deficiency and found it was fairly common for the first born out of a pair of twins to get the majority of the mana. Field Magic requires an individual to expel mana to cause ripples in the magic field, thus providing them with the desired effect. It's the only reliable way to cast a major spell at distance, with some exceptions.
Magic was, in general, pretty weird. The more simplified explanation Dane would give consisted of explaining that magic was everywhere. Literally everywhere. Inside you. In the sky. In the ground. In rocks. This magic acts like an omnipresent ocean. You are a magnet that attracts this ocean. All living things do this to some extent, some more than others. This pulls magic inside you. Mana is just another word for magic, specifically magic inside someone (which wasn't entirely true, but it's a more simple answer). So, someone's mana depends on the strength of their magnet. The magnet was often referred to as the core. You can train your core by using or expelling mana to force it to draw more back in - like how repetitively lifting heavy things will make your muscles stronger, this will strengthen your core allowing you to get more mana. However, train too much and you can damage it severely (which Dane had never done, he knew his limits). Don't train at all, and it will deteriorate or stagnate (which happened to Dane's brother).
Core magic works by imposing your will on yourself. Field magic works by causing ripples in the magic ocean that converge specifically to provide the desired effect. Despite the apparent randomness of the field (it is very much not a three-dimensional volume, yet still related to physical space and influenced by temperature and density - yes, both, even though temperature can affect density, compression tests with gases have significant evidence to suggest both) due to so many small unmeasurable influences, spells do still ripple as intended by the caster due to magical signatures. That, however, was not something worth explaining to a novice. Most spellcasting was done innately, like how babies are surprisingly good swimmers. That said, there were ways of teaching unskilled people how to use their magic. The best method was to use their mana for them to help them figure out the sensations. Like moving someone's arm for them should they forget how to use it.
A very common question made by novice mages is why field magic requires the set mana above the natural magic level. Surely, after all, if the density if higher inside your body than outside, you can expel it and cause ripples and thus spells? No. This requires a very large knowledge of magic theory to understand, but one of the books Dane just read had a reasonable analogy of a heavy boulder at the top of a grassy hill. Once pushed, it will roll down, however, you need to supply the force to start pushing it. Obviously, on a smooth hard surface, even the smallest force would suffice. But magic was not a smooth hard surface. It was a wibbly-wobbly seemingly random mesh of particles and waves. The same was true for your average grassy hill in that the boulder would sink into the ground. So, you need force to get it moving. With Core Magic, you're essentially mining ore from the boulder and occasionally chucking it out. With Field Magic, you're trying to ram the entire boulder at something.
Not the most accurate analogy, but the best one Dane had. Really though, it was best to just teach someone how to cast spells first. And Dane hated that. He wanted to know how and why things worked as that would always, in his opinion, give a much greater advantage than simply following steps. In addition, following steps was too easy and if he was forced to do so to progress, Dane would quickly grow bored - with the exception of steps that he devised or knew the full reasoning and logic behind. Perhaps that was why his brother slacked off and wasted his chance with magic, although Dane more strongly believed it was simply due to arrogance, laziness, and a general lack of insight.
Obviously, there were many flaws in the prior analogies Dane considered, even the one from the book. Each analogy only worked on a very small scale or aspect of magic. For example, considering the boulder on the hill, what part of that represented mana and what part represented the Core? The height of the hill was presumably the Core strength, and the boulder was the mana the collected there. But, wasn't the Core meant to attract magic? How did the boulder get to the top of the hill to start with, and if the hill magically attracted boulder bits, why didn't the boulder roll right back up. It also brought to fruition that there was more to casting magic than simply having a strong Core. You'd need the strength to push the boulder out of its indent on the soft ground.
This whole dilemma of trying to explain without causing a bunch of contradictions was why Dane had focused his explanations and help towards people who could already cast magic or had already felt it directly. He'd previously devised a reaction that could be done with common wildflowers, crushed chalk, water, blood, and a quill. Not a lot of blood was needed, but the general process revolved around making a specific Rune with fresh blood, mixed with the essence of the flowers (you could technically use grass, but it had a lower density of the needed compounds, something with pollen was usually better) and then some chalk for the composition. Water was needed to dilute and allow the mixture to flow better, and the quill or brush for drawing it. When two cut fingers were pressed against it as the designated points, it caused a magical deficiency making the body emit mana across the Rune like an electric circuit.
This allowed someone to feel what magic was like, even if most people were left with numb hands for half a week. So, anyone could do it; providing they had the materials or viable substitutes (crushed clay pots worked OK as a chalk replacement) and used their own blood, it would allow them to understand the contents of Dane's magic books much more easily. Alternatively, they could just get any novice mage to guide their mana into a spell instead. But with the secrecy of most mages, particularly those in the capital, that wasn't an option.
He hadn't looked through much of the Library so far, so he was still hopeful he'd either find something to help his mana problem or find some inspiration to devise a way on his own. Failing that, he'd just chuck the Omnilium about a bunch and hope for the best. Maybe he could use it for a spell source instead, but it probably wouldn't interact with magic given that it didn't seem to resonate on the spectrum, so really it would be an entirely different combat type.
Dane was very efficient at using magic. As a consequence of training, while his Core didn't increase in strength by much, his ability to expel mana and quickly regain it increased. So much so, he could almost cast normal, generic, spells. By sending out a concentrated blob, which normally would have no impact on anyone, nor even be visible, he could modify it slightly at launch to fulfil a small program of its own. His cantrip, "ping", could do this. But unless he actually killed himself and ejected his entire Core with all his mana, it would never reach the level of true field magic in strength. All that said, for general combat purposes, simply converting his mana into usable mechanical energy was much more useful. If he wanted to attack at range, he could just use the mana to let him move faster, or get a bow. Only acts affecting a large area or healing were outside his capabilities. And the latter was possible with Omnilium. However, a blast of fire or lightning to the face would probably hurt a lot more than an arrow.
Something hard hit Dane's back, waking him from his very convoluted train of thought.
"-ou even listening to me?" Cepheya's voice echoed from behind him. She sounded tired.
"Huh. What do you want?" Dane asked while turning around to face the Pegasus. There was no sign of James about, and the Library looked considerably more empty than earlier.
"It's getting really late. We've been here for hours. I left you alone for a while because you looked like you were really focused on those books, but..." Cepheya yawned. "But, I'm ti-" She paused and glared at Dane, he snickered. "I need food and sleep. James left a few hours ago. We can just come back tomorrow, but I don't want to wait for you to read out the Library in one whole sitting."
"Can't you just go on ahead. I'll catch up later. Or we can meet back here tomorrow. If you want food, I can summon something for you, I guess. Or give you some Omnilium to buy stuff or whatever." Dane waved one hand while looking at the book in the other.
"No. You're coming back with me. If I leave you here alone, you'd probably be up all night. We've got over a week before that Dante's Abyss thing." Cepheya swiped Dane's book away with a wing. Her... feather(?) seemed to be fairly dexterous and able to it reasonably well, making him blink in surprise.
"Urgh, fine. Whatever. Let's just find an inn or something."
"I told you so." Dane quipped.
Cepheya ruffled her feathers, mumbling complaints about 'dumb humans' under her breath.
Dane merely shrugged back. "What's so bad about sleeping in a stable anyway? I mean, they were made for horses and pegasi."
"If Pegasi were intelligent and kept stupid human animals in little kennels, would you want to stay there? And they smell like manure."
Fair enough. It's not her fault there weren't any open inns with large enough beds for her.
"I guess, let's just fly down to the ground. I'll fashion up a little shack with a couple of rooms for ya," he sighed.
"You'd think after finding this place once, it'd be easier to spot a second time," Dane grumbled. The night had been uneventful.
"I thought you liked going on adventures. I remember yesterday you going on and on about how we were totally going to go on a great adventure together or something," Cepheya cheerfully said with her lively voice. "Come on, it can't take that long." Cepheya giggled. "Turn that frown upside down."
"This time I am definitely staying overnight," Dane muttered as he continued where he left off. Cepheya stuck around for a short while before agreeing to meet him back where they landed on Dalaran come nightfall, saying if he wasn't there within an hour of the sun going down, she'd be off sleeping in their shack and he'd be stuck here.
Over the course of the day, Dane powered though bookshelf after bookshelf. True, there were other disciplines of magic, such as some that required wands or belief in yourself. But, with his trained eye, it didn't take much to spot the glaring similarities. Using a wand merely provided a focus for your Core, allowing more precision with field magic. It didn't actually provide any benefits for Dane's current abilities. Belief in yourself or emotion based magic was just another way of influencing your Core. Chakra, Ki, and the many other variants listed were all exactly the same as what Dane had, but with different wording. Some specialised in Core Magic, others in Field Magic.
There were fancy spell designs, ideas, and concepts Dane hadn't considered or seen before. And there were devisings of a mana potion - however that could only restore mana up to your maximum, not increase it. One particular book on creating life was interesting, but Dane could already use the Omnilium to do that; it seemed the particular spell was actually inspired by it. Some spells harnessed physical objects or components to shift the drain off of the user, gems such as diamonds and rubies, or sometimes plants, were common in some schools.
But, in essence, they were all the same. They all had an equivalent for mana. Some claimed your body produced it, or you had an unlimited supply and merely not enough energy to expel/use it all at once. Most of which, Dane concluded were actually wrong, but with the scope of the spells or abilities used within the school, they would never lead to any contradictions or unexplainable phenomenon.
That said, Dane did find the ones the physically used the user's body, such as their blood, interesting. By harvesting the magic stored in blood by manipulating the composition and thus reducing the latent magic density, magic would be expelled for use in a spell. You could theoretically do that with a rock or a leaf, but the gain was incredibly small. Given that the magic in your own blood already resonates with the caster's Core, it could allow a spell to become stronger. Dane wasn't sure on the proportionality, but he guessed the increased spell strength (as a percentage) was probably directly proportional to some function in B (where B is the amount of blood). It could be exponential, but he figured the amount of blood present was probably more of a defining factor that the rate at which blood was expelled. And having the power double for every additional litre of blood didn't seem likely. He could be wrong though, but he wasn't testing anything that destructive without a good idea of what would happen first.
Without collecting any data, he considered it was most likely that simply doubling the amount of blood would double the increase in spell strength. Doubling the fuel (assuming all the fuel was of the same quality) for a fire wouldn't necessarily double the brightness, heat, or burn time. Assuming it all combusted the energy released would double. Hence, he wanted to experiment at some point because sitting around all day making assumptions could easily lead to oversight.
But, the "blood" magic did give him an idea. It utilised changing the energy state of a substance housing magic to cause it to expel it. It was effectively like converting a sphere into a cube of the same surface area, some volume would be lost, and hence magic would be expelled. Now, what if he did the opposite. What if he changed a low-density magic material to a high density one, thus causing a partial mana-vacuum (very low-pressure area of magic) that sucked magic in. Or, even better: what if he were able to drain the magic from a high-density area so much that a partial vacuum is formed? Normally this could never occur inside someone, as everyone had a larger mana pool than their magical strength would allow to be expelled at once (i.e. their Core could drain magic in faster than they could push it out due to the rate at which mana is restored is higher if you have less mana).
Physically, Dane couldn't drain himself by magic much, and all that would really do is maybe allow a larger Core Magic usage. However, as with all Core Magic users, the real problem was fatigue rather than running out of mana. So, he'd have to utilise Runes or implants to manually force the process. Which would be painful without the proper care taken, and take a lot of time. Dane got out a pencil and some paper then got to work, musing over his prototypes.
Numerical methods were the worst. But as far as he knew, there wasn't any easy way to integrate anything in the form of x/ln(x) - at least in terms of elementary functions. Maybe he was missing something (there could be a workaround in his calculations or an easier way to integrate it), but as long as it was approximated within plus or minus a tenth of a percent, there wouldn't be any problems. He just needed to figure out the exact compositions and magical requirements, and how much stress the thing would be able to withstand. It wasn't something he'd summon. Well, maybe he would. But he'd definitely test it a lot first. Theoretically, with his plans, he could drain his Core of mana and store it in a sealed secondary location, using the new mana intake to fuel it and keep the process going. Once a low enough density was reached in his Core, the process would be able to maintain itself with no intervention. The downside of which would mean magic would build up indefinitely until the thing broke, or he used it. And, with that much at his disposal, field magic would be easy. Another problem would be the charge time, but for basic spells, it could potentially mirror the efficiency and speed in processing. That said, he'd need someone to install it inside him, which may be a possibility at Coruscant given what he'd heard of their technology.
He also considered that he should probably compose an apology for Cepheya given that he was pretty sure he'd been in the library for about three days. He'd fallen asleep on the books a few times, and without hunger to remind him about meals he'd done nothing but read and write. Any really useful books, chapters, or diagrams he'd made a copy of and stashed in his bag, so at this point he was ready to leave and continue elsewhere. But, as each hour went by, he was more than content to stay and just finish the next bit. He'd gained a few odd glances from the other occupants, and the orangutan that seemed to run the place had helped him reach a few books. Dane hadn't really questioned it.
Papers scattered the area around him, some scrunched up and nearly filling the bin that had slowly drifted towards Dane's working area. Others were plastered across the table. At this point, he was now basically done. He was just writing up a near copy in ink. There had actually been a few claps across the library when he'd stretched back, pronouncing "I've done it" to all who were listening. Daily, some would comment on his diligence as they went to do their day's research. There were questions about the topic of his work, but most had been more of an idle attempt at light conversation by people quickly intimidated by his writing.
Just one page left on his neater proof of concept, and a diagram to add. Then he'd be golden. Well, then he'd start testing. He kept copies of all the "dead ends" and only threw away notes that he knew were definitely wrong or ones he'd rewritten in a better way. He had side comments, explanations, and justifications appended or scribbled neatly on each section so hopefully, another mage or scientist familiar with general magic theory would understand after doing enough reading.
"Dane Regan, you look at me this instant." That would be Cepheya. "You ignored me yesterday, waved me off the days before that, and sat here writing and reading whatever it is you're working on for the better part of a fortnight." She snorted.
Wait? Did she visit earlier? I don't remember that. I thought she just left us here.
She can't have tried to talk to us much.
Were we that engrossed in our work?
Dane turned his head to the side, looking at the Pegasus. "I don't remember you coming in here? And anyway, it's just been a few days. Surely it hasn't been a week? Has it?" He looked forwards towards the librarian.
The orangutan nodded and spun on hand around his head and pointed the other at Dane, trying to signal that Dane was going crazy and Cepheya was indeed correct here.
"Huh." Dane looked at Cepheya and pulled out a fresh apple - he wasn't entirely unprepared for her. "Sorry. I'm nearly done though. I won't take more than half an hour."
"Dane," Cepheya asserted, "Dante's Abyss signups end in just over an hour. You can finish this another time." She then picked the apple up in her mouth, crunching it into submission, and swept the loose papers into a neat pile.
"Fine." He stood up and stretched, filling up his bag with the papers afterwards. "So how was your week?"
"I did some flight practice and said hi to some of the villages. It turns out kids love talking Pegasi." Cepheya's mood had flipped quickly to showcasing her lighter side. Or, as Dane suspected, her only side. Maybe it was partially faked at first, but if it was a mask she'd definitely been using it for long enough that it had become her. "I won't ask how your week was because I'm pretty sure you had lots of fun doing magic stuff, and if you tell me I'll just get jealous."
Huh, so she can talk in complete deadpan.
Dane laughed upon noticing her forced serious face. For a horse (or Pegasus), she had a surprisingly large number of facial expressions. Cepheya stifled a giggle as well before half hitting and half hugging Dane with one of her wings. Dane awkwardly wrapped one arm around her neck and played with her mane using the other.
"It's nice to have you back in the party," Dane commented.
"No. It's nice for me to have you back in my party, you're the one who decided to stay behind at the library while I was off adventuring." Cepheya retorted.
"Silly Ceph, the pursuit of knowledge is an adventure. And, you were the one you left the party. The 'I'll leave you and meet you later' thing is definitely a phrase someone who's leaving the party would say."
"Pfft. In your dreams." Cepheya snorted and removed her wing. Dane removed his hands. "Anyway, let's go. But I swear, if you don't come back here the moment this competition ends, I'm gonna... I'm gonna be really mad. Maybe I'll start hanging out with this nice paladin I met on my travels."
"But Ceeeppphh. You're my only friend. If you leave me I might have to resort to talking to the Orangutang for companionship."
She snorted, her wing slapping him on the back of the head while she trotted forward quickly, strolling out into the alley. "Don't be such a baby." Cepheya crouched down a little and spread her wings. "Hop on."
"Oh, I just wanted to brush up on some magic. I promised to help teach a young lass down at one of the villages west of here, but I felt I should probably check the books first. Don't want to teach the wrong things, now do we?" James said while continuing the glance down the streets. He had a good walking speed, which Dane appreciated. Cepheya probably didn't care though. "What about you, Dane? And you Cepheya?" Cepheya turned her head sharply at the mention of her name, before looking back to the streets.
"I have a similar reason to you, except I'm doing more of a knowledge comparison. I'm pretty new here, so I want to see if you guys have anything to add to my research from back home. Hopefully, there'll be something I can use to get around my mana deficiency. And see if there's any other theory that could be useful." Dane explained. "Although, teaching Ceph some stuff might be worthwhile. I know she has more natural aptitude than me, at least. As is, she's just my ride. I think we'd both agree that a ride that can shoot lightning is much cooler."
"And he's my key to free food," Cepheya cheerfully interjected, before giggling a little. "Maybe if I keep getting all those apples I'll develop superpowers."
"Ah, but if your transportation is required for your meals, then is the food really free, or did you just work for it?" James questioned.
Dane laughed and spoke while Cepheya looked confused. "Shhhh. You're not supposed to tell her that." He said, exaggerating the seriousness of the message.
Idle chatter and conversation continued for some time until, finally, while backtracking near to where the group first met, James, spoke. "Ah. I think I see it."
Dane and Cepheya blinked. "How'd we miss that?" They commented in near unison.
Before they hadn't noticed, or maybe they had and just simply dismissed it. Or maybe it simply wasn't there prior to now. Any of those could have been the case for the inconspicuous alleyway. Luckily, at the end of it was the entrance to the library, much to Dane's relief. The alley itself was just generic, hidden off near a side road. It fit the description perfectly, it did look, after all, much too normal. Dane couldn't quite put his finger on why though. Hopefully, he'd find it easier to locate next time, should he return.
Dane tossed an apple up in the air, laughing as Cepheya scrambled to catch it, before succeeding with a loud crunching sound as it joined the fate of those before it.
"Yes, now I understand why the place has been called 'Unseen'," James said, taking the lead and entering through the wooden door.
The library itself looked unremarkable to Cepheya. Just shelves of books. Books. Books. Books. And more books. The shelves were just plain old dark wood. To Dane, however, the fact there were no discernable features besides books meant nothing. Books were, after all, the only feature of a library he cared about - besides the filing system and other book-related things. James, however, looked amazed. His head tilted back. Following his gaze, Cepheya looked up at the ceiling.
Plastered on the domed roof was a wondrous collection of artwork, flowing with the curves of the building. "Hey, Dane. Look up." Cepheya poked Dane with one of her wings.
"I saw when we came in, Ceph. But I'd rather focus on finding the books of interest right now." Of which there were many candidates. Assuming they all contained adequate contents pages, it could take a week to check them all. And maybe longer to get the information he wanted. It all depended on how much overlap there was between Dane's and the library's knowledge sets.
Cepheya sighed, wings drooping. "Don't be such a killjoy. Can't you just invent magic batteries or something using Omnilium now that you're a Prime? I don't get why you're so fascinated with going through all these books."
Dane looked up from a book he'd already taken from the nearest shelf. "Ceph. I'm not going to summon random stuff without knowing how it works. Admittedly, last time I tried to do that you appeared, which was worthwhile-" Cepheya looked away, hiding her face. "... but I have no way of knowing specifically what I'll get. Anyway, I'm pretty sure using the Omnilium just to wish for more strength probably won't work effectively. I really doubt that's what Omni intended for it. I can get plenty strong all on my own. Maybe I'll try that later. For now, knowledge is all the power I need."
"Then why do you carry two swords and a shield?" Cepheya snarked while James listened in on the conversation.
"They are just tools to apply my combat knowledge with. Just as magical knowledge will help someone a lot more than raw strength, having a good grasp of combat is much more useful than having a strong blade. Anyway, I said "for now", Cephy. I don't need these swords and my shield at the moment, I can just summon new ones as needed. All I need or want is more knowledge, at present, anyway. I could probably still win an average fight without weapons, but using pointy things usually provides a solid advantage." Dane paused and looked down at the book he was pretending to read. The words he did glance over mentioned elementary magic theory with some diagrams he actually recognised, which was reassuring. "And my weapons look cool."
"What, no. Surely knowing how to hit someone with a sword is useless without a sword of your own?" Cepheya looked towards James, who seemed to be idly browsing while listening in on the pair. He did, however, still notice her glance. "Right?"
James returned the look with an expression that tried to say: 'don't ask me'.
"OK, Ceph. If I swung my sword at you, what would you do?" Dane folded the book and placed it back on the shelf while talking.
"I'd dodge it obviously. I'm super fast."
"What if-" Dane pounced forwards towards Cepheya, closing the few metres between them in the blink of an eye, and stopped very close in front of her. He poked her nose before she could react, making her blink and go cross-eyed. "I attacked super fast?" Dane finished. The rush of air ruffled some of the books on a nearby table, partially or completely opening some of them.
A few mages, scholars and other occupants of the library scoffed at Dane disapprovingly, others ignored him completely - choosing to focus on their books instead or perhaps discretely listening in.
"N-no fair. I wasn't ready." Cepheya shifted from side to side, changing her weight distribution and shuffling her wings while scrunching her nose.
"If you want a rematch, we can do that another time. But for now, my point is: if you know how someone's going to fight, you can dodge a lot easier. If you're skilled with a sword or know the theory, yet use a spear, you can find the gaps in a foe's guard, dodge their attacks, and parry much more effectively than simply buying or making the best spear you can and solely understanding spears. If you know all the magical theory, this works even more so. All spells have parameters or weaknesses. Anyway, I'm going to stop disrupting the Library and get back to reading. Go for a fly if you want, Ceph. I'll go find you where we landed on Dalaran once I'm done."
"Pfft. I don't get bored that easily. I could totally stay here with you for the rest of the day. There might be something I want to read here as well," Cepheya replied, immediately spying a book titled The Magic in Footwork with speed arrows drawn down the sides. She'd definitely beat Dane in a duel once that Dante's Abyss event was done and over. She could train while he tired himself out in that competition. Fair or not, she wanted a victory over him. Though he'd probably feel cheated should she reveal the tricks she had hidden up her metaphorical sleeves. Not that she planned to anytime soon. But if needed, she figured it might be worth it for a well-deserved victory. He'd find out eventually.
The trio went about their business in the library for the next hour, with Dane blitzing his way through the large collection of books. So far, at least in the first bookshelf, there wasn't really anything really new. Just slight additions and minor contradictions to his already large plethora of magical knowledge. All of which he'd noted in a second notebook he made for himself, though none seemed very important.
There were two main types of magic Dane knew of; Core Magic and Field Magic. And perhaps there would be others mentioned in other books here, and he just happened to pick the shelf corresponding to what he already knew. There were a lot of other books after all, and what he'd found so far almost covered his entire magical knowledge, with the exception of some of his own experiments and theories which could have easily all be wrong - he never had the funding or resources to do large-scale testing, nor the required mana.
Core Magic, also known as Linked Energy Manipulation and very rarely Self or Innate Magic, was about directly using your own mana to control your body and influence your immediate surroundings. Field Magic, which was much more complicated and, despite not using the user's mana directly, it required them to have more than a certain threshold; a threshold Dane was painstakingly close to, yet could never quite reach. In the past, Dane had researched his magic deficiency and found it was fairly common for the first born out of a pair of twins to get the majority of the mana. Field Magic requires an individual to expel mana to cause ripples in the magic field, thus providing them with the desired effect. It's the only reliable way to cast a major spell at distance, with some exceptions.
Magic was, in general, pretty weird. The more simplified explanation Dane would give consisted of explaining that magic was everywhere. Literally everywhere. Inside you. In the sky. In the ground. In rocks. This magic acts like an omnipresent ocean. You are a magnet that attracts this ocean. All living things do this to some extent, some more than others. This pulls magic inside you. Mana is just another word for magic, specifically magic inside someone (which wasn't entirely true, but it's a more simple answer). So, someone's mana depends on the strength of their magnet. The magnet was often referred to as the core. You can train your core by using or expelling mana to force it to draw more back in - like how repetitively lifting heavy things will make your muscles stronger, this will strengthen your core allowing you to get more mana. However, train too much and you can damage it severely (which Dane had never done, he knew his limits). Don't train at all, and it will deteriorate or stagnate (which happened to Dane's brother).
Core magic works by imposing your will on yourself. Field magic works by causing ripples in the magic ocean that converge specifically to provide the desired effect. Despite the apparent randomness of the field (it is very much not a three-dimensional volume, yet still related to physical space and influenced by temperature and density - yes, both, even though temperature can affect density, compression tests with gases have significant evidence to suggest both) due to so many small unmeasurable influences, spells do still ripple as intended by the caster due to magical signatures. That, however, was not something worth explaining to a novice. Most spellcasting was done innately, like how babies are surprisingly good swimmers. That said, there were ways of teaching unskilled people how to use their magic. The best method was to use their mana for them to help them figure out the sensations. Like moving someone's arm for them should they forget how to use it.
A very common question made by novice mages is why field magic requires the set mana above the natural magic level. Surely, after all, if the density if higher inside your body than outside, you can expel it and cause ripples and thus spells? No. This requires a very large knowledge of magic theory to understand, but one of the books Dane just read had a reasonable analogy of a heavy boulder at the top of a grassy hill. Once pushed, it will roll down, however, you need to supply the force to start pushing it. Obviously, on a smooth hard surface, even the smallest force would suffice. But magic was not a smooth hard surface. It was a wibbly-wobbly seemingly random mesh of particles and waves. The same was true for your average grassy hill in that the boulder would sink into the ground. So, you need force to get it moving. With Core Magic, you're essentially mining ore from the boulder and occasionally chucking it out. With Field Magic, you're trying to ram the entire boulder at something.
Not the most accurate analogy, but the best one Dane had. Really though, it was best to just teach someone how to cast spells first. And Dane hated that. He wanted to know how and why things worked as that would always, in his opinion, give a much greater advantage than simply following steps. In addition, following steps was too easy and if he was forced to do so to progress, Dane would quickly grow bored - with the exception of steps that he devised or knew the full reasoning and logic behind. Perhaps that was why his brother slacked off and wasted his chance with magic, although Dane more strongly believed it was simply due to arrogance, laziness, and a general lack of insight.
Obviously, there were many flaws in the prior analogies Dane considered, even the one from the book. Each analogy only worked on a very small scale or aspect of magic. For example, considering the boulder on the hill, what part of that represented mana and what part represented the Core? The height of the hill was presumably the Core strength, and the boulder was the mana the collected there. But, wasn't the Core meant to attract magic? How did the boulder get to the top of the hill to start with, and if the hill magically attracted boulder bits, why didn't the boulder roll right back up. It also brought to fruition that there was more to casting magic than simply having a strong Core. You'd need the strength to push the boulder out of its indent on the soft ground.
This whole dilemma of trying to explain without causing a bunch of contradictions was why Dane had focused his explanations and help towards people who could already cast magic or had already felt it directly. He'd previously devised a reaction that could be done with common wildflowers, crushed chalk, water, blood, and a quill. Not a lot of blood was needed, but the general process revolved around making a specific Rune with fresh blood, mixed with the essence of the flowers (you could technically use grass, but it had a lower density of the needed compounds, something with pollen was usually better) and then some chalk for the composition. Water was needed to dilute and allow the mixture to flow better, and the quill or brush for drawing it. When two cut fingers were pressed against it as the designated points, it caused a magical deficiency making the body emit mana across the Rune like an electric circuit.
This allowed someone to feel what magic was like, even if most people were left with numb hands for half a week. So, anyone could do it; providing they had the materials or viable substitutes (crushed clay pots worked OK as a chalk replacement) and used their own blood, it would allow them to understand the contents of Dane's magic books much more easily. Alternatively, they could just get any novice mage to guide their mana into a spell instead. But with the secrecy of most mages, particularly those in the capital, that wasn't an option.
He hadn't looked through much of the Library so far, so he was still hopeful he'd either find something to help his mana problem or find some inspiration to devise a way on his own. Failing that, he'd just chuck the Omnilium about a bunch and hope for the best. Maybe he could use it for a spell source instead, but it probably wouldn't interact with magic given that it didn't seem to resonate on the spectrum, so really it would be an entirely different combat type.
Dane was very efficient at using magic. As a consequence of training, while his Core didn't increase in strength by much, his ability to expel mana and quickly regain it increased. So much so, he could almost cast normal, generic, spells. By sending out a concentrated blob, which normally would have no impact on anyone, nor even be visible, he could modify it slightly at launch to fulfil a small program of its own. His cantrip, "ping", could do this. But unless he actually killed himself and ejected his entire Core with all his mana, it would never reach the level of true field magic in strength. All that said, for general combat purposes, simply converting his mana into usable mechanical energy was much more useful. If he wanted to attack at range, he could just use the mana to let him move faster, or get a bow. Only acts affecting a large area or healing were outside his capabilities. And the latter was possible with Omnilium. However, a blast of fire or lightning to the face would probably hurt a lot more than an arrow.
Something hard hit Dane's back, waking him from his very convoluted train of thought.
"-ou even listening to me?" Cepheya's voice echoed from behind him. She sounded tired.
"Huh. What do you want?" Dane asked while turning around to face the Pegasus. There was no sign of James about, and the Library looked considerably more empty than earlier.
"It's getting really late. We've been here for hours. I left you alone for a while because you looked like you were really focused on those books, but..." Cepheya yawned. "But, I'm ti-" She paused and glared at Dane, he snickered. "I need food and sleep. James left a few hours ago. We can just come back tomorrow, but I don't want to wait for you to read out the Library in one whole sitting."
"Can't you just go on ahead. I'll catch up later. Or we can meet back here tomorrow. If you want food, I can summon something for you, I guess. Or give you some Omnilium to buy stuff or whatever." Dane waved one hand while looking at the book in the other.
"No. You're coming back with me. If I leave you here alone, you'd probably be up all night. We've got over a week before that Dante's Abyss thing." Cepheya swiped Dane's book away with a wing. Her... feather(?) seemed to be fairly dexterous and able to it reasonably well, making him blink in surprise.
"Urgh, fine. Whatever. Let's just find an inn or something."
"I told you so." Dane quipped.
Cepheya ruffled her feathers, mumbling complaints about 'dumb humans' under her breath.
Dane merely shrugged back. "What's so bad about sleeping in a stable anyway? I mean, they were made for horses and pegasi."
"If Pegasi were intelligent and kept stupid human animals in little kennels, would you want to stay there? And they smell like manure."
Fair enough. It's not her fault there weren't any open inns with large enough beds for her.
"I guess, let's just fly down to the ground. I'll fashion up a little shack with a couple of rooms for ya," he sighed.
"You'd think after finding this place once, it'd be easier to spot a second time," Dane grumbled. The night had been uneventful.
"I thought you liked going on adventures. I remember yesterday you going on and on about how we were totally going to go on a great adventure together or something," Cepheya cheerfully said with her lively voice. "Come on, it can't take that long." Cepheya giggled. "Turn that frown upside down."
"This time I am definitely staying overnight," Dane muttered as he continued where he left off. Cepheya stuck around for a short while before agreeing to meet him back where they landed on Dalaran come nightfall, saying if he wasn't there within an hour of the sun going down, she'd be off sleeping in their shack and he'd be stuck here.
Over the course of the day, Dane powered though bookshelf after bookshelf. True, there were other disciplines of magic, such as some that required wands or belief in yourself. But, with his trained eye, it didn't take much to spot the glaring similarities. Using a wand merely provided a focus for your Core, allowing more precision with field magic. It didn't actually provide any benefits for Dane's current abilities. Belief in yourself or emotion based magic was just another way of influencing your Core. Chakra, Ki, and the many other variants listed were all exactly the same as what Dane had, but with different wording. Some specialised in Core Magic, others in Field Magic.
There were fancy spell designs, ideas, and concepts Dane hadn't considered or seen before. And there were devisings of a mana potion - however that could only restore mana up to your maximum, not increase it. One particular book on creating life was interesting, but Dane could already use the Omnilium to do that; it seemed the particular spell was actually inspired by it. Some spells harnessed physical objects or components to shift the drain off of the user, gems such as diamonds and rubies, or sometimes plants, were common in some schools.
But, in essence, they were all the same. They all had an equivalent for mana. Some claimed your body produced it, or you had an unlimited supply and merely not enough energy to expel/use it all at once. Most of which, Dane concluded were actually wrong, but with the scope of the spells or abilities used within the school, they would never lead to any contradictions or unexplainable phenomenon.
That said, Dane did find the ones the physically used the user's body, such as their blood, interesting. By harvesting the magic stored in blood by manipulating the composition and thus reducing the latent magic density, magic would be expelled for use in a spell. You could theoretically do that with a rock or a leaf, but the gain was incredibly small. Given that the magic in your own blood already resonates with the caster's Core, it could allow a spell to become stronger. Dane wasn't sure on the proportionality, but he guessed the increased spell strength (as a percentage) was probably directly proportional to some function in B (where B is the amount of blood). It could be exponential, but he figured the amount of blood present was probably more of a defining factor that the rate at which blood was expelled. And having the power double for every additional litre of blood didn't seem likely. He could be wrong though, but he wasn't testing anything that destructive without a good idea of what would happen first.
Without collecting any data, he considered it was most likely that simply doubling the amount of blood would double the increase in spell strength. Doubling the fuel (assuming all the fuel was of the same quality) for a fire wouldn't necessarily double the brightness, heat, or burn time. Assuming it all combusted the energy released would double. Hence, he wanted to experiment at some point because sitting around all day making assumptions could easily lead to oversight.
But, the "blood" magic did give him an idea. It utilised changing the energy state of a substance housing magic to cause it to expel it. It was effectively like converting a sphere into a cube of the same surface area, some volume would be lost, and hence magic would be expelled. Now, what if he did the opposite. What if he changed a low-density magic material to a high density one, thus causing a partial mana-vacuum (very low-pressure area of magic) that sucked magic in. Or, even better: what if he were able to drain the magic from a high-density area so much that a partial vacuum is formed? Normally this could never occur inside someone, as everyone had a larger mana pool than their magical strength would allow to be expelled at once (i.e. their Core could drain magic in faster than they could push it out due to the rate at which mana is restored is higher if you have less mana).
Physically, Dane couldn't drain himself by magic much, and all that would really do is maybe allow a larger Core Magic usage. However, as with all Core Magic users, the real problem was fatigue rather than running out of mana. So, he'd have to utilise Runes or implants to manually force the process. Which would be painful without the proper care taken, and take a lot of time. Dane got out a pencil and some paper then got to work, musing over his prototypes.
Numerical methods were the worst. But as far as he knew, there wasn't any easy way to integrate anything in the form of x/ln(x) - at least in terms of elementary functions. Maybe he was missing something (there could be a workaround in his calculations or an easier way to integrate it), but as long as it was approximated within plus or minus a tenth of a percent, there wouldn't be any problems. He just needed to figure out the exact compositions and magical requirements, and how much stress the thing would be able to withstand. It wasn't something he'd summon. Well, maybe he would. But he'd definitely test it a lot first. Theoretically, with his plans, he could drain his Core of mana and store it in a sealed secondary location, using the new mana intake to fuel it and keep the process going. Once a low enough density was reached in his Core, the process would be able to maintain itself with no intervention. The downside of which would mean magic would build up indefinitely until the thing broke, or he used it. And, with that much at his disposal, field magic would be easy. Another problem would be the charge time, but for basic spells, it could potentially mirror the efficiency and speed in processing. That said, he'd need someone to install it inside him, which may be a possibility at Coruscant given what he'd heard of their technology.
He also considered that he should probably compose an apology for Cepheya given that he was pretty sure he'd been in the library for about three days. He'd fallen asleep on the books a few times, and without hunger to remind him about meals he'd done nothing but read and write. Any really useful books, chapters, or diagrams he'd made a copy of and stashed in his bag, so at this point he was ready to leave and continue elsewhere. But, as each hour went by, he was more than content to stay and just finish the next bit. He'd gained a few odd glances from the other occupants, and the orangutan that seemed to run the place had helped him reach a few books. Dane hadn't really questioned it.
Papers scattered the area around him, some scrunched up and nearly filling the bin that had slowly drifted towards Dane's working area. Others were plastered across the table. At this point, he was now basically done. He was just writing up a near copy in ink. There had actually been a few claps across the library when he'd stretched back, pronouncing "I've done it" to all who were listening. Daily, some would comment on his diligence as they went to do their day's research. There were questions about the topic of his work, but most had been more of an idle attempt at light conversation by people quickly intimidated by his writing.
Just one page left on his neater proof of concept, and a diagram to add. Then he'd be golden. Well, then he'd start testing. He kept copies of all the "dead ends" and only threw away notes that he knew were definitely wrong or ones he'd rewritten in a better way. He had side comments, explanations, and justifications appended or scribbled neatly on each section so hopefully, another mage or scientist familiar with general magic theory would understand after doing enough reading.
"Dane Regan, you look at me this instant." That would be Cepheya. "You ignored me yesterday, waved me off the days before that, and sat here writing and reading whatever it is you're working on for the better part of a fortnight." She snorted.
Wait? Did she visit earlier? I don't remember that. I thought she just left us here.
She can't have tried to talk to us much.
Were we that engrossed in our work?
Dane turned his head to the side, looking at the Pegasus. "I don't remember you coming in here? And anyway, it's just been a few days. Surely it hasn't been a week? Has it?" He looked forwards towards the librarian.
The orangutan nodded and spun on hand around his head and pointed the other at Dane, trying to signal that Dane was going crazy and Cepheya was indeed correct here.
"Huh." Dane looked at Cepheya and pulled out a fresh apple - he wasn't entirely unprepared for her. "Sorry. I'm nearly done though. I won't take more than half an hour."
"Dane," Cepheya asserted, "Dante's Abyss signups end in just over an hour. You can finish this another time." She then picked the apple up in her mouth, crunching it into submission, and swept the loose papers into a neat pile.
"Fine." He stood up and stretched, filling up his bag with the papers afterwards. "So how was your week?"
"I did some flight practice and said hi to some of the villages. It turns out kids love talking Pegasi." Cepheya's mood had flipped quickly to showcasing her lighter side. Or, as Dane suspected, her only side. Maybe it was partially faked at first, but if it was a mask she'd definitely been using it for long enough that it had become her. "I won't ask how your week was because I'm pretty sure you had lots of fun doing magic stuff, and if you tell me I'll just get jealous."
Huh, so she can talk in complete deadpan.
Dane laughed upon noticing her forced serious face. For a horse (or Pegasus), she had a surprisingly large number of facial expressions. Cepheya stifled a giggle as well before half hitting and half hugging Dane with one of her wings. Dane awkwardly wrapped one arm around her neck and played with her mane using the other.
"It's nice to have you back in the party," Dane commented.
"No. It's nice for me to have you back in my party, you're the one who decided to stay behind at the library while I was off adventuring." Cepheya retorted.
"Silly Ceph, the pursuit of knowledge is an adventure. And, you were the one you left the party. The 'I'll leave you and meet you later' thing is definitely a phrase someone who's leaving the party would say."
"Pfft. In your dreams." Cepheya snorted and removed her wing. Dane removed his hands. "Anyway, let's go. But I swear, if you don't come back here the moment this competition ends, I'm gonna... I'm gonna be really mad. Maybe I'll start hanging out with this nice paladin I met on my travels."
"But Ceeeppphh. You're my only friend. If you leave me I might have to resort to talking to the Orangutang for companionship."
She snorted, her wing slapping him on the back of the head while she trotted forward quickly, strolling out into the alley. "Don't be such a baby." Cepheya crouched down a little and spread her wings. "Hop on."