Re-Becoming a Nerd

The next day, the second of four planned march days to Silvercross, Annabelle gave me a brief run down of the magic system of this world as we trekked across the plains. Most of the things I already knew through inferences I’d drawn from my expertise in Quanta TCG, but it was good to get confirmation that the world worked how I thought it should work.

She began her explanation with a disclaimer. “First of all, I apologise, because I’m merely an apprentice, and I don’t understand most of it myself. But I’ll try my best.”

Despite saying this, it was extremely obvious that Annabelle had studied at length beforehand to present me with the explanation she did. She spoke with the eloquence of someone who was obviously well educated.

First of all, the twelve elements that existed in Quanta TCG were indeed the twelve that existed in this world. Annabelle split them into three categories.

First were the primordial elements—that of Water, Fire, Air and Earth.

Next were the sacred elements—that of Life, Death, Light and Darkness.

Then there were the celestial elements—Gravity, Time, Aether and Entropy—although these allegedly only existed as folktale and religious superstition.

According to Annabelle, although accounts of people using celestial elements existed (such as the exploits of Saint Alicia, Gravity Saint, yes she does have big boobs, but I have it on good authority the writers hadn’t even thought of the “big celestial objects generating gravitational pull” angle when the game was being designed), most modern magicians regarded them as metaphors or exaggerations due to the fact no living practitioners existed anymore. Accordingly, all of the spells that originated from those elements had been lost to time and reduced to ancient history.

“Ah, um, but that’s just what my master told me.”

“Master Edgar?”

“Yes,” Annabelle said. “I’m not saying that I don’t respect him, of course, but I’ve always believed the world is too big for us to truly know anything beyond a reasonable doubt. Maybe, in a faraway place, there still exist magicians who can channel the celestial…”

“Like aliens and extraterrestrial life,” I said.

“Precisely.” Despite what this response might lead you to believe, Annabelle had no idea what the fuck I was saying. At another point in our discussion, I’d brought up some platitude comparing magic to WiFi, and she’d blatantly stared at me and nodded, Yes, something like that. Just to make sure she wasn’t actually isekai’d like I was, I made a comment about how the planes on 9/11 should have been redirected with Air magic and that it was an inside job, and she went, Yes, something like that. I think, at some point, she’d given up on understanding me.

“So, am I gonna meet this Master Edgar guy?”

“Probably, not, no.”

“Why?”

She gave me a sheepish ahaha, then abruptly moved on to her next part of the explanation which revolved around Marks. In Quanta TCG, you had to assign the element of your deck before you built it, and this was mainly accomplished through selecting the Mark you wanted. For example, if you wanted to build a Fire Deck, you would select a Fire Mark, and this let you generate one Fire Quanta every turn to play cards with. If you wanted to build a deck with mixed elements, for instance, Alicia’s Grav-Light Midrange—you’d probably select a Gravity or Light mark and go from there. You’d generate quanta for other elements by drawing pendulum cards throughout the duel—like an Air Pendulum or Fire Pendulum for example—that added other types of quanta to your pool.

“But that’s purely theoretical. Someone who can cast from multiple elements doesn’t exist in practical terms,” she said. “Your mark is decided when you are born, and there isn’t a way to change that. You simply discover what it is when you begin your training.”

“Wait. Really?”

“Yeah.”

That was news to me, because in Quanta TCG, switching your Mark between decks was done in clicks. It was about as natural as swapping tabs on a browser, and the game frequently portrayed element mixing as normal. I mean, SaintAliciasFeet69 was playing a dual element deck, and some of the cards in the game were hybrid element cards. Then again, clearly not everything from the game translated to my hallucination 1-to-1, and if Annabelle who seemed to possess rigorous knowledge about magic said this was the case, it was probably true.

“Pendulums are extremely rare artifacts,” Annabelle continued. “You’d also rather have them supplement your Mark instead of losing a whole day’s worth of charge wasting them on something from your Codex you’d never had experience casting before.”

In Quanta TCG, they were pack filler, but okay, I guess they were rare in this universe. I also suppose in the context of an actual, breathing fantasy world, it made sense to want a fighting style that didn’t rely on having to stop and recharge your batteries every now and then—especially not batteries that someone else needed to refill because they didn’t match your element.

Was there the possibility that she was hiding something from me, or plain misinformed? …No, not likely. It was more likely that, since the Saints of Calice were historical figures, and the version of the game I played seemed to reflect the historical norm more accurately rather than current practices, that I’d simply transmigrated to a future version of the game. Time. But then why Havenmead and Rowan? Okay, I guess an alternate reality was more likely. Aether. Or maybe these differences were simply random, due to entropy?

“…Primot? Are you listening?”

“Uh, yeah. It’s a lot to take in. Anyway, this mark stuff—is it an actual physical thing you can see, or something more… magical?”

“It’s both,” she said. “It only forms on your person after you’ve discovered it.”

“Can I see yours?”

The flora around these parts must have triggered an allergy of hers, because my laser-focused adjunct lecturer was randomly reduced into a blushing mess.

“…Um, if we’re still friends in a year, and you still remember that you want to see it… then I might consider it.”

I understood right away. I suppose it didn’t make much sense to give away what your strengths and capabilities were to anyone. If what she said about Marks being permanent were true, then in this world they were the one thing that dictated your primary identity as a mage—it’s the same way you might not want to give out your My Number to random strangers. Perhaps it was a bit extreme since I already knew she was a Life magician, but I didn’t want to press her any further.

Her Mark is on her boobs. 100%.

“Alright, forget it then.”

That was that for our first of many lectures. Cards were spells, you kept them in a deck called your Codex, and to start one’s training, you needed to “discover” what your Mark was. It all seemed rather straightforward. All I had to do was attempt to cast random cards from Annabelle’s deck until something actually happened, then spam that element over and over till Magic Tattoos bestowed upon me the power of gods. Simple.