A Pause for Education

"Spiritual Consciousness. Spiritual Sea. What is the soul if it's not a spirit?" Kairo was struggling to understand the terms and their differences as he lounged on a sofa in his villa.

A scratchy horn noise blasted into his eardrums. He slammed his hands over his ears to stop the ringing. It came again. He realized it was from the villa's entrance.

"I'm coming, don't hit the bell again!" He shouted as he scrambled to the door to open it and saw Jan. He welcomed the man inside.

Jan chuckled at Kairo's panting, knowing the annoyances of the villa's doorbell. The last owner's girlfriend had a nuisance door horn installed so he always opened the door for her. No one saw the need to remove it.

Kairo joined him at the sofas: they sat down to have some deep and meaningful conversations.

"Glad to see you're well." Jan sighed sadly about Genie's situation.

"I take it you know what happened with Genie."

"Our prince said that you were ambushed by the late countess when you were there to reclaim the soul bells."

Reclaim the bells? Kairo frowned and realized Lyon used the fight with the soul bells as their cover for being at the archives.

"It was a desperate fight. I don't really understand much about it, but seeing Genie's condition is enough for me to know the dangers."

"I suppose a lot of magical concepts would be hard for you to fathom." Jan opened up their conversation to be an opportunity for learning.

"Yes, it's been an eye-opener. I know that magic existed, if anything as myths and legends of ancient civilizations, but the terms of use are still going over my head."

"What is unclear?"

"Spiritual Consciousness, what is it really? Genie mentioned it a few times, and I've even seen him draw a small gold orb from his forehead and push it into my grimoire."

Jan nodded with a smile, pleased at Kairo's question. The boy was willing to learn, which he found a good sign.

"In the terms of magic, Spiritual Consciousness is a piece of the mage's soul identity. For example, you have an apple and cut it into pieces to have apple pieces. The apple piece is still the apple, but only a fragment of it. The fragment is Spiritual Consciousness."

He explained that the Spiritual Consciousness contained the mage's unique soul traits and abilities, and could even carry their magic. But it was still a fragment of the mage, so wouldn't cause harm to either them and the host body.

"So every time Genie placed a piece of his Spiritual Consciousness in my grimoire, he was literally placing a piece of himself?" The thought made Kairo blush. Although he had guessed this was the case a while back, to hear it confirmed by Jan made the meaning sink in.

Jan chuckled. "More or less. Naturally, he can still be running around and doing other things. Like enjoying ale at Lucky Dork while watching some newbie alien mage fumble around the Mage Library."

Kairo nodded. His mind went to another question.

"What's the difference between a Spirit and a Soul?"

Jan nodded and explained that if the Soul was a person's identity then the Spirit was their magical properties and their connections to the cosmos. In short, it's what personalizes external energies to be magic.

"Think of it as your physical body is your Soul and your aura is the Spirit."

"And the Spiritual Sea and Spirit Network?"

Kairo's understanding grew after Jan's explanations.

Wizards didn't store spirit energy directly in their bodies like Mages. They used a system called the Spiritual Sea. This sea served as a processing and storage space.

Their physical bodies would gather external energy, which was then transferred to their Spiritual Sea to be processed into spirit energy. They could then draw upon their sea's energy to cast magic.

This process relied on the physical mind and spiritual consciousness forging a connection to a private cosmic space—what would become their Spiritual Sea. Often, a grimoire acted as the bridge, solidifying this connection.

"So the Spiritual Sea is like this villa, a personal space."

Jan nodded. "More or less. A piece of cosmic real estate that is your private universe."

"That explains why I can have another spiritual consciousness in it, the place is tangible in some sense."

"Yes. Naturally, the Spirit Network is similar, but rather than exist out of the body, it resides within the body and spirit heart."

"Spirit heart?"

Jan yawned and decided to change the subject, otherwise they'd be waffling on about magic foundations the entire day.

"But I came here for other reasons." Jan rose and had Kairo freshen up then follow him out of the villa.