Chapter 45 - Idle Ideas

I’ve taken the book and scroll back with me to Orville's house, I just feel like I can’t be too far away from him now. It’s easier to dissect the mechanics of this world when I have peace of mind. 

As I open the book, an aroma of old paper and ink rises to meet me. The first page is dense with text and diagrams, a meticulous explanation on written magic that Clovis has already divulged. 

‘The rune is not the magic itself, but a vessel for intent. It is a physical anchor for a magical concept. This expression requires absolute precision, for a misplaced stroke or an incorrect sequence can corrupt the intent of the spell, leading to unpredictable and often catastrophic results…'

I can feel my eyes glazing over; syntax, intent. It’s so sterile and academic. I know I have to learn this stuff but Clovis makes it so much more digestible, it’s not the same without her.

I’m also battling with my consciousness as my theories and questions about magic are constantly swirling around in my head. I don’t think I’ll be able to focus until I can write them out. 

I find a spare piece of parchment and a nub of charcoal on Orville’s writing desk. The first question that comes to mind is the most fundamental, born from my first desperate moments in this world. I write it down, the charcoal scratching against the rough surface.

“Can you use magic for drinking water?”

I stop, considering it from the three expressions Clovis taught me. Visualisation: Could I just imagine a glass of pure water into existence? It seems simple, but my gut tells me it’s not.

What does ‘pure water’ even look like to my Mind’s Eye? Is it just the absence of dirt, or the taste? The focus required would be immense, the mana cost probably staggering for something so fundamental.

Incantation: This seems more plausible. Clovis’s magic, and the healing I performed, was about altering what was already there. A spell to purify a cup of river water makes more sense than creating it from nothing. It’s a command to change a property, not an act of creation. But then again would the emotional cost be worth it for every day use? Surely not.

Written Magic: I glance back at the book with a flicker of renewed interest. Could you write a purifying spell that adheres to something like a canteen? A permanent inscription that cleans any water poured into it? 

It sounds simple enough, but it would need a mana source to constantly do that? I haven’t seen any mana stones doing that sort of thing around here. How would you even put together a spell like that? 

Suddenly, the dry, academic text starts to claw at my brain. 

With a new perspective, I pull the book back towards me, my eyes scanning for relevant passages. 

I find a section on the ‘Principle of Sympathy’ that covers the idea that runes are most effective when their meaning aligns with the nature of the material they are inscribed on. 

A spell for fire would hold more power on a piece of wood than on a piece of stone.

This leads me to a bigger, more complex question, one that has been nagging at the edges of my mind ever since I started my journey with magic.

“What stops people from using visualisation magic to create valuable minerals or metals?”

Why isn't this world flooded with people conjuring mountains of gold? The limits of magic must be well understood? 

But Clovis hasn’t really talked in depth with me about it. Or maybe they’re such common knowledge she doesn’t feel the need to, I mean she wasn’t exactly forthcoming about mana in the first place.

There could be a knowledge barrier, to truly visualize a metal or mineral, you might need intimate knowledge about its properties. You would likely need to understand its weight, its density, its structure. You’d have to build it from the inside out in your mind. 

Perhaps science in this world is not as progressed as it was in mine.

Creating something with as much complexity as metal from mana could be astronomically inefficient? The energy required could be worth more than the gold itself. 

I stare at the parchment, at the chaotic jumble of my thoughts.

Orville was insistent that mana comes from within and all of Clovis’s lessons have been based on that same principle. Incantations don’t seem to use mana or at least not the same mana that visualisations and written magic do. 

What if there are more kinds of mana that haven’t been discovered yet? I originally thought ambient mana could be the same kind that we use but what if it’s not? 

I know Orville said that my mana sickness theory was out of the question as he has never heard of another case like it, and it hasn’t affected anyone else in the village. 

But what if that’s it, it can’t have affected anyone in the village as they aren’t in tune with the same mana source that the monsters are? 

I could be the exception. I haven’t been in this world long, maybe I’m not naturally attuned to the same mana type that everyone else is and I unintentionally drew upon this ambient mana source? 

It could be what caused my first failed attempt at magic.

And during the attack, in that moment of absolute desperation to save Naoki, I didn’t just use the small, measured well of my own soul. I must have instinctively reached for more.