Networking

There were about two dozen people in the Network program, and they were led to a room functionally identical to the one Miyori had been in before. 

Everything was very professional and polished. Miyori thought she was one of the youngest people on the team, and she sat and read flipped through the folder she was given of paperwork with a schedule, an overview, and other official-sounding documents. 

At the front of the room, a man introduced himself as Shimada. He looked like to Miyori like a college professor, or perhaps a retired librarian; he spoke in a high, fast drawl that made her want to lean forward to listen. 

It was a shame that half of what came out of his mouth sounded like nonsense. 

Miyori tried to listen anyway, her ears open as she peered down at the documents. And maybe it was her fault—maybe she just didn't know enough.  

"And now, I want you to remember the street where you lived when you had your first love. You remember, don't you, the way that your bedroom would thrum at night with the power of your hopes for the future? I want you to envision that energy as a flow, a flow that encompasses all living beings…." 

Miyori hadn't had a first love, or at least no one came to mind. She propped her chin on her hand and peeked at the people around her. Maybe if she had, this wouldn't sound so ridiculous. 

But the young men and women around her were nodding, faces bright with excitement. 

Miyori kept her face blank and managed not to roll her eyes as Shimada started saying something about how "everything was connected." It took quite a while for him to get to the point. 

"What we are building is a Garden," he said eventually. He touched the wall and it lit up, showing an aerial map of Kikyo. "And a garden is only as strong as two things: its soil, and its roots." 

The map was only minimally detailed, with only a few key points highlighted. As the man touched different parts of the map, they lit up. He drew a wand from his pocket and drew lines connecting them, and started back on his "flows of energy" spiel again. Miyori wondered how much magic was running through this building, if all the walls were able to respond to impromptu instructions like that. 

Still, she looked over the map carefully. There was the building they were in, highlighted in light indigo; there was her school and her home neighborhood a few districts over. 

"I'm sure you're wondering by now, What does all this have to do with me?" Shimada said. He swept an arm over the map. "You're from all over our beautiful city. You know where its energy flows—human energy, plant energy, and even the infrastructure that keeps magic flowing all over. You know where to plant the seeds for our beautiful garden—you have the right instincts. Our job, here, is to help you bring those instincts to light and put them together to create a solid foundation for our little project." 

He smiled benevolently at them. "And so, today we are going to learn the basics of magic harvesting. This is a discipline you've likely only barely touched on in your textbooks, so expect to learn something new today. Please turn to page seventeen in your folders for the overview."

Miyori flipped to the page and found a glossary of magical symbols. Scanning ahead as Shimada began to introduce them, she froze.

There, on page nineteen, was the symbol that kept showing up everywhere. 

Wisteria was written underneath it, in a flashy purple font. For gathering energy. 

That was all it said. 

Miyori frowned, flipping through the symbols again. The rest had more information attached—several sentences to a sizable paragraph, explaining what it did and how it fit together. But the wisteria symbol was printed with minimal explanation. For gathering energy. What kind of energy? How was it gathered? 

"Now, you are going to practice a new kind of spell-casting," Shimada said. "You're used to associating writing with formal enchantments—that's how they teach you in school. And that has its place. Formal enchantments keep the trains running on time. They keep the lights on. They're powerful and efficient and, above all reliable. But by that same measure, they are inefficient. They are inflexible. They leave power on the table and don't adapt to their environments. What you're going to learn here today are techniques that breathe and bend with the world around them, just as you and I do. 

"We'll start with the simplest ones. Please turn to page twenty-one. I'm going to pass out styluses and some special materials developed in-house…" 

What followed was an exercise with some very odd equipment—which was also very expensive, Miyori guessed. She was put in a group and given instructions to make a piece of gossamer float on the wind by manipulating and drawing on a metal rod which was strangely warm to the touch. 

This seemed more like spellcasting than networking to her, at least so far, but she watched the others try it and then attempted it herself. 

By the end of the lesson, their piece of gossamer was flying here and there on the room as though propelled by an invisible breeze. The other groups were showing similar success. 

"Wonderful," Shimada said, smiling benevolently over them all. "That's just about all the time we have for today, so please gather your materials and put them back. We'd like you to keep your folders on-site as well—don't worry, there will be take-home work eventually! But we do have our professional discretion to consider. Next week will be more of the same—and then we're going to talk about what exactly we do with all this. I'll see you then." 

The other participants filed out of the room, chatting.

Noa had asked for as many answers as she could find. She wasn't sure she had anything yet…but there was one place she could start. 

"Shimada-sensei?" she asked, walking to the front of the room. She positioned herself very carefully, so she could see the map on the wall, and adopted her best uptight-student persona. "If you have a moment, I had a question about these symbols...."