“The Arcane? But isn’t everyone able to use it?” asked Lucas, who was slightly let down after thinking that his power meant more.
“Yes, that is not wrong. Anyone is capable of using it. But! You have a trait known as the Strange Arcane, also known as the Godslayer, or Angel’s Bane. It has such an extensive list of names that I could not possibly recount to you right now because of the impact it has made on history. The trait has been manifested a total of three times in recorded history. The second time the trait manifested in someone, they broke through the limitations of space and marauded Heaven, hence the two names of the trait. It was not until Bah, the First Being himself, descended into Lower Heaven and put an end to their rampage.”
“If that’s what happened last time, why do you have so much trust in me? I could end up doing the same thing,” Lucas said.
“It could indeed happen again. That is why I notified the higher-ups the moment you manifested. Even right now, they are extremely tense. However, one thing that has been noted is that all people born with Strange Arcane must pass a test in their lifetime, or else their feelings will run rampant. So far only once in recorded history has this test been passed. The trigger can be anything, as long as it causes a large enough emotional upheaval.”
“So, what’s your plan?”
“I will attempt to emotionally help you through whatever is the trigger for you. It might be a let down, but that’s really all I can do,” answered Sareth.
“What does the trait Strange Arcane even mean?”
“It means that while you control the power of darkness, you will not be corrupted by your power. This is different from the test I was just talking about — this is about the instantaneous backlash normal people have. Your Azla consumption when using the Arcane is also decreased. The magic output of your spells are also stronger than that of a normal person. So, in the short term, you are already one of the most fortunate people alive. But once you put the test into the equation, you will become one of the least fortunate people alive.”
“Is that all?” asked Lucas. He was not itching to leave, but the talk of how special he was started to make him uncomfortable.
“No, it is not. I have been personally requested to coach you in the methods of the Will. I have also assigned a trustworthy professor to oversee your development in the usage of the Arcane. I will also request you to keep your trait a secret. Nobody, not even your family, should know about this until I or another figure of authority decides that it should be revealed. Now, that is all. You may go straight to your dormitory after taking this.” Sareth took out a small, rectangular card the size of Lucas's palm. It was made of a translucent black material, with regular lines of what looked like real gold. On it was imprinted “Lucas Drake, Dormitory 152”.
“This is the key to your dormitory. Just tap the door with it and it will unlock.”
“What’s stopping anyone from invading my room if they find this?” asked Lucas.
“I have already imprinted your magical signature upon this key, so it will be able to recognize you. Therefore only when you are holding it and fueling it with a steady stream of magic power will the display show your information.”
“Oh, okay. Well, I’ll take my leave, then.” Lucas turned around, only to find that there were no handles on the doors. He attempted to push them open but they wouldn’t budge; they were supposed to open inward.
“Oh, sorry.” The headmaster tapped a spot on his desk, and the doors swung open. “My office works the same way; the doors only open with my permission.”
“Oh, alright,” Lucas said. He immediately dashed out of the room.
The dull clunk of the closing of the doors reverberated behind him. Lucas held his card before him and admired it. It looked like something that only rich people would have. He noticed four golden symbols near the top right corner, ordered vertically. One was a square, one was a circle, one was a triangle, and one was a small depiction of a compass. Below the four golden symbols was one of ruby made in the shape of an exclamation point. Lucas pressed the first button. Where his name was displayed now showed a map of the current floor. Then he tried tapping the second one. The display showed his name again.
Lucas's hands shook. This was the first time he had handled advanced magical technology like this. In fact, this was the first encounter he had had with magical technology at all. He continued to press the buttons, first the triangle, which displayed a black screen with a golden bar fading in and out, and then the small compass, which caused the screen to display an arrow that seemed to point towards north.
Lucas pressed the triangle again to find out what it did. He tapped the screen and a dot appeared. Lucas tried to draw his own name. When that did nothing, he pressed the triangle again. Now the screen displayed the words “INVALID QUERY”. Lucas guessed that the button required him to search for something. He drew the letters “Dorm 152” and tapped the triangle. Now the small screen displayed a few words, “Navigating to Dorm 152”, which were quickly replaced by an arrow that seemed to point downwards. Lucas decided to make it back downstairs before he followed the arrow.
He retraced the steps he had taken with the headmaster and found himself nowhere near the classroom where he had started. He checked the card again and saw the arrow was pointing at a place somewhere on the same floor. Without questioning how crazy his luck had to be to end up on the exact floor of his room after getting lost, he followed the arrow.
The soft red carpet, elaborately designed with curving purple streaks, muffled his footsteps as he walked along the softly lit corridor. Unlike the floors below, the walls were made of polished wood carved with winding patterns. The wall stuck out whenever the door to a room came along. Above each door was a black plate displaying the room number in golden letters.
Lucas looked eagerly for his room. At the room numbered 140, Lucas broke into a brisk run. He ran past the next eleven rooms and finally reached Dormitory 152. The chiseled wood door, much darker than the wood that made up the walls, had a black box engraved in it. Lucas assumed that this was where he was to place his card to unlock the door. He tapped the key to the black box, and the regular lines, etched into the black rectangle, lit with a green light. A faint whirring sound came out of the door as it swung open of its own accord.
Lucas's eyes were met with a beautifully furnished bedroom. It was split into two identical halves. Each had a red oak table with a magic-powered lamp as well as a soft and fluffy bed framed with an identical red oak. The wall opposite the door was a large window. Its curtains were drawn, but a white light filtered into the room through them, illuminating the dust particles floating in the air.
The room was rectangular and was connected to another through a second door. This one had a handle instead of the black box on the previous door. Lucas shut the door to the hallway behind him and explored the second room. It was a restroom complete with two toilets separated by dividers, as well as two showers that were separated by opaque glass. A white, marble sink was directly opposite the door, built with a faucet that was made of iron and sank seamlessly into the back of the sink.
Suddenly, a deep noise that sounded as if it came from inside the walls themselves tolled. Then the walls shook as the sound of footsteps came from all around. The distant chattering became louder with the footsteps. Lucas assumed that the cacophony came from the end of the period. This much Rebrixi had told him — their classes were split into fifty-minute periods, with ten minutes to travel to the next classroom.
Lucas, who had brought nearly nothing, since he owned nearly nothing, was rather bored, for the time allotted was for the average student to use to unpack. Fortunately, his boredom came to an end when another student opened the door and stepped into the room. The student was rather skinny, but from a glance, Lucas could tell that he was a royal. Was it his stance? Regardless, he exuded an aura of supremacy.
“Nice to meet you. I’m Eren. Eren Solari.”
“Hi. My name is Lucas Drake.”
“So. Where are you from?”
“I don’t know if you’ve heard of it, but I come from a town called Everward.”
“Oh, yeah! I’ve definitely heard of it. My family basically rules over this nearby city called Lion’s Bridge. Big help, you guys are. Most of our food comes from your village.”
Lucas couldn’t believe it. Rebrixi had told him to stay away from nobility if he could help it, since they had a rotten streak of discrimination against the peasants of the land. Lucas had also worked this bit out, but he didn’t expect that the first noble he met would be so outgoing. And although Lucas wasn’t so ready to let his guard down, he was hopelessly curious about the daily life of a noble.
“What’s it like, being a noble? Do you get to eat a lot every day? How many friends did you have? Were you required to have a private tutor or anything like that?” Rebrixi had told him that he could lay off the noble titles in school. It was a place where status was supposed to play no part, but clearly that wasn’t the case, at least as far as Lucas had observed.
“No, no. Our city is somewhat small, so I don’t have the wealth that you’re probably picturing right now. I did have a tutor, though. Since I’m born from royalty, I naturally had a ton of Azla since birth, but I couldn’t really control it. My tutor mainly just taught me how to control my Azla flow so that I could manifest my magic better.”
“Um… May I interrupt? What’s Azla?”
“You don’t know? It’s supposed to be the unit of magic. Like how the distance between the capital and the coast is measured in kilometers. It’s like the kilometers of magic. But I think it also means the motion of magic, though I like to think of it more like units, since it lets me control my magic better. Apparently we’re supposed to eventually think of it more like a flow, but the first year at Sacred Heart is just to set foundations.”
“Oh. I see, I see. What are we doing for the rest of the day?”
“I think we’re good for today. Since we just got here, we should be settling down and getting used to this environment.”
Looking around for a topic, Lucas set his eyes on the giant suitcase that Eren had been dragging along the whole time. Pointing at it, he asked, “Why are you carrying around so much? What’s in there?”
“What, is it too much?”
“Well, what are you supposed to put in it? I just brought some spare clothes,” — he gestured at a rather rugged bag that he had placed on his table — “and this necklace that my mom said belonged to my grandfather,” Lucas said, pulling out a monotone pendant complete with a black opal set with a hollow, white eight-pointed star symbol and showing it to him.
“Is that all you brought? My dad said that I needed a bunch of magical tools, so he put them all in this suitcase.”
“Can I see one? I haven’t seen many since I come from an almost entirely magic-less village.”
“Of course!” Eren, kneeling on the ground, unlocked his suitcase and rummaged through it. “Where did he put it again? Oh, right. Here it is!” Eren retrieved a rather large oak wood box from a sea of well-adorned clothes. He placed it on the ground between them and struggled to open the lid.
“Is everything alright?”
“For some reason I just can’t — argh! — open it!”
Lucas hurried over and observed the situation. “I think it’s because the box is upside-down.” Eren flipped it over, and the lid opened immediately, revealing an assortment of expensive-looking items.
“Yeah, I knew that all along. Just testing you. Anyway, these are the magic tools that my dad gave me.” Eren described each one in detail. Among them were a quill that never ran out of ink, a compass that could point towards any object within one hundred meters, a book that increased its number of pages the more one wrote on it, and a black, rectangular block of unidentifiable substance that he said was capable of erasing ink.
“How do they make these? Aside from rare instances of magic techniques, aren’t all types of magic supposed to be elemental? How do you have so many?”
“I believe that these are made by teams of extremely skilled elemental mages who bring their powers together in order to create these effects. For example, I believe the tracking mechanism of this compass comes from a combination of all of the elements; darkness to understand your query, and the others to resonate with the object being searched for. As for how I have so many, I believe my family has been buying them since the foundation of our bloodline.”
“Speaking of you, what’s your magic? What class and what element?”
“Plant and healer. I would’ve preferred control since being able to bind people down seems so much more useful and so much more fun, but, you know, whatever. It’s not like being a healer is entirely useless.”
At this moment, a knock sounded from the door. “Lucas Drake? The headmaster has requested me to see you today,” came a voice from outside.
“What’s this about?” Eren asked.
“I’m not sure. I’ll go see,” Lucas responded, not entirely truthfully. “Coming!”
He opened the door to see the shabbiest person he had ever seen. Although the golden lines traced along his black robe were unmistakably those of a professor’s, his entire aura and disposition did not match the dignity that surrounded the headmaster. His eyes were underlined with black, while the rest of his face sported an extremely pale white. His hair was bedraggled and stretched to his shoulders. He was slouching while drawing an extremely long, ragged strip of gray cloth tighter around his neck. However, notably, his ears were not the rounded ones of humans but the sharp ones of elves.
“You are Lucas, I presume?” the shaggy man asked. “I must apologize for my unseemly appearance; I have just woken up. It is the early afternoon, after all. I must commend you for being able to wake up so early in the day. Personally, my body cannot stand such punctuality.”
“Yes, my name is Lucas,” the twelve-year-old commoner replied, not just a little vexed by the careless appearance of the professor.
“Ah, I see. Good. Follow me.” With a wave of his hand, the professor beckoned, turned around, and started walking away.
Lucas hurriedly said goodbye to his roommate and pursued the professor. “Excuse me, sir. What is your name?”
“Name? Oh. Let me think,” the professor said, appearing indeed to consider what his name might be. Lucas was stunned. Was this the man that the headmaster had assigned to instruct him? “Oh yeah, my name is something like… Oh I forgot again.”
After walking for a few minutes and descending two flights of stairs, the two reached the professor’s office. On the gray wooden door was a rectangular silver plate that was engraved with the name “Thalen Morrix”. Below the nameplate was the phrase “or something like that” written in cursive. Clearly, there were people who did not take him seriously.
“Oh, that?” The professor had followed Lucas's eyes. “That was written by one of my best students. He wrote it there the day before he graduated, so that he wouldn’t be punished. Not by me, of course. I personally find it very funny and wouldn’t have the energy to pursue an energetic boy like him anyway. It’s just that the other professors don’t seem to support such actions.”
“It wasn’t because someone disliked you?”
“No, no. Intentional actions to defame the staff are extremely discouraged in Sacred Heart. Anyway, welcome to my office.” At that, Thalen took out a card much like Lucas's and tapped it on the black box on the door. The door slid open smoothly with a quiet rushing sound, revealing pitch and unnatural black. The moment the professor entered the room, the lights flickered on with a subtle crackling sound. Illuminated by them was a desk surrounded on all sides by shelves that carried both books and countless artifacts and tools.
Lucas followed the professor into the room, noting that it had a really strong smell of smoked foods. “Why did you bring me here, Professor Morrix? Was there something you wanted to talk about?” Respect when addressing a superior was something that his mother had always drilled into Lucas's head, in case someone of high stature ever wandered into their village.
“Well, it appears that you know my name even better than I do,” the professor said with a slight chuckle. “I did indeed have matters to talk to you about. But mostly I just wanted to get to know you better.
“Is it true that you have had no encounter with your own magic before arriving at this school?”
“Yes,” Lucas replied. And neither have I encountered it after arriving at this school, he added mentally.
“Well, that much is natural. You’ve been at this school for less than a day,” the professor said.
“Did you read my mind?” Lucas asked, rather shocked by the professor’s nonchalant proficiency at breaking into his mind. “Isn’t that a part of the element of darkness? Isn’t it supposed to, like, curse you or something?”
“Yes, I did read your mind. However, you are mistaken about two things. First of all, using the Arcane curses nobody. Overusing it, on the other hand, leads to mental instability and Azla vein disruption. And the second thing is that overusing it does not negatively affect everyone so severely. Only humans are affected so much. I am an elf — therefore I have more resistance to the corrupting powers of darkness. However, even that is misleading. To me, an elf who has the element of wind as a Race element, using wind magic has about the same drawbacks as a human using darkness. The dangers of magic and its elements are very vastly dependent on one’s Race element.”
“So is there something like Strange Wind for the elves, too?” Lucas asked, intrigued all of a sudden.
“Theoretically, there should be, shouldn’t there? But no, there have been no such cases of an elf with surprising resistance to overusing wind. Perhaps darkness is the only element for which there is a possible protective mutation.”
“Oh — and another thing. What is Azla vein disruption?” Lucas's disapproval of the professor was melting away right before his eyes.
“That gets into third-year education, but if you wish to know, I shall give you a brief introduction. Firstly, Azla veins are what channel your magic throughout your body. They form a full loop throughout your body. Your magic is produced by your kidneys; the more proficient and experienced you are at using magic, the more they produce. Outlets (usually on your hands, but they can sometimes appear on other parts of your body; I remember this funny friend I used to have who would shoot water out of his belly button) are where your magic exits your body.
“Azla veins do not affect your elemental attribute whatsoever. However, the patterns, connections, and networks they form are directly related to your class. For example, if your veins are very open, somewhat deep, and straight, you are a melee attack mage; your magic flows out very easily and quickly. The three factors, the ones I just mentioned, that determine your class are density, depth, and topology.
“Density refers to how packed your Azla veins are; it determines whether you are more suited for quick-release blasts or for releasing it in a sustained manner, for example, healing or support magic. After all, the more dense your veins are, the more length in veins you have, and therefore the more time it takes you to cast. In other words, if you have denser veins, your ability to cast quickly is limited. If your veins are less dense, it would be harder for you to control a consistent flow of magic since Azla exits your body so quickly.
“Depth refers to how deep they are; it determines how strong your veins are — how easily they break under pressure — and therefore whether or not your veins can take the strain from long and sustained application of magic. Based on the descriptions of density and depth that I just gave, you should be able to tell me what topology is, right?”
Lucas thought for a bit and said, “Topology would be the shape, then, right? With what you just said with open, deep, and straight veins, I’ll assume that topology pertains to the ‘straight’ part. So that means that topology would be straight, curved, or somewhere in between? And density equals consistency of flow and depth equals length of casting. So what’s left is… buildup?”
“Exactly! Topology refers to the shape of your overall network, where the veins connect; it determines how your magic interacts with itself. If your veins are all straight and untouching, your magic will not build on itself and will go straight to outlets. If they are not straight whatsoever and connect all over the place, your magic will have many opportunities to build on itself and compound until you release it, therefore making it a much bigger blast.
“Azla vein disruption, on the other hand, is when your veins are damaged by the use of an element that pertains to its coating.”
“Coating?” Lucas had assumed that Azla veins were simply just made of magic flowing in thin tubes, following their own natural course, rather than being directed by some sort of outside wrapping.
“Yes. All veins in an individual are coated by that individual’s innate element, though in a form called absolute magic. For me, it is absolute wind. From its name can you guess what absolute magic is?”
“Absolute magic has to be some kind of higher form of magic, then, right?” Lucas asked with no confidence in his guess.
“Exactly. Absolute Azla can only be affected by other absolute magic; thus it would normally be impossible to damage your veins, even if you were to sever your limbs.”
“So then, by that rule, absolute fire can’t be put out by normal water, whether or not the water has been charged by normal Azla? But absolute magic can affect normal magic?”
“Exactly. If you tried to put out absolute fire with normal water, it would only result in the water evaporating. However, by all means, this phenomenon is actually not something that naturally occurs; absolute magic is supposed to be an entirely other form of matter that does not interact with normal elements whatsoever.”
“So… Why does it interact with other matter, then?”
The professor chucked. “In all seriousness, we can only assume that the gods intervened.
“Back on track. Azla vein disruption occurs when the coating is harmed by your control over your element; every organism is capable of manipulating their own vein coating, although it is extremely difficult to do so; think of that difficulty as your body attempting to prevent itself from magical failure. When you control your own innate element, you may sometimes strain your control so much that you begin unconsciously damaging your veins.”
“Wait, so let’s use a human as an example. If a human were to manipulate darkness, why would it affect the absolute darkness coating of his or her veins?”
“To put it simply, because absolute magic can affect normal magic, it is impossible for no interaction to happen the other way around. It’s just that the effect that normal magic has on absolute magic is much more pronounced when they’re of the same element, thus leading to the vein coating taking damage.”
“Oh, I see. And another quick question — why did the ball crack when I put my hand on it?”
“From what you said before, I would assume that the headmaster has already informed you of your special trait, Strange Arcane, right?”
“Yes.”
“Well, how that ball normally functions is that it measures the rhythm of your magic. Every element has a different Azla rhythm. For example, fire magic’s rhythm is very extreme and not melodic at all, which is why it is more prone than any other element to cause injury. However, elements like water tend to have a much slower, much more peaceful rhythm that allows it to flow and crash at will. However, because of your trait, your magic has virtually no rhythm whatsoever. That is why your brain is not affected by your magic, and it is also why it takes much less energy for you to cast spells; Azla rhythm causes friction within your veins that makes Azla harder to circulate.
“However, since your magic has no rhythm, it causes no friction and therefore requires much less energy to cast. Of course, it still costs energy. Most of the energy spent on casting spells is in redirecting your Azla to the outside. And since the member of a Race’s brain tends to have a little of their Race element in it (for example, human brains have a very small amount of darkness as formless Azla — so I can’t just explode your head whenever I want to — oozing around), using their Race element can cause a sudden fluctuation in that bit of magic in their head. Very small fluctuations, true, but when it’s so close to your brain, it’s a wonder that one can even use their own Race element without developing brain problems.
“But, the darkness within your head and the darkness that you use are different because of the rhythm. Because of that, that darkness in your head is completely unaffected when you use your magic. It’s almost like the darkness used by people with the Strange Arcane versus the darkness used by everyone else are totally different elements. But it is for that reason that the crystal ball broke when you touched it — it could not measure the Azla rhythm.”
“How do you know so much about the Strange Arcane? Weren’t there only three people in history who had the trait?”
“Hmm? Oh, yes. Apparently, the last wielder of the trait consented to having her magic studied before disappearing off to who-knows-where.” The professor checked the clock that sat among the many artifacts on the shelves. “It is becoming late. You should head back to your dormitory. I did not get to know much about you like I intended to, but that can wait. You have also learned much today, so you should gain some rest tonight.”
“Yes, sir. Then I’ll take my leave.”
“You may leave.”
Lucas, satisfied by the amount of information that he had absorbed today, retreated from the door, opened by the professor, and stepped into the stone halls of the underground. Smokeless torches encased in brackets lit the corridor, filling it with a rather pleasant smell of burning wood. The dim light cast many shadows while glinting off the polished stone bricks. It was clear that this part of the school received much care; there was not a speck of dust or moss in sight.
Lucas, still unable to make his way around the school, took out his black-and-gold card from his pocket and directed his way back to his dormitory.