Adamant Blood

"The Spot is a wonderful addition to the settlement," Elaria Valen said, as she sat down across from Mark and Isoko, in the drawing room of House Valen. "I'm sorry that the redesign was so strongly enforced."

Eliot had needed to remove the beach last night, along with redesigning the whole place for better sight lines and less dark corners for people to fuck in. Apparently that had been a problem. Mark focused on the other loss of last night.

Mark said. "The beach can come back some other day."

Mark and Isoko had showed up to House Valen's mansion at the Noble District promptly at 9:00 AM, as directed, for their magic classes, and been met by a wall of a man, named Sekail. He was the butler of the house, and he was covered in scars that made him look dangerous. He leaned into it, projecting an air of danger, but he had been perfectly welcoming in a gruff sort of way, and then he served them tea and cookies while they waited for Elaria to show. Elaria swept into the room at 9:10, so they didn't have to wait long at all.

Elaria smiled gently, then looked to the table, saying, "Please clear the table, Sekail."

Sekail cleared away the table, bowed, and exited the room.

"Magic is easy to learn but hard to master," Elaria began, without preamble or anything else. "You two don't have nearly enough background in astral physics to make any of this truly easy, but I promise you, if you stick with it, and if you do the work, you will be flying around and protected from most things below your level, soon enough. Fighting things tougher than you will always be a problem. According to some deals we have made with Mage Society, I will not be teaching you anything outside of Flight and Protection, but, to learn these magics, there is a base you must first understand, and where you go from there is up to you."

Mark was a little worried that he should be taking notes, but there was no paper to be had, and Elaria never mentioned taking notes, so… Sure! Here they were, the secrets of the mages! About to be spilled!

Mark and Isoko were both so very ready for this.

Elaria sat prim and proper, and intoned, "Legends say that magic used to be dreams, and then demons crawled out of the dreams, bringing with them all of the power of imagination made real. No one knows who made the first spell, or what the first spell even was, but we know the outcome of the first spell.

"A dreamer dreamed of a demon and that demon killed its dreamer."

Mark felt a chill in the air.

"Some say that the killing of the dreamer made more demons. Some say that the demons simply willed more of themselves into existence. Some say that for every person, there is a demon, and though the people die the demons never do, and so there are uncountable demons. No one really knows the truth, and the demons like to speak of everything they do as true, and so, we must content ourselves with a mystery.

"But demons and magic are intrinsically linked; that much is true.

"That is the dangerous path you walk when you 'study magic', which I will now tell you is a complete misnomer of the truth of magic. There is a lot of study, yes, and some of it is truly basic, but for you, for most people, there is mostly work. The real name for the largest study of magic is called the Opening of Bindings. That is what I will be teaching you.

"Infinite dreams lay in the Bindings that mana has placed upon ourselves, and it is up to us to realize what that means."

A moment passed.

And then Elaria smiled, and a gloom that Mark hadn't noticed seemed to dissipate. She said, "We're not dealing with raw arcane. I cannot teach you that. That's the stuff of wizards, archmages, and grand mages. Instead I will teach you what it means to Open the Bindings placed upon you. Now what do I mean by that? I mean your Skills that you acquired through the Tutorial, and all other means afforded to you, can be changed. Can be made better. Can be directed."

Mark furrowed his brows. Was she talking about… Power work? Skill work?

Isoko seemed similarly confused.

"To make a long explanation short," Elaria said, "Awakening in the Tutorial solidified within you your Skills— Powers, if you like the Earth term better. Your Powers are what they are due to the Ritual of Binding you enacted in undertaking the Tutorial.

"What you acquired in the Tutorial was Binding Level One.

"Most people on Earth are able to Awaken at Binding Level Zero, long before they even touch the Tutorial. You have Curtain Protocol to prevent this.

"You would call these Binding Level Zeros as 'Knacks' or 'Knowings', and those are the same terms we use here on Daihoon, though that is a recent change, ever since the Reveal. Knacks are truly simple things on Earth. If someone on Daihoon Awakens a Knack, then it might be a bit more complicated. On Earth, someone might gain a Knack for cooking. On Daihoon, the same Knack might be for Cooking Monsters, or Cooking with Music, or something like that. Usually people don't Awaken Knacks on Daihoon, because we take steps to ensure that all kids are able to go through the Tutorial and Awaken at Level One, and Awakening requires a big change in mana, and kids on Daihoon don't normally get that unless they walk into a fireball, or are attacked by an especially potent monster that doesn't just kill them.

"We used to call Knacks 'Lessers' here on Daihoon, because they were exactly that.

"Of course, Awakening at Lesser was a great way to avoid the Thresher, so back in my childhood, before the Reveal, a lot of parents tried to Awaken their kids at Lesser and give them the life of a slave or a dreg or soldier. Sometimes, a person would purposefully Awaken a possible prodigy of magic to Zero, so that there was no chance of them dying in the Thresher. Or, the parents or guardians skipped that option entirely, which was the most common thing to do. They made sure to help their kids Awaken in the Thresher at Level One. Weapons training and exercise and all of that were common tools. Most people tried to help their kids get ready for the Thresher, because Awakening to Lesser was very difficult. Still is. Other common slang for such a Level Zero includes 'Halfer' or even 'Quarterer'."

Mark thought back to how people used to label Mom and Dad as Quarters, due to their lack of having any real Power. All they had were Water Cleanse and Fish Yank.

… Oh shit.

Mage Secrecy was big, but it was also right there the whole time.

"So you have Zero, the Lessers, and then you have Awakened at Level One," Elaria said, "Through hard work and understanding, a Lesser might one day open the Binding of Zero, and Awaken to One. That is why we call it Opening the Bindings. Mind you! It is NOT Breaking the Bindings. That is what a crazy or desperate mage does when they know they are going to die and they need to save others. Breaking the Binding is taking off limiters and then using one's power to the fullest to cause an effect, which might not always work because those limiters are there for reasons. Breaking almost always ends in the death of the user.

"For reasons which will become clear, I doubt you will ever be able to Break your Binding.

"Most people who have truly powerful Skills cannot Break their Bindings. Catastrophic failures, yes. Breaking? No. But I tell you the terminology, and impress upon you the nature of what we are going to do, so that you know how to talk to others, because it is very possible for anyone of lesser Power than you two to severely hurt themselves with what I will teach you today. This is why Mage Secrecy exists. Because when normal people learn this stuff, they die. It is truly only because you have such high Power Levels that I am teaching you these things at all.

"Do you understand? Yes, I see that you do.

"Moving on:

"The first lesson of Opening the Bindings is learning how to sense your Binding. This is called 'Opening', and it is where the whole practice gets its name.

"From there, we categorize how your Binding is structured. This is called mapping the Binding, or 'understanding', or some variation of that. 'Seeing' is a good one, too.

"Once the mapping is complete, I will instruct you in the common ways in which your Binding might be altered to allow for more specialty magics. This is called 'adjustment of the map'. 'Altering' is also used.

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"For you, we'll be looking to add Flight and Protect to your ability, but as every individual person's Binding is different, with different starting points, different limits, different everything, adjustments are different for every single person. It is fully possible for someone with a weak Awakening to fully alter their original Power, and to come into possession of something much better than the original ability. For you, it will be a struggle to add anything at all, and your map will likely always revert back to its original shape.

"Reversion is the normal operation of a Binding.

"What one usually does when they 'cast magic', is they make an alteration to their Binding in a known sort of way long before they use that alteration, and then they use their astral body within their alteration, through their alteration, and thus they cause an effect. This usually 'uses up' the binding, and the Binding reverts back to whatever it was before you created the alteration.

"The whole ordeal is exceedingly more complicated than that, but that is generally what it means to Open the Bindings. This is what it means to 'cast magic'.

"To explain it all again, as small as I can:

"You build your magic out of your astral body, and then you cast your magic. Since your magic was made outside of your Binding, this usually uses up the magic, but there are tricks to avoid using up your magic. If you build wrong, you might kill yourself or ruin your foundation or your Binding, but with a strong foundation and initial Binding, like you two have, you shouldn't experience that sort of catastrophic failure.

"You may ask questions now."

Mark's mind felt like he was flying across the land, trees and bushes and small streams flickering by as he went faster and faster.

A lot of things made new sense in passing.

Paladin Orissa, back at Citadel Freyala, when she was giving her Introduction class, spoke about how mages built their own bodies, forming their astral bodies into muscles that they wanted to have and use, instead of the muscles and bones that the System installed in a person when they Awakened from the Tutorial. She had been speaking almost literally, but Mark hadn't understood that until now.

Archmage Blackthorn of Memphi had spoken about morphing the soul into magic to then use that new functionality like magic. Mark had not really believed that the Archmage was being literal, but he was being literal.

And now Elaria was going to teach them how to do the mapping and alteration, and that's all spellwork really was.

And then Mark thought to his parents.

What was Dad's original Knack, that he had tried to make into Telekinesis in his one year of arcanaeum, but which had degraded into Fish Yank? Grandpa had Hydrokinesis. Great Grandpa had also had Hydrokinesis, if Mark recalled correctly, and he was pretty sure he did not recall correctly at all. Dad never went through the Tutorial though, so what did he have? What did he transform into Fish Yank? Uncle Alexandro probably knew.

Whatever the case, Powers did flow through families, at least a little. But most people on Earth ended up as brawnies.

Had Dad gone through the False Tutorial and seen he would have been a brawny, so he opted for arcanaeum? Mark didn't know. He didn't know so much about his parents, but he wanted to know.

And how about Mom?

Mark knew almost nothing about his mother's family. As far as Mark knew, Mom was an orphan. She had grown up in public housing, like a lot of people, and then she had met Dad and… dammit. Where did they meet? At arcanaeum? Mark couldn't remember.

… Whatever the case, Mark wasn't able to even speculate on his mother's initial Knack.

Mark's fate had been 'brawny' until Addashield and Lola and then the Emperor's Drop mutated his astral body into what it became.

According to Addashield, Mark had been a Blank Canvas before Addashield painted his soul black.

Did that mean something?

It must have meant something.

And Lola must have known what she was doing when she imbued him with Union, as well…

Or, actually, Freyala worked through Lola, so Freyala knew what she was doing, which… was something to think about. Did Lola know about 'mapping the astral body'? And 'altering'? And what magic actually was? Surely she knew about magic, at its base. She had often told Mark that she might not be a part of Mage Society, but she knew a lot of tricks.

A lot of people knew a lot of tricks, it seemed.

But they kept this information hidden, because if you told a person with a Knack about what was possible then that person would try to alter themselves to make themselves stronger—

Mark breathed in sharply.

And if a person altered themselves without instruction, then they probably mutated into a monster.

A malformation.

Elaria watched Mark and Isoko thinking.

Isoko was having her own set of deep thoughts next to Mark, her eyes pointed down and away, at the edge of a bookshelf, but her vector was fully internalized.

Mark asked, "Monsterization is the result of faulty Binding?"

"Correct! Somewhat," Elaria said, her voice a little high with surprise. "If an alteration doesn't kill a person, they might monsterize. Depends on a lot of factors. That should not happen with you, but we will explore your maps together so that this outcome is made impossible."

Mark rapidly asked his next question, "Some Knacks, Knowings, and even some Powers are more prone to monsterization than others, aren't they."

Less of a question, more of a request for confirmation.

"Correct again," Elaria said, with a little less surety. She was concerned with this line of questioning, but she went with it anyway. "Brawnies are the most naturally resistant toward monsterization because their initial map is pointed toward keeping themselves intact and healthy, and as long as the initial map is untouched, then monsterization almost never happens."

"The thing that Thrashtalon does," Mark began, and Isoko whipped her gaze at him, while Elaria raised a concerned eyebrow. Mark continued, "It's called Wilding. That's the forced alteration of the soul into something else, isn't it?"

"… Correct—"

"And Skillers of the Empire do this magic, too—"

"Ahh," Elaria said, interrupting Mark, which seemed fully on purpose. With a pleasant expression, she continued, "That's a new record for me! Usually the Forbidden Arts don't come up for a while, but people are curious, and most students arrive at this particular lesson sooner or later, so I will simply give an abbreviated version for now and save the longer version for months from now. To say it shortly: Altering the souls of others is forbidden. That is the wide and the deep of it. You, Mark, might be able to do this quite easily with Union, but you shouldn't. Isoko, you will eventually find yourself capable of this as well, but you shouldn't do this either. Neither of you will actually have an easy time of it, but you will have an easier time than most. There are certifications you can undergo to be able to become a Skiller of the Empire, or of any city out there, but that is beyond the lessons I will be teaching you, and I heavily suggest you stay away from all of that. That sort of thing will have a Sentinel of the Empire coming after you if the Inquisitors don't get you first. You understand?"

Mark felt the intensity of Elaria's vector right alongside her words.

Some questions died in his throat, like questions about Skillers doing human experimentation and how that sort of experimentation was done on him, and how some Skiller of the Empire probably made his Color Drop treatment, and if he wanted to ensure that everyone was allowed to choose their own Power instead of being saddled with whatever random shit they got, then he would need to know more about the Forbidden Arts...

Mark put that stuff out of his mind, for now.

Mark said, "Sorry. A lot of things made sense, so I… asked."

"Understandable!" Elaria looked to Isoko, and asked, "Isoko?"

Isoko simply nodded, saying, "I have no questions. Please, let us continue?"

Elaria grinned. "I haven't taught two scions in a while. This is going to be fun; I can already tell." And then she got a bit more serious. "So, to start, you need to learn how to investigate your own astral body, this means closing your eyes and meditating until you begin to 'fall into yourself'. It might take a long, long time for you to achieve this, and it might only happen in dreams to start, but when you do, we will move past this part and into mapping. For now, I will direct your first meditation. Now close your eyes, and focus on stillness. Imagine yourself as a pond of water…"