What is the goal of your magic system? A brief description of said system would be nice too.

[ElijahRyne]

Yesterday I spent 15 minutes creating a magic system to prove a point. That led me to think that there is no need for the reader to be given the metaphysics of the system in question if not important to the story. Which is probably something I should have realized after spending multiple months creating a complex system that only I can truly know how it works, nevertheless here is a simple version of it. Oh, there is no need for a complex answer, I am just putting my thoughts out there.

The goal of my magic system is to explain the world, and with it allow the creation of smaller unique magic systems.

To begin with let’s learn about the three fundamental magic particles. Aether, Void, and Quintessence. Aether is a substance that when by itself will always try to contract inwards. Things that come in contact with it will be stuck, and move with the Aether while contracting is size and increasing in density. Void is the opposite it is always expanding, if something comes in contact with it it will expand and eventually dissipate. You can think of the two as entropy and order. When isolated the two mix like oil and water. Quintessence is highly reactive and will transform while in the presence of an outside force. You can think of it as the substance that gives everything its form.

Quintessence when compacted into 2x its standard density becomes a soul. Souls have, in the broad sense, the ability to interact with other things on its own will/instinct, the ability to persevere the world around it and in it, and the ability to grow.

In the beginning of the universe there was an infinitely small and large point. This point was made of the three substances, ordered in a form similar to that of a nesting doll. Aether was on the outside constantly straining to constrict, void was in the center constantly straining to expand, and resting as a buffer was quintessence.

The constant straining condensed the quintessence barrier until it became filled with souls. These souls slowly weakened the strained buffer, and then, bang. The point exploded and mixed the three substances together. From it was born the Void Sea, and the countless planes that ’float’ within.

The Void Sea is characterized by its instability, various combinations of the three energies create wondrous things. Some fleeting in their existence and others near eternal.

The Planes are characterized by their relative stability. Planer energy is made from an equal ratio between quintessence, void, and aether. When the energy clumps up it forms a plane. Each of which, practically, creates its own independent world(s). Inside planes without an attached planar soul, the rules of physics will be mostly random. Imagine all the rules that govern how our universe works, slightly tweak random variables, and you have an idea of how these worlds differ. Yet, all the worlds are ruled with the esoteric logic that forms from the interactions between Aether, Void, and Quintessence.

Now I could go further and describe various magic systems are devised from it, and how they work, but that is enough.

 

[TheEldritchGod]

Spoiler: From Flip The Script

The Dark World




There were many worlds over the eons that had been called that name. Of those there were few that could honestly be said to have earned the moniker. However, recently there was one world in particular that had not only earned that name, but was almost universally accepted as the one and only Dark World.




A particular large chunk of rock called Earth, third major celestial body from its primary.




The humans living on that dirt ball didn't even know they had attracted any attention in recent times. A mere blink of an eye by the standards of some. Time is a rather fungible commodity and far more subjective than most biological life forms understand. Only true, pure, memetic life forms of sufficient size and power can truly fathom the fundamental nature of hyper-dimensionality.




The most common of these beings are called simply 'Gods'.




Of course the term wasn't accurate. Biological life rarely managed to be 'accurate' when it came to communication of any sort, as far as pure memetic life was concerned. Communication with such creatures was always complicated and fraught with danger. Misunderstandings were the least of the problems that could arise. Imagine trying to have a conversation with a self-aware and intelligent microbe without accidentally killing it and you'll get the scale of the problem. Which is to say, biological life isn't insignificant. True, one single algae isn't that important, but if all the algae on your world were to perish, there are few multi-cellular life forms that would survive the ecological collapse.




That includes most of you, by the way.




That is how gods view most intelligent life forms. They are the very algae that form the bedrock of memetic existence. Without intelligent life, there are no ideas, no concepts, no stories, no FAITH. The very 'air' that Gods breathe depends on the existence of intelligent life. This is the odd relationship between gods and men. Gods need men, but men don't need gods. The existence of intelligent life creates memetic energy. Magic, if you will.




Which brings us back to the godless and forsaken 'Dark World'.




Did that world ever have a god? It wasn't clear. It most likely did at one point, but that god either died or abandoned it. In the vast intricate structures that make up hyper-dimensionality, there are tendrils and rivers of existence that snake and wind themselves through the dark matter reefs. Dark matter is a type of matter that normal matter cannot interact with because it is the very bedrock of reality. The density of dark matter effects the amount of 'CLARITY' you experienced in a given section of space.




Big ships need deep water to safely float. Get too close to shore and you might run a ground. One needs to be mindful of that because if a given area has a massive build up of coral, you might not know you are about to run aground. Sometimes the dark matter breaks off and floats about like massive icebergs. An Iceberg that can turn a planet into a version of the Titanic. Life creates magic. Magic permits the existence of life. Magic works best in ‘deep water’. The fuzzier your reality, the easier it is to create, use, and manipulate magic. Dark matter removes uncertainty. Magic cannot exist without uncertainty. Life does not exist without magic.




Dark matter is the enemy of life.




Occasionally a world or universe, or only part of one, will wander too close to the dark matter reefs. When this happens, magic dies and life follows suit. The more fantastical creatures perish first, then intelligent life, eventually all life just dies. Higher life usually abandons such a world, if it can, as it is near impossible to change the ebb and flow of eternity. In the case of The Dark World, it wasn't that sudden. Its path was at a very shallow angle and it took thousands of years to completely fall into the nearby dark matter reef. However, eventually it was still swallowed up and it was never to be seen again.




Until recently, that is.




Humans, who live on mountaintops, over generations adapt to the environment. They have larger lungs and more red blood cells. The same thing happens to people who live in deserts, or above the Arctic Circle. A similar thing happened on Dark World. Over thousands of years every single creature that was on that planet became spiritually stronger. Humans with weak souls died out and only the strongest of souls remained. Trapped within the dark world and unable to reincarnate anywhere else, these souls kept getting recycled over and over. This form of natural selection turned ordinary men into spiritual beasts. They may not have understood their lot in life, but they were like nomadic tribes wandering an endless desert, unknowingly passing from oasis to oasis in an attempt to survive.




Until World War Two.




Two nuclear bombs dropped and about a quarter of a million souls met their end. Never before has so many died in one spot in such a short amount of time. The first bomb poked a hole in eternity. The second widened the crack and shattered the astral firmament itself. A rift was born and it announced itself to the wider audience with a BANG. A blazing beacon of energy never before witnessed, lanced out from the dark matter reef in which the dark world was trapped. It lit up the hyper-dimensional skies like a spiritual supernova.




It was a world with billions of people, each one possessing a soul thousands of times stronger than the typical soul found in any other universe. It was a universe brimming with ideas and thoughts and memetic energy the likes of which the rest of the universe could only imagine. It was a world with no magic, powered by strange and unknown sciences and technology that few gods ever dreamed were possible. There were multiple civilizations, teaming with humans, living in an impossible place.




One god in particular was interested in figuring out HOW the humans survived, so he started doing some experiments. Nearby he started making some pocket universes. They were nowhere near as strong or powerful as The Dark World, but these were just thought experiments, basically. He had a surplus of energy. Making a tiny pocket world or twelve was no big deal. They wouldn’t last long anyways. He set them up, let them run, and watched what happened. He never expected a mirror universe to have resonance with The Dark World. Memetic energy that was compatible leaked out and was drawn to one particular experiment.




It became self-sustaining.




The other gods noticed this, they ran a few tests themselves and determined that while it was suicide to enter the dark world for any pure memetic being, it was possible to tap into those vast reserves from the outside. To put this in perspective, imagine that a rock composed of pure WISHES the size of Walla Walla, Washington dropped in the middle of Antarctica. What would the various governments of our world do to get that rock?




Yeah. Like that, but SO MUCH WORSE.




Everyone and their mother, faction upon faction were clambering over each other to get to The Dark World. This seemingly endless wellspring of energy could shatter the balance of power through out reality. When souls started accidentally falling out of the rift, the situation got even worse. Biological beings on other worlds got wind of what was going on and someone came up with the hero summoning spell. This ritual reached out and snatched souls from earth, usually ones closest to the rift, and pulled them to the summoner. These 'earthlings' as they called themselves were often weak to start, but give them time in a universe with ANY level of memetic energy and they became magic sponges.




It was like taking a Kryptonian and dropping them in a yellow sun.




The faction that controlled the area around the Dark World declared a truce and came together. They called themselves THE ALLIANCE and claimed to be the stewards to the Dark world and they would manage it for the good of all.




The ‘All’ they claimed to be managing it for called ‘Bullshit’ and promptly declared war.




Battle lines were drawn. It was the alliance against the rest of the cosmos and they intended to win. Of course direct control of the planet was impossible, so protocols were set up. Mortals who were strong enough to survive in there were found and sent in as agents. ‘Angels’ were assigned in legions to watch the area surrounding the rift both to protect it as well as prevent anyone in the alliance from 'Getting Grabby With The Goods'.




Which put our original experimenter in a bad spot.




It took some serious politicking to not get the hyper-dimensional version of a shiv shoved in a particularly vital section of his personage. He was 'asked' to donate many of his servants to fight on the front line. As compensation for his 'contribution', he was permitted to retain control of his mirror universe. Officially he was in charge of researching the dark world. Unofficially, he was in too strong a position to be rid of easily, so they hamstrung him and told him not to get any ideas.




The god wouldn't mind so much if he hadn't come to like his experiment so much. The people on his 'non-magical' world fascinated him. He tried very hard to take care of them. In particular he wanted to know if he could fix gender imbalances. A world where women were pushed to excel and men were encouraged to hold back. His goal was to promote equality of outcome.




The god succeeded horrifically well.




His world was the very definition of mediocre. The god had managed to stomp out most forms of extremism. It was only after he succeeded that he realized the flaw in his plan. There is no way his experiment could survive an external invasion. A world in conflict had suffering, this is true, but it also avoided slothfulness. If there was no reason to get stronger, why get stronger? In order to keep his experiment stable, he constantly had to intervene. Every time he did, he made sure to err on the side of caution. He loved the people of his little world and wanted them to be happy.




The old saying, calm waters never made a skilled sailor, was never more appropriate.




Now with the war front collapsing, it was possible he might find himself as the last line of defense. His creation might have to fight for its own survival. He didn't have much time, a few centuries at best, decades at worst. He needed to fix the situation. Fast. The problem was, politically, There is no way any of the other gods would allow him to get any stronger, and that included the people in his experiment. So he thought, and he thought, and slowly an idea formed. He thought of a way to get around the monitors.




He would find beings that matched up in his world with The Dark World, pick those who were strong and showed promise, and switch them. He'd get a strong soul to help his world. The soul sent to the other world might have some problems, but the soul was arriving in a body native to that world. It wouldn't have too many issues, especially if they stayed near the rift. Here and there, he switched souls from his universe to the Dark World. Slowly, quietly, cautiously, he would build up a reserve of souls who could defend his world. Everything was going according to plan.




Then Toshi showed up.




The God floated in his personal workspace and watched Toshi intently. He didn't bring Toshi here. In his experiments, yes, he had to take some risks. He was basically sneaking into another universe through a backdoor. It was possible Toshi got caught up in the wake of one of those attempts. Honestly, he wasn't quite sure what happened.




The god regretted lying to Toshi. It wasn't that he couldn't return Toshi, it was that trying to do so would raise too many questions. The God also had no idea how Toshi even survived the process. He wasn't lying about that. Toshi shouldn't exist. Yet, he does. It was likely because Toshi's soul strength was off the charts. Wondering how useful Toshi could be, The God checked out the many possible futures and found... Nothing.




Toshi's soul strength was so high he was unpredictable. A soul that powerful could, even in a world where magic was locked down like in the experiment, break those shackles like tissue paper. There were limits, of course It would manifest itself in subtle ways. To anyone else, it would just seem like he lived a charmed life. Who knows? Maybe that's why he survived getting ripped out of his world in the first place.




Maybe Toshi was just lucky.




The single greatest limitation to what Toshi could accomplish would be Toshi himself. What sort of person was he? Would he ruthlessly build a financial empire built on the bodies of his enemies? Would he descend into decadence concerned only with his harem of fuck buddies? The god had already regretted flipping that teacher in America. The idiot had got himself arrested for having sex with a student. Fat lot of good he was going to be in prison. Was Toshi going to be a problem as well?




However, when Toshi called out about needing to talk about ‘Seems Basically The Same’, God chuckled. As he listened to Toshi protesting what he saw as injustice, God started to wonder. As he overheard Toshi lamenting that his own morality prevented him from taking advantage of others, God was surprised. When the angel in the computer he had given as a gift took two bullets for Toshi, God’s heart-equivalent organ was in his throat. There was no telling where Toshi's soul might wind up if it got reincarnated too quickly. God was grateful That Toshi survived. More importantly, God was absolutely floored that Toshi risked his life to save an enemy.




The wheel turned and the other gods came. Demons has joined into the fight. It was a multi-front war now. Things were getting complicated. They needed more troops. They demanded more angels. This time the god of reverse world wasn't going to just let his minions be sent off to die. He'd go with them and make sure they came back. The other gods were puzzled by this move, but didn't have any reason to disagree.




It was a big risk, but he had worked hard to make sure it would be difficult to discover Toshi. This was a huge gamble, for while he was gone, they would surely search through mirror world and see what secrets were hidden. However, if they found none, when he returned, they wouldn't have any excuse to keep harassing him. If they found Toshi, they would do anything to take him, but if Toshi remained where he was, his very nature would finally solve the energy crisis he world was dealing with.




His angels advised against it, but he ignored them. This was a high stakes game with everything on the line, but if he won, he'd win big. And why would he risk everything on a long shot? Truth told, it was Toshi. He was nothing like what God expected. He just had a good feeling that maybe, just maybe, it'll all work out.




As God prepared to march off to war, God did something unusual.




It was something he had not done in a very long time.




He began to have hope.

Spoiler: From Flip the script

The Cosmos Is Vast.





I know that really goes without saying, but it is worth repeating. It isn't technically infinite, but it is quite big. The part that a self aware being, such as Toshi, can survive in is actually a fraction of a fraction of the total whole. That is just excluding the parts that don't have the same fundamental laws of physics that support his existence.




Of those parts, there are layers to everything. The layer that is of most importance to us right now is the layer that involves memetic energy. Metaphysics, to be specific. Like normal physics that is made up of things like quarks, electrons, disappointment, and photons, memetic energy can be broken down into fundamental building blocks as well. We call these monads. There are six in particular. Up and down are your most common. Think of them as the foundation of Mana. I won't bore you with the particulars, even if it is quite fascinating. What concerns us, and Toshi in particular, are the monads that make up a living, intelligent being. The four 'soul' monads, as they were. Specifically referred to as Demonic, Weird, Angelic and Top.




Yes, the human soul is made up of Top memes.




It's more a matter of energy, really. The human soul is made of the most energetic and resilient memetic particles. It takes the most energy to make one, and when you break it down, you can make any other monad from a Top monad. This is why demons and what not are always seeking out human souls. They are just so full of pure TASTE. However, monads don't work like quarks, even if there are similarities. They absorb and give off up and down monads, and reproduce and grow, then sometimes break off or 'shed'. That last part is what is important to us.




Toshi has been shedding Top monads like an english sheep dog right after a really soapy bath.




His very presence produces Top monads and they just drift off him. This is above and beyond his normal astronomical production of ordinary mana. He's basically shedding flakes of "soul". Everyone does this, but nobody notices. It is such a small amount for most souls, it really doesn't matter, but Toshi is ten BILLION souls in one body. When Toshi's soul gets dandruff, there isn't enough Selsun Blue in the GALAXY to get that shit under control.




Now what effect has this had? Well, remember how Toshi has a soul strength of 10, which is about ten billion souls? If someone has a soul strength of 1 they would have only the strength of one soul. Makes sense, right? Now, some of you have asked yourselves, "Hey. Can someone have LESS than a soul strength of one?" And the answer is:


Unfortunately, YES.


You see, if you don't have at least a soul strength of one, you really aren't... real. Which is to say, you exist. You resemble a human. You walk around like a human. You talk like a human. You do things like a human, but you don't have any free will. You are, in effect, an NPC. It's difficult to explain the particulars, and sort of pointless, so I'll stick to what matters for this discussion.




The vast majority of people on Reverse World are NPCs. NPCs, not being a full soul, are a DRAIN on the planet's mana supply. They require more mana than they produce, and are constantly leeching away the very health of the planet they exist on. If the mana supply dips below a certain point, these NPCs start draining mana from other sources and those other sources are what allows the very planet to function. Think of it like a power grid. You might have enough power for everyone, but sometimes have problems getting it to where it is needed. This leads to the occasional 'black out' in an area. Now what happens when you have a mana black out?




Existence Failure.




Now, it doesn't happen all at once. No no no. It's a proton here, an electron there. It is very spread out, but it isn't insignificant. The planet was losing TONS of material in spurts all over the place on a weekly basis. If you were to measure the circumference of Reverse World and compare it to Toshi's original world, Reverse World is twelve miles LESS. That's right, the whole world has been shrinking away. As mass disappeared, the planet has been settling, getting smaller and smaller.




If you compare the history of the two, Mirror world has had WAY more earthquakes, volcano eruptions, and general geological nonsense. If it ever reached a certain tipping point, the planet's crust would lose integrity and whole land masses would break apart before sinking into the mantle. The entire planet would become a churning ball of magma as it dwindled away, like someone pulled the plug on a multi-dimensional bathtub.




TOTAL Existence Failure.




Well, it WAS in danger of doing that, but not anymore.

Not since Toshi arrived.




Toshi isn't just pumping out mana, but those "soul flakes" he's shedding are glomming onto anyone nearby. The number of NPCs becoming full blown PCs has shot up through the roof in Tokyo. Not only that, but if Toshi focuses on someone in particular, emotionally speaking, they are likely to get more... err... flakes.




Yeah, I'm sure you figured out what's up with Naora.




This was thought to be a good thing. More real people means less strain on the system and more free mana to gather up. It's not like it's DANGEROUS or anything! You see, Reverse World is still damn close to the dark matter reefs, so any human learning magic is RIGHT OUT. Yup. Magic is not possible in mirror world. God and all his angels checked. They are quite sure of this. No magic at all. Period. End of statement.




You could have a soul strength of, say, 6 and it wouldn't matter. You couldn't DO anything with it. So it was perfectly fine that Naora's soul strength had been climbing astronomically in comparison to everyone else on the planet. It didn't matter WHO had a strong soul, as long as the soul was strong and pumping out free mana. Everything was A-OK.




Nothing To Worry About.

...

...

Unless...




The angels and God in their arrogance forgot about one of the most fundamental of magics. The first magic that develops on any world, really. Magic that focuses on the internal workings of one's body.




Aura manipulation




Magic works best when there is uncertainty. The less you can observe magic, the more uncertainty it has. Aura manipulation isn't flashy and only works internally, which makes it the least observable magic. So if you study hard, practice, work out rituals and patterns, if you learn how to do martial arts without needing to think about it, if you train your body to the point it moves on its own without being observed even by the mind of the one performing the martial art.




You see where I'm going?




Now this doesn't mean that you can start doing Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon bullshit just because you got a strong soul. While it was always possible to perform aura manipulation, up until Toshi's arrival, nobody had been strong enough to actually take advantage of this little loop hole. Even if you were, you needed to be amazingly good at martial arts, and not just something you worked out in a self-defense course. It had to be something ancient, with the weight of history to give it meaning. Given the extreme outlier conditions needed, it was little wonder that, as far as God and his angels were concerned, magic was just not possible on Reverse World.




Then a magic detector in heaven went off as Naora bisected a punching bag with her bare fist.




And That Was The Precise Moment God's First Angel Did The Metaphysical Equivalent Of Shit Himself.

Spoiler: Answer to a Reader's Question

Ooo... How to answer without Spoilers... Hrmmm...

Well, it'll be coming up shortly with the Doctor Microbe vs The Fabulous Flea plot arc, so I don't think I will be spoiling too much. The Mitochondria of both would be identical, and as far as a DNA test would show in our world, they would be identical, however, by the standards of "Genetics" in their current world, the base nucleus DNA of the cells would be different, in so much as they are able to see what is 'active'.

However, What a Nucleotide IS isn't the same for they type of human in this world and Jack's world.

Jack is PHYSICALLY from another world where the laws of physics is much more punishing. A human is defined by his physical components and his memetic components, regardless of where you are in the cosmos. There is a 'blending' of the two when it comes to the manifestation of a "person". The science of Memetics is basically at a stage of bone knives and bear skins in Jack's original world. Conversely, genetics isn't that well understood in IWS world. You might say they 'look down on it' as a science.

Also, there is might be some confusion because there are layers to memetics. In this universe they don't know that. They have yet to discover that what they think as monads are made up of a yet more fundamental memetic particle. Well... it's not common knowledge.

So you might get confused that what they call monads in IWS is not what "monads" are in FTS. This is because the level of science and understanding of memetics is different. The actual Memetic levels of memetic 'matter' would be:

1. Monads - There are the 6 types of this fundamental memetic particle: Up, Down, Angelic, Demonic, Weird, Top. FYI, Top is the particle that is required for a human soul.

2. Metatron - Typically you have 3 monads come together. A Typical Metatron is Two up and one down, or two down and one up. This is 'basic' memetic material. However, 'complex' Metatrons usually one up, one down, and then one of the other 4 types to form an individual Metatron, or the smallest 'free form' memetic particle. These 'complex' metatrons are found normally in 'intelligent memetic matter' and are required for self-awareness.

3. Neological- A bit more broad which could be an individual letter of the alphabet, a word, a phrase, but whatever it is, it is a singular concept that could be boiled down to 'one thing'. It's more complex than that, but I'm just going over the basics. You need a cluster of Metatrons to make a Neological.

4. Eidolon - A cluster of Neologism makes up an eidolon. This is a memetic concept that cannot be expressed in a single 'thing'. It would best to think of it as an experience. An individual 'memory', if you will. It comes in two flavors 'Explicit', which is a 'real' memory, usually something you personally experienced. The second is 'implicit', which is something you 'created'. One cannot experience 'capitalism', but you can 'conceptualize' capitalism. You infer the concept of capitalism from your 'explicit' experiences to create the 'implied/implicit' memory of what capitalism is. Furthermore, it isn't 'just' the words that make up the concept, but how you FEEL about the concept. Each Eidolon for each person would be different for each person. My Eidolon for captialism would be different from a Socialist's Eidolon for capitalism.

Yes, Captialism is a single word. So the word Captialism is a neological, but my life 'experience' with capitalism in total would be my Eidolon of Capitalism

5. Memeplex - This is a collection of Eidolons which forms up a mutually supporting and self-sustaining memetic 'life form'. However, it's a bit more complex than that, since this this the top layer of the chain. For example, a individual is a memeplex. You could say that it is their 'soul'. However, A individual does not exist in a vaccuum. They are part of other memeplexes.

Your Church would be a memeplex, and the religion your church practices would be a memeplex. The line where YOU end and something else begins, from a conceptual/memetic point of view is difficult to understand, because, well, we're down here in the muck. It's sort of like an individual bacteria trying to understand the petri dish.

Finally, there is the non-particle memino, or the memetic version of the photon. Basically, 'memetic light', but that's not important for this discussion.

DNA is just the physical means by which information is stored. So when you ask, 'is the DNA the same', from Jack's World's Point Of View (or our world, basically), the DNA is the same, because our science can only see the book. We can see the words in the book, we can see the pages, but we only know there is a book.

In fact, the way we 'see' the book, is by making a thousand copies of the book and then shredding each book differently, then feed the shreds into a computer and then match everything up by figuring out which pieces of shredded story matches up with what other pieces of shredded story.

In the world of IWS, they don't need to shred the book. They can see what pages are 'currently open' and 'What is currently being read'. What they call 'monads' is actually just a scan of Jack's Neologicals. They don't know what it 'says', but they can 'see' it.

(Well, one COULD read it, but that's getting into psionics, and an entirely different topic of discussion.)

To summarize, They have not done a DNA scan of Jack. They have done (what they call) a MONAD scan of Jack. Two... Different... Things.

If they had, well...

Now I'm getting into spoilers.


---


I should briefly explain the reason why this universe has not discovered the fundamental memetic particle is because they have yet to discover the hybrid of Memetic Matter and Memetic energy which is the Kekron, or the foundational particle that makes up 'emotion'.
So, until a civilization figures out how to detect Kekrons and then builds a Large Kekron Collider, they will not be able to detect ACTUAL Monads.
What is an example of Kekron?

Well, the most obvious Kekron would be a joke.

Spoiler: Excerpt from I Was Summoned

Doctor Brown stepped away from the wall she was leaning against, "There are a number of factors when it comes to having superpowers and how they manifest. The primary one is monad strength." Jack squinted and looked at her out of the corner of his eyes. Brown clarified, "Monads are the WIMP particles that allow people to manifest powers. About one in ten have enough monads to manifest SOMETHING. We chart it on a logarithmic scale. Most men are at a two. Most women at a three. The average monad strength you need to manifest powers is a four. The ratio of women to men above a four is about nine to one. You... are a four point one."




"Okay..." Jack rolled a hand in the air in a gesture urging them to get to the point.




Druidess spoke next, "There are three... well... general categories of powers. The elementalist is someone who has a very tight group of powers based around one thing, typically an element, but it can be any concept, really. They are very limited in what they can do, but they are the most efficient at monad usage. The next category is the generalist. They usually are limited to a certain broad category. They can do way more than an elementalist, but usually not as effective."




Brown spoke up, "For example, a fire elementalist could be made of fire, shoot fire, fly, detect fire, that sort of thing." She cleared her throat, "But a generalist might be able to make a flame thrower, or a dome of fire, or a much broader range of fire adjacent effects, but usually can only do one or two things at the same time, where as a fire elementalist can do everything at once."




Druidess nodded, "And usually an elementalist can do it much longer than a generalist."




One of the women who hadn't said anything yet, giggled as she muttered, "All-star definitely can go much longer than the rest of us." All-star glared at her.




Druidess continued, "The third category is called... cosmic." She raised a single finger and slowly brought it down until it pointed at Jack.




Jack pointed at himself, "I'm... cosmic?"




Doctor Brown nodded, "Yes. Cosmic power users can usually do... anything. Well. They usually have some sort of limitation to help focus their minds, but in theory, a cosmic user can do anything, but..."




Jack nodded slowly, "But if you can do anything, you are the least efficient at using monads, I assume?"




The Druidess touched her nose, "Bingo. Honestly, I have no idea how you can even have a cosmic power framework with a monad score so low. Theoretically, it shouldn't even be possible."




Doctor Brown nodded, "I'll be surprised if you could figure out how to light a cigarette."

Spoiler: Excerpt From Hari-Kara Nonfeasance

The headmaster looked all happy, like a kid in a candy shop, "Is it that new general memetic theory you were working on?" Ryan looked up, "You keep mentioning that. I told you it was just a theory. I'm still trying to find proof via predicted outcomes." The headmaster tried to look casual about it, "Oh... I only found the idea that mana from potions and mana from mana stones could be made interchangeable to be a rather promising one." He tried to sound like he was being casual, but it was obvious he was deeply interested.

Ryan let out a mild 'ugh' as he heaved a large box with a circle on one side, a smaller circle on the other, a switch, a knob, and a button. He put it on the table and took out its twin, "No. I've been experimenting with photons. Light is acting strangely." He lined up the two boxes, flipped the switches and pressed the button on one box, "Testing Testing-'' The other box started to repeat, "Testing Testing-" but then a feedback squeal started to climb in volume. It almost immediately made everyone in the lunch area cover their ears. Fortunately, Ryan took his finger over the send button, "Sorry! Sorry!"

It is somewhat telling that everyone just takes it in stride when Ryan does something bizarre. Everyone in the room just went back to eating, with only a few muttering mild complaints.

The headmaster picked up one box so he could examine it closer, "What is it?" Ryan tapped the other one, "Two way radio. Proof of concept. I'm finding it difficult to make complex electronics so I've fallen back on vacuum tubes and more robust tech." Ryan flipped the off switches on both, "I'm running into the same problem as gunpowder. It's just not functioning as expected. This thing should work out to the horizon, and I'm lucky to get a mile. It makes no sense. "

The headmaster gingerly put the box back down, "A mile? We have magic speaking stones already that can reach the other end of the kingdom.. Not very useful, I'm afraid." Ryan tapped the box, "No magic." The headmaster blinked, "Excuse me?" Ryan nodded, "Not even magic stones. I finally figured out how to make functional batteries. You wanna hear something funny? I had run out of ideas so I tried a potato battery.

The headmaster slowly titled his head to the side as Ryan continued, “Yeah. It runs off of potatoes. It SHOULDN'T, but apparently potatoes have a great deal of voltage here." He flipped open the top of one of the boxes to expose a large potato with wires sticking out of it, "The potato can run for several hours of continuous use, or you need to replace it after a week on idle.."

The headmaster stared at Ryan, "Potato."

Ryan nodded, "Potato."

The headmaster pointed at the boxes, "You made a non-magical speaking stone that is powered by... potatoes."

Ryan shrugged, "Hey! Ya got me! I never expected to portal two this mother but there you go."

The headmaster closed his eyes and rubbed his eyebrow as if he was getting a migraine, "Reed? We had this talk already. You know how you say things that make no sense and then you try to clarify and you only make LESS... sense?"

Ryan collapsed back into his chair, "Hey, look... It isn't my fault. I... It's this blessing. I can remember everything in my life. Everything. with perfect clarity. It helps when I'm trying to remember how to build something or apply ideas to other ideas..."

Ryan suddenly winced and covered his mouth, "Oh God! I'm gonna vomit!"

Everyone looked at each other than at Ryan, "What?" Ryan fought back the urge to hurl and eventually spoke, "Oh god. I was trying to think of an example why perfect recall sucks and I just remembered every single time my mom breastfed me." He started to look a little green as he covered his mouth, "Exactly one thousand, one hundred and sixty eight times." He paused, then heaved a little, “Oof!" and doubled over. Charity started to pat him on the back, "It... It's okay. It'll be fine."

Ryan looked up at her, "No it won't! She breastfed me until I was almost FOUR!" He clutched the sides of his head, "Oh why oh why didn't this come with an off switch?" The headmaster pulled up a chair and sat down, "This happens often... I take it?" Ryan just nodded as he covered his mouth while swallowing back the bile.

Aldelmo offered Ryan a napkin. Ryan scowled at him at first, but eventually just took it and spit into it, "Ick," He made a loud, disgusting sound while clearing his throat which drew a great deal of attention and raised eyebrows from the headmaster.

Ryan coughed one last time then looked at the Headmaster, "It's why I talk so strange. I can remember every game, every show, every conversation I ever had or observed. When I talk, I try to find the right words except I can't quite find the correct fit, so I keep thinking of metaphors." Ryan shrugged, "Except they are metaphors personal to me and nobody else."

The headmaster leaned back, "In other words, you can express yourself exactly as you intend, but nobody has your life experiences, so nobody can understand you."

Ryan touched his nose, "Bingo!"

The headmaster looked exasperated, "I assume that means, 'yes'." Monique and Charity both giggled. The headmaster looked over at Monique and then back at Ryan, "That reminds me... you know the dance is coming up, yes?" Ryan shook his head, "No. I was blissfully unaware of this. But now you that have brought it up, I assume this huge time sink will soon be upon us."

The headmaster frowned, "The freshman dance is an important event in a student's life." He looked off into the distance with a faint smile, "I remember when I went to-"

Ryan lunged for a butter knife and began applying it to his wrist, dull side first and started 'sawing' while muttering, "How's that go? Across for attention, Down for results?" Headmaster frowned at Ryan, "I take it you don't want to listen to an old man reminisce?"

Ryan proceeded to 'slit' his own throat, "Keanu Christ, Take me now!" then dropped the knife back on the table, "My god you must have the psychic power to read minds because I just checked my to-do list, and it appears the LAST thing I ever want to do is listen you talk about how wonderful you thought school was."

The headmaster folded his arms, "How did you get so cynical?" Ryan stared at the headmaster, "Oh. I dunno. I had a terrible life. My mom died. My dad is a philandering piece of trash. I had the crap beat out of me on a fairly regular basis and the only reason it isn't still going on is because I died and came back from the dead. Now everyone is terrified of me because I have taken the laws of science and magic and twisted them into a pretzel."

The headmaster blinked and looked both surprised and uncomfortable as Ryan continued his little rant, "School dances are for people who like people and are liked in turn. I am an utter, total, and dare I say... PROUD Misanthrope! School dances are for social butterflies who want to make friends and influence people."

Ryan hooked a thumb at his chest, "I want to make war and influence global weather conditions with my still under development orbital DEATH LASER!" Ryan held up a hand to cut off the headmaster, "I know what you are about to say, but frankly, everyone wants weapons. Why? Because there is no problem in this world that cannot be solved with just the right amount of explosives." He held up a single finger, "I'm not saying it's an IDEAL solution, but if your problem is reduced to dust motes drifting across a sea of molten magma... THAT... is definitely a solution."

More than a few people were looking in Ryan's direction with odd looks.

Ryan noticed the faces turned his way and looked around the room, "HEY! It's called MAD. Mutual Assured Destruction. If our kingdom has the ability to blow up the world twice, and our enemies have the ability to blow up the world three times, then nobody will ever start a war again, because right after someone shoots first, EVERYONE DIES."

Ryan stood up and held his hands high up over his head, "PEACE!" Then pointed finger guns at the headmaster, "Through superior firepower!"

The headmaster looked at Ryan, "No one can kill everyone on the planet. Right?"

Ryan froze, looked around, then quietly sat down, "No. No no no... of course not!" He laughed nervously, "Sooooooo… You were talking about a dance?" Charity's eyes started to go wide, "Wait. Did you figure out-"

Ryan reached out and slapped a hand across Charity's mouth as he hissed at her, "LOOK. Gunpower isn't working right, and integrated circuits aren't functioning, PERIOD. So while, in THEORY, I might be able to hit cities with sun chunks, considering what I'd have to do to TEST my theories and the high chance I might accidentally... I dunno... burn every living thing that light touches to a crisp, I really don't think that line of research is going to be of help, Kay?"

The headmaster started to turn while, "What?"

Dropping his hand from Charity's mouth he made a dismissive gesture towards the headmaster, "Relax! Where am I going to find tonnage amounts of tritium anyways?" He froze and got a thoughtful look, "Unless... I suppose I could-" He smacked himself across the face, "Stop! Stop! Stop!"

Monique looked curious, "I think you are doing zee metaphor thing you spoke about before, No?"

Ryan looked at Monique and sighed, "Look. Even if the demon lord never shows up, a nation has to be able to defend its borders. How do you defend your borders? When you boil it down it comes down to energy." Ryan started talking with his hands, "It started with one guy hitting another guy, then we upgraded to rocks and sharp sticks, then you put sharp rocks ON sticks, then metal on sticks, then just metal."

"But that's just energy, when you boil it down to the basics. Kinetic energy. There is also heat energy with fire. But we got other forms of energy." Ryan hit the table with the palm of his hand, "Wham! Sonic energy! But what is sonic energy? It's kinetic energy. What is heat? It's Photonic energy. Heat is just a form of light. But what about electromagnetism? That's also energy. And of course... the most powerful form of energy, Not the creation or destruction of chemical bonds, but turning matter DIRECTLY into energy."

Ryan looked at the ceiling, "I suppose you could convert the fundamental underpinning of reality itself into energy, but I have no idea how to burn space-time itself, so that's right out. Plus, tapping directly into zero point energy could turn this entire planet into a cinder hurtling through space as a giant gravestone to mark where we all once loved and laughed and played."

Everyone just stared at Ryan as he continued his little rant, "My point is, energy, and the ability to convert it into different forms of energy, and more importantly CONTROLLING energy to apply it to the world in ways you want is what any nation needs to defend its borders."

"Take this, for example.." He pointed upwards and a gout of steam shot out of his finger for a few inches, "Steam. Water when it goes from a liquid state to a gas increases in pressure by a factor of over 200. That's a whole lot of force. If I can figure out a way to harness this then flight isn't just for air mages anymore."

The headmaster struggled not to look shocked, ~Did... he just become the first steam elementalist?~

"And yes, I'd love to do tests on piezonuclear fusion and see if I can actually get the palladium experiments to work... but since the fundamental laws of reality are... I dunno... just... WRONG. And I mean, in the margins. In general the laws of reality are working right but when I test the far end of the bell curve I keep running into... unexpected results."

He leaned back, then picked up a fork to stab his salad, "Until I can figure out why reality isn't working the way my math says it should, I have to make sure I don't accidentally set off a chain reaction that causes everything to go boom." He eyed the carrot on the end of his fork, "It's almost like the very curve of space-time itself is... pixilated. Or... maybe time doesn't exist? I find that strange, since it seems to be passing, but-" He ate his carrot.

Everyone around was quiet. Aldelmo looked at the headmaster, "Did you understand any of that." The headmaster replied, "Most of it." He looked at Ryan, "I'm... curious about the whole... time doesn't exist?" Ryan swallowed, "Well... it'd explain things. I need to go out and test... well... everything. I'm making assumptions that I need to confirm. Time might not be real. Gravity might not be real. They might be emergent properties."

He continues to eat his salad, "But, to get back to your original request of converting mana potions directly into recharging mana stones, I need to understand these questions before I can begin to attempt such a thing. I'm currently operating on the idea that mana is like... electricity. So there would be direct mana and alternating mana and I'm wondering if that's why holy and demonic energy react so violently with each other."

Ryan pointed into the air and created a simple magic circle, "Why do magic circles operate more like circuits than actual circuits? Why is electromagnetism so unstable at low power? Why are chemical reactions operating correctly MOST of the time, but in odd ball situations, like gun power, burning slower and thus with less power than expected?"

He waved his hand and it vanished, "I'm beginning to think it's all related to quantum mechanics where perception influences reality but... it's just... I don't know. I need answers and they are hard to find."

The headmaster nodded and said, "You should go to the dance."

Ryan let out an 'AUGH!' and bashed his forehead into his salad.

Spoiler: Excerpt From Hari-Kara Nonfeasance

Ryan clapped his hands together as if dusting them off, "A'rite..." He looked around, "Looks like I got all the hard surfaces... should be good." He looked at Lilith, "Anything else?" Lilith looked at Ryan for a while then asked, "How do you use fire and water at the same time?" Ryan blinked, "Uhh... I don't."

Lily spoke up, "You're lying." Ryan looked over at his sister, "Excuse me?" She pointed at her eyes, "Water mage as well! You can't heat water, only freeze it! And-and-and even THAT requires an INSANE amount of mana!"

Ryan sighed, "Look. the very act of creating water violates the laws of thermodynamics. Neither matter nor energy can be created or destroyed, only transformed... UNLESS... you take into consideration the existence of mana." Ryan gestured to the mirror and made a bunch of circles out of mist on it, "Strong nuclear force, weak nuclear force, electromagnetism, gravity and memetic energy. Reality seems solid but the closer you look at the universe, the smaller you try to go, the more unstable the universe becomes. Perception starts to equal reality... it's just HERE-" He gestured around the room, "This reality is a whole lot easier to... perceive." He scratched his chin, "I don't quite understand it. I'm starting to think it's a resolution issue."

Lilith stepped closer, "What do you mean, resolution?"

Ryan nodded, "Ah. Xeno's paradox. If you shoot an arrow at a target, at some point it goes half the distance. Then you can half the distance again. And again. And again... on paper, the arrow can NEVER reach the target, because it keeps going only half the distance... onto infinity." He raised a finger, "But it does reach the target. How?" He looked around and nobody said anything, so he continued, "The planck distance."

One of the finances said, "What?"

Ryan gestured up to the mirror to create a wavy line, "The plank distance is the minimum distance a single wavelength can be before a single photon of light collapses into matter. The more energy you add to light, the higher the wavelength, the shorter the distance, and then you have your capstone. The point where energy becomes matter because you put too much energy in one spot."

The wavelength on the mirror changed and it got closer to closer together, "This becomes the absolute minimum distance you can travel. It is IMPOSSIBLE for anything to travel less than this distance." the lines changed, "Now, you can go two plancks and return back one point five plancks, and be half a planck from where you started, but you can't move LESS than a planck in one go."

Ryan turned around to face everyone, "This, is the resolution of the universe. The smallest anything can be. And the odd thing is, this all depends on how much energy something has. It is also affected by OBSERVATION."

He started to gesture as if having small things in his hands, "You get quantum tunneling, and energy turning into particles and then into waves and then teleportation and information traveling backwards in time, and quantum cloning, and all sorts of strange things." He looked up, "But the very act of observing these things changes their nature. At a certain point, reality stops being objective and it becomes subjective."

Ryan's eyes unfocused as he stared off into the distance, He was silent for a few moments before he started talking again, "But that isn't possible..." Lilith looked a little confused as she had the feeling she just missed something important.

He raised a finger, "Unless, you consider the interior of your mind to be objective." He grinned, "I think, therefore I am." He then started gesturing about, "Which lead me to the conclusion that perception by intelligent creatures is what creates mana, or... memetic energy. This memetic energy can't do much in a high resolution universe, but in a low resolution universe, then there is much more wiggle room. You can..."

He created a ball of water floating in the air over his hand, "I can take that memetic energy and perceive a reality where water exists."

He then raised the finger in his other hand, "But... why only water? Why is it limited to only certain elements? Answer, because everyone thinks it does. Humanities' collective beliefs create the limitations. Most of the universe exists objectively, but when it comes to life and intelligence, the laws of reality can be mutated and warped based on the individual and collective beliefs."

He started to talk faster and faster as he explained thing, "Think about it! We can only subjectively view the universe, but inside our own heads is the only objective truths we know." He held his hands out to the side, "Do we use our internal objective reality to impose over the collective objective reality we call Reality?" He shrugged, "Maybe?"

He pointed at Lily, "You see water as water." He pointed at himself, "I see water as two hydrogen atoms combined with one oxygen atom. I know the many properties of water including what happens to water when it is cooled, when it is heated, and when it is applied to massive amounts of PRESSURE."

Lily looked thoughtful as Ryan continued, "It appears that the more you change the pressure or temperature of water the more mana it requires to make those changes. This is because it requires more energy to fuel the process.": He pointed a finger in the air and let lose a blast of steam that shot up into the air and quickly dissipated, "I can make steam, but I don't know any water mages that can. Sure, you have a few talented souls who can make water AND ice, but steam? That's impossible I'm told. Yet... I can do it."

"How?"

He looked around at everyone, nobody spoke. He waited a bit before rolling his eyes and smacking his forehead, "Because nobody told me I COULDN'T!"

Lily jumped out of her chair, "Hold on... are you telling me the reason you can do impossible magic is because... you don't know any better?"

Ryan waggled his head from side to side, "Ehhh... maybe? Just a theory. I know my fundamental beliefs are different then everyone else. I do not perceive the world the way all of you do. However, it isn't absolute." He took his ball of water and flash froze it, "I can freeze this..."

Ryan reached into his pocket and pulled out his lighter. Flipping it open, he produced a flame that he held under the ice ball. Its surface burst into a small puff of flame as if it was slowly burning like a ball made out of frozen alcohol, "I can force the hydrogen and oxygen to separate. It takes quite a bit of mana to do that. Oxygen and hydrogen burns when exposed to flame. I can't ignite the ice itself, but I can break the ice down into materials that, oddly enough, I can't control, but those byproducts burn so easily."

He wove his lighter around, "I need an outside fire source to start the reaction, but once started, it's self sustaining... assuming I keep pouring mana into the process of breaking down water into flammable gasses." He looked at Lilith, "And so you know, it's so much more mana intensive than just asking a fire mage to do the same thing." He blew a puff of air at the ice ball and the flame went out, then grinned at Lilith, "Don't expect to be losing your job, anytime soon."

Ryan tapped his chest, "I'm breaking water down into a substance I can't really control, but I can control where it breaks down. Once I figured that out, it wasn't that hard to figure out how to just directly heat up the water as I create it." He waved his hand and dismissed the ice ball entirely, "And lo' we have steam." He sighed, "But in spite of all my best attempts, I can't do any of the real fun stuff with heat."

Lilith looked quite interested, "Like?" Perhaps being a fire mage herself this was a topic of interest to her.

Ryan looked up, "Well, The headmaster can go straight to lightning, which is just electrons. That makes me wonder if someone could go beyond lightning and straight on to full blown PLASMA." His eyes lit up in a fashion that disturbed everyone in the room. They might have no idea what plasma was, but if Ryan liked it so much, it cleary was something to be avoided.

A topic avoided by everyone except Lilith, "What is plasma?"

Ryan thought for a second, then motioned Lilith to come closer as he walked over to the window. Lilith approached Ryan, more than a bit curious. He pointed up into the sky, "THAT... is Plasma."

Lilith stepped closer to the window and looked up at the sun.

Well, I suppose that just about covers everything regarding my magic system I have published that I can show you without giving away spoilers.

Oh. And I suppose I should also include the various layers of reality.

Spoiler: About Reality Itself

Okay. As I do everything, I have a top down approach. I start with the cosmos as a whole, then figure out my alternative physics, the nature of reality, how many dimensions, what parallel dimensions, what those alternate dimensions mean, etc etc etc. Also, I think it is important to determine the nature of Time.

Currently I am going with a six dimensional model. There are three dimensions for normal matter and another 3 dimensions for Memetic Matter. I use the standard physics model for real word things, but I do not have Time nor Gravity.

Time is absolute (sort of, but that's another discussion) and exists along side movement. Gravity is not the fourth force, but an emergent property for the base state of the world. I enjoy using the theoretical Planck Tetrahedron because... well... not bragging, but I invented the concept back in 1990. Well, I had the original idea in 1982 with my grandfather, but I expanded it in 1990. And the theory got completely destroyed in 2012 with the discovery of Gravity waves.

Sigh.

However, there are still people out there running with the idea and still think it is viable. So if you have an interest in alternate theories of Quantum Gravity, look up Planck Tetrahedrons on youtube. I've already been convinced the very theory I created was wrong, but I am glad other think it still has potential.

The irony being that it does SUCH a good job solving so many problems with quantum mechanics without fucking up anything or needing a stupid 12 dimensions like fuckin' M Theory and Loop Gravity is for losers...

...

Sorry. I'm still a little bitter over the whole LISA array thing.

My point is, LOOK INTO DEFUNCT SCIENTIFIC THEORIES. Trust me, Using alternate physics is a wonderful way to make your world unique and different. Perhaps you can repurpose Monads, like I have, or reuse the concept of
Luminiferous Aether for how light travels and then use that as a branching pathway for your magic system.

But I digress.


So, I use the concept that Nothing is the Logophysical. Matter is the physical. Life is the Metaphysical.
Living things produce thoughts, which are a tangible force. Mana, in other words, but in system it is Memes. Memetic energy. Living things produce thoughts that produces memes.

So what is a creature made entirely of memes?

That is a pure metaphysical creature. And what would be avout the Metaphysical? The Pataphysical.

So we have, in order of reality Logophysical, Physical, Metaphysical, and Pataphysical, or Below Reality, physical Reality, Mental Reality, Above Reality.

These are the four layers of my cosmos. Inside the cosmos we have universes, which contain all the "reality" of a given subset. They are singularities. On the surface of the singularities, reality is one dimension lower than the singularity, so it is unaffected by the hyper-reality it exists on. So, in our world, all 3-dimensional singularities have a 2-dimensional universe on its surface. We exist on the surface of a 4-dimensional singularity.

These are floating in a 6 dimensional framework, that is projected onto a 7th dimension that no one can access, because it is The Substrate Of Reality. Or DARK MATTER.

Dark Matter is the very bedrock of reality. It is CLARITY.

Now quantum mechanics has the concept of Uncertainty. This means that you really can't measure something without the attempt to measure the something affecting it. How do you measure the exact position of a proton? You have to hit it with something then measure what happened to what you hit it with what every you shot it with. Using electrons to scan something works great when it is big, but not for a single proton.

So, memetics depend on this uncertainty. Life is quantum fluctuation. Memetic energy is stronger the further you are from Dark Matter. So I have "Streams" of universes that "Flow" through Dark Matter. How strong is the dark matter? Well...

Did you know that Pi for a square is 4? Now if you put 4 squares together, you get Pi = 4, again. But what if you arranged 64 squares so that only the corners or one edge touched so that it looked circular and THEN measured Pi? Well, It comes to about 3.21. And the more Squares you add, the closer you get to a "real" circle. The more squares, the more 'true round' you get, and the closer and closer you get to pi as we know it. However, you will NEVER reach pi, as long as you are making your circle out of squares, or in other words, PIXELS.

(As a side note, there is strong evidence the real world is pixelated. But that's a discussion for another time.)

Yeah. In a universe with Planck Tetrahedrons, reality is pixelated. There are no perfectly smooth circles. Therefore Pi is not infinite. The more pixelated the universe, the Higher Pi is, and the more you can use magic. Did you know that you only need to have pi out to 10 places and you get circles that look like circles out to a light year across?

So the amount of usable magic is dependent on how much Dark matter is near by, and the way of determining the amount of magic is usable in your given universe is determined by measuring Pi or the universe you are in. (Infinite long pi is only possible in a universe that is perfectly smooth.)

Okay. So. Now we get to the Metaphysics of it.

Like normal physics that is made up of things like quarks, electrons, disappointment, and photons, memetic energy can be broken down into fundamental building blocks as well. We call these monads. There are six in particular. Up and down are your most common. Think of them as the foundation of Mana. I won't bore you with the particulars, even if it is quite fascinating. What concerns us, and Toshi in particular, are the monads that make up a living, intelligent being. The four 'soul' monads, as they were. Specifically referred to as Demonic, Weird, Angelic and Top.

Mana is made up of Up and down Monads, but life depends on one of the other four. Human Souls are made up of Top monads, and you can guess what the other 3 are. A normal soul is Top, Up, Down, but there are Top, Up Up and Top Down Down.

I'm not going to explain those last two. SPOILERS. Lets just say that Logophysics, the study of the void below reality, relates to this. And I have not gotten into the Logophysics plotline, so I'm not going to explain that either.

Anyrate, The amount of monads has a raiting on 0 to 10. Think richter scale. A 1 is one normal human soul. a 3 is 100 human souls. So if you have a soul rating of 10. You are ten billion souls in one body. This is your Soul/Monad rating. This is the basis of your fundamental core strength rating. However, HOW your Monads are arranged also a factor.

Anything with a rating of 1 produces more mana than it consumes. Anything below 1, consumes more mana than it produces and is an over all drain on reality. There are exceptions, but this is a hard and fast rule.

It is important to note here that Monads are the framework you need to use magic, but you still need ENERGY to use magic. The energy to use magic is Mana. So if you have a big framework, you could do anything, but you might not have the mana to do it. A small framework of limited scope uses mana more effectively and would work better under certain conditions.

This then results in the frameworks that you can use to organize your monads.

Magic works best when not observed. Now this doesn't mean you can use magic in front of people, it just means it gets harder the more people observe it, or high amounts of dark matter inhibit magic. So, the easiest magic to use is body enhancing magic, or aura.

Then we get elemental. This is the second frameworks of magic to manifest. It is usually based around a single 'element', but it is mostly what the locals think of as an element. If your element is water, normally you are limited to water. But with enough power and individual strength, you might expand into Ice, or steam.

Next we get Modular frameworks. Basically, you can do anything within a general concept, but you have to LEARN it ahead of time. If I am a wizard, I can cast "spells", but I have to learn the spells first. If I am a Robot Jock, I can build many toys into my giant robot, but I need to BUILD THEM FIRST.

The final framework is Cosmic. You can do anything, BUT, it is the least efficient form and typically is still limited by the perceptions of the people of the reality you live in, as well as your own mental limitations.

The overall magic framework is them limited on a universe by universe basis that limited how the three foundational aspects combine.

So we have Soul Strength, Frameworks, and finally, Mana or how much power you can put behind what you are doing.

Factors regarding mana are: How much can you hold?, How much can you use at any given time? How effective are you are using your mana? What do you do with the used mana?

Yes. Using mana results in 'depleted mana' which builds up in the user. Think of it as fatigue poisons that build up in your muscles if you use them faster than oxygen can get to them.

However, Normal Mana results in depleted mana, but Demonic Creatures are dependent on using 'Depleted' mana. Demonic magic is magic that has evolved to 'feed' off of 'poisonous mana'. Think of Yin and Yang.

Demonic energy and demonic magic is much more fluid and variable than normal magic, but it is also subject to local beliefs to a far greater degree than normal magic. In normal magic, someone from another universe could drop into your world and use his powers to some extent, because by sheer force of will and with a strong enough Soul Rating, simply push your way through.

Demonic energy is very versatile, but they cannot produce depleted mana. They need other types of creatures to make normal mana, use it up, then they can use the depleted mana. Demons are dependent on non-demonic life for survival.

Weird Monads make up Fae life, and is in many ways like Top Monads, but they are inherently unstable. They are not as resistant to local beliefs as Top monads, so fae life tends to be 'pushed around' by the myths and beliefs of ordinary humans.

Angelic Monads are second only to Top monads, and are very powerful, in pure memetic areas. In the parts of the cosmos where there is no matter, Angelic Monads rule the metaphysical. However, they are weaker when you get to a physical universe and react very poorly to Demonic energy. This is the primary material of Gods. ironically, as powerful as gods are, they are at an inherent disadvantage to the demonic in the physical plane. Furthermore, they also are very effective at making Mana.

Top Monads are the king of making mana. This makes Humans the very plankton that creates the 'oxygen' that the other forms of memetic life need to 'breathe'.

Well. that's the off the top of my head explination. Hope that gives you some ideas.

Oops. Left off the sub-magic system Explination.

Spoiler: Excerpt From Hari-Kara Nonfeasance

The dwarves of Ferramwyn are weird.

Humans are fairly straight forward. There are aura cores and conjuration cores. If you have a conjuration core, you control one of four elements. However, what your 'element' is exactly seems to have some wiggle room. There are some theories that the limitations of 'elemental magic is entirely subjective. If the user believed he could use all four elements, then he could.

In practice, this doesn't seem to be the case.

Although Ryan does a fine job of pushing the envelope, the further he gets from baseline (water, in his case), the more and more mana he needs to dump into the manifestation of his magic. Some theorized that the limit isn't imposed by the user but by the world in general. What everyone believes is what limits your range of magical effect. Everyone knows there are only four elements, so there are only four elements.

Then you get people like the saints. Healers. So called 'light elementalists'. So-called because they actually do not seem to be able to manipulate light, but the quasi-concept of 'life'. Theoretically there would be a dark, or death elementals, but there has been no official recorded manifestations of such a mana user. Light elementalists are rare, but there have been a few. One married into the royal family a few generations back, in fact.

The elementalists are the defect 'nobles' of any human nation. Yes, being a royal carries with it great power and privilege, but it also comes with it a responsibility. You get to enjoy being a big shot, because when push comes to shove, you are effectively in the military. It is possible for mana users to forgo their 'nobility' and become a commoner, but such an individual is often shunned and ostracized by society. On the other hand, you can't get called up to go fight in a war. You have an obligation as a noble to society as a whole, at least in theory.

Aura users are another story. Most aura users are 'low nobility'. They can only use their magic on themselves, which puts them head and shoulders above the commoners, but it seems to be a 'default'. If a bloodline of mana users becomes to inbred, or too diluted by 'weak stock', you might have a child who has steel grey eyes. This usually results in a scandal and the house in question will suffer social because of it.

However, sometimes commoners can have a magical child with no magical ancestors. Usually it is an aura user. Aura user bloodlines have managed to have elemental users spontaneously arise in a child. This often results in very careful management of who your partner will be. In some families, males are encouraged to have sex with anything that moves in hopes that maybe the child will have magical eyes. Not all mind you, because it can cause inheritance issues, but for families on the outs, sometimes a 'spray and pray', attitude to 'replenish the family stock', isn't the worst choice.

There doesn't seem to be an issue with different elements having children, either. Your element seems to be determined by gender. While every once in a while it will switch, usually if your dad is an air user, and your mom is a water user, the son will have golden eyes, and the daughter will have blue. Elementalists and aura pairings almost always result in aura users, so it is frowned upon.

Now humans are basically the 'base line' of mana users in this neck of the world. Demons are an entirely different beast with a wide range of strange powers based off their mana cores that, unlike humans, have a physical manifestation in their body. There is no conjuration or aura core that you can physically remove from a human, but you can do that with a demon. It is assumed that the reason demon core has such a wide range of possible powers is because it is far more 'grounded' than human mana cores.

As long as we are on the subject, we should touch briefly on elves. While there have been no elf sightings in over two centuries, they should be mentioned. Elves do not have any sort of internalized mana core. All elves have an externalized mana core that manifests as some sort of spirit or animal. This means, unlike humans, every elf born can, and is, a great mana user. It also makes them far more susceptible to getting screwed because if you can destroy their 'companion', they die. Otherwise, they have the greatest range of possible powers, and are considered the strongest known mana users one could find. Why they all ran away two centuries ago is anybody's guess.

Which, finally, brings us back to dwarves.

It's important to understand the other four major magical races before you can understand the magical physiology of the dwarves. No dwarf has ever been born with a mana core of any sort. Unlike every other seemingly 'magical' being, including beast and sapient, dwarves lack any sort of centralized mana.

Which isn't to say that dwarves can't use magic. Far from it, they are just 'infused' with mana. Their entire bodies from the tip of their toes to the end of their beards has mana in it. It moves slowly, but it is there. The can't do the flashy magic of the humans, nor have the strength of the elves, nor the sheer range of powers of demons. Dwarves cannot use magic on themselves or use it to create anything.

Dwarves mana manifests itself in two ways. The first of which is their resilience. Dwarves are tough. The way the mana is spread out through their body basically results in a 'web' of magical energy. It acts like a 'cushion' that helps the average dwarf simply take more punishment than most. This isn't just physical punishment, but an ability to resist direct magical effects. It's not god-like, mind you, but a blast of magical fire that would burn anyone else to a crisp might only singe a dwarf's beard.

Dwarves also LOVE to get in fist fights. A bunch of dwarves who get drunk playing the game 'drink', will often devolve into a game of 'punch' later in the evening. They have some resistance to stabbing and slashing, but seem to be able to take blunt force trauma better than most. This is part and parcel for your standard 'commoner' dwarf.

Like the humans, there is the 'next level' of mana users in dwarves. They are the dwarves equivalent to nobility, or master smiths, if you translate from the dwarves tongue. Master smiths can use their mana externally to affect objects. The weakest master smith can craft the finest objects in a tenth of the time. He never misses the head of a nail when he swings his hammer. His blade carves exactly what the master smith desires when he whittles wood.

Master smiths with higher levels of mana can create magical objects. Humans can do that as well, but they have to carve magical formula directly into the object. Complex magic circles and special materials to make whatever it is they desire, and it also often requires the use of multiple different mana users to get the exact effect.

 

[BEETLESME]

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Spoiler: From Flip The Script

The Dark World




There were many worlds over the eons that had been called that name. Of those there were few that could honestly be said to have earned the moniker. However, recently there was one world in particular that had not only earned that name, but was almost universally accepted as the one and only Dark World.




A particular large chunk of rock called Earth, third major celestial body from its primary.




The humans living on that dirt ball didn't even know they had attracted any attention in recent times. A mere blink of an eye by the standards of some. Time is a rather fungible commodity and far more subjective than most biological life forms understand. Only true, pure, memetic life forms of sufficient size and power can truly fathom the fundamental nature of hyper-dimensionality.




The most common of these beings are called simply 'Gods'.




Of course the term wasn't accurate. Biological life rarely managed to be 'accurate' when it came to communication of any sort, as far as pure memetic life was concerned. Communication with such creatures was always complicated and fraught with danger. Misunderstandings were the least of the problems that could arise. Imagine trying to have a conversation with a self-aware and intelligent microbe without accidentally killing it and you'll get the scale of the problem. Which is to say, biological life isn't insignificant. True, one single algae isn't that important, but if all the algae on your world were to perish, there are few multi-cellular life forms that would survive the ecological collapse.




That includes most of you, by the way.




That is how gods view most intelligent life forms. They are the very algae that form the bedrock of memetic existence. Without intelligent life, there are no ideas, no concepts, no stories, no FAITH. The very 'air' that Gods breathe depends on the existence of intelligent life. This is the odd relationship between gods and men. Gods need men, but men don't need gods. The existence of intelligent life creates memetic energy. Magic, if you will.




Which brings us back to the godless and forsaken 'Dark World'.




Did that world ever have a god? It wasn't clear. It most likely did at one point, but that god either died or abandoned it. In the vast intricate structures that make up hyper-dimensionality, there are tendrils and rivers of existence that snake and wind themselves through the dark matter reefs. Dark matter is a type of matter that normal matter cannot interact with because it is the very bedrock of reality. The density of dark matter effects the amount of 'CLARITY' you experienced in a given section of space.




Big ships need deep water to safely float. Get too close to shore and you might run a ground. One needs to be mindful of that because if a given area has a massive build up of coral, you might not know you are about to run aground. Sometimes the dark matter breaks off and floats about like massive icebergs. An Iceberg that can turn a planet into a version of the Titanic. Life creates magic. Magic permits the existence of life. Magic works best in ‘deep water’. The fuzzier your reality, the easier it is to create, use, and manipulate magic. Dark matter removes uncertainty. Magic cannot exist without uncertainty. Life does not exist without magic.




Dark matter is the enemy of life.




Occasionally a world or universe, or only part of one, will wander too close to the dark matter reefs. When this happens, magic dies and life follows suit. The more fantastical creatures perish first, then intelligent life, eventually all life just dies. Higher life usually abandons such a world, if it can, as it is near impossible to change the ebb and flow of eternity. In the case of The Dark World, it wasn't that sudden. Its path was at a very shallow angle and it took thousands of years to completely fall into the nearby dark matter reef. However, eventually it was still swallowed up and it was never to be seen again.




Until recently, that is.




Humans, who live on mountaintops, over generations adapt to the environment. They have larger lungs and more red blood cells. The same thing happens to people who live in deserts, or above the Arctic Circle. A similar thing happened on Dark World. Over thousands of years every single creature that was on that planet became spiritually stronger. Humans with weak souls died out and only the strongest of souls remained. Trapped within the dark world and unable to reincarnate anywhere else, these souls kept getting recycled over and over. This form of natural selection turned ordinary men into spiritual beasts. They may not have understood their lot in life, but they were like nomadic tribes wandering an endless desert, unknowingly passing from oasis to oasis in an attempt to survive.




Until World War Two.




Two nuclear bombs dropped and about a quarter of a million souls met their end. Never before has so many died in one spot in such a short amount of time. The first bomb poked a hole in eternity. The second widened the crack and shattered the astral firmament itself. A rift was born and it announced itself to the wider audience with a BANG. A blazing beacon of energy never before witnessed, lanced out from the dark matter reef in which the dark world was trapped. It lit up the hyper-dimensional skies like a spiritual supernova.




It was a world with billions of people, each one possessing a soul thousands of times stronger than the typical soul found in any other universe. It was a universe brimming with ideas and thoughts and memetic energy the likes of which the rest of the universe could only imagine. It was a world with no magic, powered by strange and unknown sciences and technology that few gods ever dreamed were possible. There were multiple civilizations, teaming with humans, living in an impossible place.




One god in particular was interested in figuring out HOW the humans survived, so he started doing some experiments. Nearby he started making some pocket universes. They were nowhere near as strong or powerful as The Dark World, but these were just thought experiments, basically. He had a surplus of energy. Making a tiny pocket world or twelve was no big deal. They wouldn’t last long anyways. He set them up, let them run, and watched what happened. He never expected a mirror universe to have resonance with The Dark World. Memetic energy that was compatible leaked out and was drawn to one particular experiment.




It became self-sustaining.




The other gods noticed this, they ran a few tests themselves and determined that while it was suicide to enter the dark world for any pure memetic being, it was possible to tap into those vast reserves from the outside. To put this in perspective, imagine that a rock composed of pure WISHES the size of Walla Walla, Washington dropped in the middle of Antarctica. What would the various governments of our world do to get that rock?




Yeah. Like that, but SO MUCH WORSE.




Everyone and their mother, faction upon faction were clambering over each other to get to The Dark World. This seemingly endless wellspring of energy could shatter the balance of power through out reality. When souls started accidentally falling out of the rift, the situation got even worse. Biological beings on other worlds got wind of what was going on and someone came up with the hero summoning spell. This ritual reached out and snatched souls from earth, usually ones closest to the rift, and pulled them to the summoner. These 'earthlings' as they called themselves were often weak to start, but give them time in a universe with ANY level of memetic energy and they became magic sponges.




It was like taking a Kryptonian and dropping them in a yellow sun.




The faction that controlled the area around the Dark World declared a truce and came together. They called themselves THE ALLIANCE and claimed to be the stewards to the Dark world and they would manage it for the good of all.




The ‘All’ they claimed to be managing it for called ‘Bullshit’ and promptly declared war.




Battle lines were drawn. It was the alliance against the rest of the cosmos and they intended to win. Of course direct control of the planet was impossible, so protocols were set up. Mortals who were strong enough to survive in there were found and sent in as agents. ‘Angels’ were assigned in legions to watch the area surrounding the rift both to protect it as well as prevent anyone in the alliance from 'Getting Grabby With The Goods'.




Which put our original experimenter in a bad spot.




It took some serious politicking to not get the hyper-dimensional version of a shiv shoved in a particularly vital section of his personage. He was 'asked' to donate many of his servants to fight on the front line. As compensation for his 'contribution', he was permitted to retain control of his mirror universe. Officially he was in charge of researching the dark world. Unofficially, he was in too strong a position to be rid of easily, so they hamstrung him and told him not to get any ideas.




The god wouldn't mind so much if he hadn't come to like his experiment so much. The people on his 'non-magical' world fascinated him. He tried very hard to take care of them. In particular he wanted to know if he could fix gender imbalances. A world where women were pushed to excel and men were encouraged to hold back. His goal was to promote equality of outcome.




The god succeeded horrifically well.




His world was the very definition of mediocre. The god had managed to stomp out most forms of extremism. It was only after he succeeded that he realized the flaw in his plan. There is no way his experiment could survive an external invasion. A world in conflict had suffering, this is true, but it also avoided slothfulness. If there was no reason to get stronger, why get stronger? In order to keep his experiment stable, he constantly had to intervene. Every time he did, he made sure to err on the side of caution. He loved the people of his little world and wanted them to be happy.




The old saying, calm waters never made a skilled sailor, was never more appropriate.




Now with the war front collapsing, it was possible he might find himself as the last line of defense. His creation might have to fight for its own survival. He didn't have much time, a few centuries at best, decades at worst. He needed to fix the situation. Fast. The problem was, politically, There is no way any of the other gods would allow him to get any stronger, and that included the people in his experiment. So he thought, and he thought, and slowly an idea formed. He thought of a way to get around the monitors.




He would find beings that matched up in his world with The Dark World, pick those who were strong and showed promise, and switch them. He'd get a strong soul to help his world. The soul sent to the other world might have some problems, but the soul was arriving in a body native to that world. It wouldn't have too many issues, especially if they stayed near the rift. Here and there, he switched souls from his universe to the Dark World. Slowly, quietly, cautiously, he would build up a reserve of souls who could defend his world. Everything was going according to plan.




Then Toshi showed up.




The God floated in his personal workspace and watched Toshi intently. He didn't bring Toshi here. In his experiments, yes, he had to take some risks. He was basically sneaking into another universe through a backdoor. It was possible Toshi got caught up in the wake of one of those attempts. Honestly, he wasn't quite sure what happened.




The god regretted lying to Toshi. It wasn't that he couldn't return Toshi, it was that trying to do so would raise too many questions. The God also had no idea how Toshi even survived the process. He wasn't lying about that. Toshi shouldn't exist. Yet, he does. It was likely because Toshi's soul strength was off the charts. Wondering how useful Toshi could be, The God checked out the many possible futures and found... Nothing.




Toshi's soul strength was so high he was unpredictable. A soul that powerful could, even in a world where magic was locked down like in the experiment, break those shackles like tissue paper. There were limits, of course It would manifest itself in subtle ways. To anyone else, it would just seem like he lived a charmed life. Who knows? Maybe that's why he survived getting ripped out of his world in the first place.




Maybe Toshi was just lucky.




The single greatest limitation to what Toshi could accomplish would be Toshi himself. What sort of person was he? Would he ruthlessly build a financial empire built on the bodies of his enemies? Would he descend into decadence concerned only with his harem of fuck buddies? The god had already regretted flipping that teacher in America. The idiot had got himself arrested for having sex with a student. Fat lot of good he was going to be in prison. Was Toshi going to be a problem as well?




However, when Toshi called out about needing to talk about ‘Seems Basically The Same’, God chuckled. As he listened to Toshi protesting what he saw as injustice, God started to wonder. As he overheard Toshi lamenting that his own morality prevented him from taking advantage of others, God was surprised. When the angel in the computer he had given as a gift took two bullets for Toshi, God’s heart-equivalent organ was in his throat. There was no telling where Toshi's soul might wind up if it got reincarnated too quickly. God was grateful That Toshi survived. More importantly, God was absolutely floored that Toshi risked his life to save an enemy.




The wheel turned and the other gods came. Demons has joined into the fight. It was a multi-front war now. Things were getting complicated. They needed more troops. They demanded more angels. This time the god of reverse world wasn't going to just let his minions be sent off to die. He'd go with them and make sure they came back. The other gods were puzzled by this move, but didn't have any reason to disagree.




It was a big risk, but he had worked hard to make sure it would be difficult to discover Toshi. This was a huge gamble, for while he was gone, they would surely search through mirror world and see what secrets were hidden. However, if they found none, when he returned, they wouldn't have any excuse to keep harassing him. If they found Toshi, they would do anything to take him, but if Toshi remained where he was, his very nature would finally solve the energy crisis he world was dealing with.




His angels advised against it, but he ignored them. This was a high stakes game with everything on the line, but if he won, he'd win big. And why would he risk everything on a long shot? Truth told, it was Toshi. He was nothing like what God expected. He just had a good feeling that maybe, just maybe, it'll all work out.




As God prepared to march off to war, God did something unusual.




It was something he had not done in a very long time.




He began to have hope.

Spoiler: From Flip the script

The Cosmos Is Vast.





I know that really goes without saying, but it is worth repeating. It isn't technically infinite, but it is quite big. The part that a self aware being, such as Toshi, can survive in is actually a fraction of a fraction of the total whole. That is just excluding the parts that don't have the same fundamental laws of physics that support his existence.




Of those parts, there are layers to everything. The layer that is of most importance to us right now is the layer that involves memetic energy. Metaphysics, to be specific. Like normal physics that is made up of things like quarks, electrons, disappointment, and photons, memetic energy can be broken down into fundamental building blocks as well. We call these monads. There are six in particular. Up and down are your most common. Think of them as the foundation of Mana. I won't bore you with the particulars, even if it is quite fascinating. What concerns us, and Toshi in particular, are the monads that make up a living, intelligent being. The four 'soul' monads, as they were. Specifically referred to as Demonic, Weird, Angelic and Top.




Yes, the human soul is made up of Top memes.




It's more a matter of energy, really. The human soul is made of the most energetic and resilient memetic particles. It takes the most energy to make one, and when you break it down, you can make any other monad from a Top monad. This is why demons and what not are always seeking out human souls. They are just so full of pure TASTE. However, monads don't work like quarks, even if there are similarities. They absorb and give off up and down monads, and reproduce and grow, then sometimes break off or 'shed'. That last part is what is important to us.




Toshi has been shedding Top monads like an english sheep dog right after a really soapy bath.




His very presence produces Top monads and they just drift off him. This is above and beyond his normal astronomical production of ordinary mana. He's basically shedding flakes of "soul". Everyone does this, but nobody notices. It is such a small amount for most souls, it really doesn't matter, but Toshi is ten BILLION souls in one body. When Toshi's soul gets dandruff, there isn't enough Selsun Blue in the GALAXY to get that shit under control.




Now what effect has this had? Well, remember how Toshi has a soul strength of 10, which is about ten billion souls? If someone has a soul strength of 1 they would have only the strength of one soul. Makes sense, right? Now, some of you have asked yourselves, "Hey. Can someone have LESS than a soul strength of one?" And the answer is:


Unfortunately, YES.


You see, if you don't have at least a soul strength of one, you really aren't... real. Which is to say, you exist. You resemble a human. You walk around like a human. You talk like a human. You do things like a human, but you don't have any free will. You are, in effect, an NPC. It's difficult to explain the particulars, and sort of pointless, so I'll stick to what matters for this discussion.




The vast majority of people on Reverse World are NPCs. NPCs, not being a full soul, are a DRAIN on the planet's mana supply. They require more mana than they produce, and are constantly leeching away the very health of the planet they exist on. If the mana supply dips below a certain point, these NPCs start draining mana from other sources and those other sources are what allows the very planet to function. Think of it like a power grid. You might have enough power for everyone, but sometimes have problems getting it to where it is needed. This leads to the occasional 'black out' in an area. Now what happens when you have a mana black out?




Existence Failure.




Now, it doesn't happen all at once. No no no. It's a proton here, an electron there. It is very spread out, but it isn't insignificant. The planet was losing TONS of material in spurts all over the place on a weekly basis. If you were to measure the circumference of Reverse World and compare it to Toshi's original world, Reverse World is twelve miles LESS. That's right, the whole world has been shrinking away. As mass disappeared, the planet has been settling, getting smaller and smaller.




If you compare the history of the two, Mirror world has had WAY more earthquakes, volcano eruptions, and general geological nonsense. If it ever reached a certain tipping point, the planet's crust would lose integrity and whole land masses would break apart before sinking into the mantle. The entire planet would become a churning ball of magma as it dwindled away, like someone pulled the plug on a multi-dimensional bathtub.




TOTAL Existence Failure.




Well, it WAS in danger of doing that, but not anymore.

Not since Toshi arrived.




Toshi isn't just pumping out mana, but those "soul flakes" he's shedding are glomming onto anyone nearby. The number of NPCs becoming full blown PCs has shot up through the roof in Tokyo. Not only that, but if Toshi focuses on someone in particular, emotionally speaking, they are likely to get more... err... flakes.




Yeah, I'm sure you figured out what's up with Naora.




This was thought to be a good thing. More real people means less strain on the system and more free mana to gather up. It's not like it's DANGEROUS or anything! You see, Reverse World is still damn close to the dark matter reefs, so any human learning magic is RIGHT OUT. Yup. Magic is not possible in mirror world. God and all his angels checked. They are quite sure of this. No magic at all. Period. End of statement.




You could have a soul strength of, say, 6 and it wouldn't matter. You couldn't DO anything with it. So it was perfectly fine that Naora's soul strength had been climbing astronomically in comparison to everyone else on the planet. It didn't matter WHO had a strong soul, as long as the soul was strong and pumping out free mana. Everything was A-OK.




Nothing To Worry About.

...

...

Unless...




The angels and God in their arrogance forgot about one of the most fundamental of magics. The first magic that develops on any world, really. Magic that focuses on the internal workings of one's body.




Aura manipulation




Magic works best when there is uncertainty. The less you can observe magic, the more uncertainty it has. Aura manipulation isn't flashy and only works internally, which makes it the least observable magic. So if you study hard, practice, work out rituals and patterns, if you learn how to do martial arts without needing to think about it, if you train your body to the point it moves on its own without being observed even by the mind of the one performing the martial art.




You see where I'm going?




Now this doesn't mean that you can start doing Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon bullshit just because you got a strong soul. While it was always possible to perform aura manipulation, up until Toshi's arrival, nobody had been strong enough to actually take advantage of this little loop hole. Even if you were, you needed to be amazingly good at martial arts, and not just something you worked out in a self-defense course. It had to be something ancient, with the weight of history to give it meaning. Given the extreme outlier conditions needed, it was little wonder that, as far as God and his angels were concerned, magic was just not possible on Reverse World.




Then a magic detector in heaven went off as Naora bisected a punching bag with her bare fist.




And That Was The Precise Moment God's First Angel Did The Metaphysical Equivalent Of Shit Himself.

Spoiler: Answer to a Reader's Question

Ooo... How to answer without Spoilers... Hrmmm...

Well, it'll be coming up shortly with the Doctor Microbe vs The Fabulous Flea plot arc, so I don't think I will be spoiling too much. The Mitochondria of both would be identical, and as far as a DNA test would show in our world, they would be identical, however, by the standards of "Genetics" in their current world, the base nucleus DNA of the cells would be different, in so much as they are able to see what is 'active'.

However, What a Nucleotide IS isn't the same for they type of human in this world and Jack's world.

Jack is PHYSICALLY from another world where the laws of physics is much more punishing. A human is defined by his physical components and his memetic components, regardless of where you are in the cosmos. There is a 'blending' of the two when it comes to the manifestation of a "person". The science of Memetics is basically at a stage of bone knives and bear skins in Jack's original world. Conversely, genetics isn't that well understood in IWS world. You might say they 'look down on it' as a science.

Also, there is might be some confusion because there are layers to memetics. In this universe they don't know that. They have yet to discover that what they think as monads are made up of a yet more fundamental memetic particle. Well... it's not common knowledge.

So you might get confused that what they call monads in IWS is not what "monads" are in FTS. This is because the level of science and understanding of memetics is different. The actual Memetic levels of memetic 'matter' would be:

1. Monads - There are the 6 types of this fundamental memetic particle: Up, Down, Angelic, Demonic, Weird, Top. FYI, Top is the particle that is required for a human soul.

2. Metatron - Typically you have 3 monads come together. A Typical Metatron is Two up and one down, or two down and one up. This is 'basic' memetic material. However, 'complex' Metatrons usually one up, one down, and then one of the other 4 types to form an individual Metatron, or the smallest 'free form' memetic particle. These 'complex' metatrons are found normally in 'intelligent memetic matter' and are required for self-awareness.

3. Neological- A bit more broad which could be an individual letter of the alphabet, a word, a phrase, but whatever it is, it is a singular concept that could be boiled down to 'one thing'. It's more complex than that, but I'm just going over the basics. You need a cluster of Metatrons to make a Neological.

4. Eidolon - A cluster of Neologism makes up an eidolon. This is a memetic concept that cannot be expressed in a single 'thing'. It would best to think of it as an experience. An individual 'memory', if you will. It comes in two flavors 'Explicit', which is a 'real' memory, usually something you personally experienced. The second is 'implicit', which is something you 'created'. One cannot experience 'capitalism', but you can 'conceptualize' capitalism. You infer the concept of capitalism from your 'explicit' experiences to create the 'implied/implicit' memory of what capitalism is. Furthermore, it isn't 'just' the words that make up the concept, but how you FEEL about the concept. Each Eidolon for each person would be different for each person. My Eidolon for captialism would be different from a Socialist's Eidolon for capitalism.

Yes, Captialism is a single word. So the word Captialism is a neological, but my life 'experience' with capitalism in total would be my Eidolon of Capitalism

5. Memeplex - This is a collection of Eidolons which forms up a mutually supporting and self-sustaining memetic 'life form'. However, it's a bit more complex than that, since this this the top layer of the chain. For example, a individual is a memeplex. You could say that it is their 'soul'. However, A individual does not exist in a vaccuum. They are part of other memeplexes.

Your Church would be a memeplex, and the religion your church practices would be a memeplex. The line where YOU end and something else begins, from a conceptual/memetic point of view is difficult to understand, because, well, we're down here in the muck. It's sort of like an individual bacteria trying to understand the petri dish.

Finally, there is the non-particle memino, or the memetic version of the photon. Basically, 'memetic light', but that's not important for this discussion.

DNA is just the physical means by which information is stored. So when you ask, 'is the DNA the same', from Jack's World's Point Of View (or our world, basically), the DNA is the same, because our science can only see the book. We can see the words in the book, we can see the pages, but we only know there is a book.

In fact, the way we 'see' the book, is by making a thousand copies of the book and then shredding each book differently, then feed the shreds into a computer and then match everything up by figuring out which pieces of shredded story matches up with what other pieces of shredded story.

In the world of IWS, they don't need to shred the book. They can see what pages are 'currently open' and 'What is currently being read'. What they call 'monads' is actually just a scan of Jack's Neologicals. They don't know what it 'says', but they can 'see' it.

(Well, one COULD read it, but that's getting into psionics, and an entirely different topic of discussion.)

To summarize, They have not done a DNA scan of Jack. They have done (what they call) a MONAD scan of Jack. Two... Different... Things.

If they had, well...

Now I'm getting into spoilers.


---


I should briefly explain the reason why this universe has not discovered the fundamental memetic particle is because they have yet to discover the hybrid of Memetic Matter and Memetic energy which is the Kekron, or the foundational particle that makes up 'emotion'.
So, until a civilization figures out how to detect Kekrons and then builds a Large Kekron Collider, they will not be able to detect ACTUAL Monads.
What is an example of Kekron?

Well, the most obvious Kekron would be a joke.

Spoiler: Excerpt from I Was Summoned

Doctor Brown stepped away from the wall she was leaning against, "There are a number of factors when it comes to having superpowers and how they manifest. The primary one is monad strength." Jack squinted and looked at her out of the corner of his eyes. Brown clarified, "Monads are the WIMP particles that allow people to manifest powers. About one in ten have enough monads to manifest SOMETHING. We chart it on a logarithmic scale. Most men are at a two. Most women at a three. The average monad strength you need to manifest powers is a four. The ratio of women to men above a four is about nine to one. You... are a four point one."




"Okay..." Jack rolled a hand in the air in a gesture urging them to get to the point.




Druidess spoke next, "There are three... well... general categories of powers. The elementalist is someone who has a very tight group of powers based around one thing, typically an element, but it can be any concept, really. They are very limited in what they can do, but they are the most efficient at monad usage. The next category is the generalist. They usually are limited to a certain broad category. They can do way more than an elementalist, but usually not as effective."




Brown spoke up, "For example, a fire elementalist could be made of fire, shoot fire, fly, detect fire, that sort of thing." She cleared her throat, "But a generalist might be able to make a flame thrower, or a dome of fire, or a much broader range of fire adjacent effects, but usually can only do one or two things at the same time, where as a fire elementalist can do everything at once."




Druidess nodded, "And usually an elementalist can do it much longer than a generalist."




One of the women who hadn't said anything yet, giggled as she muttered, "All-star definitely can go much longer than the rest of us." All-star glared at her.




Druidess continued, "The third category is called... cosmic." She raised a single finger and slowly brought it down until it pointed at Jack.




Jack pointed at himself, "I'm... cosmic?"




Doctor Brown nodded, "Yes. Cosmic power users can usually do... anything. Well. They usually have some sort of limitation to help focus their minds, but in theory, a cosmic user can do anything, but..."




Jack nodded slowly, "But if you can do anything, you are the least efficient at using monads, I assume?"




The Druidess touched her nose, "Bingo. Honestly, I have no idea how you can even have a cosmic power framework with a monad score so low. Theoretically, it shouldn't even be possible."




Doctor Brown nodded, "I'll be surprised if you could figure out how to light a cigarette."

Spoiler: Excerpt From Hari-Kara Nonfeasance

The headmaster looked all happy, like a kid in a candy shop, "Is it that new general memetic theory you were working on?" Ryan looked up, "You keep mentioning that. I told you it was just a theory. I'm still trying to find proof via predicted outcomes." The headmaster tried to look casual about it, "Oh... I only found the idea that mana from potions and mana from mana stones could be made interchangeable to be a rather promising one." He tried to sound like he was being casual, but it was obvious he was deeply interested.

Ryan let out a mild 'ugh' as he heaved a large box with a circle on one side, a smaller circle on the other, a switch, a knob, and a button. He put it on the table and took out its twin, "No. I've been experimenting with photons. Light is acting strangely." He lined up the two boxes, flipped the switches and pressed the button on one box, "Testing Testing-'' The other box started to repeat, "Testing Testing-" but then a feedback squeal started to climb in volume. It almost immediately made everyone in the lunch area cover their ears. Fortunately, Ryan took his finger over the send button, "Sorry! Sorry!"

It is somewhat telling that everyone just takes it in stride when Ryan does something bizarre. Everyone in the room just went back to eating, with only a few muttering mild complaints.

The headmaster picked up one box so he could examine it closer, "What is it?" Ryan tapped the other one, "Two way radio. Proof of concept. I'm finding it difficult to make complex electronics so I've fallen back on vacuum tubes and more robust tech." Ryan flipped the off switches on both, "I'm running into the same problem as gunpowder. It's just not functioning as expected. This thing should work out to the horizon, and I'm lucky to get a mile. It makes no sense. "

The headmaster gingerly put the box back down, "A mile? We have magic speaking stones already that can reach the other end of the kingdom.. Not very useful, I'm afraid." Ryan tapped the box, "No magic." The headmaster blinked, "Excuse me?" Ryan nodded, "Not even magic stones. I finally figured out how to make functional batteries. You wanna hear something funny? I had run out of ideas so I tried a potato battery.

The headmaster slowly titled his head to the side as Ryan continued, “Yeah. It runs off of potatoes. It SHOULDN'T, but apparently potatoes have a great deal of voltage here." He flipped open the top of one of the boxes to expose a large potato with wires sticking out of it, "The potato can run for several hours of continuous use, or you need to replace it after a week on idle.."

The headmaster stared at Ryan, "Potato."

Ryan nodded, "Potato."

The headmaster pointed at the boxes, "You made a non-magical speaking stone that is powered by... potatoes."

Ryan shrugged, "Hey! Ya got me! I never expected to portal two this mother but there you go."

The headmaster closed his eyes and rubbed his eyebrow as if he was getting a migraine, "Reed? We had this talk already. You know how you say things that make no sense and then you try to clarify and you only make LESS... sense?"

Ryan collapsed back into his chair, "Hey, look... It isn't my fault. I... It's this blessing. I can remember everything in my life. Everything. with perfect clarity. It helps when I'm trying to remember how to build something or apply ideas to other ideas..."

Ryan suddenly winced and covered his mouth, "Oh God! I'm gonna vomit!"

Everyone looked at each other than at Ryan, "What?" Ryan fought back the urge to hurl and eventually spoke, "Oh god. I was trying to think of an example why perfect recall sucks and I just remembered every single time my mom breastfed me." He started to look a little green as he covered his mouth, "Exactly one thousand, one hundred and sixty eight times." He paused, then heaved a little, “Oof!" and doubled over. Charity started to pat him on the back, "It... It's okay. It'll be fine."

Ryan looked up at her, "No it won't! She breastfed me until I was almost FOUR!" He clutched the sides of his head, "Oh why oh why didn't this come with an off switch?" The headmaster pulled up a chair and sat down, "This happens often... I take it?" Ryan just nodded as he covered his mouth while swallowing back the bile.

Aldelmo offered Ryan a napkin. Ryan scowled at him at first, but eventually just took it and spit into it, "Ick," He made a loud, disgusting sound while clearing his throat which drew a great deal of attention and raised eyebrows from the headmaster.

Ryan coughed one last time then looked at the Headmaster, "It's why I talk so strange. I can remember every game, every show, every conversation I ever had or observed. When I talk, I try to find the right words except I can't quite find the correct fit, so I keep thinking of metaphors." Ryan shrugged, "Except they are metaphors personal to me and nobody else."

The headmaster leaned back, "In other words, you can express yourself exactly as you intend, but nobody has your life experiences, so nobody can understand you."

Ryan touched his nose, "Bingo!"

The headmaster looked exasperated, "I assume that means, 'yes'." Monique and Charity both giggled. The headmaster looked over at Monique and then back at Ryan, "That reminds me... you know the dance is coming up, yes?" Ryan shook his head, "No. I was blissfully unaware of this. But now you that have brought it up, I assume this huge time sink will soon be upon us."

The headmaster frowned, "The freshman dance is an important event in a student's life." He looked off into the distance with a faint smile, "I remember when I went to-"

Ryan lunged for a butter knife and began applying it to his wrist, dull side first and started 'sawing' while muttering, "How's that go? Across for attention, Down for results?" Headmaster frowned at Ryan, "I take it you don't want to listen to an old man reminisce?"

Ryan proceeded to 'slit' his own throat, "Keanu Christ, Take me now!" then dropped the knife back on the table, "My god you must have the psychic power to read minds because I just checked my to-do list, and it appears the LAST thing I ever want to do is listen you talk about how wonderful you thought school was."

The headmaster folded his arms, "How did you get so cynical?" Ryan stared at the headmaster, "Oh. I dunno. I had a terrible life. My mom died. My dad is a philandering piece of trash. I had the crap beat out of me on a fairly regular basis and the only reason it isn't still going on is because I died and came back from the dead. Now everyone is terrified of me because I have taken the laws of science and magic and twisted them into a pretzel."

The headmaster blinked and looked both surprised and uncomfortable as Ryan continued his little rant, "School dances are for people who like people and are liked in turn. I am an utter, total, and dare I say... PROUD Misanthrope! School dances are for social butterflies who want to make friends and influence people."

Ryan hooked a thumb at his chest, "I want to make war and influence global weather conditions with my still under development orbital DEATH LASER!" Ryan held up a hand to cut off the headmaster, "I know what you are about to say, but frankly, everyone wants weapons. Why? Because there is no problem in this world that cannot be solved with just the right amount of explosives." He held up a single finger, "I'm not saying it's an IDEAL solution, but if your problem is reduced to dust motes drifting across a sea of molten magma... THAT... is definitely a solution."

More than a few people were looking in Ryan's direction with odd looks.

Ryan noticed the faces turned his way and looked around the room, "HEY! It's called MAD. Mutual Assured Destruction. If our kingdom has the ability to blow up the world twice, and our enemies have the ability to blow up the world three times, then nobody will ever start a war again, because right after someone shoots first, EVERYONE DIES."

Ryan stood up and held his hands high up over his head, "PEACE!" Then pointed finger guns at the headmaster, "Through superior firepower!"

The headmaster looked at Ryan, "No one can kill everyone on the planet. Right?"

Ryan froze, looked around, then quietly sat down, "No. No no no... of course not!" He laughed nervously, "Sooooooo… You were talking about a dance?" Charity's eyes started to go wide, "Wait. Did you figure out-"

Ryan reached out and slapped a hand across Charity's mouth as he hissed at her, "LOOK. Gunpower isn't working right, and integrated circuits aren't functioning, PERIOD. So while, in THEORY, I might be able to hit cities with sun chunks, considering what I'd have to do to TEST my theories and the high chance I might accidentally... I dunno... burn every living thing that light touches to a crisp, I really don't think that line of research is going to be of help, Kay?"

The headmaster started to turn while, "What?"

Dropping his hand from Charity's mouth he made a dismissive gesture towards the headmaster, "Relax! Where am I going to find tonnage amounts of tritium anyways?" He froze and got a thoughtful look, "Unless... I suppose I could-" He smacked himself across the face, "Stop! Stop! Stop!"

Monique looked curious, "I think you are doing zee metaphor thing you spoke about before, No?"

Ryan looked at Monique and sighed, "Look. Even if the demon lord never shows up, a nation has to be able to defend its borders. How do you defend your borders? When you boil it down it comes down to energy." Ryan started talking with his hands, "It started with one guy hitting another guy, then we upgraded to rocks and sharp sticks, then you put sharp rocks ON sticks, then metal on sticks, then just metal."

"But that's just energy, when you boil it down to the basics. Kinetic energy. There is also heat energy with fire. But we got other forms of energy." Ryan hit the table with the palm of his hand, "Wham! Sonic energy! But what is sonic energy? It's kinetic energy. What is heat? It's Photonic energy. Heat is just a form of light. But what about electromagnetism? That's also energy. And of course... the most powerful form of energy, Not the creation or destruction of chemical bonds, but turning matter DIRECTLY into energy."

Ryan looked at the ceiling, "I suppose you could convert the fundamental underpinning of reality itself into energy, but I have no idea how to burn space-time itself, so that's right out. Plus, tapping directly into zero point energy could turn this entire planet into a cinder hurtling through space as a giant gravestone to mark where we all once loved and laughed and played."

Everyone just stared at Ryan as he continued his little rant, "My point is, energy, and the ability to convert it into different forms of energy, and more importantly CONTROLLING energy to apply it to the world in ways you want is what any nation needs to defend its borders."

"Take this, for example.." He pointed upwards and a gout of steam shot out of his finger for a few inches, "Steam. Water when it goes from a liquid state to a gas increases in pressure by a factor of over 200. That's a whole lot of force. If I can figure out a way to harness this then flight isn't just for air mages anymore."

The headmaster struggled not to look shocked, ~Did... he just become the first steam elementalist?~

"And yes, I'd love to do tests on piezonuclear fusion and see if I can actually get the palladium experiments to work... but since the fundamental laws of reality are... I dunno... just... WRONG. And I mean, in the margins. In general the laws of reality are working right but when I test the far end of the bell curve I keep running into... unexpected results."

He leaned back, then picked up a fork to stab his salad, "Until I can figure out why reality isn't working the way my math says it should, I have to make sure I don't accidentally set off a chain reaction that causes everything to go boom." He eyed the carrot on the end of his fork, "It's almost like the very curve of space-time itself is... pixilated. Or... maybe time doesn't exist? I find that strange, since it seems to be passing, but-" He ate his carrot.

Everyone around was quiet. Aldelmo looked at the headmaster, "Did you understand any of that." The headmaster replied, "Most of it." He looked at Ryan, "I'm... curious about the whole... time doesn't exist?" Ryan swallowed, "Well... it'd explain things. I need to go out and test... well... everything. I'm making assumptions that I need to confirm. Time might not be real. Gravity might not be real. They might be emergent properties."

He continues to eat his salad, "But, to get back to your original request of converting mana potions directly into recharging mana stones, I need to understand these questions before I can begin to attempt such a thing. I'm currently operating on the idea that mana is like... electricity. So there would be direct mana and alternating mana and I'm wondering if that's why holy and demonic energy react so violently with each other."

Ryan pointed into the air and created a simple magic circle, "Why do magic circles operate more like circuits than actual circuits? Why is electromagnetism so unstable at low power? Why are chemical reactions operating correctly MOST of the time, but in odd ball situations, like gun power, burning slower and thus with less power than expected?"

He waved his hand and it vanished, "I'm beginning to think it's all related to quantum mechanics where perception influences reality but... it's just... I don't know. I need answers and they are hard to find."

The headmaster nodded and said, "You should go to the dance."

Ryan let out an 'AUGH!' and bashed his forehead into his salad.

Spoiler: Excerpt From Hari-Kara Nonfeasance

Ryan clapped his hands together as if dusting them off, "A'rite..." He looked around, "Looks like I got all the hard surfaces... should be good." He looked at Lilith, "Anything else?" Lilith looked at Ryan for a while then asked, "How do you use fire and water at the same time?" Ryan blinked, "Uhh... I don't."

Lily spoke up, "You're lying." Ryan looked over at his sister, "Excuse me?" She pointed at her eyes, "Water mage as well! You can't heat water, only freeze it! And-and-and even THAT requires an INSANE amount of mana!"

Ryan sighed, "Look. the very act of creating water violates the laws of thermodynamics. Neither matter nor energy can be created or destroyed, only transformed... UNLESS... you take into consideration the existence of mana." Ryan gestured to the mirror and made a bunch of circles out of mist on it, "Strong nuclear force, weak nuclear force, electromagnetism, gravity and memetic energy. Reality seems solid but the closer you look at the universe, the smaller you try to go, the more unstable the universe becomes. Perception starts to equal reality... it's just HERE-" He gestured around the room, "This reality is a whole lot easier to... perceive." He scratched his chin, "I don't quite understand it. I'm starting to think it's a resolution issue."

Lilith stepped closer, "What do you mean, resolution?"

Ryan nodded, "Ah. Xeno's paradox. If you shoot an arrow at a target, at some point it goes half the distance. Then you can half the distance again. And again. And again... on paper, the arrow can NEVER reach the target, because it keeps going only half the distance... onto infinity." He raised a finger, "But it does reach the target. How?" He looked around and nobody said anything, so he continued, "The planck distance."

One of the finances said, "What?"

Ryan gestured up to the mirror to create a wavy line, "The plank distance is the minimum distance a single wavelength can be before a single photon of light collapses into matter. The more energy you add to light, the higher the wavelength, the shorter the distance, and then you have your capstone. The point where energy becomes matter because you put too much energy in one spot."

The wavelength on the mirror changed and it got closer to closer together, "This becomes the absolute minimum distance you can travel. It is IMPOSSIBLE for anything to travel less than this distance." the lines changed, "Now, you can go two plancks and return back one point five plancks, and be half a planck from where you started, but you can't move LESS than a planck in one go."

Ryan turned around to face everyone, "This, is the resolution of the universe. The smallest anything can be. And the odd thing is, this all depends on how much energy something has. It is also affected by OBSERVATION."

He started to gesture as if having small things in his hands, "You get quantum tunneling, and energy turning into particles and then into waves and then teleportation and information traveling backwards in time, and quantum cloning, and all sorts of strange things." He looked up, "But the very act of observing these things changes their nature. At a certain point, reality stops being objective and it becomes subjective."

Ryan's eyes unfocused as he stared off into the distance, He was silent for a few moments before he started talking again, "But that isn't possible..." Lilith looked a little confused as she had the feeling she just missed something important.

He raised a finger, "Unless, you consider the interior of your mind to be objective." He grinned, "I think, therefore I am." He then started gesturing about, "Which lead me to the conclusion that perception by intelligent creatures is what creates mana, or... memetic energy. This memetic energy can't do much in a high resolution universe, but in a low resolution universe, then there is much more wiggle room. You can..."

He created a ball of water floating in the air over his hand, "I can take that memetic energy and perceive a reality where water exists."

He then raised the finger in his other hand, "But... why only water? Why is it limited to only certain elements? Answer, because everyone thinks it does. Humanities' collective beliefs create the limitations. Most of the universe exists objectively, but when it comes to life and intelligence, the laws of reality can be mutated and warped based on the individual and collective beliefs."

He started to talk faster and faster as he explained thing, "Think about it! We can only subjectively view the universe, but inside our own heads is the only objective truths we know." He held his hands out to the side, "Do we use our internal objective reality to impose over the collective objective reality we call Reality?" He shrugged, "Maybe?"

He pointed at Lily, "You see water as water." He pointed at himself, "I see water as two hydrogen atoms combined with one oxygen atom. I know the many properties of water including what happens to water when it is cooled, when it is heated, and when it is applied to massive amounts of PRESSURE."

Lily looked thoughtful as Ryan continued, "It appears that the more you change the pressure or temperature of water the more mana it requires to make those changes. This is because it requires more energy to fuel the process.": He pointed a finger in the air and let lose a blast of steam that shot up into the air and quickly dissipated, "I can make steam, but I don't know any water mages that can. Sure, you have a few talented souls who can make water AND ice, but steam? That's impossible I'm told. Yet... I can do it."

"How?"

He looked around at everyone, nobody spoke. He waited a bit before rolling his eyes and smacking his forehead, "Because nobody told me I COULDN'T!"

Lily jumped out of her chair, "Hold on... are you telling me the reason you can do impossible magic is because... you don't know any better?"

Ryan waggled his head from side to side, "Ehhh... maybe? Just a theory. I know my fundamental beliefs are different then everyone else. I do not perceive the world the way all of you do. However, it isn't absolute." He took his ball of water and flash froze it, "I can freeze this..."

Ryan reached into his pocket and pulled out his lighter. Flipping it open, he produced a flame that he held under the ice ball. Its surface burst into a small puff of flame as if it was slowly burning like a ball made out of frozen alcohol, "I can force the hydrogen and oxygen to separate. It takes quite a bit of mana to do that. Oxygen and hydrogen burns when exposed to flame. I can't ignite the ice itself, but I can break the ice down into materials that, oddly enough, I can't control, but those byproducts burn so easily."

He wove his lighter around, "I need an outside fire source to start the reaction, but once started, it's self sustaining... assuming I keep pouring mana into the process of breaking down water into flammable gasses." He looked at Lilith, "And so you know, it's so much more mana intensive than just asking a fire mage to do the same thing." He blew a puff of air at the ice ball and the flame went out, then grinned at Lilith, "Don't expect to be losing your job, anytime soon."

Ryan tapped his chest, "I'm breaking water down into a substance I can't really control, but I can control where it breaks down. Once I figured that out, it wasn't that hard to figure out how to just directly heat up the water as I create it." He waved his hand and dismissed the ice ball entirely, "And lo' we have steam." He sighed, "But in spite of all my best attempts, I can't do any of the real fun stuff with heat."

Lilith looked quite interested, "Like?" Perhaps being a fire mage herself this was a topic of interest to her.

Ryan looked up, "Well, The headmaster can go straight to lightning, which is just electrons. That makes me wonder if someone could go beyond lightning and straight on to full blown PLASMA." His eyes lit up in a fashion that disturbed everyone in the room. They might have no idea what plasma was, but if Ryan liked it so much, it cleary was something to be avoided.

A topic avoided by everyone except Lilith, "What is plasma?"

Ryan thought for a second, then motioned Lilith to come closer as he walked over to the window. Lilith approached Ryan, more than a bit curious. He pointed up into the sky, "THAT... is Plasma."

Lilith stepped closer to the window and looked up at the sun.

Well, I suppose that just about covers everything regarding my magic system I have published that I can show you without giving away spoilers.

Oh. And I suppose I should also include the various layers of reality.

Spoiler: About Reality Itself

Okay. As I do everything, I have a top down approach. I start with the cosmos as a whole, then figure out my alternative physics, the nature of reality, how many dimensions, what parallel dimensions, what those alternate dimensions mean, etc etc etc. Also, I think it is important to determine the nature of Time.

Currently I am going with a six dimensional model. There are three dimensions for normal matter and another 3 dimensions for Memetic Matter. I use the standard physics model for real word things, but I do not have Time nor Gravity.

Time is absolute (sort of, but that's another discussion) and exists along side movement. Gravity is not the fourth force, but an emergent property for the base state of the world. I enjoy using the theoretical Planck Tetrahedron because... well... not bragging, but I invented the concept back in 1990. Well, I had the original idea in 1982 with my grandfather, but I expanded it in 1990. And the theory got completely destroyed in 2012 with the discovery of Gravity waves.

Sigh.

However, there are still people out there running with the idea and still think it is viable. So if you have an interest in alternate theories of Quantum Gravity, look up Planck Tetrahedrons on youtube. I've already been convinced the very theory I created was wrong, but I am glad other think it still has potential.

The irony being that it does SUCH a good job solving so many problems with quantum mechanics without fucking up anything or needing a stupid 12 dimensions like fuckin' M Theory and Loop Gravity is for losers...

...

Sorry. I'm still a little bitter over the whole LISA array thing.

My point is, LOOK INTO DEFUNCT SCIENTIFIC THEORIES. Trust me, Using alternate physics is a wonderful way to make your world unique and different. Perhaps you can repurpose Monads, like I have, or reuse the concept of
Luminiferous Aether for how light travels and then use that as a branching pathway for your magic system.

But I digress.


So, I use the concept that Nothing is the Logophysical. Matter is the physical. Life is the Metaphysical.
Living things produce thoughts, which are a tangible force. Mana, in other words, but in system it is Memes. Memetic energy. Living things produce thoughts that produces memes.

So what is a creature made entirely of memes?

That is a pure metaphysical creature. And what would be avout the Metaphysical? The Pataphysical.

So we have, in order of reality Logophysical, Physical, Metaphysical, and Pataphysical, or Below Reality, physical Reality, Mental Reality, Above Reality.

These are the four layers of my cosmos. Inside the cosmos we have universes, which contain all the "reality" of a given subset. They are singularities. On the surface of the singularities, reality is one dimension lower than the singularity, so it is unaffected by the hyper-reality it exists on. So, in our world, all 3-dimensional singularities have a 2-dimensional universe on its surface. We exist on the surface of a 4-dimensional singularity.

These are floating in a 6 dimensional framework, that is projected onto a 7th dimension that no one can access, because it is The Substrate Of Reality. Or DARK MATTER.

Dark Matter is the very bedrock of reality. It is CLARITY.

Now quantum mechanics has the concept of Uncertainty. This means that you really can't measure something without the attempt to measure the something affecting it. How do you measure the exact position of a proton? You have to hit it with something then measure what happened to what you hit it with what every you shot it with. Using electrons to scan something works great when it is big, but not for a single proton.

So, memetics depend on this uncertainty. Life is quantum fluctuation. Memetic energy is stronger the further you are from Dark Matter. So I have "Streams" of universes that "Flow" through Dark Matter. How strong is the dark matter? Well...

Did you know that Pi for a square is 4? Now if you put 4 squares together, you get Pi = 4, again. But what if you arranged 64 squares so that only the corners or one edge touched so that it looked circular and THEN measured Pi? Well, It comes to about 3.21. And the more Squares you add, the closer you get to a "real" circle. The more squares, the more 'true round' you get, and the closer and closer you get to pi as we know it. However, you will NEVER reach pi, as long as you are making your circle out of squares, or in other words, PIXELS.

(As a side note, there is strong evidence the real world is pixelated. But that's a discussion for another time.)

Yeah. In a universe with Planck Tetrahedrons, reality is pixelated. There are no perfectly smooth circles. Therefore Pi is not infinite. The more pixelated the universe, the Higher Pi is, and the more you can use magic. Did you know that you only need to have pi out to 10 places and you get circles that look like circles out to a light year across?

So the amount of usable magic is dependent on how much Dark matter is near by, and the way of determining the amount of magic is usable in your given universe is determined by measuring Pi or the universe you are in. (Infinite long pi is only possible in a universe that is perfectly smooth.)

Okay. So. Now we get to the Metaphysics of it.

Like normal physics that is made up of things like quarks, electrons, disappointment, and photons, memetic energy can be broken down into fundamental building blocks as well. We call these monads. There are six in particular. Up and down are your most common. Think of them as the foundation of Mana. I won't bore you with the particulars, even if it is quite fascinating. What concerns us, and Toshi in particular, are the monads that make up a living, intelligent being. The four 'soul' monads, as they were. Specifically referred to as Demonic, Weird, Angelic and Top.

Mana is made up of Up and down Monads, but life depends on one of the other four. Human Souls are made up of Top monads, and you can guess what the other 3 are. A normal soul is Top, Up, Down, but there are Top, Up Up and Top Down Down.

I'm not going to explain those last two. SPOILERS. Lets just say that Logophysics, the study of the void below reality, relates to this. And I have not gotten into the Logophysics plotline, so I'm not going to explain that either.

Anyrate, The amount of monads has a raiting on 0 to 10. Think richter scale. A 1 is one normal human soul. a 3 is 100 human souls. So if you have a soul rating of 10. You are ten billion souls in one body. This is your Soul/Monad rating. This is the basis of your fundamental core strength rating. However, HOW your Monads are arranged also a factor.

Anything with a rating of 1 produces more mana than it consumes. Anything below 1, consumes more mana than it produces and is an over all drain on reality. There are exceptions, but this is a hard and fast rule.

It is important to note here that Monads are the framework you need to use magic, but you still need ENERGY to use magic. The energy to use magic is Mana. So if you have a big framework, you could do anything, but you might not have the mana to do it. A small framework of limited scope uses mana more effectively and would work better under certain conditions.

This then results in the frameworks that you can use to organize your monads.

Magic works best when not observed. Now this doesn't mean you can use magic in front of people, it just means it gets harder the more people observe it, or high amounts of dark matter inhibit magic. So, the easiest magic to use is body enhancing magic, or aura.

Then we get elemental. This is the second frameworks of magic to manifest. It is usually based around a single 'element', but it is mostly what the locals think of as an element. If your element is water, normally you are limited to water. But with enough power and individual strength, you might expand into Ice, or steam.

Next we get Modular frameworks. Basically, you can do anything within a general concept, but you have to LEARN it ahead of time. If I am a wizard, I can cast "spells", but I have to learn the spells first. If I am a Robot Jock, I can build many toys into my giant robot, but I need to BUILD THEM FIRST.

The final framework is Cosmic. You can do anything, BUT, it is the least efficient form and typically is still limited by the perceptions of the people of the reality you live in, as well as your own mental limitations.

The overall magic framework is them limited on a universe by universe basis that limited how the three foundational aspects combine.

So we have Soul Strength, Frameworks, and finally, Mana or how much power you can put behind what you are doing.

Factors regarding mana are: How much can you hold?, How much can you use at any given time? How effective are you are using your mana? What do you do with the used mana?

Yes. Using mana results in 'depleted mana' which builds up in the user. Think of it as fatigue poisons that build up in your muscles if you use them faster than oxygen can get to them.

However, Normal Mana results in depleted mana, but Demonic Creatures are dependent on using 'Depleted' mana. Demonic magic is magic that has evolved to 'feed' off of 'poisonous mana'. Think of Yin and Yang.

Demonic energy and demonic magic is much more fluid and variable than normal magic, but it is also subject to local beliefs to a far greater degree than normal magic. In normal magic, someone from another universe could drop into your world and use his powers to some extent, because by sheer force of will and with a strong enough Soul Rating, simply push your way through.

Demonic energy is very versatile, but they cannot produce depleted mana. They need other types of creatures to make normal mana, use it up, then they can use the depleted mana. Demons are dependent on non-demonic life for survival.

Weird Monads make up Fae life, and is in many ways like Top Monads, but they are inherently unstable. They are not as resistant to local beliefs as Top monads, so fae life tends to be 'pushed around' by the myths and beliefs of ordinary humans.

Angelic Monads are second only to Top monads, and are very powerful, in pure memetic areas. In the parts of the cosmos where there is no matter, Angelic Monads rule the metaphysical. However, they are weaker when you get to a physical universe and react very poorly to Demonic energy. This is the primary material of Gods. ironically, as powerful as gods are, they are at an inherent disadvantage to the demonic in the physical plane. Furthermore, they also are very effective at making Mana.

Top Monads are the king of making mana. This makes Humans the very plankton that creates the 'oxygen' that the other forms of memetic life need to 'breathe'.

Well. that's the off the top of my head explination. Hope that gives you some ideas.

 

[Prince_Azmiran_Myrian]

There is something to be said about magic systems keeping some mystery to them. A reader will probably get bored of a lecture on fake science/magic system. While they shouldn't feel things are happening for no good reason.

The magic system in my story is made to make each race have specific powers. I'm sort of soft on specifics, but the magic is related to a certain gift each race has. It gives cool flavor to each race and allows me to come up with cool abilities as i go. rather than have a deep explaination of why, its a simple reasoning.

Now this does open me up to potential pitfalls, so I'll have to be careful of that.

 

[TheEldritchGod]

Your novel link

In order of popularity:
I Was Summoned
Flip The Script
Hara-Kiri Nonfeasance

 

[Deleted member 54065]

My magic system isn't that much important to the story flow, so I only give a few excerpts on its features. Nerdy writers often point out to me rules and the concepts I bent on my magic, but nah, I create my own world, so I follow my own rules.

 

[TheEldritchGod]

There is something to be said about magic systems keeping some mystery to them. A reader will probably get bored of a lecture on fake science/magic system.

I like to think I make it fun and organic. I try to imagine how would Douglas Adams explain things, and then I write that.

 

[APieceOfRock]

Here's mine:

There are 2 basic magical forces: Mana and Aether.

Aether can only be used by specific races. It's basically Mana but more potent and recovers slower. It can also be used to counter Void mana (which I will explain below)

Now we come to the Mana part.

Mana is divided into 3 basic attributes: Void, Normal, and Holy.

Void mana is basically responsible for corrupting people and stuff. (typical evil magical source).
Holy mana is basically Void mana but uhh... good?
These types of Mana cancel each other out. They can both be converted to Elemental mana (which I will explain below).

Normal mana is... normal mana. It is divided into subcategories called 'Elements'. Basically you got fire, wind, ice, water, earth mana and everything you can think of.

Mana as a whole can also be divided into 3 big categories: Disruptive, Neutral, and Constructive.
Constructive mana is used to construct and conjure spells.
Neutral mana is used for misc stuff like mana-engineering or mana-reinforcement.
Disruptive mana is used to destabilize and cancel out Constructive mana.

So basically, Disruptive mana counters Constructive mana. Constructive mana counters Neutral mana. Neutral mana counters Disruptive mana. (rock paper scissors basically.)

Since every lifeforms are either Mana-based or Aether-based, you can use Disruptive mana to basically delete something out of existence.

Now on how to cast magic.

To know this, we'll have to categorize Mana once again into 2 categories: Innate and Atmospheric.

Innate mana is mana that resides in your own body. You must emit Innate mana to influence the Atmospheric mana if you want to cast spells.
Basically, spells are formed using Atmospheric (Elemental) mana. And to wield Atmospheric mana, you need to expend Innate mana.

The density and quantity of Atmospheric mana depends on where you're currently at. For example, there's a lot of Atmospheric Ice mana in a tundra, but there are very little Fire mana there.
So, if you want to use Fire magic in a tundra, you'll have to convert your Innate mana into Fire mana, emit it out into the environment, and use more Innate mana to control the Fire mana you've just emitted.

Anyways, that's all for now. If you didn't understand anything, see this messy chart.

 

[Deleted member 54065]

But yeah, my magic goes like this:

Types
1). Common Magic
2). God Powers

Common Magic Types (possessed by all Humans, Demons, Elves)
1). Fire
2). Water
3). Wind
4). Earth
5). Light
6). Darkness

God Powers (One power granted to each Saint of my worlds; I based them on the miracles found in the biblical gospels)
1). Instant Healing
2). Control over Weather
3). Foresight/Fate Changer
4). Command over Water
5). Ability to Multiply Items
6). Resurrection

I'm more focused on creating my story's worlds (customs and traditions) and giving characters to the races, so the magic is applied to everyone.

---

Another story of mine has magic at the center of its plot. Einstein doesn't exist in this timeline, so there's no nuclear weapon. The alternative is the the mages, which serve in their country's military. The system goes like this:

Users
1) Elf: migrants to Earth from another world.
2) Human: divided into two, the Mages (descended from human and elf marriages) and Ordinaria (ordinary people who can't use magic).

Types
1) True Magic: used by the elves, and limited them to one element per person.
2) Human Magic: magic used by the descendants of human-elf marriages; considerably weaker than the true magic, but one human can use multiple houses of magic, depending on their skill.

Houses of Magic
1) Fire
2) Water
3) Wind
4) Earth
5) Dimension

Class
1) Basic Magic: spells that can be used in everyday living.
2) Advanced Magic: spells that can be used to alter/harm something or someone.

Magician Ranks
1) Basic Mage: mages that know at least one basic magic spell.
2) Adept Mage: mages that know all of the basic spells from all the houses of magic.
3) Wizard Mage: mages that know all the basic spells and at least one advanced magic spell. All Wizard-ranked magicians and up can have a customized wand for their use.
4) Sage: mages that know all the basic and advanced magic spells. They are considered their country's 'ultimate weapon'.

---

I'm also writing still another story with a magic system based solely on music. The kind of rhythm being played triggers a magic that can shape, maintain or destroy something and its environs.

 

[TotallyHuman]

My idea was more about who came first - the chicken or the egg. So, whether the way the Universe is is defined by some underlying physical conditions, or do those underlying physical conditions not really matter (everything is determined by, say, a soul or an abstract TRUE reality that is completely objective) and the underlying physical conditions can be replaced getting something that would be basically the same to some extent (like an oil and acrilic painting of the same thing), and how it would change the world.
So, my version magic is locally changing the underlying physical conditions as well as seeking the TRUE reality.

This leads to some interesting conclusions such as time doesn't exist and such

Based on that I can write up a bunch of different versions of magic

 

[Le_ther]

Yesterday I spent 15 minutes creating a magic system to prove a point. That led me to think that there is no need for the reader to be given the metaphysics of the system in question if not important to the story. Which is probably something I should have realized after spending multiple months creating a complex system that only I can truly know how it works, nevertheless here is a simple version of it. Oh, there is no need for a complex answer, I am just putting my thoughts out there.

The goal of my magic system is to explain the world, and with it allow the creation of smaller unique magic systems.

To begin with let’s learn about the three fundamental magic particles. Aether, Void, and Quintessence. Aether is a substance that when by itself will always try to contract inwards. Things that come in contact with it will be stuck, and move with the Aether while contracting is size and increasing in density. Void is the opposite it is always expanding, if something comes in contact with it it will expand and eventually dissipate. You can think of the two as entropy and order. When isolated the two mix like oil and water. Quintessence is highly reactive and will transform while in the presence of an outside force. You can think of it as the substance that gives everything its form.

Quintessence when compacted into 2x its standard density becomes a soul. Souls have, in the broad sense, the ability to interact with other things on its own will/instinct, the ability to persevere the world around it and in it, and the ability to grow.

In the beginning of the universe there was an infinitely small and large point. This point was made of the three substances, ordered in a form similar to that of a nesting doll. Aether was on the outside constantly straining to constrict, void was in the center constantly straining to expand, and resting as a buffer was quintessence.

The constant straining condensed the quintessence barrier until it became filled with souls. These souls slowly weakened the strained buffer, and then, bang. The point exploded and mixed the three substances together. From it was born the Void Sea, and the countless planes that ’float’ within.

The Void Sea is characterized by its instability, various combinations of the three energies create wondrous things. Some fleeting in their existence and others near eternal.

The Planes are characterized by their relative stability. Planer energy is made from an equal ratio between quintessence, void, and aether. When the energy clumps up it forms a plane. Each of which, practically, creates its own independent world(s). Inside planes without an attached planar soul, the rules of physics will be mostly random. Imagine all the rules that govern how our universe works, slightly tweak random variables, and you have an idea of how these worlds differ. Yet, all the worlds are ruled with the esoteric logic that forms from the interactions between Aether, Void, and Quintessence.

Now I could go further and describe various magic systems are devised from it, and how they work, but that is enough.

My magic system classification for any type of literature goes as follows:

Elemental type[Basics like water, wind, fire, and etc.] Are abilities using the elements of our world, mostly used in fantasy type genre.

Mentality type[Examples are the power systems of HxH, Jojo, and etc.] Are abilities manifested through what the person is capable or attach into. Mostly used in shounen or battle genre.

Emotional type[When people develop a surging amount of magical power when they experience a negative or positice feelinf] are abilities that varies depending on the emotions the user is feeling. Mostly used in any genre that have the characters drawing in emotions

Contract type[When a contract between two entities happen and one gains the ability for a price or mutual relationship] Are abilities that are made through pacts between beings. Mostly used in any genre that requires contracts or promises to use magic.


Systematic type[ are any system novels that has exp, hp and mana bars or has game like mechanics] are abilities that can be anything that exist aslong as the concept of levelling is present. Mostly used in Isekai or Game type novels.

Artifact type[when a human being used items to store supernatural abilities] are abilities that can only be used through a medium which can be a object or a being. Mostly used in sci-fi or fantasy genre.

 

[FaustVoncleave]

The point of my magic system is to explain the world, as in its culture and technology. It's also to impress on the reader the difficulty of the magic system, and to give a clear line of progression that the readers can follow the characters through.

My story isn't too far in so I can't say much without giving out spoilers, but the gist of it is that the planet produces an energy called Primordial Qi. It can transform into many variations, like Fire Primordial Qi, and affects everything in the world but is not interactable for regular humans. People with the talent to cultivate can absorb it to awaken their Essence Heart.

The Essence Heart processes Primordial Qi into Essence Qi, which cultivators can then store in their dantian and use, at which point they become a Refining Realm Cultivator. Because Primordial Qi can transform into various forms, Essence Qi keeps some of that transformative property and become any type of qi, in theory. In practice, however, because of the uniqueness of an individuals Essence Heart, the Essence Qi produced leans heavily to certain types of transformations, these heavy inclinations are known as attribute affinity, and a cultivator will have an infinitely easier time transforming Essence Qi into their affinity attribute, like Fire Essence Qi.

That's pretty much the basics of it without spoiling much.

 

[Cipiteca396]

The point of my magic system was to create a multiverse where I could theoretically have any story or setting and have it make sense. After studying a lot of settings, the base I came up with was this:

Spoiler

Chaos is an ever-changing thing, everything and nothing at once. But if Chaos is everything, then it's also Order. The first bits of Order stuck and started multiplying, eventually becoming realities and souls. It's all sorted out, with Chaos that was everything being filtered into Order that is strictly defined.

Now, a soul is a fundamental piece of Chaos/Order. It can't be destroyed or created, and such. Even if it's reintegrated into Chaos, it's still strictly defined on some level. The most notable thing about souls is that they record everything they are, see, or do, and that record can't be erased or destroyed.

A soul that manifests usually has four parts that cling to it and form its 'perspective'. A Body, a Heart, a Mind, and a Spirit. The Body is made of physical matter and affects reality. The Heart is made of emotion and affects mana. The Mind is made of logic and reason, and affects causality. The Spirit is made of faith, luck, and self-determination and affects fate.

Some realities follow different Laws, and every time a choice is made, a new reality is made from each possible choice. Since souls and realities exist at about the same level, a soul is capable of existing in multiple realities, and tracks its own progress through them. Naturally, the intention is to create a sort of ballooning effect, where the more stuff that exists and gets recorded, the more Chaos is converted to Order.

That expansion of Order is resisted by Chaos, with realities on the border between the two in a constant state of conflict as the Order tries to tame the Chaos.

 

[SailusGebel]

@Ai-chan they did it again.

 

[ACertainPassingUser]

In my opinion, Magic system Is not important unless it's from popular story. Even popular stories tends to skip lot of the mechanism explanation and get away with it. Just show then the magic shit and be done with it, unless it's vital to the story.

Of course, if you're going to make Magitec stories like "magical girl lyrical nanoha" where magic power need proper procedure and there's cost and risk involved with higher spell, then go full details.

 

[Ai-chan]

Yesterday I spent 15 minutes creating a magic system to prove a point. That led me to think that there is no need for the reader to be given the metaphysics of the system in question if not important to the story. Which is probably something I should have realized after spending multiple months creating a complex system that only I can truly know how it works, nevertheless here is a simple version of it. Oh, there is no need for a complex answer, I am just putting my thoughts out there.

The goal of my magic system is to explain the world, and with it allow the creation of smaller unique magic systems.

To begin with let’s learn about the three fundamental magic particles. Aether, Void, and Quintessence. Aether is a substance that when by itself will always try to contract inwards. Things that come in contact with it will be stuck, and move with the Aether while contracting is size and increasing in density. Void is the opposite it is always expanding, if something comes in contact with it it will expand and eventually dissipate. You can think of the two as entropy and order. When isolated the two mix like oil and water. Quintessence is highly reactive and will transform while in the presence of an outside force. You can think of it as the substance that gives everything its form.

Quintessence when compacted into 2x its standard density becomes a soul. Souls have, in the broad sense, the ability to interact with other things on its own will/instinct, the ability to persevere the world around it and in it, and the ability to grow.

In the beginning of the universe there was an infinitely small and large point. This point was made of the three substances, ordered in a form similar to that of a nesting doll. Aether was on the outside constantly straining to constrict, void was in the center constantly straining to expand, and resting as a buffer was quintessence.

The constant straining condensed the quintessence barrier until it became filled with souls. These souls slowly weakened the strained buffer, and then, bang. The point exploded and mixed the three substances together. From it was born the Void Sea, and the countless planes that ’float’ within.

The Void Sea is characterized by its instability, various combinations of the three energies create wondrous things. Some fleeting in their existence and others near eternal.

The Planes are characterized by their relative stability. Planer energy is made from an equal ratio between quintessence, void, and aether. When the energy clumps up it forms a plane. Each of which, practically, creates its own independent world(s). Inside planes without an attached planar soul, the rules of physics will be mostly random. Imagine all the rules that govern how our universe works, slightly tweak random variables, and you have an idea of how these worlds differ. Yet, all the worlds are ruled with the esoteric logic that forms from the interactions between Aether, Void, and Quintessence.

Now I could go further and describe various magic systems are devised from it, and how they work, but that is enough.

Can you please stop posting a discussion thread in the writing prompt section?

 

[Southdog]

People who worry about all the rules of their magic system are dweebs. If you want to write a magic system turn it into a DnD supplement and save me the trouble of reading through your explanation of Mana, spell levels and fifth order grand circle wizards of the knotted bed sheets or what have you.

 

[TotallyHuman]

Can you please stop posting a discussion thread in the writing prompt section?

 

[CupcakeNinja]

Heh, I never really did any set magic system. It's kinda like every average Japanese Isekai magic system. Not really any established rules besides what I may pull out my ass for plot.

I've not yet made a story where a magic system is an integral part of the plot. A deep, well thought out magic system is not why people read my stories so I gloss over it and no one cares or questions.

My stories are mainly comedic in nature so what CAN be done with magic is never explicitly stated so that I can just do whatever and do some fun stuff.

Did have a solid magic system idea I never used tho. Was based off a kind of checks and balances system. Multiple branches of magic, specializing in a certain aspect, with their own pros and cons, that can be restrained by some opposing branch. Yeah, sounds pretty basic but the types of magic used aren't any of that elemental shit. More like becoming an avatar of some powerful being, or using tattoos as spellcast hotkeys. You know, types of magic systems I found interesting and not too oftenly used.
But I never wrote anything serious enough to use it. Perhaps someday....

That aside, holy fuck Brandon Sanderson and Brent Weeks have some amazing magic systems. Way of Kings and Black Prism are phenomenal pieces of writing

 

[Bartun]

My magic system is as follows: