The Theory of Magic {Class}

Morgan was disappointed with herself for not providing a better answer, she very much wanted to give better answers next time to make up for it. Like Octain had said, Magic was a constant pool of chaos and order, Morgan very much disliked this, she enjoyed rules and order and would prefer if her abilities were orderly. They were for a long time, her spirits Magmos and Glaceu trusted her, and she trusted them, the bonds she shared with them were strong and this was reflected when she used them. Fuhbar was different. Fuhbar was a spirit who was untrustworthy of Morgan, even disgusted by her, this distrust caused chaos whenever Morgan wanted to utilize Fuhbars powers, it was impossible to be certain what would happen. Morgan hated uncertainty.
"One way is the sort of magic I use. By bonding with spirits I can use their abilities, each of them allow me to create things out of nothing, I can create large chunks of ice with one, light things on fire with another, even create steel weapons with one." she felt confident with her first example, but what about others? Could she talk about the amphibellies she took when she adventured with Leilei? But was that even magic, she wasnt sure.
"On a previous adventure I encountered something that could be considered magical. They were strange beans called amphibellies that allowed an air breather to breath fine in water, it also made seeing the dark sea floor easy.". She only needed one more example now, but her mind was blank. She thought about her darling Naoki from her favorite dating sim "Ninja love adventure: can you recall it?" and though relationships might work.
"I think one more could be relationships? They can be chaotic or orderly, theres even rituals involving friendship like marriages." she wasn't sure how to feel about that last answer, it felt to obvious.

I wish for you all to tell me three different ways in which magic may manifest itself...

The dude was floating in a chair, his own name had a big x to it, and Lochlann was wondering why he couldn't have changed water into wine instead of orange juice. He rubbed his bad leg for a moment, frowning, and listened to Morgan's answers. Shit, he wouldn't have thought of those. He didn't know much about magic. The magic beans sounded cool, though, and he wondered where Morgan got them from. Could he walk up to her after class and just ask? That probably wouldn't be a good idea.

Still, it was his turn to answer.

"What about blood?" Lochlann asked. "I mean, you talked about the sex thing, and a lot of rituals call for blood--"

He didn't look at the faded scar on his hand. "And a lot of things are very specific about blood, right? Virgin blood, blood of a unicorn, blood of a dragon....so could I make the assumption that there is magic in blood, since it's so vital to our life-force or whatever?"

Fuck. He still needed two more examples. Was he even answering the right question? He didn't really understand what Magistar Octogon or whatever meant by manifest.

"I think--" he hesitated, embarrassed now, because he did not like being on the spot and because he did not like feeling uncertain. "Could it manifest, or whatever, in dreams? If magic is order and chaos, and dreams are order and chaos...is there a connection there, perhaps? Like with prophecies or visions or shamanic dreams?"

He took a look at the proff floating in the air and said, even more hesitantly than the last time, "Magic can manifest itself in words. Language gives us a false sense of order, but it only works because we agree to certain meanings, and we have to assume that the other person we are communicating with has the same understanding of the word we do. I could say the word mother and I think we would all get a slightly different picture based on our own experiences. I think magic manifests itself in this way because it...it involves your intent."

He stopped talking very suddenly, hunching over his desk, chewing on the inside of his cheek until it bled. He did not like this.

He looked over at Wei, hoping that either Wei or Chloe would end up with better answers so Magistar Octain would skip him next time.

Wei listened closely as the rest of the class came up with three different ways that magic could manifest itself. To him they all sounded like really good examples, and he was flat on his ass. He was also more than a little miffed that Lochlann got to say "words" before him. After all, words of power were a thing that existed, and whispering a word was the only way he was able to get his gun staff to extend and retract. Ugh.

And now it was his turn. And he had to think up three different ways magic manifested itself. His tail twitched and swished with annoyance as he tried to think about the ways magic had manifested to him.

"What about Nature?" He said, thinking on his feet. Might as well dive in headfirst and let the fustercluck that was going to be his answer commence. "Magic manifests in nature all the time, like flowers that bestow immortality and even the more mundane things, like the fact that when a caterpillar turns into a butterfly, its whole body is melted into goo, but when it becomes a butterfly it retains its memories and personality."

Well, there was one. That was fairly painless. What else...

"Well... There's also music." He felt like a broken record. Was this aping Lochlann's thing about language? Well, whatever, he would just have to see. "Music is a vehicle of emotion and intent, and can effect people and objects, like a high enough note can break glass, and some musicians have caused madness in themselves and their listeners by playing certain pieces of music."

Okay, two. One more. The monkey racked his brain for a full minute before finally taking a deep breath and going for it.

"And... clothing?" the weaselly uncertainty was almost audible in his voice. "Like certain pieces of clothing being deemed lucky, and that actually protect their wearer from harm to an extent?"

Oh god. Thank goodness it was over. Whatever, he felt like he'd just bombed an exam, but at least it was over with. He couldn't even remember what it was that he'd said. All he could remember was that he'd answered the professor's question. Why weren't all his other classes this uncomprehendingly stressful?

Chloe was glad that she was going last again. She had more time to think about her answers.

Her notebook was open to a (mostly) blank page, and she was jotting down ideas, brainstorming with herself, only paying enough attention to the others’ answers to have the vaguest idea of what they were talking about. Chloe hated questions like this – too open ended, not enough for her to work with.

Wei mentioned magic in nature. Chloe sighed to herself, frustrated, and crossed out the words ‘magic in nature’ in her notebook.

And now it was her turn.

“Magical oaths,” Chloe started with what was on her mind. “There are ways to bind promises with magic so they’re unbreakable. Or… I guess, so that breaking them is a really, really bad idea. Mental compulsion or magical consequences, mostly.

“Then there’s, uh, fate-manipulating magic. For lack of a better word. I’ve heard of people using magic to manipulate destiny. Like casting a spell on a newborn baby so that, upon reaching her eighteenth year, she’ll betray her father. Or cursing someone so that on Monday he’ll get a really bad paper cut.”

Chloe looked through her list again. Nature magic was used, Morgan already mentioned spirits, and some of these other ones seemed kind of boring. She tapped her pencil on her desk, thinking. The room grew silent. Somewhere, thousands of miles from Manta Carlos, jeopardy music played.

“A magical six-year-old might create a ward against girls in his treehouse. So no girls would be allowed to go up there.”

Ok four elements of magic, easy right? Fire, water, air, and dirt. And wouldn’t using them be ‘Elemental Magic’? Or was there some other name it went by? Morgan thought hard, she had read a quick novelette on magic, but it hadn’t properly prepared her for this class. She decided on using the answer she first came up with, “Well the use of the four magic elements is simply called ‘Elemental Magic’ yes? And those four elements are Fire, air, water, and earth.” she felt fairly confident with that answer. Now came the topic of working together with another classmate and debating the rules of magic, Morgan already knew which side she would be going with, she loved rules and these rules all made perfect sense, the part that was bothering her was who to partner up with. The only other person in this class she knew personally was Chloe, though she appeared to be friends with this Lochlann individual. She didn’t really know Wei, or Lochlann but it looked like shed probably end up partnering with Wei.

"Lochlann, Think you can name me the art of Illusion magic as well as grant me 2 examples of every day Illusions we see."

Lochlann frowned. "I don't think there is a specific name for Illusion magic."

"The word illusion in this language comes from a Latin word meaning 'to mock', I think. I have heard it called trickery before but I think that referred to ummm...."

Loch was surprisingly good at English because he absolutely loved words, but sometimes his English failed him. "driciau llwyfan..." he mumbled in Welsh, before his face lit up. "I think trickery refers more to magician's illusions, like stage tricks, pulling birds from your sleeve kind of thing."

He needed two examples of every day illusions, so he said, "Glamor. And not the fae-glamor, though I believe that is a further type of illusion magic. I mean like the application of make-up, or the change of posture, to appear more confident or beautiful than one really is."

For a moment, he wondered if there was a reason that Magikarp Octopus assigned him this question, and the back of his neck prickled uncertainly. After all, Loch's whole existence was something of an illusion, and even his ability to walk around and interact with the class required the use of illusion magic. If this guy knew a way to disarm that or if he'd teach the class that, Lochlann might be looking at a very uncomfortable afternoon spent running down the halls as a horse. He suddenly felt sorry for thinking Wei's screaming entrance to class was funny.

"Color can be an illusion, too. Neutrals, like grey or brown, even if they are the same pigment, can appear lighter or darker depending on the background. A block of grey against white will look darker than a block of grey against black."

Of the entire lecture, Lochlann did not understand most of what Magicman October was talking about time. Time was still a relatively difficult concept for him.

Even worse was when he announced that they'd have to pick partners.

He looked first at Chloe, because he was already familiar with her, but saw Morgan glance at her, too. So, Loch looked at Wei, and wondered if they'd divide the class up based on the appearance of sex.

He wondered who would move first. He wasn't getting out of this desk. Fuck that. He'd work with whoever.

Wei tilted his head. Spirits? He knew a lot about the practice of summoning them, but not a lot about the naming convention or the theory that went on in the background. On top of that, he would have to explain two types of what he did. Part of him wanted to shy away from the answers that popped into his head, but at the same time, this question didn't seem to hard.

He did say something about Chronoturgy being the school of magic having to deal with time, so maybe he was expecting an answer that took the same form. He thought. Did he know a name for spirit magic that used -turgy? It was stressful, but it was also kinda fun to think about.

"Well," He said, kicking his feet under his desk, his feet just barely reaching the linoleum. "As for different types, there's the art of speaking with the dead directly, like mediums and some psychics do. Some of them can even leave their corporeal bodies to venture into the land of the dead. Then there's the more necromantic side, which generally involves the calling of the dead to the land of the living. Most notably it's used to reanimate corpses, but it can also be extended to calling the spirits of the deceased."

As he was talking, something occurred to him--from a literature class he'd had once. Chronos was the Greek personification of time, and that's probably where the name "Chronoturgy" came from. What were the other ones? There was Hypnos, who was sleep, Kratos, who was power, Themis, who was divine order, and... who was the personification of death?

Wei wracked his brain.

It was on the tip of his tongue...

Ah! Thanatos!

"The art of ghost magic... would be Thanaturgy, wouldn't it?"

It looked like they would have to pick partners now. He did a broad sweep of the room. He didn't recognize Lochlann at all, and he was pretty sure he'd never even seen Morgan around. And Chloe--

Chloe! They'd met and talked for a long time that one time, when she was walking around outside and he'd popped a party popper to make her laugh! He hadn't seen her much since then, and he felt bad that it was only now that her appearance clicked for him. It looked like everyone wanted to work with her though, and he didn't really blame them--after all, she had two checks to everyone else's one. He glanced at Lochlann--he looked like he was having a harder time than Wei was--and gave him a smile and a small shrug, standing from his seat and plopping down in the seat just in front of Morgan, turning to face her.

"So. Do you want to work together?"

There was an awkward silence as Chloe tried to think of an acceptable answer to that question. She tried not to waste thoughts on less productive things, such as ruminating on why Octain decided to ask all these technical questions, and presumably grade their answers, before actually teaching anything. Maybe he wanted to teach them humility? Maybe he was trying to gauge their current level of knowledge?

The half-demon sighed. “I’ve actually heard of two different things called blood magic, but in some traditions they’re basically considered to be the same thing for complicated arcane reasons. The first thing is hemokinesis, which is like telekinesis, but it only works on blood. I’ve heard about people using it on the blood in someone’s body for medical purposes, but the things you tend to read about are a lot less, uh, benevolent.

“The other kind is hemoturgy, which has more to do with the metaphor of blood as life force. It’s life force manipulating magic. Sometimes that means using the power in literal blood, sometimes it doesn’t. It uses life force to do, uh…” she made a vague hand gesture. “Things. Like sacrificing your own health to make spells more potent.”

Chloe was glad she spent so much time in the library after she learned that magic was real. If only she could actually do any of the things she kept reading about.

When Chloe looked around, she noticed that Wei and Morgan were pairing up. She turned again to Lochlann and nodded. By process of elimination, he was now her partner.