Ch.14- Magic

In an empty class yet to be filled, Miss Nova, the magic teacher, stood by the board drawing a chart on magic types. The breeze of the air-conditioner fluttered the papers on her desk and the sunlight from the bare windows lit the dark room.

Coming from the field outside, the students entered the class and sat in their desks, exhausted from the heat.

“About time,” she said, and turned around to face the students.

Pika plopped her head on the desk and slept, while her brother tugged her shirt trying to wake her up. “Hey, don’t sleep,” he whispered.

“I just fought a strong opponent. What do you expect?” she said in a lazy voice.

Meanwhile, John was worried about Alex. I hope he’s alright. He thought, feeling lonely without him in class.

Luna took out her textbook early on and was already reading, when the teacher called, “Who’s the monitor?”

“It’s me,” Luna raised her hand, then stood up and went to her.

She handed her a bunch of papers with questions written on them. Luna took and distributed them to the class one by one.

“Those are your assignments. I want them by next week,” said the teacher.

“Weird. It’s just the first class,” mumbled John to himself.

“Now let’s begin. Take out your books please,” she said, and while everyone did, she started explaining, “Here, as you can see, I’ve written for you the types of magical substances that we all know are used for magic. So let’s get through each of them in detail,

“First is Leq. So what is Leq? Can someone tell me exactly what it is or from where it came?” she asked.

“Ma’am?” A girl raised a hand.

Nova nodded. “Yes?”

“It’s a substance in our bodies which gives us our natural abilities?”

“Indeed. Leq is a blue, magical substance flowing through our veins, that converts Aura into Magic. Magic, here, means our superpower, lightning or electricity,

“All super or magical humans have Leq, although electro-humans have two types rather than one neutral type; positive and negative Leq,”

Luna lifted a hand, “Ma’am? Is Mana and Leq the same?”

“I’ll get to that, dear.” She turned around and began making a table to differentiate the two substances while the students wrote after her.

After she was done, she faced the students and explained while pointing at the table, “So as you can see, the second type of magical substance is Mana. The main difference between it and Leq is that Leq is automatic in activation and is there in our bodies ever since birth. It’s also hereditary rather than consumed or learned.

“Mana, on the other hand, is limited and artificial or man-made. It can only be consumed and was made to give those who didn’t have abilities like us. It was also made to allow superhumans to get multiple powers along with their own.

“It has a similar compound structure as Leq and was made by elves. Humans also began to copy Leq so they could use it in their alchemy.”

She went to the chart that she drew near the table, and continued, “Now under Leq and Mana, there are many elemental and non-elemental magic types.

“Leq can only allow for Kronix among the many non-elemental magic types, however, mana can allow for all of them.

“Kronix or Krinawx is derived from Kihauksivawis, an ancient Neutralian word meaning ‘part of the body and soul’. So what this means is that it’s creation magic as it uses similar elements used in our creation as well as in Leq’s.

“Mana does the same when it comes to creation magic, but it also allows for other types of non-elemental magic like disguise, color, invisibility, teleportation, etc. while Leq is more restricted towards elemental magic.

“For each element of nature, there’s a special type of Leq such as fire leq, electro leq, etc. while mana is a single neutral type used for all elements.”

“Does our planet have Leq in it?” asked a studious boy, raising his hand.

“Yes. That’s the reason we don’t need to generate electricity through conversion of other types of energy. This is due to Leq, which acts as a generator in itself. It converts neutral or life energy (Aura) of our planet to electricity just like how it does to us, which of course kills nature and life on our planet in favor for a more deserted and rocky landscape,”

“The western hemisphere has a large condensation of positive electro leq which is why electricity is blue, signaling its positivity. While the eastern hemisphere is the opposite.

“So let’s get to the ways of casting magic when using Mana. Under Mana, there’s two ways to cast magic; spell casting and power casting.

“Spellcasting is your typical drinking potion, chanting a code and/or drawing a magic circle. The boring stuff that we usually don’t want to do.

“Powercasting is the same except you don’t chant a single code to activate a single attack or defense spell, but rather a complete superpower that you could use for a limited period of time; usually a day, automatically activating attacks without having to chant a code.

“It comes as rather a way to improvise Mana so as to make it act as Leq, but in reality it can never reach Leq’s unlimited power potential. Leq can allow you to use your power forever, just needs a fuel of life energy and you’re good to go,”

She went to her desk and looked into the textbook, turning the pages slowly. “Next, you can see on page 34, that other than us, there're also magical beasts.”

An image of the legendary giant storm hawk was displayed on one page, baffling most students.

“The storm hawk and the lightning pegasus are just two of many beasts that inhabit a few parts of Electro’s thunderous landscape. There are also electro-dragons, which can be found in mountainous regions, hiding in caves. However, they can be dangerous since they’re untamed. Like us, they are also divided into positive and negative types. From their body parts, magic weapons and armor are made usually for humans, demihumans and elves to use, in case they don't want to use pure magic.”

Walking to the side of the board, she paused for a moment and allowed the children to copy the notes from it.

She noticed that John wasn’t writing since he was already done while she was explaining. He was instead reading the textbook diligently. He then lifted his head and looked at her, suddenly asking a question while raising his hand, “So ma’am. How exactly do we measure power level? Does it depend on our strength?”

“Oh yes. I will explain that in a second. It’s the next topic anyways,”

When everyone was done, she wiped the board clean and wrote, Energy—> Work —-> Power.

She then explained, “According to physics, you may have learned that energy is the capacity to work while power is the rate at which energy is transferred.

“However, in magic, it’s different. Energy is considered a flow that allows for motion, life or work. All of this requires a condensed amount of energy that we call a spirit. A core that emanates that energy is called a soul. It consists of what preserves life and allows for work.

“The core is always there, but the field that surrounds it can be faint if not non-existent if energy is low. When energy is consumed in large quantities, the body may not be able to hold it any longer, which could either shatter it or make the field brighter.

“In case of super-humans and especially ones with high power levels, high energy isn’t a problem as Leq accelerates output, but for humans, it can kill them since their output is very limited and slow.

“Now it’s important to know what output here truly means. Output is basically power. And so is capacity.

“In magic, power isn’t just the rate of energy transferred; aka output, but also the capacity to work. Energy, on the other hand, is merely what comes in and goes out. A flow. Nothing more, nothing less.

“Your power level determines how much energy capacity and output you have. It depends on your strength, which is also another word for power.

“Power level not only determines that, but also your parameters such as, attack power, defense, agility and so on, which come after your power is determined.

“So what is this supposed to mean?” asked Miss Nova the students, knocking on what she wrote on the board with the sharp nail of her index.

“We need work to achieve power?” said John out loud.

“Yes. And energy to do work,” replied Miss Nova, taking the pen and writing on the board, Energy→ Work→ Power, then turning around, “But when using magic, work is eliminated.”

“So this means we use energy to get power but without having to work, right?” said Luna.

“Not precisely, but correct.” she said, narrowing her eyes, “It’s more so that we get our magical or super power from the conversion of energy using Leq which is why we don’t require work to achieve power.

“Now of course this applies to Leq mostly since Mana requires some degree of work like chanting spells, but those who don’t use Mana will have the most work such as drawing circles, preparing a potion or creating magic weapons and using them to fight.

“The other reason is because Leq and Mana cannot convert energy to Raw Power or strength, and you need work to achieve that. They can only convert energy to elemental and, in case of Mana mostly, non-elemental magic besides raw, neutral or natural power which has to be obtained through workouts and exercises.”

With wide eyes, John said in intrigue, “So basically to become a bodybuilder you can’t use magic to buff yourself up?”

“Yes. Anything but the natural as it goes beyond the law of nature.”

“But isn’t magic itself going beyond nature?” asked Luna, lifting her brow in confusion.

“No. Magic is natural, but only if you consider Leq which is white magic, while Mana is considered black or illegal magic, at least to us superhumans.

“The fundamental thing to remember is that we are natural, and using us to gain power is what brings about the black magic. We, in fact, use Mana because we don’t care about other superhumans who are affected by it and want utmost power; all other elements of magic in our disposal.

“We want more, and greed is one of our principles. A society that craves inequality. That’s why our nation is called Plus, because we absorb from all around the universe. This is the only way we can create our own paradise, but we do this in a smart and diplomatic way to avoid wars and unnecessary bloodshed.”

“I thought greed was a sin,” said Luna.

“That’s what Terrans try to tell you, but in fact, not until King Carl rose to power, has it been considered a good thing. And look what happened. Megacorps, tech, massive advancement in all fields. We became much better than Terrans, and brought them to our world.”

“Yeah, seems legit,” said John.

Miss Nova sighed, “Anyways. We got off-topic. Now let’s discuss--”

The bell rang abruptly, signaling the end of the period.

“Okay. Don’t forget your assignments children,” she said, carrying her books and leaving.

Everyone prepared for their next class and continued the day as normal.