Chapter 31: Memory

"....Because the elemental affinity of humans is usually not high, they can only use auxiliary methods like chanting magic spells to improve their control over the elements in their bodies, also known as magic power. In contrast, we angels are born with a high affinity for the light element and can easily skip the chanting phase to directly control the light element in our bodies. This is the fundamental reason why many high-ranking angels can cast magic without chanting..."

In a more secluded small empty room in the Tivi Palace, Aetna was explaining to us the essence of magic.

Today's lesson was different from yesterday's. Her main goal was to help us understand the basics of elements and some magic theory. So she chose an indoor venue. 

It was very different from the classroom when I was in school. Since this was just a temporary makeshift place, the entire room only had a few desks and chairs for us to use.

And the teacher had neither blackboard notes nor textbooks. Everyone had to improvise. As for the learning effect, we could only rely on ourselves.

"....In summary, the significance of magic lies in the chanting phase, which can act to improve elemental control. So 'casting magic without chanting' is an incorrectly used term. Strictly speaking, it should be called 'direct elemental control'. So in essence, magic is a process of indirect elemental control, a tool..."

Having finally finished explaining the last point of this part, Aetna heaved a sigh of relief and sat down to take a short break. 

"Since angels can already directly cast all kinds of powerful attacks, why bother spending time learning magic?" It seemed to be Cyra's first time hearing this content. She surprisingly raised her hand to ask a question.

"Of course, we have to learn it! Having the ability to control elements and using elements to achieve a wide variety of effects are two completely different things." 

But her attempt to slack off was immediately denied by Aetna. Indeed, even as talented as angels are, there weren't many shortcuts available.

"Think about drawing as an analogy. Even if you can control the pen to draw without using your hands if you don't even know how to draw, could you draw well? Controlling elements is the same principle. The application of elements also involves many factors, such as elemental flow, composition ratio, aggregation method, etc. These factors differ greatly among different magic. Even for us angels, it would be quite difficult to achieve these out of thin air. The higher-level and more powerful the magic effect is, the harder it is to control, of course."

"That's why magic provides a simple method to lower the difficulty - chanting. Chanting can help mental strength guide the flow of elements, enabling species like humans who originally could not directly control elements to achieve indirect control. Although we angels can directly control elements, we don't know how to control them. So by learning to chant magic spells, we can get familiar with magic first. Even many high-ranking angels still need chanting to assist mental strength in guiding and controlling when casting high-level magic. But of course, once the proficiency reaches a certain level, we can naturally skip those steps." 

I suddenly recalled the situation when learning the Light Puppet. The reason why I could learn that magic by just watching it performed once was precisely because I learned the specific process of how the light elements flow inside Selene's body.

"Seems so complicated..." However, Cyra who asked the question was left dazed and confused. 

"In other words, most methods of controlling elements were developed by humans through chanting magic spells?"

I was lost in thought for a moment, and suddenly realized that the creativity of angels seemed lacking compared to humans. No wonder Elara valued Reed so highly.

"Of course. After all, just look at the human population. The number of magic researched over so many years far exceeds that of us angels." 

Athena replied with some special examples.

"Before magic came into being, our angel clans had also developed some methods to directly control light elements. They are now collectively referred to as "Primordial Magic". Due to the lack of optimization via chanting, such magic is extremely difficult to learn and control. Nowadays there are not many angels who can still use them. However, they also have many advantages. Precisely because they broke free of restrictions from chanting, their might is tremendous, comparable to forbidden spells that humans would have no chance of learning based on their talents."

"Amazing..." 

I clicked my tongue. A possibility suddenly came to mind. 

"Does that mean, not only for light elements, but in theory as long as one can directly control elements, even for other elements, one can also cast magic without chanting?"

"Yes, of course! Theoretically, that's right." 

My dialogue partner nodded affirmatively. 

"It's just that there are no other elemental beings known similar to angels in this world. Ordinary humans probably wouldn't reach such a level of control."

"What about dark elements then? Shouldn't pure elemental dark beings exist, like vampires, and also..."

I frowned. I suddenly realized there seemed to be many flaws in what she said. Dark elements did appear rather special, with seemingly no corresponding magic. Other than when succubus Camille summoned that small dark sphere to block my Purification Spell, I hadn't seen anyone cast any dark elemental magic. 

"Dark elements? Worthy of a newly born angel to ask this. We angels have always been quite taboo regarding dark elements..."

Athena was surprised by my words. It took her quite a while before she smiled wryly and explained in more detail.

"Theoretically, it is possible for magic to develop from dark elements as well. But there are many objective factors in the emergence of any magic, as I just said earlier. Most magic was developed by humans, but humans are very averse to dark elements. Naturally, they would not allow such magic to exist, much less spend effort developing it. Magical creatures with high dark elemental affinity generally have lower intelligence and prefer physical attacks. So a systematic form of dark elemental magic has not been born yet until now."

At this point she paused slightly, her expression turning more stern. 

"But nothing is absolute in the world. After all some magical creatures are extremely highly dark-elemental-affinity, like the vampires you mentioned. With sufficient talent and luck, they can completely skip the phase of magic and directly control the dark elements for simple elemental attacks, just like us angels. Then things would become dangerous. Due to the mutual restraint between light and dark elements, if an angel is directly attacked by a dark elemental attack, there is no defence. Nothing works, just like how magic beasts are towards light magic spells. Even a small bit of dark elemental attack can cause massive damage."

"I see..."

I suddenly felt somewhat fortunate. In all my time roaming the Dark Continent, other than Camille no magical creature threw any form of dark elemental attack at me. After using Purification Spell so many times, the result on the receiving end was quite clear. 

"But magic is so difficult. And I haven't seen those dark elements or other elements you all were talking about..."

Cyra was left dizzy and disoriented, slumping over the table. At this point, she didn't even know what questions to ask anymore. Lacking practical experience, just listening to these theories alone was indeed a bit tedious and hard to understand.

"Why not just use memory infusion? Wouldn't that save so much trouble?"

"Are you just trying to find an excuse to slack off?" 

I rolled my eyes at her words but was also similarly curious about the reason. Since there was a simpler and more efficient way to learn, why stick to this traditional learning approach that was comparatively more time and effort-consuming instead of memory infusion? 

"The memory infusion function is integrated into the angel descension formation. Based on our current research on that formation, there is no way to separate that function..."

When it came to the angel descension formation, Aetna could only shake her head. It seemed angels declined with each generation. After all, their ancestors were just too powerful.

"Why not try replicating that function? After all, it's just different ways of controlling light elements. As long as you imitate its elemental flow, wouldn't you be able to..."

Applying what I just learned in today's lesson, I proposed a suggestion. Though of course, I didn't expect it would necessarily work. 

"It's not that simple!" 

Aetna rolled her eyes at me. Whatever I could think of, angels would surely have thought of over thousands of years.

"Memory infusion isn't actually about elemental control at all. It's related to the soul! Our research on souls is quite superficial. So we have no way of gaining any control over the memory infusion function at all..."

"What? Memory is within the scope of souls?" 

I was greatly shocked. This completely overturned my previous understanding. On Earth, I knew from various studies that memory was related to the brain. And now she was saying it belonged to the soul???

...

"Of course, memory is related to the soul! Otherwise, how would you have brought your memories when you transmigrated here? "

In the outdoor practice yard of the library, Reed took a bite of an apple she got from who knows where, staring at Nicola who was waving her arms nonstop at the air in the distance without even knowing what she was doing. She didn't even glance at me...

Since Aetna was not very knowledgeable about souls, she couldn't answer my confusion. After class, I directly headed to the library. While browsing magic books, I suddenly recalled this and randomly asked Reed as a fellow transmigrator. Unexpectedly, her response was the same. 

"That can't be right?" 

I stubbornly defended, unwilling to admit defeat. 

"If memory is related to the soul, how do you explain those people with brain damage back on Earth losing memories or being unable to speak, even becoming dementia? That doesn't make sense! And you were a top student of a prestigious university."

"So is it the brain or the soul?" 

Cyra who was standing on the side was completely lost. Her feeling was that both of our arguments made sense and she had no idea who to side with.