The rules of magic

While much of the knowledge and wisdom of the Era of Progression has been lost, the magic arts have withstood the passing of time much better than other. The many mages throughout the past millennium have stubbornly held onto the arcane advancements of the old world, preserving the most useful and essential magical knowhow.

The first yet most important preserved arcane practice is spell formulas. By forming a boundary through the engravings of a staff, mana conductive ink on a page or even creating one out of one's mana, a sort of magical circuit can be made. From creating a force missile all the way to creating a magical clone of oneself, the purpose of these boundaries is to direct inputted mana to achieve a specific effect. They are made up of simple geometric shapes, be it circles, triangles, squares, pentagons and so forth, placed and pieced together in a way that when mana is supplied it is channeled to create its desired and normally very specific effect, requiring a caster to have a solid understanding of the mathematics required for a spell. However, the user must supply the right level of mana to the spell. Too little mana can cause a spell to collapse on itself and produce no result, whereas too much mana can overload a spell causing it to overflow its boundary.

A spell that uses a boundary is known as a "structured spell" and is what differentiates a spell from a cantrip. A cantrip on the other hand is the application of mana without a structure, such as the simple application of a force. Many cantrips are actually used to practice one's mastery of mana with the most common and basic exorcise being to lift a pebble from the palm of one's hand, to change the shape of the pebble and finally to make the pebble ignite, all via the application of mana. While cantrips on their own can be useful, practicing cantrips allows for better control and mastery of one's own mana. Better control and mastery could mean a verity of things, such as being able to create a spell boundary quicker, being able to channel the correct level of mana into a spell more consistently or even being able to both create a boundary out of mana and channel it in the midst of a battle.

Creating a boundary out of mana is a difficult and sometimes time-consuming task, to do so quickly requires both a thorough understanding and a lot of experience with the specific spell being cast as the entire formula must be committed to memory. In the case of creating a spell boundary out of mana sometimes memory techniques are used similar to the spellcasting of old, such as drawing shapes in the air with one's finger or reciting words to do with a spell, while these can assist with the creation of a spell boundary it does make it more obvious that a mage is preparing something. To truly master a spell, one must have practiced it and understand it to the point where they can cast the spell on a simple reflex. Be it the flick of a finger or a maneuver of their body, such a state is known as a reflex cast.

  While the use of structured spells comes as a great convenience primarily wizards, all spell casters benefit from the arcane practice as all need to channel mana or a similar energy into an effect. A cleric or paladin both receive divine energy from their god; warlock from their patron; a druid channels mana from the living beings around them; a sorcerer uses their source of mana and an ingrained knowledge of how to manipulate spell boundary (however unless they study the magical arts will struggle to create new spells).

As a spell boundary is effectively a formula to perform a spell it can be engraved into objects, spellcasters with a lower proficiency in creating or understanding spell boundaries can engrave simple spells onto things like wooden rods or use a double page spread in a book with mana conducting ink, allowing them to cast spells without having to create a boundary out of mana. Those that are better versed in the art of spell boundaries might be able to fit a spell that requires a footlong rod or multiple extended pages onto a simple cast ring. Even with such a level of understanding, spells of higher levels may require the space of a plate the size of a palm, a ten-centimeter cube or even the floor of a small room and so on, with the size required growing exponentially for higher level spells.

Because of the formulaic nature of the magical arts the arcane has basically become another form of science. A spellcaster with sufficient understanding of the spells of a specific discipline can create new spells, be it by modifying an existing one or creating something new, the biggest requirement for such a thing however is the time and testing required to succeed in doing so.