On the Arcane: Magical Energy and Its Practical and Theoretical Applications

During the 260's of the 7th era as industry became more and more widespread, the application of scientific principles to more and more aspects of everyday life grew symbiotically with it. The greatest minds of the era raced to achieve a full understanding of the supernatural. Many different traditions and superstitions around the world held pieces of the truth, but not the whole of it.

This treatise, its first edition being completed in 262, was the first to provide a proper understanding of magic to the masses. While many mysteries remain to this day, hundreds of years later, it is still a foundational text in all things magic. It draws a distinct line between Soul Energy and Magical Energy where other minds at the time felt they were two sides of the same coin. This was Kinuko's most controversial claim, but all attempts to prove it wrong failed. Soul Energy is only briefly described in this text in order to keep it focused on the nature of, what Kinuko felt was more broadly useful, Magical Energy as she called it.

While she had set out with the goal of dispelling all mystery from the supernatural that task has proven impossible due to what she declared The Chaos Factor.

Alignment

While both Magical Energy and Soul Energy had long been harnessed by people for practical use. It was always a dangerous power to use and often lead to unexpected negative outcomes. It had long been observed that during many magical practices in the past a glowing energy was gathered around and it was known that different colors of Drakokrystal were only useful for some kinds of magic. Kinuko, like many others at the time and before her, recognized the link between these colors and the type of magical effect produced and each declared their own nomenclature for it. The "Alignment" system outlined in this work is widely accepted as the standard naming for these types of Energy.

The Alignments are as follows:

• Alteration: Yellow; magic that causes physical changes in inanimate objects
• Illusion: Teal; magic that deceives the mind or effects the perception of reality
• Kinetic: Blue; magic that causes physical movement or leverages related forces
• Life Manipulation: Green; magic that causes physical changes in living things, reanimates the dead, or animates the inanimate
• Thermic: Red; magic that deals with thermal energy
• Witchcraft: Purple; magic that concerns diseases and curses

Aethegen

After years of research, Kinuko was able to determine that Magical Energy flows into the world from another plane of existence distict from both that of mortals and of the Gods. She refers to this as the Aether. She was able to observe that Magical Energy, while not a physical substance, has some similar behaviors to a gas. In it's natural state, it is considered to be Unaligned in her Alignment model and is called Aethegen. When enough Magical Energy is condensed in a small space, it begins to glow. The Alignments glow their respective colors, while Unaligned Aethegen glows with a pure white light. The text details a way to measure how much Aethegen is present with the unit of measurement being named after herself as SK.

Spells, Alchemy, and Enchantments

On the practical applications of magic, a discussion of the nature and creation of spells is the largest section of the text. In brief, the core principal of spellcasting is gathering Magical Energy of the right alignment and imparting the intent of the effect you wish to create on it before releasing the energy. For most people the only way to get the correctly aligned energy is to have one or more Drakokystals of the right color and capacity. There are some people who Kinuko titles Arcanists. Arcanists can pull in Magical Energy from the environment around them and align it through their will alone. In any case, the intent must be imparted on the Energy to have the desired effect. If the mind is not focused properly, then the spell will almost certainly fizzle out or go catastrophically awry. Traditions around spells, many created without full understanding of the nature of Magical Energy, create a structure for the mind to use to attain the needed focus to cast a spell successfully.

The traditional incantations handed down by previous generations are a shortcut to achieve the needed focus of intent required to harness Aethegen in practical application. These were developed by our forebears through their own methods and what worked with an acceptable degree of reliability was kept. One does not need to follow these traditions to achieve the same effects in the same way that one does not need to purchase furniture from a carpenter. While it is not necessary to rely only on extant spell formulae, it is simply more efficient for the average aspiring magic user to allow specialists to work out the finer points.

— Sonoda Kinuko

The related disciplines of Alchemy and Enchantment are also touched on to a lesser extent. The general process of Enchanting an item is similar to casting a spell, but with the intent of creating a more permanent effect. Kinuko elected to simply overview the process and leave a more detailed examination of the process to be explored in other texts. She treated Alchemy much the same way, but did clarify the differences between what she called Old Alchemy, Modern Chemistry, and her proposed New Alchemy. Old Alchemy is her title for all the old traditional practices that combined some supernatural elements with natural remedies developed in a less scientifically rigorous manner. This manner of curing illnesses began falling out of favor in the early 200's of the 7th era in favor of the scientifically researched Chemistry. While many such remedies have been proven to work, the supernatural angle of it was was dropped in favor of more reliable methods. New Alchemy focuses on taking the findings of chemists and adding the supernatural element back in at the end, enhancing the properties of the chemicals produced.

The Chaos Factor

While Kinuko rigorously researched all things magical, there were always strange and unrepeatable results, a facet of the supernatural that has stumped many a scientific mind. While she too was unable to pin down its exact nature, her research indicated that the cause of this Chaos Factor was Magical Energy's origin from another plane of existence. As such, there is some level of incompatibility between its source reality and the reality that they call home.

In practice, The Chaos Factor can cause spells, even ones cast correctly, to have unexpected side effects. It can also interfere when utilizing Magical Energy in other ways. Ultimately, it is the reason that while magic is used to great effect in some cases, society at large avoids relying on magic for important tasks and structures.