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Of Arms and Arcane: Chapter 81
🕑 Added 2024-04-10 07:16:16 +0000 UTC“So… you are telling me you came from a technologically advanced world that is devoid of mana or magic, in any of its forms?” Sageira clarified with me after spending the last few hours telling her about my first life while she kept interrupting with questions.
“Well, as far as I know… mana and magic are relegated to the realms of function, fantasy, charlatans, and con artists trying to start weird sex cults. If magic actually exists in my old world, it is most likely a secret that is being kept from the majority of the population.” I replied while giving a tried shrug.
Hearing this, Sageira leans back in her chair while picking up and stirring a cup of tea from a tea set I somehow did not notice appearing.
Seeing the lull in the conversation, I took the chance to ask a question of my own, “Emm…Professor Sageira, when I attacked you with magic… why did you call it Instinctive magic… are there others that can do the same thing I can do?”
After taking a sip of her tea, she rested her cup on the table and asked, “Luke, have you ever fought magic beasts? And I am not talking about goblins or kobolds.”
Shaking my head, I answered, “No, my father only lets me tag along on goblin or kobold culling missions, anything bigger than that, he would only bring his knights. Why do you ask?”
“Unlike goblins or kobolds who have more in common with the enlightened races in the way they apply magic, magic beasts cast magic very much in the same way you did, be it instinctually or with the help of a specialized mana organ in their body, over the millennia I have been around, I have only ever seen around ten people use Instinctive magic. But unlike those special individuals and magic beasts who can cast only one element, at most two, you seem to be capable of casting multiple elements without issue. Now why is that?” Sageira asked the last part as she leaned forward with predatory eyes.
I leaned back at her powerful gaze as I stammered out, “I, umm… as long as I know the makeup of an element and how it behaves, it becomes a lot easier to manipulate when you know what you are looking for. Take water for example, what is water made of?” I asked her.
Sageira looked at me like I was an idiot, “Water is made of water, what else could it be?”
“Well, yes and no.” I then requested a candle and a cup of pure water if she had it, she waved her hand, and a candle and a glass bottle of water floated from under the teacher’s desk over to me.
I opened the cork and set the bottle on the table, “What you said is true, water is water, but what makes up water is the real question.” I said as I got into the swing of the impromptu chemistry lesson I saw online, but now with the help of some magic and mana.
I willed the water out of the bottle into a ball between us, “Water is actually made out of two gases, and with a little persuasion of electricity or lighting, we can separate the two.” I then ionized the air on the left and right of the ball of water and started zapping it.
After a minute of sending a continuous low current into the water ball, there were two hazy balls of gas that I captured with Molecular Magic, or Instinctive Magic as Sageira calls it.
Once I got what I needed, I put the rest of the water I had not used back into the bottle, walked a few paces away from the table, lit the candle, and placed it on the floor, “From the water, I extracted these two gasses, what we call Hydrogen and Oxygen in my old world.” I said as I gestured to the two balls of gas when I introduced them, the Hydrogen gas ball being almost twice as big as the Oxygen ball.
“Fascinating, your people were able to perform such feats and you say magic did not exist in your world. Are you sure?” Sageira asked, her eyes changed to their reptile slit pupils as she observed the whole process.
“Yes, I am sure this is not magic, this is what can be achieved with science. Oh, by the way, there are some errors in the Natural Science class textbook, I will point it out to you later. Moving on.” I turned my attention back to the lit candle.
“That flame spell I shot at your illusion was using Oxygen to feed my flames, like so.” I brought the Oxygen ball in front of the candle and directed a controlled flow at the candle, this accelerated the candle’s fire as the candle wax started to melt away at a fast rate. I stopped before the candle got halfway.
I then took many steps back away from the candle for my next demonstration. “This is the other gas that makes up water, Hydrogen.” I sent the ball of hydrogen at the candle, and upon contact, there was a boom, accompanied by a ball of fire, and the candle sent flying.
“As you can see, once the components and behavior of the elements are understood, it becomes a lot easier to manipulate with mana and do different things with it. Which brings me to my own questions, what do you mean ‘most’ magic beasts and people like me can cast only one or two elements, that implies there are others that can cast three or all elements, and what are you? Because I am pretty sure you are anything but a sweet old lady.” I asked with some trepidation.
Sageira looks at me with her slit reptile eyes, then showed me her teeth with a grin, but they were not the teeth I saw before while we were talking, they were sharp pointed fangs that looked like they were used to rend flesh from bone. “Those two questions have kind of the same answer in this case, there are magic beasts who manage to live long enough to gain enough wisdom and intelligence to manipulate mana in ways that their more simple kin are not able to, as for people like you, there are those who gained insight and control over one of two elements like you do, but most of them are the results of magical exprements that implant magic beasts’ mana organ into their bodies. Then there are things like me.”
Suddenly, Sageira’s aged wrinkled skin started morphing into white scales, horns started to grow from her forehead and curve back, her body started to grow in size and she unbuttoned her robe and tossed it aside before it tore apart from her growth.
She then got onto her hands and feet as her neck elongated, from there, other parts of her body started to grow, her face started growing into a snout, leathery wings sprouted from her back, and a tail grew from her rear.
As Sageira ballooned in size, I was forced to back up as the table and chairs were pushed aside to make room for Sageira’s new size.
When half the classroom was filled, before me was a classic western style white dragon.
“Holy shit…” was the only thing I could mutter to myself.
