Babies First Magic (Akashic Record)
She turns to look at Mary, a sad and knowing look in her eyes.
“Enough of these terrible matters. Let's get to teaching you magic, shall we?”
Mary smiles at Sylvia eagerly in response; the information about her mother and the state of slavery on Terra had been interesting and depressing in equal measure, but learning about her new world's magic might make all of the talk of slavery worth it.
“Now, I have no doubt that you have tried to figure things out yourself in what little time you’ve had. But my ancestor wrote that some of the things in the Akashic Record were surprising or less than intuitive.” Sylvia begins.
‘Akashic record? Does she mean the system interface?’ Mary sends a confused look at Sylvia, who responds with an amused smile.
“Yes, many otherworlders have referred to it as the System Interface or the Akashic Record nearly interchangeably. Referring to the interface that appears before you as the Akashic Record is somewhat old-fashioned and suggests a greater emphasis on magical knowledge, while calling it 'The System' or 'System Interface' is a more casual and less scholarly approach. They both more or less mean the same thing, and it largely comes down to preference.” Mary's expression quickly changes to one of comprehension as Sylvia explains.
It was understandable, Mary thinks; assuming things had not changed for thousands of years, then more knowledgeable ancient or medieval people from Earth would probably have considered a magical font of knowledge to be the legendary Akashic Record. On the other hand, people from the early twenty-first century onwards would have known to use the terms 'system' or 'interface'.
‘I wonder if records have been kept on when the term "interface" first appeared. That could narrow down the time differential between Terra and Earth.’ Mary wonders to herself.
“Then, let's quickly talk about the interface and what it contains.” Sylvia picks up where she had left off. “Try to inspect my record.” she orders Mary.
Mary nods in acceptance before focusing on Sylvia, interested in what she will see.
Object:
Adult Human Maid
Name:
Sylvia
Race:
Human
Title:
B-Rank Adventurer, Maid, Hero Descendant
Mana Density:
High
Mana Quality:
High
Mana Quantity:
High
Mana Alignment:
Force
Description:
Sylvia is a maid of the Midgard royal family.
She promptly becomes confused by the record presented to her. There is clearly information missing in comparison to her record, unless Mary is supposed to believe that Sylvia had no parents to speak of.
“Hehe.” Sylvia giggles at the confusion on Mary's face. "Let this be your very first lesson.”
“While only the most skilled mages can manage to force their records to lie, which is akin to lying to oneself, doctoring a record to include only the desired information is much simpler.” Sylvia's shoulders continue to shake in near silent laughter, and Mary throws a glare at her.
“The suppression of your record will be the first thing that I teach you; learning it is of the utmost importance. If anyone sees the 'Hero' title in your record, then they will immediately realise that you are a reincarnator.” Sylvia explains, causing a frown of worry to spread across Mary's face. Can she learn it so easily?
But Sylvia quickly notices the Marys' worry and moves to reassure her.
“It’s not that difficult, really. If you were a normal baby, then some amount of worry would be warranted, but my ancestors' writings assure me that it’s easy enough to pick up for heroes; supposedly the technique is similar to one used on Earth for something. And even if it weren’t, I don’t expect you to be inspected anytime soon. As long as you don’t give anything away to the other maids, then you’ll be fine.” she says with a reassuring smile on her face.
Mary looks at Sylvia and nods in acceptance.
“Good. Now let's get to explaining that interface, shall we? You might have guessed some of the details yourself, but bare with me.” Sylvia says happily, “The things that need clarification are titles and the mana aspects.”
Mary blinks in confusion; were the titles not self-explanatory?
Once more, Sylvia observed the confusion and accurately deduced its purpose.
“Titles are one of the few things in your record that can be changed by external factors; for instance, I have the titles of B-rank adventurer and maid. Both of these are titles that were given to me by others, in the former case from the adventurers' guild and in the latter case from the Royal Family.”
“How important is a title? Well, scholars and previous heroes believe that titles grant minor benefits in relation to the titles given, but the evidence has always been circumstantial. I bring it up because my experience with the maid title causes me to think that there are actually benefits.” Sylvia smiles amusedly. “I was not a good maid before I was given that title. While we were adventuring, Elizabeth used to accuse me of being able to burn water, but these days I can cook very well.” she finished with a soft but sad smile.
“This information is relevant to you because you have the Hero title. There is not a single title in all the world that is more coveted; if my experience with the maid title is anything to go by… then the benefits should be significant. Of course, you also have a princess title, and the benefits of that will likely compound with your hero title.”
Mary nods thoughtfully; what Sylvia has explained thus far matches what she would have expected. Typically, something like a Hero title would come with benefits to skills learning speed or level-up status corrections; a princess might get similar, although less significant, benefits. All of which would mean that her power creep would be naturally greater than other people in this world.
Sylvia, seeing Mary's look of understanding, opts to continue.
“The aspects of mana are more complicated than they seem. We have density, quality, quantity and alignment. Quantity is the most self-explanatory of these, as you no doubt expect; it represents how much mana a person actually has.” Sylvia begins, “According to the notes of my ancestor, you might have wondered why it is represented with words instead of numbers."
“Part of that is because putting a number to it is actually very difficult, quantity-wise, while the most easily understood aspect of mana is still highly dependent on the other mana aspects.”
"Additionally, all aspects of mana are displayed in relation to your current physical state. You, Princess, have a massive amount of mana for a newborn baby – what the interface calls 'extreme'. But for an average adult, your current mana quantity would still be considered low."
Mary nods; she had assumed it would be something like that.
“Incidentally, the reason nobody realised you have such massive mana reserves is because of your proximity to first Elizabeth, whose mana signature is very similar to yours, and then me. I picked you up as soon as you were born and shielded you from their attention.” Sylvia adds this offhand, and Mary promptly looks at her with a look of gratitude.
“Next we have density," Sylvia continues. "According to my ancestors' notes, you might be confused about why density and quality are both important.”
“Density is about the weight and the viscosity of the mana. In nature, sufficiently dense mana can thicken until it forms liquid mana pools.” Mary nods in understanding, the existence of liquid mana being something that she would have expected. “If mana continues to densify after becoming a liquid, it will start to solidify into a mana crystal.”
That causes Mary to raise her eyebrows; mana crystals are another thing that Earth fiction had theorised. Upon reflection, the connection to mana pools also makes sense. Sylvia notices Mary's look of interest at the mention of mana crystals and chooses to explain further.
“Mana crystals aren’t really my area of expertise," Sylvia says with an apologetic smile. "The crafting professions primarily use mana crystals and mana liquids. I have mostly used them when augmenting my enchantments.” she finishes.
At that moment, Mary frowns. While their use by crafters as a material makes sense, she wonders why their potential as a cultivation resource was not mentioned. Surely dense mana can be used in a similar way to Sylvia’s mana-rich milk? Would their natural mana alignment not help with gaining your own alignment of that nature? Sylvia notices her frown again and tries to continue the conversation.
“Oh? I’m sorry, but I’m really not an expert on mana crystals. The palace has an extensive library that includes a large amount of magical knowledge. I promise to make sure you can read the language of Midgard later.” Sylvia finishes apologetically.
With a shake of her head, she continues where she had left off.
“But mana solidification is what happens in nature; for a person, mana density is indeed very similar to mana quality. The effects it has on a person's magic are generally similar; high density can increase how many spells you can cast or how powerful they are, but there are some unique differences too.”
“For instance, earlier when I lost control of my mana, it started to feel like you were being crushed, didn’t it?” Sylvia sends an apologetic look at Mary. “That is an effect of high mana density; you can consider it the truly physical property of your mana." she finishes.
“Mana quality, on the other hand, could be considered the sharpness of your mana, how smoothly it can flow to any given place. In nature, high-quality mana is ferociousness.”
“Considering we live in cold and snowy Midgard, I will use ice mana as an example; natural high-quality mana in Midgard causes ice and snow storms. Unlike density, which settles and stops moving to become physically solid, quality mana continues to move faster and can even cut through objects.”
Sylvia adopts a look of consideration. “But as mana aspects, they don’t counter each other. Increasing the mana quality of some highly dense mana will not stop it from solidifying; it just makes the resulting liquid have a higher degree of quality.”
"Finally, we have alignment. According to my ancestor, you should already have some understanding of this; supposedly it is similar to what you would recognise as an element.” Sylvia starts with a smile.
“I can understand somewhat why you might call it an element; in nature, mana often has an elemental affinity, like with my previous example with Midgard’s ice-aligned mana. But alignment is not as constrained as my ancestor thought it would be when she arrived on Terra.”
“You will have noticed that my alignment is with Force. This means I have worked to make my mana more suitable to force magic to enhance physical forces. Unlike Elizabeth, who was almost a pure spellcaster, I’m a much more physical fighter and use my force magic to enhance my physical blows. I can also use force magic to lessen physical hits so that I can endure. ” the former adventurer happily explains.
“I have focused my alignment on Force mana exclusively, but more skilled mages can have multiple alignments. Your mother, for instance, had aligned her mana with five different elements and often combined those elements for varying effects.”
Sylvia smiles with nostalgia as she once again mentions Elizabeth.
“Not that you can’t use mana types that you're not aligned with; it is something that increases your power and ease of use, rather than restricting what you can do.”
“The disadvantages of having multiple alignments primarily involve the effort needed to achieve each alignment. And that difficulty is something that escalates as you increase the number of your alignments. But with resources and talent, half a dozen alignments are something that you as a hero should be able to easily achieve, just like your mother did"
Sylvia continues with a smile.
“But there are serious time constraints; only the longer-lived peoples of the world, like the Elves and Dragons, are likely to have a dozen or more alignments." she finishes.
Mary looks interested at the mention of Elves and Dragons, those are some real fantasy races right there. But Sylvia looks at her interest and shakes her head, indicating that she will have to learn about those in her own time.
“All of these mana aspects are interlinked. The number of spells you can throw around is dependent on all four of the mana aspects; if the spells that you are using match your alignment, then all of them are automatically more powerful while taking less energy.”
“High mana quality, especially with proper spellcasting equipment, greatly increases the efficiency of your spellcasting." Sylvia briefly explains.
“High density has less influence on spell efficiency and more influence on spell power.” she adds.
“All of those together with your absolute mana quantity ultimately decide how much magic you can cast over any given period of time.”
Sylvia ends her explanation of the basics of Terra’s magic system with a smile.
“Now, Princess, I think it’s about time you learned how to suppress your magic and shield your records from prying eyes.” Sylvia proclaims with an eager smile.