Babies First Magic (Rune Creation 1)
“Now, let me teach you how to create your own runes. For most people, the process of creating runes is incredibly difficult, but my ancestor wrote that she found it almost trivial to create her new runes. With any luck, that is something that applies to all heroes," said Sylvia, smiling down at Mary.
Mary allows her annoyed frown to disappear and instead returns the smile, eager to continue her proper magic lessons.
“I will be teaching you how to create your own runes first," Sylvia explained, “and then if we have time, we can see about creating your first basic spell.”
She continued, “You’ve already learned the basic runes for visibility and light; I think the next logical step to work on is a basic fire rune.”
Mary immediately sends an alarmed look at Sylvia, attempting to convey the questions: “Isn’t creating a fire inside a bedroom dangerous? Won’t someone notice if a fireball suddenly appears in the palace?”
Sylvia grins in response. “Nobody will notice. You already showed fantastic control earlier with the light spell! And as long as I’m here, I will be able to suppress the flames; of course, this is all moot if you don’t lose control.” retorted Sylvia, the challenge clear in her voice.
Mary predictably narrows her eyes at Sylvia’s challenge, not entirely willing to let it go.
“Now, how does a mage create a new rune? Well, first off, what are runes?" asked Sylvia rhetorically.
“Runes are the natural shape of mana; if mana is left alone to gather, then it will by itself take the shape of runes matching its surroundings. The specifics of such natural runes are heavily dependent on the surrounding environment, and once they form, they will start to change or enhance that environment further.”
“As such, out there in the world you will be able to find mana springs; usually these mana springs will be of elemental mana, but other factors like native populations could change such things, and at the hearts of those mana springs you will find the runes that helped form them.”
“Supposedly, mages discovered the very first runes by investigating those springs.”
Sylvia goes on to explain further.
“Earlier, when you cast that light spell, you probably felt it, the eagerness of the mana to take the shape of a rune. Mana wants to take the shape of runes and does so with little to no guidance.”
Mary remembers the feeling of the runes forming and can only agree; the moment her intent was clear, the runes twisted into existence with eagerness that was almost alive. Mary blinks at the thought… could mana or runes be considered alive?
“For the majority of mages, when they want to create a new rune for their use, they have to start with long periods of meditating," said Sylvia before adding, “This is the reason why Mage Guilds are so popular; the most basic service available to guild members is access to the guild's runic library.”
“The runic libraries of guilds, especially the large and old ones, tend to be extensive. This is because all of those guilds expect their members to provide all their runic knowledge upon joining; being a member of the guild, of course, gives you access to whatever facilities that guild has to offer, as well as the ability to buy runes from the guild's library.”
“The wealthier guilds actively try to get their members to create new runes. To aid in this, they have designed and constructed mana-isolated meditation chambers; these chambers can aid a mage in the rune creation process.”
Mary frowns at that, isolation chambers are something she would have expected for cultivation-like activities, how would they help with rune creation?
Sylvia, seeing Mary's frown, immediately explains further.
“Ambient mana can interrupt the creation process. A mage is expected to be able to understand their own mana nature, but the world's ambient mana contains all the known mana natures, even if in only minuscule quantities. Those tiny motes of nature are influenced by what is around you: the place that you live, the people nearby, how many there are and what their own alignments are; all of those can influence the ambient mana around you.”
Seeing Mary's accepting nod, Sylvia continues her explanation.
“So if you want to create a light-based rune, but all of the ambient mana around you is ice and darkness, well, that would be incredibly difficult; in fact, the darkness mana is likely to be smothering whatever motes of light nature that might be present. So creating the Light rune in a situation like that would either be outright impossible or take an extremely skilled mage potentially years of effort.”
Once again Mary sends an alarmed look at Sylvia, trying to convey the question: do we really have the time to spend years on this skill? Sylvia smirks in response.
“I already said it, didn’t I? This is a difficult skill for even experienced mages. But you are a hero, and many heroes, even those not focused on magic, have created multiple runes in their lives. I think you can do it; please trust me.” Sylvia finishes, her tone mischievous and certain.
Mary keeps a doubtful look on her face, but seeing the genuine certainty in Sylvia’s eyes, she nods in acceptance. The ability to create her own magic runes without aid would be invaluable… even if she were doubtful that being a hero would really have such an outrageous effect.
Sylvia returns Mary's nod of acceptance with a smile. "Then, the way to do this task is by meditating on your own mana," said Sylvia, beginning her explanation.
“The easiest part of the creation process comes first; all you need to do is grasp your mana from your mana pool, exactly like if you were going to cast a spell.” She gestures dismissively, clearly indicating how easy this part is.
“The next part is the second hardest, you see. Even though your record tells you that your mana alignment is neutral, this is not actually the case. It would be more accurate to say that your neutral mana is Mary-aligned.” said the maid sardonically, causing Mary to blink in surprise.
‘Mary aligned mana? Well, it is my mana, so… the logic does check out. I think that I can see where this discussion is going. In order to create a new rune, it requires truly neutral mana, right?
“The first part of your meditation is to filter out any impurities in your mana, including any mana alignments except for true neutrality. This, as you might expect, is easier said than done, because your internal mana is, of course, yours, and worse, it stems from your soul, and so its natural state of being is to be aligned with you, with your thoughts.” said Sylvia, a complicated tone in her voice.
“Supposedly you can achieve this by removing all intrusive thoughts from your mind and then essentially forcing this blank state of being onto your mana.” Sylvia continued, but Mary noticed the existence of the word 'supposedly' in the explanation and couldn't help but stare.
‘Sylvia’s never actually created a rune herself, has she?’ Mary thinks to herself flatly.
“Once the mana you are controlling is truly neutral, once it has been completely stripped of all alignment and aspect, then you need to bring it out of yourself, as if you're going to use the mana to cast a spell.” said Sylvia.
“And this next part is deceptively difficult too, because you need to have impeccable control to shield that now neutral mana from all of the ambient mana around you. Even a single mote of aspected mana brushing up against it will cause it to no longer be truly neutral, and you will have to start again." she continued.
“This is why those guild isolation chambers are so valuable. They can be drained of all mana alignment; once a mage enters the chamber and it is sealed, the mana within becomes wholly theirs. The creation technique they use is different, as they can skip the mana extraction process and take control of the mana in the chamber itself instead.”
Sylvia adds offhand, “So, the worry of ambient mana is absent in those isolation chambers, and the more expensive ones are supposedly built to draw out all non-true-neutral mana. That might be a lie told by those guilds, though," Sylvia finishes with disdain.
“With the neutral mana under control, you need to force it to take the shape of the rune you desire to create.” said Sylvia.
“You have already experienced part of this when you cast that light spell.” she adds for clarity.
“But it is more complicated than simply ordering a rune to take shape. Creating new runes requires practice, intent and, above all, patience, because, to continue using fire as an example, what else does the thought of fire invoke?” Sylvia again asks rhetorically.
“Telling some mana to form into a fire could instead cause it to become a heat rune, for what is fire but heat? It might become a light rune, because fire also means light, maybe a life rune, for there cannot be life as we know it without fire, or perhaps even something more abstract like a passion rune. Any concept associated with fire has the potential to become the rune that forms, rather than the one you are actually trying to create."
“And the moment the mana forms into an incorrect rune, you need to start the process all over again. Because the mana that you had so carefully purified now has an incorrect aspect." Said Sylvia, finishing her explanation with an amused smile.
“Earlier you panicked, but I think you misunderstood something.” Sylvia smirked down at Mary, knowing that she had intentionally caused that misunderstanding.
“All of what might be considered the basic runes have already been created. Furthermore, if you tell neutral mana to become fire, then by far the most likely outcome would be a fire rune.”
“The years worth of effort I mentioned earlier? That is for advanced and exotic runes, or even unique interpretations. A basic fire rune is among the easiest runes to achieve, and as long as you can clear all intent from your mana, I have no doubt you will create one immediately.”
‘Basic runes? You skipped over it earlier when you showed me Visibility and Light. So, there are multiple runes for even fire then? Basic, Advanced or Exotic?’ Mary glared at Sylvia, willing her to understand her question.
“Yes, as you briefly learnt with those other runes. Mana has its own grammar and vocabulary that are not really lesser to our own language; you can even check it to some degree in a runes Akashic Record.”
Sylvia, seeing the surprise in Mary’s eyes, nods in confirmation. “Oh yes, I already showed you that runes have their own record, of course; it's the main way that the components of a rune can be proved and how runes are usually learned.”
“The grammar rules of mana runes are simple enough; you build any individual rune with the following structure: [Level] [Power] [Extras] [Main]. As you might be able to guess, there is some significant overlap on what [Level] and [Power] actually do.”
"'Level' is also called 'sophistication' or 'scale'; think of a fire again. A [Basic] example of a fire might be the fire created by a match or spark, the simplest, most primitive form of fire that you will find. On the other extreme is something like [Grand]; for a fire rune, this would result in a fire that takes the form of plasma. Isn't that a very advanced form of fire?" Sylvia questions with a smile.
“The other regular form of runic grammar is 'Power', which is also called 'magnitude'; to continue the previous example, a [Least] power level for fire would be scarcely more than a spark, a [Grand] power level, on the other hand, would be a city-devouring inferno. Between the two there are some fairly interesting runes, like a [Supreme] [Least] [Fire] rune that would create a ball of plasma the size of a marble," she says in amusement. “Or a [Basic][Grand][Fire] that would be a spark the size of a large farm.”
“Finally, we have the special category, which includes extra or additional factors.” This is simply the extra factors that are applied to the rune in question; unlike the level and power categories, there is no theoretical maximum to the number of special modifiers that can be added to a rune.”
“This combination can result in a singular rune that is something like [Basic] [Least] [Cold] [Fire], the weakest, most basic fire possible, and due to the extra category present within the rune, the fire burns a freezing cold," said Sylvia, amusement plain in her voice. “Of course, there is also a rune for [Cold Fire] directly. Which means you can absolutely have a [Basic] [Least] [Hot] [Cold Fire]. Now, I have no idea why someone would bother putting in the effort to create such a contradictory rune; all I can say is that Elizabeth always used to accuse me of being a meathead, so I have no idea why someone would bother going that far.” she said in a surprising bout of self-deprecation.
Mary sends a questioning look at Sylvia, trying to ask about what the existence of a [Cold Fire] main rune implies; after a few moments, Sylvia seems to understand her question.
“Cold fire? Yes, the main part of a rune doesn’t need to be a single word. You can consider it to be the concept that you intend the rune to be based around.” Sylvia answers.
“To continue, there is no known limit to how many extra modifiers can be added during the rune creation process. So you can also create a monster like [Basic] [Least] [Cold] [Intense] [Raging] [Blinding] [Passionate] [Fire]. Now, such a large number of keywords increases the difficulty in creating the rune massively; that example I just gave you is a genuine rune that exists as a sort of showcase for new mages, and supposedly it took the better part of a decade to finalise.”
Sylvia said, shaking her head in confusion, “The reason for it taking so long would, of course, be because of the contradictory nature of the rune.”
“But there are benefits to creating such a complex rune; the increase in complexity increases the amount of mana required to inscribe such a rune. The consequence of the increased mana cost means that even using [Basic] and [Least] modifiers, it is still a decently powerful rune.”
“That rune cast by itself would burn intensely, it would rage uncontrollably, and it would burn brightly and passionately. The fire itself would also freeze anything it touched instead of burning it. These are abilities that a basic fire rune cannot achieve."
“And this is why mages still dedicate so much time to rune creation; they spend months or even years adding additional modifiers to their favoured runes, trying to create the most complex and thus most powerful runes that they can. Such runes when used together in a spell circle result in tremendously powerful spells, spells worthy of arch-mages or heroes." Sylvia finishes her explanation with a bemused smile.
“Now, close your eyes and try to purify your intent from your mana. Let us see if you can create a basic fire rune, shall we?” said Sylvia, her eyes momentarily locked with Mary's.