Magic

A complicated abomination

Magic is a vast scientific field, much like engineering, with its own rules and uses. It’s uncommon enough—mostly due to attitude of commoners towards it—to make it expensive to hire magicians for everyday purposes.

Introduction

As defined by The Meszar School of Magic, Magic is a field of study concerned with the application, examination and usage of Mana for purposes that would generally defy purely physical laws.

Magic's purpose of existence isn't clear, nor were the events that led to its inception; mana wasn’t always there.

Drawbacks

What makes many commoners avoid practicing magic is its drawbacks. Casting spells results in negative damage, which can manifest as hallucinatory or physical, on the caster. For example, casting a simple lightning bolt will often lead to sharp abdominal pain. Casting it twice results in gastro-intestinal bleeding.

With the exception of a few simple or unique spells, damage will always manifest as mental or psychological damage, often taking the shape of scary hallucinations. With time, magicians may learn to adapt to these hallucinations to push the boundaries of how many spells they can cast in succession. However, overuse of magic will seriously harm the caster's state of mind permanently.

Mana

Introduction

Inseparable from Magic, it’s the fuel of the wonderful machinery—magicians. It is comparable to energy in the way that it is convertible, but Mana is not perfectly finite. Both reserve Mana and free Mana replenish with time without a detectable consumption or conversion in any substance. This has always been the subject of a heated debate, as to whether Mana is actually infinite or if there’s some hidden mechanism involved.

Mana’s conversions to other substances and energy is not random. In fact, it can be said with certainty that there is nothing random about Magic. The only variables that affect the casting are the type of mana being used and the quantity.

There exists 2 types of Mana: Free and Reserve. The first is similar to air and is found everywhere, while the latter is only found in people. For the most part, the other differences between them are mostly negligible.

Measurements & Conversions

For a long time, Mana’s measurements have always been inconsistent and rarely accurate enough for a scientific approach, particularly free mana. However, thanks to Earl Wale J. Quotri, to whom the basis of modern day Mana measurements are accredited, this changed.

Measurements concerning Mana are tied to chemical moles. It is understood that Mana, especially reserve mana, is an aether-like substance made of hypothetically countable entities that resemble molecules. However, this substance is non-divisible, due to an extremely powerful force of attraction between said entities. These entities can be changed to all kinds of atoms and molecules. However, the conversion is not perfectly 1:1.

1 mol R. Mana → 1 mol water
1 mol R. Mana → 18 mol Hydrogen
1 mol R. Mana → 0.32 mol Iron

These calculations are viable for a magician casting in a void—an area of 210 m² devoid of free mana. So, a magician casting a simple water bolt in such conditions will produce 36 liters(= 2000 moles) of water. In actuality, such a spell, under normal conditions where plenty of free mana exists, will produce 54 liters; a third of the output(water produced) is from free mana alone. The ratio between the amount of free and reserve mana used, termed as “F.R. Ratio”, is not set in stone.

In conclusion,

 1 mol R. Mana → (M/18) mol
F.R. Ratiosubstance = M × 1/36

Where M is the molar mass of the output substance.

— Aszraf FF et al;Introduction to Magic: A Comprehensive Approach. Mana Conversions(Substances). 96th ed. Baszura: MMS Print.

Unlike substances, Mana’s conversion to energy(Joules) is a lot more straight-forward and simpler. However, the F.R. Ratio is different.

In purely mathematical terms,

1 mol R. Mana → 198 kJ
F.R. Ratioenergy ∝ energy output

The F.R. Ratio for the production of 198 kJ is roughly 1:54; as energy produced increases, this ratio increases at a significantly higher rate. This has implications which beginning magicians ought to take in mind—converting Mana to energy, in general, has worse effects on casters and can deplete the caster’s reserve fairly quickly.

— Aszraf FF et al;Introduction to Magic: A Comprehensive Approach. Mana Conversions(Energy). 96th ed. Baszura: MMS Print.

Voids

Voids are areas of at least 210 m² where free mana has been depleted or doesn’t exist. They exist throughout Daria and the rest of the world. Although a natural phenomenon, temporary voids can be created. For unknown reasons, the geographical distribution of Mana is not equal throughout the world. Voids are generally empty, often inhospitable due to harsh terrains—be it mountains or deserts—and show no signs of life. The farther one goes north, the more frequent they become, particularly outside of the Darian continent.

Once in a void, a person will start burning their reserve mana at a certain rate depending on their body mass and heart rate:

Rate = (HR/3) × (mbody/6) + 20

For example, a person of 70 kg with a HR of 85, upon exposure to a void, will burn R. Mana at a rate of 60 mol/min. Assuming they’re untrained and have a humble reserve of 83000 mol, they will die in about 23 hours or a day.

As my mentor always said, a good magician is also a good athlete. Having an athletic body lowers the basal heart rate down to 40, making a magician less likely to die during a battle of attrition where the battlefield has been turned into a void.

— Szahar AS, Amgad MS;A Brief Study of Voids. Introduction & Rate of R. Usage. Baszura: MMS Print.

Casting

Applying one’s knowledge of magic to the real world, also known as casting, is a fundamental part of Magic. While casting is very simple, an untrained magician is very prone to produce sub-optimal results—a phenomenon known as a “spoil” in Meszarian schools, and a “blunder” in the rest of Daria.

Normally, when a magician casts a spell, they envision the output as clear as sunlight in their minds. Spoils, or blunders, come as a result of either having something else in mind, or a foggy imagination. In worst case scenarios, the caster might die of Hypomagia or suffer serious damage.

As a way to avoid blunders, magicians attach spells to “words”—often gibberish—which when said, will evoke a clear mental image of the spell they intend to cast. Magicians may also avoid using magic when troubled, and live a “stress-free” life.

Post-Cast Damage

Under normal conditions, magicians will suffer damage after casting a spell. This damage may take many forms depending on the type of substance or energy being produced, as the following table shows:

Type	Damage Incurred 1st cast
Movement	Numbness of limbs
Light	Abdominal pain
Sound	Auditory hallucinations
Heat/Fire	2nd degree burns
Metal	Visual hallucinations
Ground & Stone	Impaired vision

These are examples only. Students of magic often memorize long tables of damages based on type and energy up to the 6th cast.

Artifacts of Magic

Artifacts are items which often resemble mundane objects, but can bend the laws of Magic or significantly change magic. These artifacts are rare and are only found in natural voids. The most famous of artifacts are the wands of Sabrima: they are dried-up tree branches that make post-cast damage insignificant or negligible, though they greatly increase F.R. Ratios(often to more than 1:1700).

The mechanism by which artifacts are made is unknown.

Geographical distribution of Mana throughout Daria; Voids shown as the darkest shade