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[_DivideByZero_]

Update 28


The afternoon classes started after the suns reached their highest point in the sky, and snow started melting all around. Soon, the gardens across campus began to show their full splendor. The occasional construct can be seen watering plants, and a slight hiss can be heard from their watering cans along with a fine mist rising out of the top.


(Correct me if you meant to pick a different class, Irony. You didn't respond back on page 18)

Dan and Murble attended class at the Earth Building, joining the class "Intro to Earth." The professor, a friendly dwarf called Coru, whose eyes always look half-asleep, sits at his desk, which is shorter than most of the desks in the class. For dwarves, lower is better, to the point where bowing down to someone higher than you is an offense. At least, that's what the professor calmly tells a girl who made the mistake of curseying as the professor walked in. Apparently, standing up while the professor talks is considered a polite gesture, though obviously not expected of anyone.

Either way, the professor will be teaching the class from his chair.

"Greetings class!" He starts lecturing right away. No time for an introduction, it seems? It might be a busy class.

"So... although at first it seems that rocks and living creatures have little in common, you couldn't be farther from the truth in saying that. Those of you taking courses in Life might be happy to know that you can apply your skills to both disciplines. They're similar, albeit different in scope." He pulls up a large scroll and pins it to the chalkboard. "Life... as we know it... has a soul. This soul contains the very aspects of a lifeform as we see it. Does it have arms? That's mentioned in the soul. Does it run and walk? Same thing. Every physical aspect of the body is defined by some magical piece of the soul we call a Gene. But, so we asked, why isn't the same true for everything else?

And as it turns out, we were wrong in our initial assumption. Genetics also define a rock's aspects. While a rock's soul is not the same as a living soul, it can be felt, observed, and most importantly, altered."

He starts handing big, heavy amulets encursted with crystals and sporting wrist bands. Notably, he doesn't give any to the numerous dwarves in the class. "Some races are more closely tuned with rocks than your run-of-the-mill human. But these are what we call 'Soul Gauntlets,' they're an amplifier that lets you focus your senses on different types of souls."

He then starts explaining what Kahigan are, and how to use them. Apparently the purpose of the Soul Gauntlets is to provide an artificial Kahigan, controlled by your Me. It adapts the sensations and motions you send through a Me into that of a Serro, and it also converts back. It's like having a Serro, though your degree of control over it is limited by the quality of the Soul Gauntlet.


The "Intro to Time" class began (or is beginning, or will begin) with Demivh and Kyron.

The professor starts the class with a quick lecture on the nature of Kahigan: Invisible limbs that sprout from your heart, apparently. It seems like an unconventional notion of magic, but most humans are able to pick it up quickly because having extra arms is, at the very least, more intuitive than some ill-defined force controlled by the mind. The latter tends to be what shows up in fairy tales and stories.

In fact, it seems most popular depictions of magic are ignorant of, if not actively suppressing actual facts about magic.

"I trust that you've all familiarized yourselves with the basics, then? Fantastic. We'll move on the relation of all this to the passage of time..."

He begins by scribbling down some kind of equation on the board. "This is the notation for a derivative. It is the rate of change of some variable, such as position, or distance, with respect to time. Now, what if we assumed that time itself can pass at a variable rate? We can call that notion..." he writes down dt/dT on the board. "Proper time. Time measured as following your own point of view. Now, because Light travels instantly, how do you think this relates to proper time?

How much time passes for a beam of light if we see it as travelling instantly?"


Christine's next class was at the Water building.

Department of Water

The Department of Water is a large one-story atrium, with a grand circle of stained-glass sculpture making up a single massive skylight and propped up with an iron mesh. The glass is blue and depicts water spirits around a lake, and the filtered sunlight casts an eerie blue glow.

The building itself features naught but a single massive room, filled with a layer of mist. Marble obelisks scattered throughout draw in the mist overhead to form 'bubbles' of insulated space, and each enclosure features a spiral stairway into the lower floors where classes and offices are held.

You overhear the sounds of students training with their magic in the mist. Some control the water like an extension of themselves, controlling its flow and levitating it in the air. Others practice with steam and bursts of air. A statue of a man riding a lizard stands in the center, clearly visible as a silhouette through the mist.

The shrine to the Sky God is clearly visible on a hill to the west.

...

Christine finds her obelisk: marked by signage as "Beginners - Intro to Water." The passageways underneath the ground floor are lit a pale sky blue by torches mounted to the wall, torches which do not seem to be on fire but rather glow along their surface, silent and unflickering.

The classroom, on the other hand, is lit with similar torches, but of a warmer hue, and the rock used is a sandstone appearing light tan. It's far more comfortable for human eyes. The class is a circle, for the students having benches and glass desks affixed to posts that swivel out of the way, and for the professor a podium in the center with three glass screens arranged radially around it, propped up like easels. These screens have a sort of wavy pattern, actually moving in real-time, not like real glass at all.

"Where shall we start..."
You seem a little late for introductions. The professor does not call you out, though...

"Ah yes. Introductions! Let's go clockwise."
You look around, noting the diverse array of students. A far cry from your last class, which was almost all human. This one is almost mostly demihuman.

The first student to introduce himself seems to be wearing a rusty set of armor to class. As he speaks, though, it sounds as if the head is mostly empty, and the voice is coming from inside torso, reverberating up through the neck passage.
"My name is Alun. I've come to master the forces of nature, to resist them as they wear away at my mortal body."


Raioyris could be seen at the Time building, finding his classroom in the lower levels of the structure. Down here, illusions mark the way to each class, illusions that seem to know what you are thinking and show trails of light floating in the air, directing you to your destination.

"Well met! I see you've found our humble abode."

A monochrome room, lit by gray torches, devoid of the flickering of flame--these torches are magical, or at the very least chemical in nature. Eight benches provide seating, without tables. There is ample room to put your notebook on your lap, if you want.

"We are about to start, but before we do, is everyone comfortable with the major you've picked?

Shadow magic is the art of bridging the gap between the real and the imaginary. We can turn the absence of light into something. We can make people believe something without actually holding the opinion. There is no going back once you've started, many would consider it taboo to even consider..."

[WunderKatze]

"Specify, What do you mean 'something'?"

Raioyris looks more intense than usual.

Soon I'll enter combat to protect my name...

[TheBiggerFish]

"One?"

Kyron is mostly musing to himself, but it spills out anyway.

[IronyOwl]

Murble opted to hop cross-legged onto her desk in what she hoped was a sign of respect. As was often the case, she immediately had a question.

"If the Me or Sa Re are used to sense living souls, and the Serro is used to sense stone souls, are there other soul types and other Kahigan used to sense them?"

Experiment with using my real Sa Re to produce a fake Serro, and try latching onto some stone to see if it works similarly to a Sa Re.

[wipeout1024]

"Yes, I am ready."
Akasha nods, as her bangles begin to shake. She seems to be listening intently.

[HighEndNoob]

"Well, time is different from the light's point of view, so I guess however long it needs to get to a location. One 'light second', I suppose.'"

[_DivideByZero_]

"Well, time is different from the light's point of view, so I guess however long it needs to get to a location. One 'light second', I suppose.'"

"Specify, What do you mean 'into something'?"

Raioyris looks more intense than usual.

Soon I'll enter combat to protect my name...

"Bringing a shadow to life, of course."

He steps into a conveniently dark corner of the room, left dark by a plate under the torch. All of the torches are obscured this way, in fact.

His shadow peeks out over the edge. It is a distorted shadow, bent by the angle at which the torch is shining on him. But then, your eyes drawn to the shadow by mention of the name, you notice that it doesn't quite match up with the professor's robes.

The shadow then splits into two, and the second part walks up to the desk independently of the professor. It's as if a ghost walks among you.

"One?"

Kyron is mostly musing to himself, but it spills out anyway.

"Well, time is different from the light's point of view, so I guess however long it needs to get to a location. One 'light second', I suppose.'"

"Ah... those are some confused answers. But I shan't discount you for trying!"

He draws a diagram showing a beam of light, zooming in on an infinitesimally small section of the light beam, along with more math... math that you'd really think there'd be an introductory course for. 'Calculus'? What sorcery!

"For an object travelling at a finite speed, we would have a definite number. But for light, what we have is indeterminate. So the correct answer, then, is that nobody knows. Let a light beam be unto itself."
"This seems like a disappointing answer," quips a student
"Not so! Because what has been demonstrated is that if a human were to transmute himself into light, he is able to control the amount of time it takes to teleport, at least to himself."
He scrolls the board to the side, revealing an already-prepared diagram of a man walking while others remain frozen in time.

Murble opted to hop cross-legged onto her desk in what she hoped was a sign of respect. As was often the case, she immediately had a question.

"If the Me or Sa Re are used to sense living souls, and the Serro is used to sense stone souls, are there other soul types and other Kahigan used to sense them?"

Experiment with using my real Sa Re to produce a fake Serro, and try latching onto some stone to see if it works similarly to a Sa Re.

"In-deed! In alchemy, though it involves much in the way of identifying solid substances by their stone soul, we also sense the souls of solutions and chemicals with a different kind of Soul Gauntlet. Each gauntlet is made from a Kahigan grafted into base material--Serro are grafted onto gemstones. For a Me, it would be grafted into a flower or a wreath. For Wind we have the Aero, commonly infused into a feather. For Water, we use a tooth or scale. For fire, a kind of torch. As for Time and Shadow... applications for those elements are more limited."

The gauntlet works in a surprisingly intuitive fashion. You see a faint glow emerge from the crystal on the gauntlet at a right angle.

[wipeout1024]

Akasha looks in wonder at the spirit, her eyes following it around.

[TheBiggerFish]

"...Is light's speed really infinite?  Or is it that we just can't make anything go faster?"

[_DivideByZero_]

"...Is light's speed really infinite?  Or is it that we just can't make anything go faster?"

"Light bears the essence of time itself. It is this reason it is so quick, for without its speed it would merely have the likeness of flame. It is as fast as time itself."

[HighEndNoob]

"So light is, in essence, a controllable, malleable and ever present form of time?"

[wipeout1024]

"So, are Shadow and Time intertwined then? You have said that Shadow magic is about the manipulation of light, and you just said that light bears the essence of time. So, are they connected?"

[AoshimaMichio]

"So one could theoretically have access to all Kahigans if equipped with multiple Soul Gauntlets?"

Dan, as usual, goes straight into testing. Primarily taking look into the soul and genetics of the gauntlet itself and then closest stone he can find.

[_DivideByZero_]

"So one could theoretically have access to all Kahigans if equipped with multiple Soul Gauntlets?"

Dan, as usual, goes straight into testing. Primarily taking look into the soul and genetics of the gauntlet itself and then closest stone he can find.

"Yes, of course! But unfortunately, the gauntlets are prohibitively expensive to hand out... you're granted the privilege of borrowing school property, but you'll have to stay near campus. If you wish to assemble your own, though, I am actually acquainted with a professor whose focus is to learn a better manufacturing technique. You see, the Kahigan for a soul gauntlet comes from... an intelligent being."

"So light is, in essence, a controllable, malleable and ever present form of time?"

"Light is both Time and Fire, there is a duality. On one hand, Light bears the essence of Fire. It brings heat, it glows, it shines into the soul through our eyes and illuminates the darkness... but Light also transcends Time, being so fast that nothing can catch up. It is weightless, whereas objects with weight must accelerate."

He walks around a little bit, and makes an odd facial expression, one that passes quickly. "In a sense, Time not only governs the speed of an object, but its weight. We know from principles that acceleration scales with force and weight. The same force applied faster than time would normally allow makes an object move quicker, however. In a sense, Time nullifies weight, but when time is slowed it can also increase weight." He looks down. "To date, no experiment has managed to slow Light in open space. It is, to the best of our knowledge, without weight. Light is the only thing for which Time does not matter. For a ray of light, it could be an infinite time passing or null, but in the time it takes for a ray of light to cross any distance, the result is instant."

"So, are Shadow and Time intertwined then? You have said that Shadow magic is about the manipulation of light, and you just said that light bears the essence of time. So, are they connected?"

"Time is a magic that depends on the difference in the rates that different beings perceive time. In a sense, we are making our own perception a reality."
He doesn't seem to be looking at you, though, as he answers your question. He sits down at his well-lit desk and--

Wait.
This isn't the room you were just in. There is a window. And there are shadows in the corners. And the students are all different. You seem to have... teleported?
((This happened in the Time room.))

The professor speaks again.

"To an extent, yes. I don't recall saying that, but it is a good observation. Time is not constant--time passes independently for every soul. Shadow magic is the generalization of this fact--that all perceptions can be made reality, regardless of the physics of the world itself."

He sits down at his desk, and the shadow seems to sit down right beside his. You are back in the room you came to.
((And now you're back in the Shadow room.))

[wipeout1024]

Akasha inspects the room, as if checking to make sure this is really happening.
"Hmm? How did that happen? Will we learn how to do that?"