Spoiler: Spoiler

Welcome everyone, to my second fiction. While the first one is in rewrite due to me biting more than I could chew, a chapter a day is insane, I will be updating a, much more important for the Mythos of my Creation, new fiction. Now even more mindscrewy for all those who annoy me by quoting thermodynamics. Who here is the one that studies autopoietic beings and all that implies? Me! So stop assuming you know more than me please, even if I am still in university. Rant done, magic only needs to be self consistent! Rant done, my dear hand, I hope you enjoy this worldbuilding chapter. Sorry for the tone by the way, by how sci-fi gets away with its bullshit while fantasy gets the criticism irks me. Worm is more unrealistic than any good fantasy I’ve read and yet it touts it’s realism, ugh.

You don’t strictly need to read it, but I recommend reading the last two parts about magic and the Steel Bulwark, which will clarify a lot. For those of you who enjoy quantum mechanics inspired, reality breaking, thermodynamics breaking weirdness, I present to you the child of my madness! Enjoy.

Lessons on the Fayd, UAM.

The first rule of those who study the Fayd is that the Fayd is unintuitive, if you use common sense you will be mistaken more times than right. Why?

Because the Fayd is not part of the universe. Let me stress that, the Fayd is not part of the universe in any way or shape. It is not a dimension, not another plane, nor anything like that, it just so happens that within the area in the Sea of Chaos that our universe was born there is also something called the Fayd. And we long discovered that the laws of physics are local. What does that mean?

It means that between universes the laws of physics can change, they are not multi universal. And while there are many universes the Many Worlds Theory has been disproven, these other universes are not parallel. Heck, some may even be perpendicular. Any similarities between universes are due to the incomprehensible rules of the Sea of Chaos.

Don’t try understanding those, once a man tried to learn from a Daemon God about them. He died before he made any headway. They are too advanced for our current level of science to begin studying them. Maybe in a few thousand years, but not before. They are the quantum physics to our Aristotle. Heck, he surrendered when trying to understand the Fayd, much less the Chaos.

Now, returning to the subject of the Fayd, what is the Fayd if not part of the universe? We aren’t sure. Yes, really. Fayd studies started a few decades back, there is much we don’t know. We do know however that the Fayd is a region of the Sea of Chaos that encompasses several million universes. We also do know that the laws of the Fayd aren’t fundamental, but interactive. And this is where Fayd studies divert from physics.

In physics you have electromagnetic laws, those laws cause that when there are two electric charges they interact in certain ways.

In the Fayd you have a law that says that these two daemons fight each other, and no matter what the daemons wish for they will fight each other, and this determines how they are. Even if they didn’t want to fight initially they will end up fighting, and this can manifest in many ways. They will lose their temper around the other, they will feel a compulsion to fight each other that they can’t fight. But they will fight.

Let me put another example. There is a law that says that this water daemon is unharmed by fire, and thus you can’t harm it with fire. Even if you use a fire that makes water explode, like magnesium fire, or a fire hot enough to vaporise water. It doesn’t matter because the law says that this daemon is unharmed by fire, and the nature of the fire is irrelevant.

Interactive laws affect how different daemons or the Fayd, and our local physics though that is a much more complex affair, interact with each other. What matters in the Fayd is not the fundamental composition of the interacting beings, but how those beings interact. In other words, what is fixed on the Fayd is how things interact, the nature of things is much more malleable.

That said due to how many interactive laws there are the Fayd and daemons are pretty constant, so that is not much of an issue. Basically things are defined by their interactions, instead of their natures affecting how they interact with others. Unless they become True Daemons, but that is much more advanced than this basic course.

And this is why there are things like resistances and weaknesses. So leave common sense on the door of this classroom, otherwise you won’t understand anything.

First lesson on Fayd Studies, introduction.

What is a daemon? Daemon is a modern term for these beings, born of the fact that most reported demonic possessions were actually daemonic possession, so they named them daemons. Simple but not indicative of their nature.

Daemons are most times described as creatures of the Fayd, but that isn’t exactly right. A daemon is something made of Semi-Inert Non-Quantum Unstable Matter, colloquially referred to as SINQUM, or Fog. Semi-Inert Non-Quantum Unstable Matter is quite the theoretical and complex concept, but I’ll try to make you understand exactly what it is.

Last lesson I stated that the Fayd has interactive laws and Semi-Inert Non-Quantum Unstable Matter is the reason why. Let us dissect the name.

Semi-Inert means that in the absence of interactions with Fayd-Exotic Force, meaning everything not native to the Fayd or SINQUM affected by Fayd-Exotic Force, it doesn’t do anything. This means that the natural state of the Fayd is an completely still and even soup of SINQUM.

Non-Quantum means that there are no, theoretically, elementary particles for SINQUM. Rather, SINQUM is akin to an infinitely divisible fluid. This part of the theory is disputed. The reason for this is that similar volumes of SINQUM have produced wildly different results under experimentation, depending on who and how many performed the experiment. This lead to the theory that upon interaction SINQUM divides in a particular state of differing energy and mass values depending on what SINQUM interacted with. Another, more recent theory, is that there are quantum particles in SINQUM, just that SINQUM can generate itself ex nihilo under the right stimuli. This theory means that Non-Quantum would become Non-Conservative, or SINCUM.

Unstable Matter. This is a consequence of the NQ part of SINQUM. That is to say, since SINQUM doesn’t have fixed values of mass-energy, the results of transforming SINQUM into forces of our own universe isn’t 1=1. In other words E=m*c^2 isn’t correct, it is just as easy to make an ordinary match flame as making the match itself despite that making no sense in our universe.

And this is why the Fayd has interactive laws, because SINQUM does not react with SINQUM, only with Fayd-Exotic Forces, or our universe’s local laws of physics.

Now, you have probably forgotten that we were talking about daemons, so let me repeat what daemons are. Daemons are all things that are composed of SINQUM that isn’t in its natural state. You think that definition is broad? You’re right, because daemons are all you know about the Fayd. Everything you can see of the Fayd is a daemon, because the act of seeing SINQUM causes it to become a daemon.

Second lesson on Fayd studies, SINQUM and the nature of Daemons.

Hello everyone. Last day we studied SINQUM and the strict definition of daemon. Today we will study the origins as well as a broad categorisation of daemons.

First, how are daemons born, if only by interacting with daemons can humans come in contact with the Fayd? The answer is in the name, Fayd, faith. Yes, the name is that dumb.

Faith, oh faith. The most despised enemy of Fayd studies for a long time. To understand the complexity of this affair we must give a standardised definition of faith. In Fayd studies faith is the ability to believe something regardless of proof. In other words the Fayd is affected by every single belief that humans hold.

Monsters under the bed. The world began with the Big Bang. The classic elements. The periodic table of elements. Religion. Science.

Each and every one of these and more affect the Fayd. That means that in the Fayd there are daemons that are monsters under the bed, there are Big Bangs, there are elementals, there is uranium, gods and demons walk and there are gravity daemons.

Simply having enough people believe something will cause a daemon to be born along those beliefs. Believe in, say, Zeus? A Zeus daemon will be born in the Fayd, but instead of being the god of the sky, he is the god of lightning. Believe in the existence of uranium? A uranium deposit will appear on the Fayd, and still be a daemon.

Unlike popular thought daemons need not be sapient, sentient, alive, or even have powers.

Finally, regarding belief I will say that it is a fool's endeavor to try and create a daemon through controlling what people believe, since faith is a guideline by which the daemon is born, not a rule. As for why faith crosses universal barriers? You have arrived at the trillion euros question, please give me an answer someday.

Now, we have established that daemons are born of faith and we don’t know how faith crosses into the Fayd. But how do daemons contact our universe? After all if mere belief creates a daemon, why aren’t there more daemons on Earth? Is there something barring their way? To answer this question I must give you a new property of SINQUM. Despite being either Non-Quantum or Non-Conservative SINQUM has density. Or rather daemonic SINQUM has density.

Daemonic SINQUM is slightly different from natural SINQUM since it isn’t homogeneous or even. That is to say the Fayd has an unknown fixed volume homogeneously filled with equal quantities of SINQUM, and when affected by FEDs it splits, forming a void between particular clumps of daemonic SINQUM. This decreases the density of SINQUM within a certain volume, even if SINQUM is still Non-Quantum or Non-Conservative. In other words daemonic SINQUM is less dense than natural SINQUM, no matter its mass-energy values. If this sounds weird it’s because we still don’t fully understand it.

Daemons with a SINQUM density below natural SINQUM can’t cross the universal barrier, natural SINQUM also can’t cross that barrier. But a daemon, through the Self-affirmation Principle can gather more SINQUM towards itself than it was born with, increasing its density. If that Self-affirmation is strong enough the density of daemonic SINQUM can actually surpass that of natural SINQUM.

But Teacher! Doesn’t SINQUM have a fixed volume? How can its density increase beyond occupying all space? You may ask. Good question, and the answer can find a simil in current physics. A black hole. Beyond the critical density a daemon will collapse all of its SINQUM into a single point, becoming something else. I will explain later what this something else is.

In other words, a SINQUM singularity can cross universal barriers, and these are the daemons that open the way of interaction between the Fayd and the universe. This explains why we aren’t just swimming in daemons. That and we have the Steel Bulwark, but that is something completely different. That is something we made a very long time ago, before that we had many more daemons walking amidst us.

Keep in mind that this is not a question of power in the part of the daemon. It only requires enough faith to collapse the SINQUM, the quantity of SINQUM is irrelevant to this process since the collapsed volume can be between 1*10^-99 litres and a million litres, for example.

Now, I have mentioned a certain property of daemons, the Self-affirmation Principle. Brace yourself, this is where things get weird. So, a daemon is not only daemonic SINQUM. This is why we can even speak of daemonic SINQUM density by the way. If daemons were only SINQUM, they would be only the individual clumps of SINQUM, but they are several clumps. What connects the clumps? Why, what formed the daemons to begin with! Fayd-Exotic Forces! In most of the cases that is faith. So daemons are a mix of SINQUM and faith, and the more faith there is in a daemon, the greater its density. Until now, this is clear.

What isn’t clear is that the faith that composes the daemon is not human anymore, but has formed the Self of the daemon. That faith defines the daemon and fixes, or affirmates, its existence. So if a daemon, because of whatever processes that take place in the Fayd, accumulates enough faith its existence will become fixed. This happens when the critical density is reached, and this process is the Self-affirmation Principle.

Once they have reached this state throw everything I said about the nature of daemons changing, while these daemons still mostly obey interactive laws they don’t change. This allows them to ignore certain interactions, like the compulsion to fight I mentioned earlier. Instead they have an instinct to fight, but the water daemon is still unharmed by fire.

Now, Self-affirmation is different in sapient daemons. The processes that create sapient daemons allow them to, in essence, create faith for themselves by living. Meaning that if a sapient daemon lives long enough they can reach the critical density without need for outside Fayd-Exotic Forces. Normally though, it’s a mixture of both.

And finally we leave behind the heavy theory, and begin with the categories.

The first method of dividing daemons is by SINQUM density and Self-affirmation:

False Daemons. Daemons below the critical density. These daemons are still influenced by faith, so their natures can be altered. I remind you that by nature I mean how they interact with others. These daemons can’t naturally cross the universal borders and can only be let in by daemons beyond the critical density. If found within the universe the only difference is that False Daemons do not have a complete Self affirmation.

True Daemons. Daemons beyond the critical density. These have completed their Self-affirmation and are immutable by faith, but sapients are still subject to change, meaning they change like humans. In fact sapient True Daemons are similar to humans, in a way.

The second method is by quantity of SINQUM, or energy. While theoretically you can produce infinite energy from a single clump of SINQUM, in practice it is difficult to go beyond certain values. These values are normally in the following interval, (10, 50) Joules of energy per cubic nanometer of SINQUM. Thus the quantity of SINQUM is measured by volume of SINQUM clumps, not to be mistaken with total volume. There are seven classes of energy:

Below human output in energy. Daemon grunts. Roughly human output in energy. Daemons. Energy between a normal human and the energy of a speeding train. Daemon soldiers. Energy between a speeding train and a low yield nuke. Daemon commanders. Energy in the range of a nuke. Daemon lords. Under world class energy. Anything between nuke and world consumption of energy in a year. Daemon princes. Above class 6. Daemon kings.

This classification is much more subjective and disputed than the previous, as it’s not as rooted in facts. In fact there are many versions of energy rankings, but this one is the one used by the military, so we are teaching it. For the safety of your sanity I’ll say than anything above 4 is very rare, so don’t go paranoid.

There are other daemon classification but we will explain them along mages.

Third lesson on Fayd studies, properties and classifications of daemons.

Today’s lesson is less difficult. Today I am giving you a rough explanation on elements, as well as listing the most important.

Before we continue I’d like you to remember that in the Fayd laws are interactive. Thus a Fayd element is distinct from one of ours. In our universe something is made of iron, but in the Fayd an element is an interaction. For example, the fire element is not something daemons are made of, but how a daemon interacts with fire. Useful to know is that every daemon has every element, without exception, since all daemons have all interactions coded into them from birth.

I also have to mention that elements can mix, but they do so in percentages. So mixing 50% fire and 50% water won’t make steam, but a singular interaction made of 50% water and 50% fire. This is important for the following.

It is highly important to remember that if a daemon is benefited by an element it will always be affected by it. Some believe that this isn’t an axiom, but those who don’t do this die fast. So, what kind of interactions are there? There are seven:

Neutral. They are affected normally, as they would in our universe. Since this is more of a composite reaction that encompasses many possible interactions, it is by far the most numerous one.

Weak. They are harmed more than they should. Instead of receiving first degree burns from fire they receive third degree burns.

Resist. They are harmed less than they should. Only their hair is singed, but if they are too cold, they will still be warmed.

Null. They aren’t harmed at all. They aren’t harmed at all, but they are still warmed.

Absorb. They actually heal or recover energy from attacks with that element. Obviously they benefit from interactions with the absorbed element.

Reflect. They send back the harmful effect, a double edged sword since your enemy may absorb that element, but useful otherwise. Still warmed.

These responses can mix. For example a daemon may absorb 20% of an element and null the rest. Or reflect 30% and be neutral to the rest. But normally they have a single one, and it is very rare to have both weakness and resistance to the same element, for obvious reasons.

Now I must explain yet another property of daemons that can’t be explained unless you know of elements.

Say that a daemon is immune to fire, and another has flames that burn everything, how do you resolve this paradox? The answer is Priority, a nebulous and poorly understood property that determines which nature wins. While we don’t understand it we have learned to measure it, and we have given it a scale. From 10, the lowest Priority ever recorded, to 10,000 the highest possible. That the highest is 10,000, for the record, is an axiom known due to a certain element. We call Daemon Gods to those between 8,000 and 9,999 Priority. And nobody believes Daemon Gods are actual gods, by the way, it’s a name.

Before I list the Fifty Two Common Elements I will explain the Big Three.

First, Information. The ability to sense SINQUM and daemons, it should be obvious but sentient daemons have it by default. Every mage must have this element or, well, or nothing, it is a must. All data perceived of the Fayd and SINQUM comes from the use of Information.

Second, Ether, Aether, etc. This one is a weird one in that it is both an Earth element, and a Fayd element. When SINQUM enters the universe it doesn’t interact with it by default. Indeed, some daemons, True ones, are of the spirit type which can’t interact with the material world in any way. But something that does happen when SINQUM contacts the universe is the creation of Ether. Nobody knows where Ether comes from, our universe or the Fayd, but it is a physical element. We even have Ether detectors, used to trace daemonic activity. The function of Ether is the materialisation of SINQUM, in simpler words, it allows SINQUM to interact with the material world. But for a daemon or mage to use Ether, they must have the Ether element, that allows them to interact with Ether.

Oh, I say material world, but there isn’t, as far as we know, a spiritual realm in our universe. We say material because while SINQUM doesn’t interact with the electromagnetic force or the force of gravity, we are not so sure about the nuclear forces. This means we can’t say with security that SINQUM doesn’t interact with matter and energy despite all signs showing that it can’t.

And the third of the Big Three. This one isn’t as fundamental for us to experience the Fayd, but it does have a huge influence in our understanding of it. The Transcendent element. The Transcendent element is important because it isn’t an element per se, but it is. It isn’t an element because it isn’t a type of interaction but a way of interaction, but it is an element because it does exist and access to one single ability of this element opens the way for all others. So what is the Transcendent element? It is a way of interacting that has the highest Priority possible in the Fayd, in our scale, the Aurelius-Ptolemy scale by the way, 10,000. It is one of the few things we know of that limit the Fayd. So any spell of the Transcendent element will always interact neutrally with everything in the Fayd, unless they have barriers of the Transcendent element. In which case it depends on who has the strongest faith. We think. Probably.

Fourth lesson of Fayd studies, elements.

We finally reach this lesson. What most of you are interested in, mages. Now, a mage is someone who uses magic, but we won’t be explaining magic yet, just where mages get their magic from. There is a reason for this weird order, which you will see later.

But I will give a simple explanation first. Magic is the ability to use faith and skill to manipulate SINQUM causing phenomena by the mage’s own ability. If the mage doesn’t need to use faith, or he isn’t the origin of the phenomena they are called powers.

So how do humans get powers from the Fayd? As it should be obvious now, from daemons. So I will just give you the types of mages and their source daemons. There are five ways.

-Harmonised Mages or Objects of Power Wielders. These mages derive their power from an object daemon, that is to say an un-living non-sapient daemon. Say that in the Palaeolithic a tribe believed that a certain statue granted power over fire to their tribesmen and the statue got a True Daemon. Then the tribesmen got power over fire and had their magic unlocked. Object daemons that can grant powers or magic are called Objects of Power, requirements to use them vary.

-Pact Mages. These mages establish a symbiotic relationship with a non-sapient True Daemon, again granting them powers and unlocking their magic. The most common way of making such a pact is through an interactive bond, such as a familiar bond. These usually require for a previous mage to create the bond, but some daemons have the ability to naturally form these bonds.

-Contract Mages. Pact Mages but with sapient True Daemons. Be very wary of what daemon you pact with, there is a reason it is discouraged. Remember Faust.

-Daemonhost. These are the weird ones since they involve a very weird kind of daemon, which bizarrely for what’s usual aren’t True Daemons. A daemonhost is a person possessed by a False Daemon, or very, very rarely a True Daemon.

There are two kinds of daemons that can possess humans. First demons formed by belief in possession. These daemons are weird in that they need to interact with humans but normally they can’t since they aren’t True Daemons, so they use a loophole. They latch to a certain person’s faith and begin to exclusively feed on it. Then once they are accustomed to it they trace the faith back to the universe and begin to unite with the person, becoming part of the universe. At the end of this process the human and daemon will fuse into a mage. There are several problems with this process, mainly whether the human can survive the process or not, never mind the fact that the new mage would very likely different from the human. It is possible however for a human of strong will to resist the mental pollution while being transformed, to the point the human can become a mage and then be exorcised leaving his mental faculties intact. The second type of daemon is a personal daemon, it works exactly like the first daemon, except they are daemons born of belief about a person that seek to become the person. As such the second type will only possess one person ever.

Humans who have had their possession advance until they become mages are under heavy risk of mental pollution, so this kind of way to acquire magic is not only impossible to purposefully seek, but extremely dangerous.

-Finally, Lineage Mages. Lineage Mages are those descended from one of the four previous ways of getting magic and for some reasons inherited the magic. Normally this comes from mages who have had their bodies altered in some fundamental way with SINQUM, in a way that their descendants inherit the alteration. This kind of alterations are very rare.

Fifth lesson of Fayd studies, type of mages.

Now, we arrive at a delicate subject. The first thing that I must say is that by law all practicing mages are required to hold a license and be registered. So if any of you think I will teach you actual magic, well, you’re wrong. So if there is any awakened here, go register and you’ll get actual lessons.

Legal disclaimers aside I always have issues with this lesson. First, powers.

Powers are only slightly different from magic but clearly distinct. They are ways of using SINQUM that don’t require a mage to tap on their SINQUM reserves or effort. There are two kinds of powers:

-Those that come from daemons. These powers are what any of the five magic giving daemons get you. Say you enter a pact with a fire daemon, then you can use the daemon’s abilities. This means you are actually ordering the daemon to do something. As such there is no requirement to use this, other than having some sort of deal with a daemon.

-Innate powers. Abilities that have no requirement to use, but are native to the human, as such they don’t require daemons. Basically the same as the first, except they come from the human.

Many of you will be wondering how this is possible, after all, aren't daemons the ones that can use SINQUM? Yes, and no. I must speak to you about the Guardian.

The Guardian. Or the horror of every Fayd researcher as I prefer to call it. The simplest way of describing it is a sort of personal True Daemon born of the person. Basically all humans have this Guardian, a part of us which resembles a True Daemon in function. Many believe that the reason why our faith creates daemons is because we influence SINQUM subconsciously with our Guardian. It can influence SINQUM through faith, attract SINQUM from the Fayd and isn’t influenced by faith. So you can see why I say it is a personal True Daemon.

This Guardian is the source of magic and innate powers, but under a caveat. Humans normally suppress awareness of the Guardian under many mental barriers, and to consciously use it we must be aware of it. There are two ways to become aware, the common one or the nigh-impossible one. The common one is to make contact with a daemon in one of the four ways and through comparison find your inner daemon, the Guardian. Some daemons make it easier to become aware of the Guardian than others. The nigh-impossible one is to be so introspective and mentally stable, that you don’t need a daemon to find the Guardian but you can do it yourself.

This last one? Very rare, I know three people alive that have done that, and I know thousands of mages. There is no shortcut for this method, no aid. It is true meditation helps, since it helps focus on something and focus is needed to find the Guardian, but don’t bet on it, getting a daemon is far easier. All of this is why we don’t have a category detailing these introspective mages.

So, I have said what is a Guardian, more or less, and how to become aware of it, but not how does it work. Well. First, Guardians are influenced by many things, the most important of them is species. Yep, species. Guardians are pretty uniform among humans, with minor variations between individual ones.

A Guardian, once aware of, confers upon the human the Fayd elements. Which types of interactions you have does vary, and this is where things like that mage is weak to water and that other immune to it comes from. A Guardian, once aware of, attracts SINQUM from the Fayd, and uses it to fuel its functions. And a Guardian’s functions are to confer innate powers and the ability to use magic on its owner.

Innate powers are simply characteristics or abilities that the type of Guardian you have grants you. These powers and the different elemental resistances are what differences Guardians, because everything else is the same for everyone. To give you an example of a power I will lift this desk one handed. Do you all see it? I am not spending SINQUM consciously, nor am I using magic to lift it. My Guardian is simply drawing in SINQUM from the Fayd at the same rate I spend it to, automatically, fuel my super strength. Thus it requires no effort for me to lift it. If you know RPGs you may think of innate powers as stats, passive skills and skills with no cost. I have super strength, but another may be able to breath fire, or be more efficient when using magic, etc. But the defining characteristics are no conscious use of SINQUM and no need to make an effort to use them.

Magic on the other hand requires more explaining on how the Guardian works. The Guardian automatically draws SINQUM in from the Fayd and uses it to maintain its functions, which includes powers. However it draws more SINQUM than it spends, and that extra SINQUM is stored until the Guardian can’t hold more. It is this pool of SINQUM that mages use to fuel their magic. How much SINQUM can accumulate depends on the amount and quality of powers, normally decreasing as you have more of these, and the stage of the Guardian.

Magic then is the conscious manipulation of the SINQUM pool. There are two types of magic:

-Free or faith magic. This magic simply requires faith to generate an effect. An application of the effects of FEDs on SINQUM. The “natural” magic. Versatile and powerful, but unreliable. There is no such thing as magic spells for free magic, it is intention based. Unfortunately it requires deep concentration and the results of being distracted can be devastating. Which is why we created the following.

-Standard magic. This magic relies on a clever trick, we basically used free magic to alter our species and grant additional abilities to Guardians, creating what we call species magic. Species magic is basic spells that every human mage can use if they are taught to. It consists of memorising a spell-pattern, or mental construct, that triggers a shared memory present in the Guardians of humans, causing the Guardian to consume SINQUM and automatically cast a spell. The weakness of racial or standard magic is its rigidness. All spells cast through this method are the same for everyone, which is bad because when you are making an explosion in a battlefield adjusting the blast radius is important. It also tends to be inefficient in its use of SINQUM, so in practice we use a hybrid system.

-Hybrid magic. We use standard magic to call the basic spell framework and then use free magic to adjust it to the situation. If a mage grows comfortable enough with a spell they can modify it greatly. For example, Great Nova is a powerful nuclear spell, which are forbidden on Earth, which creates a small, localised nova. It consumes 350,000 nm^3 of SINQUM, but an experience caster can reduce it to 35,000. And then there is a mage that created Kaiser Nova, the same spell but twice as powerful for 100,000. These unique magics are the most dangerous and powerful in the world, requiring great experience to even hope to cast.

It is possible for new spells to be added to the basic repertoire, but that can only be done in the Steel Bulwark, which is the tool we originally used to create standard magic. When I say we I mean humanity, since the Steel Bulwark was created around 14,000 b.c.

Now I must speak about stages, stages are something important. Guardians can grow, and do so in stages. This means that a Guardian remains static until, when the conditions are right, it improves. Unfortunately for you the nature of this growth is classified.

There are two ways of growing the Guardian, both classified. I can only say that one is the natural way and the other relies on the Steel Bulwark. The way of the Steel Bulwark is the superior one, by far. To use the natural way over the way of the Steel Bulwark is comparable to striping naked and enter the Amazon, hoping to build a modern society in your lifespan.

Finally I will say why the Guardian is my personal nightmare. According to our current understanding of the Fayd, they make no fucking sense. In addition of the little fact that we know nearly nothing about them. So yeah, they are my specialisation. I hate them, I really do. But I think all Fayd researchers hate their fields, because the Fayd is a nightmare to study.

Sixth lesson on Fayd studies, powers and magic.

My final lesson is more on our world’s history with the Fayd. For some reason our world tends to attract aggressive daemons and they were a scourge in prehistory. This is why our ancestors, circa 14,000 b.c, created a fortress that would police the Fayd around our world and strengthen our mages. The Steel Bulwark is equal times military outpost, castle, school, training grounds and lighthouse. From there mages have exterminated aggressive daemons since before the dawn of civilisation, and have left their learnings behind, for all of humanity to peruse.

Due to the abnormally high amount of daemons, as well as having a single unified yet diverse magical tradition humans of our Earth are very powerful. Most worlds have the majority of mages up to the previously discussed rank 3, and the most powerful at rank 5. We have on average rank 4 and at maximum 7. Our world is the second most powerful in our universe, and our universe is the strongest of the known Fayd, of all 9,063 catalogued universes. Thus our mages are the most destructive of all, bar one. And we are close in power to number one.

The ancients knew this, so for a mage to use the Steel Bulwark they must fulfill certain laws, chief among them not interfering with the unpowered except in certain exceptional circumstances. This has caused that, except for halting a famine or plague here and there, mages haven’t interfered much with the course of history. This makes it so that we are the world least influenced by the Fayd we know of, despite being the third greatest force in our area.

Now, about the Steel Bulwark itself I can’t say much, it is classified. I can say that it was made by humans, but they weren’t the ones to design it. It is coated in steel, over ten thousand years before the Iron Age. The Steel Bulwark was designed by a certain entity from the Sea of Chaos, with all knowledge we have about the Sea of Chaos coming from this entity, The Founder. It was designed with defence in mind, and it does that very well. Why do I say this? Because I want you to understand that humanity isn’t special. If the tales are correct the reason why The Founder, a being of immeasurable power, chose us is because a starving tribe gave him food when they found him on the plains. He didn’t need it, but he was touched, and swore to aid them and their descendants as much as he was allowed. It was generosity, hospitality and decency that elevated us to our current standing. Never forget that.

For the record Steel Bulwark is just one of its unofficial names. The official one is, The Tower Of Wisdom That Reaches Down From The Heavens At The End Of The World To Provide Humanity With The Seeds Of Salvation. Which is way too long a name. Powerful and wise The Founder may be, he is not good with names.

Hope you enjoyed the lessons, I sure did. You are the future of humanity, I invite you to develop our civilisation until no threat from the Fayd can destroy us.

Seventh lesson on Fayd studies, the Steel Bulwark and The Founder.