Excerpt from the fourth draft of An Earthling’s Guide to the Larger Universe

Magic

Mana-based magic is one of the fundamental differences between the world you once knew and the outside universe. Magic has always been there, but on Earth it was weak and poorly understood. This is far less true elsewhere.

At its roots, magic is two things: Mana and Intent. Everything else is secondary. Mana and Intent are required for every single manifestation of magic whether it’s a spell, an innate ability, a Path Skill, a rune, a ritual, or even an item.

What you do with the mana and how you shape the Intent determine how you use magic. Very few people can safely handle formless magic, because it requires holding a single Intent with no variation for the entire duration of the spellcasting. Many of the tools and practices you will see if you choose to study magic are to handle that very problem.

If you use a Path Skill, the Voice takes care of it for you. It is possible to customize a Path Skill for yourself, but be careful of this, because it is also possible to destroy a Path Skill by incorrectly performing the customization.

You have probably noticed that Affinity has not been mentioned. Affinity affects the cost and power of your spell but not your ability to cast it; that tends to rely more on Concept, being able to understand what you are trying to do. For more information on Affinity and Concept, see the appropriate section.

Some of the common ways to use magic are…

“Was that wolf even Tier One?” The yellow-striped silver Traa turned to the albino Traa.

Longsight grinned. He’d wondered when Lord Widetail would ask. “Technically. It reached adulthood a month ago, but it only managed to properly condense its core this week. Bentwood was afraid she might have to put it down.

“That’s why I prefer to start with monsters, but I know there’s a group of you that prefer the extra flexibility of using beasts.” Lord Widetail tasted the air, then turned his attention to Longsight. “Next time you think about how useful capturing and training a strong sapient would be, at least be smart enough to not say it to their face! That’s what got us in this mess to begin with.”

Longsight winced. That incident was also how Lord Widetail’s faction had ended up in control of the Nest instead of Longsight’s faction, and why Longsight was relegated to managing the invasion of the new planet instead of spending his time at home rebuilding his power base. Lord Widetail had couched it as being due to respect for Longsight. It was a vital mission, but Longsight knew his position had far more to do with internal politics than capability.

Even if it was true that he was the best Traa to lead the expedition. Which it was; he’d done it before very successfully.

“The birds seemed to be a legitimate Tier Two, though with poor base characteristics.” Lord Widetail’s voice pulled Longsight out of his musings. “I assume that was deliberate? Weak to give him something to beat, then stronger to give him a real fight?”

“Of course. He’s a physical type; his body and equipment both reflect that. A single physical minimal Tier One should be easy. A trio of Tier Two flyers is much more telling. This was a physical-attack specialist with two ranged support mages; I’m unhappy with how poorly they worked together, but at least it revealed something about Serenity.” Longsight wasn’t going to give up on the goal of testing a potential trade partner, even if he had to let him pass.

“That Skill was unexpected; most low-Tier physical types completely skip battlefield control abilities. That was an unusual one; it seemed to make movement less effective, which was an excellent counter to flight. Still, it has to have had a significant stamina cost; maintained Skills always do.” Longsight assumed that Serenity was Tier Two at the most, since the world was a weak Tier One, but using two maintained Skills at once meant that he was practiced, regardless of the Tier. It was a good sign for the future.

Lord Widetail chuckled. “Watching him walk away from the birds was amusing at first, but you should have called it sooner. It was just sad at the end. They could barely even waddle. So. What’s next?”

“Spinning Seed’s project. She’s still insisting that she can manage a true hybrid, but she hasn’t managed to get the magical fire attunement to manifest itself as anything more than a party trick. It’s not as good a test as I’d hoped; it’s too similar to the last two. Spinning Seed keeps insisting that her tiger needs a real fight to figure out that it’s supposed to attack with fire, not just burn as a defense, so this seemed like an opportunity.” If Longsight couldn’t test the stranger as harshly as he’d prefer, he could at least use the tests to the Nest’s advantage.

“It should be a good fight. Appropriate to place against a dragon, too.” Lord Widetail gave his approval and Longsight forced himself to not grumble.

Even if he wasn’t the Traa Longsight wanted as their leader, Widetail had proven adept at pushing them through the flood of trouble after the Incident.

The Nest would survive. It had to.

Serenity released his gravity spells when he realized the two coldwings weren’t even trying to catch him anymore. As his mana slowly recovered, he watched another Traa come out and slowly encourage the two exhausted birds out of the arena.

While he appreciated the short break, it wasn’t enough to recover his mana. There was a way around that; he could burn stamina to recover mana. Unfortunately, the exchange rate was bad and he had far more mana than he did stamina; he could probably burn all of his stamina and not reach full, even though his mana was quite a bit more than half full.

If he did that, he wouldn’t be able to use his stamina-based Skills. No, it was better to leave things as they were, at least for now.

Serenity was debating which spells he should infuse into items to be evoked later when he heard a roar from the arena’s entrance. That must be the next opponent.

Serenity turned to face it. Was it really a winged cat? A big winged cat, with wings that were each as long as it was tall, but still - a winged cat? Why?

Flametouched Winged Tiger

This winged tiger is attuned to the mystical properties of fire.

It was too big to want to take a full-on flying charge, and Serenity doubted it would do a simple charge the way the wolf did. It was surprising enough from the wolf, but where wolves were generally pack hunters, tigers generally hunted alone.

On top of that, this had to be a monster. It was probably not a unique monster, but it might be close. The lack of a simplified name meant it was unusual; as bland a name as “coldwing” was, it was a single name that meant a single thing.

“START!”

Serenity stood there, waiting. The tiger circled him, but nothing more.

Even after several minutes, the tiger refused to initiate. It looked like that was going to be up to Serenity, so he headed over to the winged tiger. It looked like the tiger was hesitating, unsure what to do.

It would fight him if he got close enough, but it would be better to bait it into an attack. Serenity was about twenty feet away in his cautious approach when the big cat suddenly moved. It charged at him, wings folded. It moved fast; not as fast as a snake’s strike, but still much faster than he expected something that large to move without magic.

There was magic, but it wasn’t augmenting the cat’s legs.

He didn’t have time to carefully target the cat’s legs the way he had the wolf’s, but he threw his ax anyway. There was no reason not to.

As Serenity brought his shield up, he noticed that the cat wasn’t directly charging him; instead, it was charging right next to him. Serenity wasn’t certain what it intended, but he put the shield between him and the closest point of the cat’s approach, instead of directly towards the cat.

The ax clipped the winged tiger’s hindquarters as it spun and clawed at Serenity, only to hit his shield. Serenity could feel the heat of the giant as its claws melted and burned the material of his shield, but the shield was enough for that one strike.

This was a fight worthy of the Quickness and Slow spells he’d Imbued that morning. Serenity triggered Quickness and hopped backwards, able to follow and surpass the tiger’s motion far more easily. Serenity triggered the Slow spell on the winged tiger, then looked down at his shield. It wasn’t going to stand up to another strike like that.

In fact, if it took any more damage, it might not be able to repair itself. Serenity stashed the shield in his Quick Belt and recalled his ax. He’d have to depend on his armor, his own toughness, and his Resistances for the rest of the fights.

Serenity started to circle to the winged cat’s left, only to find that his ax throw did more damage than he expected; when the tiger stood, it could only use three legs. Moving slower than Serenity now, the cat ran to the side on its three functional legs and took to the air.

There wasn’t time to create the gravity spell now unless the flying tiger decided to fly around for a while. Without a shield Serenity couldn’t repeat his first success as easily. Serenity considered pulling out his naginata, but first he needed to at least try to reduce the cat’s mobility.

Serenity threw his ax towards the right wing, the same side as the damaged leg, then pulled his naginata off his Quick belt.

The cat was already in a dive towards him. Its movement made the ax hit at the joint halfway up the wing instead of near the shoulder joint. The strike made the cat start to veer off course, but it was far enough into the dive that it still smashed into Serenity. He managed to strike it, but it was the same leg he’d hit before.

The cat’s claws ripped across his arm and into his chest. His armor didn’t stop the blow, but it slowed it enough that the strike only left inch-long marks on his chest scales. His arm didn’t fare as well; it was sliced almost to the bone, and the flesh was cauterized behind it.

It was too bad it’d hit so low; a little higher and there would have been more scales and he might have taken less damage. Serenity knew his Heat Resistance prevented it from being worse, but without his healing it would still have been a nasty injury.

As it was, he’d have full functionality back in moments and it would heal in minutes. He could already feel the area shifting, and knew that if he looked he’d see black smoke. His shirt was probably ruined, but the armor would repair itself in time. It wouldn’t be before the next fight, but it was still better than no armor.

Serenity brought the heel of his left hand down on the trapped paw; he heard something snap, then he pulled the paw out of his armor and stepped back. He didn’t want to kill the cat; would it give up now? It couldn’t fly and it had two badly injured legs. Serenity put his naginata back in his Quick Belt and recalled his ax; he could wait a moment to see what the cat would do.

The cat opened its mouth as if to roar, but Serenity could see mana building up in its throat. He started to throw his ax, but had a better idea. Whatever spell the tiger was creating seemed to take time to build.

He hurried around behind the tiger, where it could no longer see him. The tiger released its roar moments after he was out of the way and Serenity saw flame erupt along with the noise.

He chuckled to himself. A dragon who could barely spit fire and a cat with a fiery roar. Weren’t they a pair.