Chapter 51

Maston Academy

The Town of Maston in the Candis East District

“Aether wells, channels, converters, and techniques. The combination of these four structures makes up an aether system.”

Primrose had left them with no break. After they finished discussing the examination missions, she had skipped combat training, jumping right into her class on the principles of the aether space. In the past, this class had been mostly centered around delving. They had used it to expand their aether wells, increasing the amount of pure mana they had available for use.

Now, the days of delving seemed to be a thing of the past. They were still expected to sacrifice time to delve on their own, but now the classes were focused heavily on learning the theory they needed to start becoming true arcaners capable of using other types of mana.

“An aether system exists within your aether space. You can think of the aether space as a three-dimensional cube of unlimited size. Each aether space has an origin point that sits on top of the cube, directly in the center. The further you reach from the origin point, the harder it becomes to delve or scape away the aether that makes up the cube.”

Myles found the theory to be relatively straightforward. In many ways, what they had been doing was similar to digging a well in the outside world. The difference was that while most wells worked by tapping into and collecting water that flowed underground, aether wells were gradually filled from the mana that sat above the aether space.

The distinction did make Myles slightly annoyed with whoever had decided to call them aether wells. In Myles’ mind, it would have been simpler to call them aether holes or maybe hollows, but he supposed that just didn’t sound as good.

“You are already familiar with aether wells.” Primrose spoke with a calm voice, patiently walking them through the process. It was at odds with her usual fast-paced teaching style that emphasized repetition. It meant that this was important, likely something that could not be taught through simple repetition.

“Aether wells serve two major purposes. The first is to gather and hold a supply of mana. The second is to gain access to the lower connections. These connections are accessed by increasing the depth of your aether well. You are already familiar with the first two connections, evocation and commutation. The first allows you to move mana from your aether space into the outside world. The farther away the location is that you wish to evoke mana, the more time it takes. The amount of time it takes can be roughly approximated to the speed of an arrow flying at maximum velocity.”

Myles looked around the room. Everyone was hanging onto Primrose’s every word, ingesting the information. None of them were any less bright than Myles himself. After all, every single one of his dormmates were hand selected and were being given the education for free with the sole caveat of the year of required service after graduation.

Primrose continued the lecture, carefully scrutinizing her six students to make sure they were keeping up. “Commutation is a connection between the aether space and the bounds of one’s body. In commuting mana around one’s body, you are moving the mana around the absolute outer layer of the human body. Commutation is an efficient use of mana as unlike evoked mana, commuted mana can reenter the aether space. Because of this unique quality, commutation is often referred to as a two-way connection.”

Primrose gestured towards Kate. “In rare cases, an individual may have what we call higher connections. Unlike the traditional lower connections, higher connections are not connected with the aether space. Instead, these connections are above in what we refer to as the mana space. We have limited information available on the higher connections, but we do know two major details about them. The first comes from the symptoms of higher connections. Would you mind reminding the group of how your ‘affliction’ works, Kate?”

Kate cleared her throat, looking nervous. She had already talked with each of the dormmates about her affliction, but Myles knew she didn’t like to speak on it. From the panicked look in her eyes and the few stories she had shared about her mother, Myles suspected that she still had an irrational feeling that she wouldn’t be believed.

“Whenever someone is nearby me, I am able to feel any pain that they do.” Kate scrunched her forehead up in the way that Myles noticed she sometimes did when she was thinking. “I can always tell the difference between pain that is caused by injuries to my own body and pain that comes from someone else. The pain isn’t any lesser when it comes from someone else.” Kate paused again, seeming to try to find the right words. “The pain just feels…different.”

Primrose nodded. “Thank you. The symptoms that you mention are consistent with what many individuals with higher connections speak of. Not every person with a higher connection feels the pain of others, however they usually gain some phantom sense connected to other humans. One commonly used example comes from an individual who felt a strong surge of attraction whenever someone in their vicinity was particularly attracted to another.” Primrose gave no indication of noticing the faces of her students going red. Myles managed to cut his own thoughts short, but he could see how such an ability could be quite troublesome.

“The point,” Primrose paused to allow her students to focus back in, “is that we believe the higher connections are connections between the mana spaces of different people. Beyond that broad conclusion, the only thing we know about higher connections is that they cannot be intentionally created through delving. The only two documented methods of obtaining higher connections are by being born with them or being exposed to the burning tree for great lengths of time.” With the last, Primrose nodded towards Reah who had taken a space near the six students.

Seth nodded to himself calmly, seeming as ever to be completely collected. “Aether wells allow for the storage of mana and access to further connections then. If that’s the case, what benefits do the other structures you mentioned have?”

Primrose nodded to him, accepting his question. It was a particular quirk of hers that Myles and the others had caught onto. Primrose allowed them to ask her questions at any time when she was lecturing. Primrose only chose to answer certain questions though.

“Aether channels allow for the movement of mana throughout the aether system. The wider a channel is delved; the faster mana can be moved through it. In effect, they are tunnels through the aether space that link the aether system together.”

Myles thought he was starting to see the bigger picture. If channels were used to move mana between aether wells, it stood to reason that converters were a means to convert from one mana type to another. After all, what was the point of moving mana if you couldn’t use it to resupply a type of mana you were running low on. It was effectively equivalent to the conversion rune that Myles and Jane had used to allow them to take pure mana for use in a fireball. That rune had been inefficient, only converting 9% of the pure mana into fire mana. Myles knew that the more advanced runes could convert a quarter of the pure mana into fire mana.

“What are the conversion rates for converters?”

The question slipped out without much thought. This seemed to be one of the questions that would go unanswered though. Primrose didn’t so much as bat an eye at the question, completely ignoring it. Myles couldn’t say he blamed her. He felt that he was getting a step ahead of himself.

Myles did notice that Jane gave him a knowing look. She had probably jumped down the same line of thought he had. They had spent a considerable amount of time working on those spear constructs. It was little surprise that both of them had immediately drew the comparison.

Primrose continued with the preset route of her lecture. “Through the use of channels, one can expand outward more rapidly than by attempting to simply expand their aether well. This is an important quality as it is needed to create additional aether wells.” Primrose held up a hand in a sign of caution, drawing Myles and the others in. “One of the common mistakes made is creating a second aether well too close to the original. It is important to place the wells far enough away that they will not impede each other’s future growth.”

Myles could imagine the temptation. The closer a second aether well was, the shorter the connecting channel had to be. That meant less delving, a time-consuming activity. Building out a proper aether system was starting to sound like a task that would take a monumental amount of time. He was beginning to see why most soldiers weren’t as strong as your average noble.

Nobles were given the time to delve. For the most part, their role was to protect the towns they controlled. Soldiers on the other hand were constantly being sent into combat to fight off monsters. They would have far less time to devote to building out a proper aether system.

“Creating an additional aether well is usually only useful if that aether well is of a different type. That’s where converters come in.” Primrose held up her hand, evoking a huge boulder-sized patch of pure mana in the air. “Converters are structures that are specifically designed to switch between mana types. They are all designed differently, but the general rule is that two units of mana are needed to produce one unit of the mana’s subtype.”

A small burst of flame came out of Primrose’s hand. “I just used a converter to switch the same amount of pure mana I evoked into fire mana.”

Mercy moved her head to the side, following the demonstration with obvious interest. “Fire mana is a subtype of energy mana, correct?”

Primrose gave another nod of acknowledgement. “That is correct. Pure mana is the parent type of energy mana and energy mana is the parent type of fire mana. That means there is a two-step difference between the two mana types that I evoked. That equates to needing 4 units of pure mana to produce one unit of fire mana.”

Those were better rates than Myles had anticipated. It almost made him feel like his spear construct would become irrelevant when an investment in building out an aether well of fire mana would be more efficient. Of course, it would take a significant amount of time to delve enough to be able to create an aether well with enough fire mana to produce a comparable effect to the spear. Besides, he could always use pure monster cores to fuel the spear. There was no alternative to regain lost mana other than waiting for the mana to trickle into the aether well.

Primrose continued with her demonstration, evoking another patch of pure mana into the air. While still sizeable, this was nowhere near as large as the initial pure mana that she had evoked. “Conversion can be used in the reverse manner as well. For every four units of fire mana, one unit of pure mana can be created.”

Myles could see a bigger picture now, and his mind raced, thinking of things in much the same way as he did when designing a construct. If he created a channel from his current aether space, how long would it have to be to not impede the growth of either his existing aether well or the newly created one? Myles couldn’t find a clear answer. To find one, he would need to know the potential maximum size he could grow his aether well. While he was at it, Myles would need to discover the exact dimensions of his current aether well.

Myles supposed he could theoretically measure the total mana he had in his aether well by using the device they had created to measure out exact quantities of fire mana. He would need to adjust the calculation to account for using pure mana rather than fire mana, but it could work. Unfortunately, knowing the total capacity of his aether well didn’t do much to help him with discovering its dimensions.

Myles still felt it was something worth doing. The more he could connect the precise quantity of mana he evoked or commuted to its effect, the more he could improve the efficiency of his defense. By adding carefully prepared constructs that he created on top of carefully developing his own innate abilities, he could boost his combat ability exponentially.

Myles put a stop to his tirade of excited thoughts. There would be time to examine things once the lecture was over. For now, he needed to pay attention.

“The final structure is also the most complex. Techniques are designed for the purpose of creating intricate effects with minimal cognitive effort.”

This was the line that finally brought confusion to the group. Myles had a hard time understanding what he had just heard.

Primrose seemed to see the confusion in her students. “Every time you evoke mana you have to concentrate to do so, correct?”

Myles nodded along with the others. That seemed obvious. The evocation didn’t just happen. It was something he had to actively do. It was the same thing as moving his arm. If he didn’t will his arm to move, it wouldn’t.

“If you were just evoking a small patch of pure mana about the size of a stone you would have no problem, right?”

Myles nodded again, unsure what the point was.

“Now imagine you’re in a fight and you need to defend precisely against a large number of stones being shot at you at high velocity. How many do you suppose you could block with pure mana at once?”

Myles didn’t have to think about that much. He would struggle to block more than a handful at once. He would be forced to rely on his commuted armor to stop the rest.

“A technique that uses wind and pure mana may be able to detect the stones approaching and automatically evoke a supply of pure mana to the correct position to block every stone with nearly perfect accuracy.”

Myles was beginning to understand what Primrose had meant by ‘cognitive effort’. He could only do so many things at once. A technique then was a pattern that he could repeat without too much thought. It was similar to how he could walk while barely processing that he was doing so. There was a pattern to walking. He could walk while focused on other things by simply following the pattern, supplying the energy he needed at the right times to move his limbs.

Using techniques Myles realized would be similar to walking. Once the technique was created, he would just need to supply it with the mana it needed. It would handle the rest, allowing him to focus on an ongoing fight.

“We will look into techniques more next time. In the meantime, do not attempt to do any delving outside of increasing the capacity of your existing aether wells. I cannot stress enough how important it is to carefully plan your aether system.”

The group was left thinking as they headed towards the cafeteria to grab lunch together as had become their custom.