Ranvir made his way towards the tower overlooking the docks and the rivers Stex and Letos intertwining. Under one arm he held a lunch box he’d prepared alongside Frija’s—who’d begged off coming to Legea today—and the new report from the Collegia of Mana in Chórofos under the other.

Taking his seat, pushing his legs below the railing and letting them swing in the air, Ranvir let out a sigh. He’d never had lunch and bought a report on the same day. Ranvir snorted a laugh. He’d never had lunch and bought a report in the same week.

Shaking his head, Ranvir quickly wolfed down his food before cracking open the report. The full report featured lots of stories, research, and details that might be interesting later, but for now, Ranvir wanted to read about the new research on mana-typing.

Leafing through the magazine, he was surprised by the heft of one article. Skimming the first page, it seemed about the classification of Ability types. It was rare that someone picked up enough Abilities within a single focus that they truly earned a classification in the original sense, but the definition had since grown to encompass someone leaning towards one type of Abilities.

Ranvir knew there were scouts, like Amalia, who favored an Ability-set that didn’t focus on combat but mobility and surveillance. There were a few other types that he’d been briefed on when joining the Sentinels, mainly healers and fangs, who favored heavy damage. Fangs were highly specialized and very hard to replace, as they lacked both in survivability and utility. They were rarely sent out alone and Ranvir had never actually met one. He imagined them similar to warp tethered, however.

He saved the article for later, as a perusal of the new classifications might be worth it. For now, he wanted mana-types. Faidar was one of Korfyi’s leading researchers on mana. While her work hadn’t revealed any one thing that had as much impact on their understanding as Kynthia’s Engine, she could easily match the long dead researcher for feats.

Ranvir sensed Latresekt chuckling to itself as it stirred with his excitement, and he realized the electric blue energy seemed to have awakened his tether slightly, spinning just fast enough to cause a spiritual breeze to flow through tether-space and ruffle the colored creature’s coat.

The article focused on mana as a single entity, rather than multiple variations. Faidar suggested that mana, on an individual level, was simply highly modular and could express itself in many ways.

Ranvir couldn’t stop the frown from creasing his face as he read further.

Of course, Faidar hadn’t simply asserted her idea with no experiments or references. Instead, she’d gone to the sekethi-tribes, who also believed that there only existed a single mana type, to gather their help performing the experiments.

They’d created a chamber, then using air mana to create a vacuum had isolated the mana inside, allowing it to revert to its unaffected state. This wasn’t totally unheard of, as mana was known to revert to neutral if their source of change was removed. She’d then used multiple sekethi tribes-people’s soul-sight to shock the mote of mana out of its previous configuration, which then allowed her to shift into a different configuration, turning a nature mote into an ice mote in the middle of a tropical forest.

Ranvir got up from his seat, nearly kicking his lunch box over the edge as he began pacing the small balcony, earning further chuckles from Latresekt.

“This,” Ranvir muttered. “Isn’t right,” he shook his head and waved the article before him. He was only about halfway through, but already he was disliking her experiments.

There were two prevalent theories on the internal construction of mana. One said there was a near-infinite amount of types, motes of each gathering around material that coincided with their affiliation. Fire mana gathered around fire mana. The other theory, the one Faidar was arguing for in the article, said that only a single type of mana existed, one that could align with any type of material given the right circumstances. Neutral mana could become either fire mana or water mana.

The Multitude of Mana theory called the ‘neutral’ state of mana motes dormant, where Singular Mana theory called it unaligned. But the way Faidar had ‘shocked’ the mote of mana was by blasting it with soul-sight, which came directly from the spirit of Second Order beings. It wasn’t widely known that Second and First Order of existence existed, but he’d thought Faidar would be aware. Ranvir lacked the equipment to attempt the experiment himself, but he’d bet that much attention caused damage to the mote.

They could be resetting it and aligning it differently, or they could be breaking it and then restoring it with a different mana, which caused the change. All hands weren’t left hands just because you cut the right hand off someone and sowed a left on.

“You’re getting really worked up about this,” Latresekt commented. “Care to let me know about your issues?”

Ranvir shook his head. “Can’t you just read it through my eyes?”

Latresekt shook all over. “Maybe, or maybe I can’t. Who knows? It could be I enjoy seeing you so worked up… It could be I intend to offer genuine advice.”

Ranvir hesitated, then glanced down at the article. “She’s writing about mana-types and determining the structure of mana,” Latresekt let out a weird sound, somewhere between a dog’s groan once it lays down and a growl. “What?”

“Nothing. You wouldn’t understand.”

Ranvir shook his head. “She claims to have proven that mana is singular by frying it with soul-sight and resetting it to a different type.”

“Well, that’s just plain wrong.”

Ranvir nodded. “That’s what I thought. Mana is a lot more changeable than that. Back home, mana is restricted to one of the six elements, but even then you can bring different aspects to the forefront. Focus on creating more light, or on making it hotter, even without a Concept, which only throws more shit in the mix,” Ranvir started pacing again as nervous, annoyed, and angry energy returned in a blue and red fervor.

Latresekt chuckled as Ranvir continued. “But Amanaris allows people to specify their connection with elements as they grow stronger and more experienced. Taking stone to sand, or fire to ash, or water to nature. But that’s entirely internal and requires a lot of rework on the Ability side, so that’s unlikely to be a reflection of mana as much as it is anima.”

Ranvir scratched at his chin. Didn’t I just shave? Last week, or the week before that. He shook his head, refusing to be side-tracked.

“Have you finished reading the article? Maybe she’ll explain her reasoning in the next part,” Latresekt suggested, with obvious amusement.

“What’s so funny?”

“Did you say something?” A passing guard peeked around the corner onto the balcony to glance at Ranvir.

“Sorry,” Ranvir quickly switched back to fiyan. “I was talking to myself, working on some theory issues regarding Abilities.”

The guard faked a gasp, a shiver, and said, “Good luck to you, then,” before he ducked away.

“What is so funny?” Ranvir hissed to Latresekt under his breath.

“Just read the damn article, kid. I’m sure you’ll be settled more once that’s done.”

Ranvir shook his head, but resumed his seat and began reading once more. Faidar had a series of slightly, slightly, less problematic experiments, but nothing that conclusively proved her theory right. What was surprising was the next portion of the article written by one of her colleagues who’d traveled all the way to the southern planes of the Hestian Fields, to experiment with the horse riders, who believed in eight mana types and nothing more. Another of her colleagues had traveled up to visit the northern kortians who were the origin of the Multitude of Mana theory.

They each repeated the same experiments as Faidar, but when comparing their results.

“I don’t understand,” Ranvir muttered to an outright laugh from Latresekt.

“They say that is the first step to learning.”

“So you know why the Hestians could convert their mana motes but only within their ‘families’, or how the kortians couldn’t convert them at all?”

“I didn’t say that.”

Ranvir sucked air in through his teeth. “But you’re also not saying that you don’t.”

“I really haven’t said much of anything now that I think about it,” Latresekt replied, laughing.

“Tell me.”

“Nah.”

Ranvir closed his eyes and carefully took in a deep breath. “What do you want?”

Latresekt smiled with all its fangs and teeth. “Now we’re talking.”