"Okay, missy, listen up! This is going to be a crash course. Most human children your age are already practising throwing water balls at each other!" Said Warran, walking about in his dogboy form. After he had gotten settled into an empty room on the opposite side of the mansion from where Sylvianna and Celestine sleep, he had gotten changed into clothes more appropriate for the climate. He was wearing a thin brown sleeveless robe with a hood laid on his back, tan t-shirt, and red shorts. Occasionally a bump could be seen rising up from the back of the robe. I think the transformation spell thing not only made him a shorty with dog ears, but also gave him a dog tail. Celestine, who had seen his true form, was not interested in verifying that.

"If that's true then why is the ceremony only done at 12 years old?" Celestine asked, actually paying attention to what he was saying and not why he was standing there as a dog beast-man. I would be a hard person to teach, wouldn't I?

"This ceremony thing is unique to Arture and its religion. Despite what you may have been told, you were not born closed off from your magic conduit, or conduits in your case. At birth, the church puts a bind spell on newborns. I was actually around during the early days of this city. Back before the practise became a religious ceremony. You shortlived humans have a habit of getting ideas lost in the transition of generations. The idea to plug the magic conduit was meant as an attempt to artificially widen it. But then it became tradition and finally religion. The ceremony is nothing but a light show. The real magic happens when the person at your head releases the bind." He was pacing around the courtyard around the back side of the mansion with Celestine standing still. Some of the bushes that have been left on their own back here without a gardener have recently been brought back to life with the coming of spring thanks to Sylivanna's patience. Though everything was still an odd brown-green and most of the grass was dead brown, too. I would have liked to see this mansion at its prime, despite the terrible building design.

"By they way, good job convincing the church to release your bind early. Pretending to be blessed by a god, huh? I wouldn't have it in me." He clapped his hands, "So, let's see what a mage who possesses three conduits can do. This is a first for the both of us."

"Um, Mr. Warran, why are you in your beast-men form right now?" She asked the question I wanted to ask. It was going to bug me if she left it go.

"To maintain this form requires a lot of energy. With this, I am at a fraction of my total conduit's capability. It should be easier to teach simple spells like this. Also, there's another reason." He leaned forward and poked Celestine in the nose before jumping back, "YOU are more easy-going when I am like this. Not as nervous. I can see it in your eyes. It would be hard to train you if I was my old old self. If you were older, I would train you in my old old form. Teenagers tend to prefer the wisdom-look of the elderly in their teachers, they disrespect the young teachers. Children want someone to play with. Now then, basics! Tell me what you know of magic so far."

"W-well, I only know what I've seen and what I've read in books. I've seen momma use light magic a lot and I saw your transformation magic. Then there was the magic in books. Elementalism and spacial magics. To change the elements and to make objects float. I don't know any more than that."

"So you don't know anything then. ALRIGHT! Might as well start with light because it's the safest. I'll talk about each common school of magic as you gain an understanding of each one. Then we will try for the rare schools. Since the idiots at the church couldn't figure out your affinity, we will have to discover it through trial and error. First thing's first, though, you need to learn how to channel your magic energy out of your conduit and through your body."

He stopped pacing at a large bag, opened it up and pulled out a few light crystals. I really didn't go into too much detail on these did I? They look like smoky quartz with a brass band of metal around the base. The cheapest kind of magic crystal money can buy. When lit up, they emit light of the same intensity as a light bulb, with the more expensive ones emitting even brighter light. Celestine has seen Sylvianna light these small crystals many times in their previous home. They usually last an hour or so. The lighting in the mansion works on some different method that hasn't been explained to her yet. But I guess it's similar to the church's lighting crystals. Warran held one up to Celestine's face, then lit it up as a demonstration.

"Now," he said as he placed one that was unpowered in Celestine's hand. "These things are super simple. Just direct your magic energy from your conduit, any one of the three, into your hand and into the crystals."

"Umm, how do I..."

"Alight, listen closely. Forget everything you know about magic. You might think it has something to do with imagination or shit like that. It doesn't. It's like moving your finger. It just works. The people of this city have the disadvantage of being locked away from their conduit for most of their childhood, so they come up with all kinds of theories on how to make magic work. Your mother is the proof that the binding only hinders growth, it doesn't force it to grow. It stunts the conduit. You were lucky enough to get around it before any damage was done. So now you have to figure out how to move a limb you didn't know you had for most of your life. Not just one, though, three, you lucky devil you."

"But what do I..."

"All right, class dismissed. We'll resume lessons after you bring me back that crystal lit. I'll be in my room reading. Managed to swipe a rather interesting novel series from a library before I left Eldwen. Hoo hoo."

He dropped the lit light crystal into the bag, picked it up, and trotted back inside the mansion, leaving Celestine standing in the middle of the courtyard trying to figure out what just happened.

She didn't have any luck getting it to light for the rest of the day, leaving us to discuss it in her dream that night.

----

"NOVOS! HELP ME!!!" Celestine was on the couch in front of the fireplace in my wonderland crying into the fur of the teddy bear. I was laying on the other couch playing Pokemon Y on my 2DS.

We were speaking English to each other, no reason to use the less-than/greater-than signs here.

"I don't know what you want me to do about it. I told you before that magic didn't exist on my world. We used electricity like this, yoo hoo." I waved the 2DS up so she could see it.

"Well then what is that? Maybe it will help me!"

"I was no electrical engineer. All I know is that if you take a coil of copper and spin it around a magnet fast enough, you get electricity. How that energy is then utilized it beyond me."

"Buuuhwaaaaaaaa!" She bawled.

"Actually. Hmm. Celestine, have you read any anatomy books at all?"

"No, it's gross."

"You've eaten meat before, girl. Where do you think that comes from?"

"Uhhhh, umm, I dunno."

"Well you're in for a surprise when you figure that out. Anyway, I have a thought." I put the 2DS down and it vanished. I stayed laid down on the couch, just looking over at Celestine, over top of the coffee table, laying on the other couch. "Magic in my world has always been a supernatural phenomenon. An impossibility. Something that many would wish to exist, but just couldn't. When I was floating in the Void, I was wishing up a world I wanted to live on. I think Erde is that world." She already knew what I mean by Erde, even though it's in German. And she knew my story about the Void of static I came from.

"How does that help me?"

"My wish was for a world that used celestial magic. Very vague and open to a lot of interpretations."

"Interpre-?"

"Points of view. Ideas. Theories."

"Ah."

"Celestial magic could mean that it is powered by the stars or uses constellations to work or something. Now, since magic was a fundamental impossibility on my world, there must be something simple here that allows the creatures of this world to use magic. Now... what if that something replaced a fundamental law of nature from my world? Like I said, I was not an expert of everything. I only know general knowledge, but what if something significant was changed to where in one world, magic exists and the other, it doesn't?"

"I don't understand."

"Celestine, what is lightning?"

"You said it was a spark of electricity between the clouds and ground in your world. It makes a bright flash and a boom. You showed me it once in a dream."

"No matter how hard it rains here on Erde, no matter how hard the wind howls in the rainy season, what have you never seen?"

"Lightning?"

"Exactly."

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"Whatever allows electricity to be created and utilized in my world was changed so that it is a physical impossibility here. Something like that is huge. It means the human brain cannot work at all without electricity. It means atoms cannot interact correctly. I think it would mean the entire universe couldn't exist at all unless something replaced it. If that something did in this universe, then all life evolved around that change. And this is what magic is."

"Ohhhhhh."

"I think."

"I hate you."

"I know." Everything is just bullshitting right now. "Actually, it makes sense now. The reason why you have three conduits. If the brain is based on whatever replaces electricity, then you, me, and the system voice are the three conduits. We're like three different channels being picked up by the same antenna."

"What's an antenna?"

"It's a metal rod people in my world used to use to pick up messages from each other. If every being on this world is like an antenna, then a conduit is just the mind of the being decoding and putting to use the radio waves. But what does he mean by magic is as easy as moving a finger? Well, I suppose any being in this world should be able to use this magic if that's the very basis on how their brain works. Then again, humans on Earth weren't shooting lightning bolts out of their fingertips... But something here might allow that..."

"I hate you..."

"Celestine, I think I know the solution."

"I LOVE YOU!" She leapt off the couch, ran across the coffee table, and jumped into my stomach, wrapping her arms around my static-covered body and rubbing her head into my chest.

"There there, I haven't told you anything yet." I said, patting her head. She stopped her show of affect and just looked up at me, arms still wrapped around my waist. "Just a theory, but when you try to make the crystal light up, just don't think about it. I think magic in this world is like a 6th sense. You don't think when you smell something, you just smell it. You don't think about tasting something, you just taste it. When you try to put your magic power into something, you don't think about it, you just do it. The light is off, I want it on, so now it is on. Aiiiii'm not helping am I?"

She unwrapped her arms from around me, then just sat on my gut like some entitled princess. Lifting her leg over the other, crossing her arms, and 'hmph'ing. She actually 'hmph'ed!

"Well, let me try. We'll switch places when you wake up and I'll try to light the crystal. Then you can just use the memory to figure it out if I actually succeed?"

"Wait, you can do that? You can take control of my body? When have you done that?"

"I haven't since that day at the church during your ceremony, I swear."

She looked off into space for a bit, trying to remember. I could see her brain looking into her memories, too, then she just nodded. Photographic memory. Scary. The memory of that day, including my little interaction with the acolytes, is in her long term memory neatly filed in chronological order with the rest of her memories. Okay, it isn't that simple. I like to use metaphors when describing things in here.

"All right, do you want to get off of me?"

"No, you make a good seat."

"Yes hime-sama."

"What's that?"

"Forget it. Actually, let me try it out now. Let's wake you up. Should be in the middle of the night. If I succeed, the light crystal should go out before morning and you can try then. Sound good?"

"Okay." She disappeared from on top of me and I moved to her short-term memory like usual.

----

She was already up and holding the light crystal.

All right, ready to switch?

"I guess?" She said aloud in English. Guess she's still in the habit of speaking in English even though we aren't in the dream any more.

I begin to take control of her body. The eyes and ears are the most basic to take control of. Then the motor skills, senses, and finally breathing. I position Celestine's conscious where I was in the short term memory so she can still see what I'm doing.

This is... different.

"What the hell, girl." I was in complete control of her body. I could feel every sense and move every limb. There was something else, though. Something I didn't feel the first time I took control of her body, and that was before the ceremony. It's hard to describe, but it's like there's a tube that spans the whole skeleton. Like an esophagus... maybe? It's hard to describe. But for a human that was on Earth to be in the body of a human on Erde, the difference is night and day. This kind of difference should have been apparent to her. She should have noticed this as soon as the ceremony was finished. But there isn't a single mention in her memory. Like it was too insignificant to mention. I can feel her entire skeleton beneath the flesh like worms crawling under the muscles.

I try to take a step forward in her body, clothed in just a pair of pink pajamas. I stumble and fall onto the knee. Every bone in the body echoed in pain at that. Some kind of hypersensitivity. Was my antenna analogy correct?

What the heck is this feeling? Celestine was incredulous. This was new to her, too.

"Damned if I know. It's your body, Tina. Why didn't you notice this sooner?"

I've never felt this before!

I lift up the light crystal in her hand and force the convulsions in the bones into the hand and into the crystal. It lit up immediately, then fractured, the crystal bits held together only by the brass band at the base. Small bolts of black lightning shot out of the fingertips before I could force the energy to stop flowing. "Damn!"

You broke it!

"Yeah, I did. Guess I put too much into it. Let's switch back and tell Warran what happened in the morning."

Okay. I could feel control of the body being relinquished back to Celestine faster than I took control. The convulsions in the skeleton ended and she stood up like nothing happened.

Be careful with that crystal. It might be sharp.

"Okay." She said, lightly placing it back onto her dresser before crawling back into bed. The rest of the night was uneventful.

----

"Theory: the skeletons of creatures of this world can collect the background of the and it into the phenomenon known as magic. Their ability to this energy depends on their affinity, which is dependant on the make up of their skeletons. A trait. Whatever Celestine's skeleton is made of might have been what allowed me to her in the first place. A sort of hidden talent. And by me taking full control of her body, the connection between the background of the and her body's ability to channel it was . And my inability to control that energy is what led to the crystal to shatter. Am I correct, Mr. Warran?"

We were sitting in Warran's room, sitting on a chair by the door while he was sitting at a desk just staring at the crystal. He was in his old elf form right now. He already guessed that Celestine was not blessed by a god, since he thought the religion of the city was just superstition gone awry. But he also thought that Novos didn't exist at all, which led to this exchange now. I was taking control of Celestine's head to speak to him in their language. Of course, I was forced to say the words I didn't know the translation to in English, but that just leant credibility to the whole possession story. We can't be dishonest to our teacher, now. Thing was, though, even with just controlling the head I could feel the ache in the skull.

"Well..." He swallowed before speaking, "anyone with a significantly large conduit can cause a simple light crystal to fracture by putting too much energy into it too quickly... What concerns me is the black energy bolts you mentioned. We'll put aside the whole 'other world' business for now. I was not brought here to deal with that. Only to teach Celestine magic. And although I don't understand some of the words you said, I think your theory might have some credibility. The black bolts might be a clue to her magic affinity. I need to do a bit of research. I need to write a letter to the Hope World Studies Library for materials."

"Well, Celestine still needs to pass your test, so that gives us plenty of time regardless. If you could supply her with another crystal, it'd be appreciated. Still treat her like you did before, now. I found your teaching method amusing. I'll return control of her mouth to her now."

"O-of course." He sifted through his bag and handed Celestine a new light crystal.

"" She whined as soon as she got control of her mouth again. The abrupt change in attitude made the old man jump back a bit before his head registered what happened. She was also speaking in English, so that was probably part of it.

"Now, Missy, you have your assignment. Now get to it." He clapped his hands, she jumped and ran out of the room.

As she was leaving, the faint words of, "what the hell..." could be heard as Warran slumped over on his desk.