Jonathan

After a short wait, in which no discussion was initiated, multiple servants came with food. They brought bread, butter, cheese, a few kinds of marmalade, a few kinds of fruit, a can of milk as well as a few slices of ham. Also, they brought cutlery.

Jonathan chooses to eat a piece of bread with butter and cheese, the Archmage choose a slice of bread with marmalade and an apple, at least for now.

Then Tablos began to talk: “So, there are a few things that are important for magic. The first one is the maximum amount of mana someone can channel in sort of a burst. A familiar can help with that. Second is the amount of mana someone can channel without resting. To this there is another thing, then the amount can vary in relation to the speed someone channels. A slower speed means a greater amount of channelling. So another information is important to discover the worth of a magician. This is the maximum rate someone can channel at without reducing the maximum someone can channel on that day. As you can assume a familiar can help with that, even if that can easily get extremely difficult and complex. Thirdly, there is the amount of mana someone can store. All channelling speed is not useful if you do not have the mana to use it. This is the thing were the familiar can most easily help and the way a familiar is mostly used, as sort of a container for mana. These are the bases for every kind of magic. Having a high burst speed makes you into a good battlemage because they must set their spells free fast. This does not mean that one without a high burst speed cannot become a good battlemage, but it is generally more difficult. Having a high channelling speed, the one where you do not reduce the maximum you can channel in one day makes you into a good healer or similar jobs, where a high amount of magic must be used over a longer period of time. Practically everyone who has a high channelling speed also needs to have a high maximum of mana one can channel over the course of a day. Having high reserves of mana and the ability to recharge them, which is normally a given, because the recharge rate is in relation to the maximum mana one possesses, is always good, but not necessarily needed. There are a few workarounds, for example, some kinds of fruit give mana after eating or there are potions that have concentrated mana in them, treated to make it save. Of course, there are also familiars for this sort of thing. First off, one can put mana in oneself’s familiar and take it away later. This mana goes into a second mana pool every familiar has, to which the familiar has no access to. But some familiars also have their own mana pool they can recharge themselves and also use. The master of the familiar also can access this pool, at least in most kinds of binding. In your case, it is also possible, but you must give your permission.”

Jonathan swallowed the bite of bread he had in his mouth and answered: “This is great, at least I think so.”

After this, the Archmage continued: “So with having this out of the way we must speak about the different types of magic one can control. We generally think of them as elements and us having affinities for those, even if that explanation is in my humble opinion not entirely correct. I generally see them as types of magic, and you are not hindered at learning multiple types, but it is already difficult to learn one type in a lifetime, and it is generally considered impossible to master one, so there is that. But let’s get first to why everybody seems to think magic is affinities based, which it is not, even if one part of it is. But the thing there is that it can be pretty easy to increase one's affinities or create new ones, but it is generally not advisable, because it is difficult. Yes, you will be able to do multiple things, but you never can do anything well.”

Jonathan put a stop to Tablos rambling and asked him what the different types of magic were, alongside a short explanation. If he had questions after that he could answer them, but more likely they should consider those another day. The Archmage began to explain it more structured than before. Jonathans take from his answer amounted to that there are four different types of magic.

The first was the one most considered to be magic and the best understood one and many related the findings of this one to the other ones. This was the so-called elemental magic. It was based around a series of affinities, getting more and more specific each round. The more specific the more you could do with it, but you could affectless. Not all affinities were known, every so often a new one would be discovered or, for example in old books, rediscovered. He also mentioned that the elements seemed to be, especially the most basic elements, also called core elements, more spiritual concepts instead of based in the real, natural world. Most, but not all, magic that dealt with different dimensions was rooted in elemental magic. The core elements, which were the most important ones and everybody should be able to use at least one, if he wanted to use elemental magic, also basically every magician out there. These core elements consisted of the four physical elements, being Water, Earth, Fire, and Wind. Then there were the six spiritual elements, Tablos laughed a bit at this name, consisting of Void, Life, Creation, Destruction, Existence and Death. Almost every non-core element can be created through the use of a special combination of those elements. Some researcher’s think that the ones impossible are either falsely classified core elements or the combination simply has not been found until today. Which is not impossible as Tablos admits, because the connection is not always logical, or following one logic for every element.

The second type of magic is the, in the Archmage’s opinion, ably named corruption magic. Mostly considered a special part of elemental magic, the spells are too different for this to be the case. It is a dangerous kind of magic, with a high probability of killing oneself if using it. It also tended to kill everything around it, for a short time and sometimes for longer periods of time. It could take centuries for a restabilizing of the local life, including the lifespan of human settlers in such an area. Health problems were common for the mages practising this as well as their environment. For these reasons, it is an incredibly bad understood type of magic.

The third type was called spiritual magic. This magic works in offering an entity mana or other resources to use specific spells. Incredibly inflexible, but in the right situations unbelievable powerful, especially if the entity that is used is powerful. Also informal called religious or demonic magic, which are subtypes of this type. If you are using religious magic, you are asking for the help of an entity generally considered a god or goddess, and, logically, if you are using demonic magic, you call for the gifts of an entity considered to be a demon or demoness. Tablos added that what was a demon and what was a god occasionally changed, sometimes already after going into another country.

The fourth and last type of magic was often misunderstood to be a part of elemental magic, but because of the same reason as corruption magic, it was certainly not so. With this magic, you could move certain kinds of stone or fluids. No one is entirely certain how it worked and what it does, so it was often named pseudo-elemental magic.

Also, there were different ways of casting magic. Ritual magic and spellworking were only two, if the two most often used ones.

After hearing Tablos explanations, Jonathan was especially interested in the pseudo-elemental magic but held himself back before asking. He first needed to figure out a way to test his suspicion.