Magic System

   Infodump #6: the magic system!

Ok, sweet baby sun, here it is. The magic system question. How does the magic work in this world? 

Simple! Or not? Maybe?? 

It goes like this: Every enchanter has mana, i.e., a certain predetermined level of magic they can hold at any given time. This is the most well known kind, expressional mana, or magic that you expel from your body. The level/amount of mana that you have is usually based on your parents, their mana levels will combine and pass on to you. So if your mom had 18 mana and your other mom had 12, you would end up having 30 total. 

Now how can you use this mana? Well, there's basically an infinity of ways, it's mostly based in how you're taught and how active your imagination is. You know how people learn and express themselves in different ways? It's the same way with magic. You might only have 15 mana, and while you can't really teleport on your own with that amount, you can certainly find creative ways to utilize it, plus, the less mana you have, the quicker you can charge up. 

Which brings me to my next point, what happens when you use all your mana? You can't cast anymore. I mean you can, but you'll really regret it. I'll elaborate on that in a bit. Now when you use all your mana you need to recharge, you can do this in a multitude of ways. Here's a list of a few (please keep in mind, some of these won't work for some people, just like going to a house party isn't going to recharge an introvert)

• meditating/praying
• art (singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting/etc)
• screaming/breaking things
• being in nature
• exercise (swimming, running, sports, climbing, moving in general)
• sleeping/napping
• daydreaming
• doing nothing
• eating
• cooking
• listen to music
• talk with friends/other people
• read
• alone-time
• and more...

If you use all your energy, you do what you gotta to make yourself feel better, simple as that. Now what did I mean by you can cast but shouldn't if you have no mana? Well there are a few different levels of magic within you. Expressional, as we discussed, is most closely connected to the sun. Action, movement, reaching out and taking what you want, that sort of thing. 

The next level is unconscious, mana that you expend without realizing it, (everyone has gut feelings, but this is where intuition usually originates from), like observations that aren't based on facts but turn out to be true, accidentally affecting other people with your energy/feelings towards them, drawing in things that you want that you might not have even known about, etc.  This energy ties in directly with the moon. 

But that isn't the level you need to worry about, what you do need to worry about is your core mana, see this like the center of the earth but of your body and soul. If you completely run out of this magic then you are dead. like dead dead. This level of mana is dependent on what you've gone through and how you've adjusted to difficulties in your life. Abuse, trauma, significant death, war, starvation, illness, heartbreak, the bad, the worse, and the uglier. Think of it like a snail shell, each time it gets smashed you need to scramble to find a new one or else you'll be vulnerable. The bigger the shell, the more difficulty you can handle. So if you're in such a desperate situation that you push yourself beyond your limits, then you better be damn careful how you use that last reserve, because it will be the last thing you ever use if it's all gone. Side note, this type of mana is associated with the stars.

For a little more detail/examples of how you can use magic read the upcoming section!

ex 1: You have 20 mana at the beginning of the day, you used 5 of it to speed up your legs to get to school on time, 3 to warm up your lunch, and 2 to grab your notebook off the ground. You have 10 left, and your homework for the day is to make a sculpture using your mana. A few options are...

• If you're good at visualizing, you might choose to mold a piece of wood to make it, though you might need to recharge a few times or use a chisel the rest of the way
• If you're more physically inclined you could just start hacking away at the wood, using your mana to paste pieces of it back on when you've made a mistake. 
• If you prefer to think logically then you could borrow a tutorial booklet from the classroom and use your mana to turn the pages while you work on it. 
• Work better in a group? Get together with classmates or a friend and have them critique and guide you through it! It's not directly magical, but you mix your energies unconsciously and use your own individual mana to create the figures. 
• Advanced technique: this may come more naturally to some than others, but going out in nature is a great way to lessen the amount of mana you need to use! Being around plants, roots, and animals lends to magic regeneration and can put many people into a creative flow. 

There are plenty of other ways you can use your mana, no matter how much or little of it there is. You can join your energy with others, you can use nature/the world around you, or you could get creative with your execution!