“Your soul blueprint has two components, which I’ve coined the ‘compresser’, and the ‘feathers’. The compressor is the general shape of the soul that allows you to manipulate mana into a ‘high powered’ stream, and the feathers allow you to process spells through their carvings.” Sage Yeltz started.

  “The elemental shapes that humanity has created use the movement of the general soul and the effect that they have on the carvings to cast spells. But the feathers of your blueprint are not carved to move per se."

  “Instead, it’s a fixed shape, and a channel for mana to flow through.”

  “Your soul simply requires you to focus mana inwards in your soul and select the feathers to channel the mana through, meaning that it is theoretically very energy efficient, and rather versatile with the tradeoff being that you must record selected spells through your feathers beforehand.”

  “It’s not possible for this particular blueprint to create spells the way that most elemental mages can. You would not be creating spells through the more versatile ‘general’ channels that the soul carvings have been engineered with in mind.”

  “That really means that you have limited options with regard to your spells until you reach a decent ‘arsenal’ with regards to your feathers. Does it make sense?” She asked.

  Aurelius nodded his head, slowly grasping what she was suggesting.

  “That means that you need to take time to carve each feather individually and quite a few of them to actually cast a satisfactory spell.” She lectured, forming a small ball of water to appear on her fingertips in demonstration.

  “You need at least 14 feathers to create a spell at the level of a high mage with a fully furnished single layer soul. But I suspect that each feather is still capable of having up to three stacks of simplified shapes.”

  “I attempted the mathematics involved in this, and what it means that with 14 feathers of stacked shapes, you can effectively cast a sage level spell, and with around 50 feathers, you could theoretically replicate a spell at the level of archsages.”

  “And we may be missing out on the amplifying effect of having multiple feathers with simplified and effectively more efficient carvings. So the actual number could potentially be lower.”

  “But I suppose I can be considered an expert in magic theory regarding the abstraction of mana, and the numbers regarding it. So I will tell you that I’m rather confident as to the accuracy of my mathematics.” She stated matter-of-factly, prompting a dubious gaze from Aurelius.

  Completely ignoring Aurelius’s expression, the sage continued to explain.

  “But these feathers are effectively useless, as it would be for any mage, without completing the overall amplification structure.”

  “And given its 3 dimensional nature, you require an adequate amount of time to create it on top of the time you will need to carve the feathers afterwards.”

  “Hence we arrive at our 50 year estimate in casting magic at the magister level. And 500 taking the subsequent rate of carvings of the soul to complete your little set.” She announced, leaning back in her chair as she ran through the maths again in her head.

  Aurelius stared at the mage, blinking numbly at the information.

  He was being told that he was essentially going to be useless for the next 50 years.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  What. The. Hell.

  “Oh don’t worry, your basic magic should improve in efficiency and efficacy… probably quite decently in the 50 years, with the amplification structure being built up.” The sage comforted the wide eyed Aurelius.

  “Sure you’ll be maybe 80 years old when you can actually start to contribute to the world and croak in another few decades. But look at what Hero Rodric accomplished in 20 short years after the Greenwich war.”

  “I’m sure your name will go down in history or something.” The sage commented casually, waving her hands with little regard.

  This made Aurelius scowl further, given that he was stuck in a damn time-loop and he would effectively reset the timer if he died from old age.

  “And you have delivered a gift from the Lost God to the world for a bunch of innovation with regards to ‘mana amplification’ structures.” The sage continued, nodding her head slowly.

  “It’s likely going to benefit the Commission the most, given that the Commission and the larger Houses can invest the time and effort to nurture mages with fully developed souls capable of using this innovation to its fullest.

  “And since the Commission regulates the kind of offensive capabilities of the Houses, excluding the weapons development, we’ll stand to gain much from this.”

  “That makes you an important person to us through the research period and for the future, and you will stay protected under the Commission.”

  “We will guide you to a path to a decent future and I can guarantee that you won’t be too miserable in your time with us. Which is essentially… until you die, but eh.” The sage concluded unconvincingly.

  “Alright, any more questions?” She asked.

  Aurelius started to shake his head, but was struck with a flash of inspiration.

  “To what extent does the Commission know about Quetzalcoatl? It seems that both you and Mr. Tona has an idea of His abilities and power, but I am still unsure about the specifics of them.”

  “I’m sponsored by Him and I am not comfortable with the idea of serving His interests if the Church of Dragons are correct in their assessment of Him.” Aurelius said expectantly, unsure about the answer that he was going to receive.

  This question caused the sage to ponder for a few seconds, and fall into deep thought before starting on her answer.

  “...I’m sure that you understand that the Churches have their own interests to fill with regards to their position in the world.”

  “I can tell you that the scriptures and doctrines are influenced as much by the beliefs of their resident deities as the interests of the Churches themselves.”

  “The characterisations of Quetzalcoatl by the Churches are… perhaps not the most accurate.”

  “The Churches have destroyed a lot of the Elven records to homogenise their narrative at the peak of their power in the Era of Concord. This is a fact that can be found in books well outside of your normal curriculums.”

  “But the Elves would actually gain sovereignty and territory in the Western Forests over this, through some… means that I cannot talk about. And they actually gave up their records for the territories, which is seen to have been an… excellent deal for them…”

  “Anyways, the Commission cannot accurately verify what are mostly the oratorical records archived within our records, and even I, as a sage, know few things involving this deity other than the most relevant.”

  Aurelius was getting a little frustrated at this point. First it was Mr. Tona, and now sage Yeltz? What was up with Quetzalcoatl that they both felt the need to censor their words so much?

  “The Churches are an institution that we must be sensitive in our approach towards, after all. It would do little good for the Commission to publish narratives that directly counter theirs.”

  “What I’m telling you is that you cannot be told much about the deities. And especially regarding The Lost God for reasons that I’m sure you can… guess…” She ended cryptically.

  With a raise of her hands, the sage signaled the end of their session.

  “Go off now, and enjoy the rest of your Monday. I need to do my paperwork.” She proclaimed, pushing a mildly irritated Aurelius towards the door with magic… which to be absolutely fair, was gentler than usual.

  Right as the door was closing behind Aurelius, the Sage suddenly sat up, remembering something.

  “You, boy! Don’t tell Tona about the bomb threats in the Eastern District. He’ll freak out, and try to leave the city with his wife!” She yelled out after Aurelius, irritation clearly apparent in her face.

  “The Royal Guards have a handle on the situation, and we doubt that the threat is too serious anyway!” The sage yelled out, giving Aurelius a final nudge.

  As silence fell back into the office, the sage neatly tapped her next stack of paper onto her desk, creating a crisp noise around the room.

  Then, her face stretched into one of exhaustion, then a flash of satisfaction flashed across her face as she muttered cryptically a mysterious statement.

  “Hmm… It seems you have given me… that as well…”