'Hmm, what if I do this.'
Andreas was nearly eight now.
His routine had expanded considerably since the territory visits began. He ventured out of the palace weekly, sometimes with Arden at his side, though on days when Arden had other obligations one or two knights accompanied him instead. The territory had become familiar to him in the way that places become familiar when you visit them often enough to notice how they change, which stalls moved, which streets grew busier as the season shifted, which demons nodded at him now with something closer to recognition than apprehension.
But more importantly, his education had grown a new branch. He was learning mana control now, sometimes directly from Arden, but more often from Barderossa, the head of the great demon family responsible for the mages serving under the Valekor house. His lessons with Barderossa had become a regular fixture of his days.
"Young Master, are you even listening to the lesson?"
"Yes, of course I am listening, Barderossa."
"Then could you name me three control runes?"
"Compress, expand, divide."
Barderossa was slightly surprised, though he composed it quickly.
"Then could you write them in the runic language?"
Andreas wrote them without hesitation.
*[C𝙹ᒲ!¡∷ᒷᓭᓭ, ᒷ ̇/!¡ᔑリ↸, ↸╎⍊╎↸ᒷ]*
The truth was Andreas had not been paying attention to the lesson. Not out of laziness, but because Barderossa had already taught him this. He was going over it again so Andreas would not forget, which was a reasonable concern given that runes are an ancient language and a slight mistake in writing makes a spell unstable. Andreas understood this. He simply did not find repetition interesting.
Barderossa looked at his young master and turned the problem over in his mind. The boy was talented beyond easy description. But he needed the fundamentals to be permanent, instinctive, beyond any possibility of careless error, and his young master had a way of losing interest in anything that didn't offer him something new. He needed a different approach.
Then something occurred to him. Something his own father had shown him at fifteen, something that had cracked the world of magic open for him completely and had never fully closed since. Every mage, demon or human alike, carried this as their ultimate dream.
He decided his young master could have it at eight.
"Young Master, are you able to freely manipulate the mana in your body right now?"
Rather than answering, Andreas simply demonstrated. A semi-liquid substance emerged from his apple-sized mana core inside his appendix, glowing faintly in a blue hue, moving slowly and fluidly through his body with the unhurried ease of something completely under his control.
Barderossa was impressed, as he was every time he saw it. He had been nearly double his young master's current age before he could manage anything close to this level of control. Nevertheless.
"Could you focus that semi-aura toward your eyes, young Master?"
Andreas did as instructed.
"As you know, semi-auras are only able to hold a single rune according to the user's will, and more often than not these runes will be strengthen and reinforce. But I want you to inscribe a distinguish rune."
Andreas did as instructed once more.
"Now, can you focus on distinguishing the mana particles around you, young Master?"
The moment Andreas did, something escaped him not quite a word, not quite a sound.
"Wow. Barderossa, is that your mana reserve? How much mana do you have?"
"Haha, I am embarrassed to say, young Master, but to answer your question — in UM standard I have around 2,300 UM."
"What is UM?"
"It is the Universal Mana unit. Given the sub-atomic scale of individual mana particles, practical quantification requires a bulk-count standard. The Universal Mana, or UM, is formally defined as a collection of exactly 6.02 x 10²³ mana particles.
NM = nUM × 6.02 × 10²³"
Andreas took a slow breath and processed this.
"Then do I need to count all my mana particles to know my UM?"
"Hahaha, of course not, young Master. It is very difficult to decisively know how many mana particles we have, which is precisely why we use UM and not the reverse. And knowing your UM is quite simple, you just need to weigh it."
"Weigh it?"
"You are aware of mana stones, yes, young Master? They are mana particles compressed so thoroughly that they enter a solid-like state."
"Yes, I know them. Didn't we use one when I first formed my mana core?"
"Precisely. So when a mage compresses their entire mana reserve into that state, we weigh it and derive their UM from the result. As a reference point, 100 UM is approximately one gram."
Andreas was quiet for a moment, turning the numbers over.
"Barderossa, you said 6.02 x 10²³ mana particles is 1 UM, and 100 UM is 1 gram. But why don't we simply change the equation so that 6.02 x 10²⁵ particles equals 1 UM, making 1 UM equal to 1 gram? Wouldn't that be cleaner?"
Barderossa paused. The question was the kind that arrived so precisely aimed it took a moment to appreciate the angle of it.
"Because weighing it is not our goal, young Master. We use UM for precise calculation. For example, a single-layered spell costs 12 UM. If we were to redefine UM so that 1 UM equals 1 gram, that same spell would cost 0.12 UM. We use the current standard because it keeps our working numbers at a scale that is practical for calculation."
'I see. That does make sense.'
"But we can return to all of this in later lessons. It is nearly sunset now, let us go outside. I want to show you something."
"So where should we go?"
Barderossa thought for a moment.
"Let us go to the garden."
As they passed through the palace corridors a small procession of healing mages moved past them in the opposite direction, robes rustling against the stone floor.
"It seems the number of healing mages keeps increasing day by day. Wasn't the great hunt over a year ago?"
"Well, I cannot say what the lord is thinking, but there is no harm in having many healing mages about."
'That is probably true.'
They continued on and eventually emerged into the garden at the heart of the palace. It was a quiet space, well kept, the kind of place that felt removed from the business of the rest of the estate. A few maids were tending to the beds when they arrived. One of them, older than the rest, looked up as they entered. The moment her eyes found Andreas, something crossed her face, a flash of anger, unmistakable and unguarded, there and then gone. She composed herself with the practiced efficiency of someone who has long known how to wear a neutral expression, signaled quietly to the other maids, and left the garden without a word.
"Who was she? I don't think I have ever seen her in the palace before."
"...That is the head maid, young Master."
"Is that so. I don't think I have ever seen her before."
Barderossa said nothing. He knew why. The head maid had been Vivian Valekor's personal attendant and nanny. Their paths and Andreas's had never crossed, and it was not by accident.
"Young Master, would you like to look at the sky with the distinguish rune still active in your eyes?"
Andreas was already curious about what Barderossa was trying to show him. He redirected the aura to his eyes and looked up.
'Wow.'
"Magnificent, is it not?"
"It's beautiful."
"It certainly is."
"What is that?"
"That, young Master, is the Archspell. A spell cast by the divine to hold the sky in place and bring forth the celestial bodies."
What Andreas was seeing was something every mage sees and never forgets the first time, a colossal working of magic with perhaps millions of runes woven into its structure, holding the moon and the heavens within it, covering the entirety of the sky from one horizon to the other. A spell to hold the heavens themselves. An Archspell. Th
e dream every mage carries quietly at the back of everything they do.
Andreas stared at it for a long time without speaking.