The Otherworldly Court
Year 1412
KABOOM
“What was that!?” Alicia shouted.
“I think that was Hans throwing [Explosion] over there,” Owen commented as a giant red-orange spherical dome rose over the distance.
“And there goes the [Missiles].”
BOOM
BOOM
BOOM
BOOM
“Anyway, welcome to the Training Grounds.”
“What do you mean by that? It is a wasteland all over here!”
She was right. Everything around them is completely desolate. The ground is entirely ashes and there are many large holes including the [Explosion] and [Missiles] the wizard named Hans set off. It was a stark contrast to the Otherworldly Court building behind them.
The building behind them is that of a three-story castle similar to an ice palace made by a princess (though she should be a queen by that time) in a movie whose studio that made it had a mouse for its mascot. Well, only the bottom half of it, the upper half was of rectangular segments of many different colors: red, green, light blue, brown, black, crimson from where Alicia can see it; the very top of the castle was dull grey, however. It was surrounded by a moat though no walls are surrounding the castle. Alicia and Owen passed through the western bridge and into the Training Ground (wasteland).
“Well, it’s supposed to be a site of a huge battle which made the place completely wasted. Afterwards, the Court decided to make it more of a wasteland by making the whole area the spot where we can throw whatever order we want on it. It got a sound barrier around it so no sound will come out of it.”
“I see…”
“Right, for your training I’ll start by explaining to you what Maneg Souls are, and maneg in general.”
Maneg Souls is what gives Court Wizards their power. Maneg is the ‘magic source’ of Court Wizard which name is an abbreviation of Mana Energy. The word ‘mana’ because since the things that Court Wizards do looks like ‘magic’, and the name ‘mana’ is commonly used by many worlds to name the energy used to perform magic the name Mana is used. It has the word ‘energy’ in its name due to its nature. Also, the name ‘maneg’ is used to differentiate with ‘mana’, even if the word used is very… unorthodox.
Maneg exists in all world that the Otherworldly Court come across. Technically when maneg enters a world for the first time, it gets filled with it. It works similarly to the conservation of energy, once a world gets filled with maneg the amount of it cannot change. Maneg cannot be created nor destroyed. Like energy, it can only change. Maneg inside a Court Wizard is included in one world maneg supply.
On that subject, what happens if a Court Wizard tries to cross worlds? Then all maneg inside will instantly leave the Court Wizard the moment he crosses. This is what happens to Owen’s father. However, the Otherworldly Court managed to create a transfer device that could get around that problem. That would be explained later.
Maneg exists in 11 different Elements: life, light, water, lightning, ice, air, nature, earth, fire, dark and death. Each of the Elements maneg takes makes it so that the maneg’s properties are that of the element. For example, water maneg with have the properties of a liquid. How maneg change its element depends on its environment its in. To turn into a fire maneg, it would need to expose itself in a fire. The maneg would slowly take its properties as fire. To become air, however, it would need to be continuously get buffeted by wind. Also, a Maneg Soul can only be one element.
“Wait, since I can use fire magic that means my Maneg Soul is fire correct? Then, I have fire Maneg in my body and since it took fire properties it should be on fire. That would mean I would be constantly on fire?”
“I’ll explain that. Its the theory on the structure of maneg.”
“Its structure?”
“Maneg has two parts. An inner core and a shell. The inner core houses the elemental properties and the shell keeps the inside separated from the environment.”
“I do not understand?”
“Think of it as a plastic bottle of water.”
“Okay.”
“The plastic bottle itself is the shell. It makes sure the water inside, the inner core, not leaking out. In shell form, maneg will practically be invisible to whatever form of vision and unable to interact with the environment in whatever form be it physical or not. It can even pass through walls. Does that make sense?”
“I think I can understand that.”
“Alright speaking of that I can explain what Maneg Soul is.”
A Maneg Soul is a mass of Maneg of one element that is very concentrated that it is its own organism. Now the lifespan of such thing is really short. About a day or so.
“Wait so then-”
“It is why it would merge with our souls.”
The act of merging with the host’s soul allows it to live longer, for as long as the host lives.
“So then that would mean it wanted to live longer?”
“Precisely. And it’s also why it gives us these powers. To keep us alive longer.”
When a Maneg Soul enters one’s soul, it will begin to merge with it. Time is taken to merge with the target in which by that time it’s one-day lifespan is prolonged. How long it takes depends on the target soul. Also in the process, the host would feel abnormalities in their body but never actually there like how Alicia felt her body heating up but shows 37 degrees Celsius on the thermometer over the week.
Once it is merged the composition of the entire soul is changed.
One, the composition of the entire soul is turned into Maneg. Meaning all the ‘spells’ a Court Wizard cast is literally throwing a piece of their soul out.
What happens if you expend all of your maneg? Nothing since its impossible to remove all maneg in your soul.
Maneg Soul is composed of two types of Maneg. The normal Maneg that you can find in the atmosphere and loyal maneg. Loyal maneg is the biological-ish Maneg of the Maneg Soul. It does not follow the normal maneg law and as it is said, loyal to the wizard. It will never leave the wizard. As to be able to use you can but that is a topic for another day.
“Now then, I’ve covered the outline lets start your training.”
“Let’s start with the basics. Make a generic fireball. It should be easy. I’ll make an example, it’s basically the same thing but its ice.”
Spells are called Orders because of their incantation. Though most Court Wizards still call them spells. Or whatever they called it in their world.
“I order you, form sphere 30 centimeters in diameter from my left hand, travel at linear direction parallel to my left arm, thus is my order, [Iceball]!”
A light blue ball 30 centimeters in diameter forms from his left hand. The ball of ice immediately shoots out from his hands pointing nowhere and gradually reduce in size every 2 seconds and disappear completely after twenty seconds.
“Oooh…”
Unlike normal magical spells incantation that involves a single word mantra or a paragraph of extravagant words that makes it sound like poetry, Orders are precise and descriptive. Hearing it will tell you what it does clearly. When the Order is given, maneg will cast aside its shell, becoming visible and to objects.
“Now the Order starts with ‘I order you’ and the necessary steps and ends with ‘Thus is my Order’ followed by the name of the Order. In each step, you need to completely specify what you want the Maneg to do and your Maneg Soul will expend an amount of maneg inside to do the job.
[Iceball] take two steps consisting of one action and the amount of necessary parameter which are the size, direction, etc. Body gesture helps to state direction much easier, if you don’t want any gesture on your [Fireball] you’re gonna have to say the location of where the ball is formed and then the angle of the shot both horizontal and vertical. And finally, saying the name of the order at the end will tell the Maneg Soul the order name which will then remember it as you keep using it to the point where you can just say the name in your mind and the parameters and it’ll do its work. Though something as simple as a [Fireball] can be remembered after doing it once. However, doing that is for recruits like you, Alicia. We usually modify the Orders or coming up an Order on the spot, so we can’t shorten Orders to just name and parameter. For you Alicia, you should just say the name of the Order after your Maneg Soul remembers it.Also, stuff like mentally imaging the order doesn’t exactly work, the Maneg Soul won’t have a clue how to simulate the image unless you show each step to that image which would then be the same thing. And no flair in the order that will confuse it to.”
Simply put, Court Wizard fight by breaking a piece of their soul and use it as ammunition.
“Alright then, I’ll try then.”
“You can just say the order in your mind, no need to say it out loud. It’s also bad to let your enemies know what you are ordering.”
She points her right hand to the nothingness of the wasteland and weaves together an order in her mind.
I order you, form sphere 30 centimeters from my right hand, travel at linear direction parallel to my right arm, thus is my order, [Fireball]!
A bright ball of flame appears from her right hand and it shoots out at rapid speed. It soars through the wasteland without any signs of stopping unlike Owen’s.
“It’s not stopping.”
“Is that not normal?”
“Yes.”
Owen’s face looks bewildered and then over the horizon, there was a spectacle of ice magic being ordered in succession. And the ball of flame is heading right towards it.
“Crap I think that’s Alice over!”
TZANG
He then suddenly bends over and a burst of ice suddenly ejects from his feet launching him into the air chasing after the fireball.
“Ah… wait for me, Owen!”
Alicia frantically chases him as he soared through the air ejecting more ice maneg to propel himself forward to take over the flaming ball heading towards the wizard named Alice.
“..!”
SHTAK SHTAK SHTAK SHTAK SHTAK SHTAK SHTAK SHTAK
AK 10 giant needles of ice formed in a circular formation. One by one, the needles charged towards the ground at the same point rapidly. However, two of the needles did not comply with its Court Wizard’s orders and simply stood there and disperse.
SHATTER SHATTER
“Tch, another failure.”
Said the Court Wizard. She was a young girl, a nine-year-old girl with platinum blonde long hair tide to a braid fluttering in the air. She wore an ice-blue cape that covers her entire body and a hood. The back of it has a symbol of a snowflake behind a shield, spear and a scale in front of it, the snowflake, shield, and spear in white and the scale in gold.
“Let us try this again.”
As she was preparing another order she hears a male sound coupled with the sound of bursts of maneg.
“Alice! Watch out!”
“Huh? Owen is that you? Ah!”
A bright red sphere soaring through the air is what she saw. Heading straight towards her.
She hastily orders her maneg to form a protective barrier in front of her as it was too close to dodge. The maneg didn’t comply with her order. The fireball is heading towards her face.
Then Owen caught up to the fireball and formed a barrier of ice in front of her in a split second. The fireball exploded in front of the barrier.
BLAST
And then Owen tumbled down to the side.
“Owen! Are you okay?” Alice went over to Owen.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Owen replied. “Are you?”
“Yes, I am fine thanks to you.”
As Owen got up he saw the fireball was still there in a scattered form.
“Owen. Why is that maneg? Ah!”
The broken fireball or it should be said a mass of fire maneg suddenly move towards where it came. Back to Alicia who was running after Owen who suddenly launched himself catching up to her fireball. The mass of maneg came in contact with Alicia and entered her body which startles her for a bit but kept running nonetheless.
“Owen, why did you suddenly… um, what’s wrong?”
She saw the faces of Owen and one other girl beside him. Faces full of surprise.
“Alicia, you didn’t do anything to the [Fireball], right?” Owen asked.
“Y-yes.”
“Then it’s not just having a hundred percent efficiency on your dominance since the maneg returned to you then…”
“You are using loyal maneg!” The little girl called Alice interjected.
“I-Is that not normal?” Alicia quitely asked.
“”Yes!””
Owen and Alice shouted in unison.
