The professor and the temporary instructor and researcher walked side-by-side down the corridor, talking as they went. Rorschach felt it would be rude to keep Master Poincaré from his al.
After listening to Rorschach’s brief explanation, Poincaré summarized, "So, the effects of your two Magic Arrays are conflicting?"
"Yes. I want to build on the concept of the Slow Array and find a similar thod to absorb and reduce the energy from the Transmuting Dust. The relevant High Tier Magic is in the Forbidden Book Area, so I was hoping you could sign off on a permit for ."
"Of course." Great Mage Poincaré nodded. "You should look into High Tier magic from the Defense and Transformation Systems. Although your current Casting Ability is likely insufficient to perform them, studying their underlying concepts could still be enlightening."
The professor then added, "Rorschach Mage, based on my initial impression of you, there is sothing I must point out."
His tone was quite serious. Coming from the professor, it sounded like the prelude to a reprimand. Rorschach froze for a mont. After all, not even his own ntor, Master Kano, had ever spoken to him like this. Rorschach was genuinely eager to hear what he had done wrong. "Please, go on."
"Your research into Magic lacks a certain capacity for abstract thought." Poincaré didn’t want to be blunt and say, ’Kid, your math is a complete ss.’ "Right now, your thinking is still stuck on adapting applications of individual spells to Magic Arrays. But you’re not to bla for that."
’Then who is to bla?’ Rorschach had a feeling Professor Poincaré often said things that must make Master Kano’s ears burn.
The two of them eventually arrived at the cafeteria. "A Rorschach Bread, and a side of at broth," Poincaré ordered for himself. Rorschach was baffled. ’Since when does the cafeteria have a dish nad after ? Or is there a new cook who shares my na?’
"Bread, sliced open, with sliced ham, leaf lettuce, and a white sauce. And a bowl of clear beef soup." The young man wanted to see what this "Rorschach Bread" was, but felt it would be too embarrassing to order a dish using his own na.
When their food was ready, they both received the exact sa al.
"..."
"This is a good way to eat it." Disregarding the decorum expected of a Great Mage, Poincaré ate the sandwich with his hands, just like an Apprentice would. Before taking a bite, he didn’t forget to praise the very person who had brought this style of sandwich to Valuva.
...
With the professor’s permission, Rorschach gained access to the contents of the Forbidden Book Area. Most of the books on the forbidden shelves were ancient tos. They didn’t follow the established format of academic papers, looking more like compilations of manuscripts. He even found long diary entries written on what was, for the ti, expensive paper. Reading between the lines, he could tell the authors were often ntally unstable.
On the first bookshelf, Rorschach found a hefty to. Its cover was so worn that the animal it ca from was unrecognizable, and judging by its condition, it had been read many tis.
’A frequently borrowed book?’ Rorschach thought it must be worth reading. Unfortunately, as soon as he opened it, he discovered the author’s na had been torn right out of the book.
"Duke Arnyu sent over a pike today. This hideous Water Beast has vexed . It’s too large; even my biggest pan cannot cook it all at once. But to break its integrity during the cooking process would be to lose its spiritual essence and would hinder my practice... Duke, I see this for the insult it is! I curse you..."
Rorschach was left speechless. ’What kind of Chaos Evil lunatic wrote this?’
The text went on to describe a Summoning Array claid to be bound to a "devil," and even included a reversed sigil targeting the Spirit Body of a Great Noble. This vile Magic had surely beco ineffective after the "Great Extinction of the Symbolic Realm," but it didn’t stop Rorschach from concluding that the diarist was definitely no proper Mage.
As he read on, a piece of Magic, recorded seemingly by chance, caught Rorschach’s attention: "These hacks can’t possibly understand the most fundantal driving force of Magic! Order! Direction! Ti! Mundane mortals who know nothing of Magic cannot reverse these iron laws... Heh heh, I have conceived a miraculous piece of Magic, but the fools will never understand... It is worthy of being recorded..."
’The Second Law of Thermodynamics?’ Rorschach felt the author was onto sothing. The author pointed out that in a world without magical interference, the flow of ti cannot be reversed, and all things tend to evolve toward Chaos. Unfortunately, the Mage who wrote the book then devolved into a primitive form of concept worship, beginning to preach that "Chaos is the end of the world" and "all things will return to disorder"—sentints that flew in the face of the Church of Light and Order.
The Magic he envisioned, however, would utilize the "inherent directionality of reality’s developnt without magical interference" to fabricate a "reality" where no Magic was present. When another piece of Magic took effect, his would extract its "essence," consu that "essence," and return it to the non-magical "fictional reality." The result would be a Reversal of the other Magic’s effects.
What exactly was this extracted "essence"? Rorschach studied the mad ramblings of the Chaos Evil author again and again, and finally managed to get a tenuous grasp on the idea. First, it wasn’t simply Ether; Ether was rely the dium that manifested it. Second, it couldn’t be "Spell Frequency." Sure enough, predecessors who had reached the realm of Great Mage had all discovered that every piece of Magic has a corresponding "lody," but the author dismissed this, claiming the "lody" was still just a surface-level phenonon.
’So what is it, then?’ Rorschach read on.
"Even the stupidest Apprentice knows that Casting consus the Magic Power within one’s body. Unfortunately, even after these hacks beco Mages, they can’t figure out what that consud Magic Power is actually used for. They think Mages use their precious internal Magic Power the sa way those illiterate Professionals use the ambient Magic Power..."
The author’s next words took on a religious, or rather, anti-religious, tone. Words like "sacrifice" appeared frequently. The gist was that the mind of a Caster or Divine Benefactor consus internal Magic Power to construct a form of Order. The process of this Order moving toward disorder is what’s dissipated by the "Magic." When the Order unfolds, it receives a response from the ambient Ether, which then disseminates that Order into the real world.
Both Casters and Divine Benefactors can produce this Order. The author viewed the process of "unfolding, receiving a response, and dissipating" as a sacrifice to so great being in exchange for the ability to alter reality. The object of a Divine Benefactor’s sacrifice was, of course, their god, while a Mage sacrificed to the Magic God or so other entity—a distinction the author did not care about.
The author believed that Casting does not increase the Order in the physical plane. Instead, the act of sacrifice simultaneously extracts "essence" from the Symbolic Realm and releases it into reality. This is why the result of "unfolding" is so rich and varied, able to give birth to so many different forms of Magic. In reality, this entire process actually accelerates the world’s descent into Chaos.
Thus, the principle of the spell was finally revealed. One had to extract the "Order" before it finished dissipating, compensate for the initial effects, and retroactively construct a "reality unaffected by Magic" to return to the world. The basis for this construction would be reality’s natural tendency toward disorder.
’Increasing entropy? Information entropy?’ Rorschach had only a rough understanding of these concepts from his past life. In truth, without the mathematical formulas, few people could fully grasp the concept of "entropy." In his original world, "information entropy" had been nad as such rely by analogy due to similar properties; it wasn’t a literal type of thermodynamic "entropy."
But in this world of Divine Arts and Magic, it was clear that the "Symbolic" and the "real" were interconvertible. If so, then "information," acting as a form of negentropy, might truly have the power to directly reverse the increase of entropy in reality, manifesting as Magic. A Caster might seem to create the impossible, but in actuality, they were causing possibilities from the Symbolic Realm to manifest, transforming them into the certainties of reality.
Rorschach connected this theory to what he had seen when Deryats elevated him to the Star Realm Layer, and he had a new idea about how Magic was actualized—or, in the author’s words, about the "way Order unfolds":
In his past life, there was a thought experint: if a monkey hits keys on a typewriter for an infinite amount of ti, it might eventually produce the complete works of Shakespeare from the endless, random sequence of letters. A Caster, then, is soone who already knows a "great work" exists within that infinite sequence and that the "original manuscript" of this work resides in the Symbolic Realm. When a Caster produces "Order," it’s like looking up the manuscript in the Symbolic Realm by its title, and then temporarily taking the "monkey’s" place to type out the complete works of Shakespeare on the typewriter called "Reality."
It’s just that no Caster can type it out flawlessly, which is why there are variations each ti the sa Magic is cast. And Divine Spirits and powerful Mages can upload their own "great works" to the Symbolic Realm, leaving behind their own "original manuscripts."
However, according to the book’s descriptions, producing "information" that could directly affect reality evidently required a greater price. The entire world, the Symbolic Realm included, was still part of a system sliding inevitably toward a state of greater disorder.
Unfortunately, the author’s ideas were obscured by his bizarre "Chaos worship." Long passages about "sacrifice" and "praise Chaos" made later readers simply skip over his wild theories. After the introduction to the "Reversal Magic," a line of small text had been added—a note from a later reader: "No other records of this Magic have been found, nor can it be replicated. Do not pray to the concept of ’Chaos’..."
"Tower Spirit, I need to book a practice room." Right then and there, Rorschach began to transcribe these mad ramblings, rephrasing them in his own words and using this line of thought to try and construct a new piece of Magic.
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