Lilia's Tale

Chapter 32: Theories

Magic manifests through particles called magicules, which are present in everything. Magic is the manipulation of these particles, making them have different effects. Elemental magic is the shaping of magicules to imitate matter. Alchemic magic is the manipulation of magicules inside inert matter. Summoning magic is the shaping of magicules into imitations of sentient creatures. Light and Demonic magic are the manipulation of magicules inside sentient creatures, and Blood magic is the manipulation of the magicules inside the caster's body.

As I drew small explanations of how things worked, going through the explanation in my head yet again, I noticed two outliers: Summoning and Elemental magic.

The other four types of magic, Alchemic, Light, Demonic, and Blood magic, were all about manipulating magicules, moving them around and changing their effect, while both Elemental and Summoning magic were about creating imitations of matter through magicules. One was about creating inert matter, while the other was about creating false replicas of sentient creatures.

As I grouped them together, I noticed something odd: matter manipulation magic. When I first uncontrollably used it, Father had told me that it was a type of Elemental magic. However, it didn't fit the narrative that Elemental was about the shaping of magicules into an imitation of matter. Instead, it fit into Alchemic magic a lot more precisely.

This brought a lot of questions to my attention, the main one being: why can I manipulate so much physical water and so precisely when it would be Alchemic magic? After all, my alchemic rank is only SS, compared to my SXD rank in Water magic.

This made things weird to me, and reminded me of a theory that Father had, about different types of magicules. While it would explain the difference in nature of the diverse magic types, it wouldn't explain this weird disparity between matter manipulation magic, and the magic it was assigned to: Elemental magic.

A hand. A hand was placed on my shoulder. Something, someone is here.

I turned around in panic, yet the sight of Father's recognizable face calmed me down. I looked around me, realizing I had completely lost myself in my thoughts, theory-crafting the magicule system all over again.

"Is everything okay?" Father asked.

"Y-Yeah, why do you ask?"

"You haven't done anything to the goblin for some time now, and you looked so thoughtful, I thought something was wrong. What are you drawing?"

"Ah, I figured that brainlessly retrying the same thing wouldn't get me far in terms of improvement, so I wanted to go back to the basics and analyze what I knew to see if I could get any additional information off the data that was already presented to me. And those drawings are short explanations of what I know. Do you want me to explain?"

"I'm a little curious on what you came up with that you were so thoughtful even calling you or shaking you didn't make you react."

"You...shook me?" I asked i disbelief.

"Y-Yeah. You were worrying me not answering, so I felt the need to."

"Then how did you grab me? It couldn't have been my shoulders, otherwise I would have reacted like I did afterward."

"I grabbed your arms."

"That would explain. Anyways, what was it about?" I asked again, having forgotten the reason he tried to get me to react in the first place.

"You haven't been trying your magic at all on the dummy summon, although now I'm curious on what you were thinking about that put you in that state."

"Oh, well I can explain to you if you want."

"Please do."

I then explained to him where my thought process led me in details, specifically the discrepancy found in matter manipulation magic.