The theory classes were fascinating in and of themselves as the professors helped students understand what they would learn in the course and why, offering contemporary justification in regards to why the knowledge would be useful but also historical context as to why things came to be the way they were.
And yet, it was the practical classes that Cæ had looked forward to the most.
"Preparations are complete," a female voice spoke with a clinical tone. "We will now commence the Magia hypnosis procedure immediately."
The woman turned towards Cæ with an impassive gaze. "Are you prepared, Mr. Cæ?"
He shifted his gaze towards her with a dubious expression, directing a sweeping gaze across the woman.
Assistant Professor Daniela Marmael.
She was in charge of his training progression for the eidos mastery practical course where he began mastering Magia, the language of magic. It pricked at him to have a professor younger than him, even if as an assistant.
At the age of twenty-two, she had managed to get the position of assistant professor despite her youth, signifying her brilliance as an apprentice mage. He appreciated her clinical professionalism.
"Just to be clear… this is safe, right?"
His tone betrayed skepticism.
It couldn't be helped.
He was made to strip and wear a medical gown.
Then, he was dragged into a hemispherical chamber with a glass ceiling and was tied to an enormous bed at the very epicenter.
The only thing that was left was to get his last words and execute him.
Assistant Professor Daniela heaved a sigh. "Do not jest, Mr. Cæ. All magical training in the Elendir Institute of Magic follows the rules and guidelines of the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Magical Affairs. If you paid attention in the lecture for the course 'Introduction to Eidos Theory, then you would know exactly what these all were and that they are safe."
She was right, of course.
This was the start of his eidos training and Magia mastery in accordance with the Memory Model of Eidos that was introduced by Great Magus Merlin.
Different projections featuring eidos templates would be extremely strongly associated with specific runes through hypnosis. The association would be so strong that once the training was complete, simply glancing at runes would evoke extraordinarily strong memories of great accuracy and precision.
Enough to form an eidos.
"Hypnosis is a state of heightened suggestibility," the woman reminded him as she walked towards him. "In this state, you will be able to burn the associations between runes and their associated eidos much stronger than we would otherwise, allowing you to create eidos easily, like so."
Several runes lit up before her as her pupils dilated while a flurry of powerful memories was triggered.
FWOOSH
A fireball lit up in her palm before disappearing.
"It's entirely safe," she reassured him.
Cæ heaved a deep breath, trying to relax. "I understand… I'm ready."
The assistant professor nodded, snapping her fingers as her assistants appeared with a tray of syringes filled with a strange purple chemical.
"Administering hypnotizing agent," Daniela remarked.
It was a substance that was meant to put the subject in the mind of high suggestibility and was the basis of the Hynotic Mastery Method, which drastically increased the influx of new mages due to the heightened effectiveness of this drug-empowered procedure.
Cæ felt sharp pains on the inner side of his forearms as the assistants injected him with the hypnotizing agent.
"Just relax," the assistant professor instructed him as she exited the chamber. "Do not resist and simply open your mind."
He felt a wave of relaxation wash over him as his pupils dilated. He entered a profound state of mind where 'he,' his consciousness felt dimmed, but his senses grew profoundly sharp and clear, beholding the world around him with profound depth and detail.
VMMM…
A strange vibration washed across the entire chamber as the glass ceiling glowed with magical power before suddenly blocking out all sunlight and drowning the entire chamber in darkness.
For a moment, nothing happened.
And then, a rune lit up brightly on the ceiling.
ᛟ
The sum totality of his focus converged on the rune as it consumed all his focus and concentration.
For a minute, nothing changed.
Then, the rest of the screen began changing up as various animations began appearing on the screen and even extended out of the screen in a three-dimensional projection.
Three-dimensional animations of a single category of imagery.
Earth.
The soil beneath one's feet.
The bedrock.
The crust.
The gravel, sand, mud, and rocks that constituted land.
And amid all these projections, that one specific rune appeared over and over and over again.
It was everywhere.
The art and animation were specially made so that the symbol was buried in every inch of the art at all moments, with a clever understanding of contrast and other graphic elements. This created unbreakable and unshakable associations between the rune ᛟ and earth.
Why earth?
Because earth was one of the greater elements of magic.
Heaven and earth.
Light and darkness.
Life and death.
The six greater elements of magic encapsulated the three dualities of human experience.
The skies above one's head and the air that nourished one's very life was the heaven element, capturing half of the physical world that human beings lived within. The land, soil, and bedrock beneath one's feet, the second half of the world, was encapsulated within the earth element.
Light and darkness were also a duality that encompassed every moment of the human experience. Day and night shaped human experience profoundly in dimensions that no other phenomenon could or would.
Life and death are the beginning and the end.
Life, whether it was one's own life or other lives, was special. People were alive and valued their lives above all else, giving the concept of a special place in their hearts, minds, and souls. It was a concept that encompassed everything that one regarded as life.
Death.
It constituted the root of the action of all living beings. The reason that people breathed air, the reason that hearts beat involuntarily, the reason that fear had ever come to be. All of it was because of death. Like life, it, too, reserved a special place in the heart, mind, and soul.
In magic and eidos theory especially, 'elements' were categories of eidos or form centered around certain patterns: concepts.
Not all concepts could constitute elements, but all elements were certainly centered around some concept or the other.
Of them, the six greater elements were regarded as greater because they were the most powerful, most common, and generally easier to pursue. This firmly set them far above the others, which were less common and harder to pursue.
And they were also the very first set of runes to master.
Heaven ᛗ and earth ᛟ.
Light ᛋ and darkness ᛞ.
Life ᚬ and death ᛄ.
Over the next few hours, Cæ went through an extensive hypnotic program on the runes of the six greater elements. The procedure didn't spend too much time on one element at a time, as studies had shown that prolonging the time spent on one moment produced diminishing returns.
By the time the procedure was done and the hypnotizing agent began wearing off, he found himself in a profoundly drained state, like he had just spent the entire day exerting his mind to the very limit.
So much so that he felt the need to go to sleep immediately.
"The procedure has been completed remarkably quickly," the assistant professor remarked. "The academic day has ended, so please go home and get some rest."
"Is it going to be this exhausting each time?" Cæ's eyes widened with shock.
"You will grow increasingly accustomed to it," she told him. "And with time, you will be able to retain mental stamina. Right now, your mind is still integrating the runes that it had deeply absorbed from your senses during this heightened state of mind."
"I see…" Cæ murmured as he massaged his forehead. "I do have to wonder, why even bother using new symbols like Magia runes instead of existing words associated with various eidos templates?"
Wasn't it more convenient to use 'heaven' for heaven instead of ᛗ?
The former was already strongly associated with the concept of heaven.
The assistant professor seemed to approve of the question. "That's part of the curriculum of the magic scholar track that I'm part of the senior program, but to simply answer your question, it's because language is contextual and constantly changing. Words do not have an absolutely constant meaning, and the introduction of the maginet has especially accelerated that process."
Cæ's eyes lit up at her insightful answer. "I see…"
It made sense.
Whatever the language of magic was, it had to be constant, universal, unambiguous, and absolute in its meaning, otherwise it would compromise the communication of magic. One of the reasons that Magia had even been created was not just to allow people to create eidos easily but also to communicate their eidos with smooth and perfect communication.
"That is why Magia uses runes that are very different from the characters of any language in the world," she explained patiently while the assistants offered him a special syrup brewed from magical plants to drink. "It is also why Magia is not used for ordinary communication. The Mage Association has even listed it as a prohibited act that could get you thrown out of the association."
"Remarkable…" Cæ winced as he drank the profoundly bitter syrup. "How long does it take in this practical course before I can use magic?"
"It takes a year, on average, to use the most elementary spells as long as your mana-motive force cultivation is on track," she remarked. "However, the most talented and affluent students often starting using magic merely months into the course. Depending on what your rank in the magic aptitude test is, you may be able to gain the ability to cast basic spells in three months or two years."
His eyes lit up.
This was good news.
He had already decided to pretend to be an exceptionally bright student and clear the classes at among the very highest speeds he could get away with ringing alarm bells. Each year had a set of highly elite and talented students that breezed through the program at a much higher rate, so that would almost certainly not draw any suspicions upon him for hiding anything.
"And what is the fastest of timeframes within which people complete this course?" he asked her.
She raised an eyebrow as her pink eyes rose up from her journal towards him. "I believe we have one or two people each year who complete this course in the span of a year."
Then, that was exactly what Cæ would aim for.
He had been very careful not to blaze past this course without getting his facts right. He didn't want to end up having done something utterly crazy that shattered all norms and then end up with the entire nation's attention converging on him with their predatory eyes.
One year was still quite decent. While it would still put him behind a lot of the students in the senior program, he would still make up for a lot of the lost time as someone who had enrolled at the age of twenty-three.
Soon enough, he departed from the hypnotic chamber along with other students who were equally tired as they headed home to the freshman dormitories of the apprentice block as the first day of the academic year had been completed.
For once, the students simply quietly returned home without getting into drama as they each immediately collapsed in bed with exhaustion, falling asleep almost immediately.
Cæ, on the other hand, simply lay in bed as he reflected on the day.
"I learned a lot."
He had learned more in one day than he had in all the months prior with all the research he had done on magic. Introductions to magi, eidos, and mana as well as the first step down the path of training to become an apprentice mage.
He slowly closed his eyes as he drifted away to sleep.
And thus, the first day had come to an end.