Chapter 24: Sorcerer Apprentice
The notes thrilled Lucien as well. When he first came here he also had many questions about the world. However, he soon forgot all his questions while struggling to survive.
These overwhelming questions pointed directly to the origin of the world. Lucien believed that if he could figure them out, he might be able to learn how he came here and how to go back.
"Even if the arcanist named Douglas had not completely understood any of the problems, as long as he was still working on them he should be an extraordinary arcanist nowadays, comparable to the sorcerers and sorceress of legend." Lucien was organizing his thoughts.
"There's a journal called Arcana. The witch did meet other sorcerer in this city. Everything seems to indicate there are still safe places for people to learn magic. But why would it be a journal? It sounds pretty academic..."
"Why call him an arcanist instead of a sorcerer? Does an arcanist rank higher than a sorcerer?"
......
Lucien got more and more excited with his thoughts. He wished he could meet the sorcerer as soon as possible and move somewhere where he could learn magic safely. He would come back to Aalto and do something for little Iven's family when he became stronger.
Among all questions, the two Lucien felt most interested in were:
"Are earth, fire, wind and water, really the most basic elements in the world? If they are, how do they stick together to form everything we know? And if not, which are the real magic elements?"
"Why is there a sun and a moon in the world? Why do they rise and set every day? What keeps them moving in such a manner?"
According to what Lucien had learned before, earth, fire, wind and water were not basic elements. As for the second question, it drew his attention because they seemed to want to combine the rules of the physical universe with magic, in case Lucien's knowledge might really come in handy to learn magic faster.
However, Lucien didn't know how helpful his knowledge would be in this world. It was a world full of incredible creatures, magic, divine power and souls. Nevertheless, Lucien hadn't met anything that varied from the basic laws of physics. And he did find the same materials, like silver, copper and iron.
"I might have been wrong before, regarding why some books in my library were locked." Lucien guessed, agitated with the prospect.
Gradually he calmed down. He was now more mature and understood that no matter how great ambition one had, sitting there and daydreaming would not change anything. After all, every person still had to be practical.
He turned to the last page of the note:
"Sometimes, during the break of my meditation and experiments, I think about him. He's wise, elegant, and attractive."
......
"He said he came here to Aalto for an important secret mission. If everything goes well, in some months he might take me to the heaven of our sorcerers and sorceress — 'The Continental Congress of Magic'.
"We have an appointment in the cemetery. I wonder what he'll tell me."
The witch's notes ended here. "She and her sorcerer friend must have been ambushed by the night watchmen. I wonder if the sorcerer managed to escape..." Lucien thought with some disappointment. The Continental Congress of Magic was his only clue for now. But he had no idea how to find other hiding sorcerers and sorceresses.
Taking a deep breath, Lucien decided to start his first meditation. He eliminated all the distractions in his mind and got ready for it.
Following the note, Lucien kept his breathes long and gentle. Along with the breathing he let his spirit freely spread like water and then drew it back in, similar to waves, again and again until he entered into a blank world. A world where nothing existed.
Talented as the witch was, it took her more than two years to reach this level. Plus another year to augment her spirit until it was strong enough to sense the surrounding magic elements as a junior apprentice".
However, after becoming a junior apprentice, it would still take quite a while before one could move forward and become a real sorcerer or sorceress. An apprentice needed to keep forging his or her spirit by doing meditation, to only then be able to analyze and build different magic structures.
Having started meditating when she was ten, the witch became an apprentice at the age of thirteen. A year later she became an intermediate apprentice and was really satisfied with her progress. But then, since she was not good at analyzing the patterns of magic and building their structures, she could not progress any further. So she tried to use a precious magic potion called "Magic Gate" to break through the bottleneck.
Lucien felt both disappointed and excited. From the witch's note Lucien understood that learning magic did take time, so unfortunately there was no way for him to take revenge on the gangsters within a short period. Actually, as Victor's music student, Lucien was now in no hurry to protect himself with magic, since a mistake could affect his teacher's social status. At the same time, it was exciting because Lucien was unexpectedly great at the meditation. After the bitter fight underground, Lucien's spiritual power was improved by a great extent. It only took him less than thirty seconds to successfully enter into the meditation world! Observant as he was now, Lucien was guessing he could probably shorten the time for becoming a junior apprentice remarkably, doing so probably in months or even weeks!
Actually, it was even faster than he thought.
The meditation world was very different. Lucien could feel all sorts of power here: some of them were steady, some restless, others were dynamic, and there were even gentle ones, among others...
"They are... earth, fire, wind and water... the four elements? My spiritual power has reached the level of a junior apprentice?!" Lucien was so surprised that he almost failed to maintain his meditation. "The badge really helped me a lot!"
He became truly happy. Soon he would start learning his first magic!
"I wonder... why do the four basic elements feel more like... forces..." When Lucien was about to follow the basic Element Meditation mentioned in Astrology and Magic Elements, a question came to him. Then he noticed the similarity with the question raised by Douglas. "Maybe... they are actually the four fundamental forces — gravity, weak nuclear force, electromagnetism and strong nuclear force — in the universe? "
"But then gravity would definitely be related to the earth element, while the other three are in fact different manifestations from the other forces, according to what I learned in my world..."
As soon as the idea came up, Lucien noticed that the world around him changed: A starry sky showed up and the stars were shining brightly against the dark background. Every star had an invisible string of force hanging down to the earth. Attracting those countless strings, the earth, gentle and profound, was like a silent giant grabbing mysterious ropes in its hand.
On the other hand, the remaining three elements — fire, wind and water — showed no such change, since Lucien could not figure out the corresponding connections between them and the other three forces yet. However, the previous clear boundaries between them were seemingly blurred now.
"The world... changes with my cognition?" Lucien was guessing that the sky appeared because he happened to understand the connection between gravity and the Earth Element. He suddenly recalled an excerpt from the witch's notes: "Stars — It was a way of meditation belonging to another school for advanced apprentices."
As the note mentioned before, there were eight schools in the world of magic, and each of them had its own way of meditation. The witch just had a brief description in the note about the Astrology School because it was the Element School she majored in. However, as the fundamental way of meditation for the Astrology School, the first time an apprentice entered into his or her meditation world it would allow them to see one's own night sky, from which he or she could choose a "Host Star of Destiny" by themselves. The star could be connected with the person, which would provide great help in the person's future learning. More importantly, without a Host Star, magic belonging to Astrology, like Horoscope, could not be obtained.
That school believed that every soul matched a star in the boundless sky. One's destiny kept changing along with his or her Host Star. The sorcerer would not be able to see the strings of destiny without a connection, and thus could not cast a Horoscope.
Therefore, even the basic meditation of Astrology School required an advanced apprentice's spirit level. Before achieving that requirement an apprentice was supposed to refer to other ways of meditation to improve their power until they became qualified.
"In this world, gravity has something to do with destiny? Interesting..." Lucien thought to himself. "It seems like many things happening here do not comply with my previous knowledge... Or maybe I just cannot understand it fully."