"Tell me, did you have magic in your world?"

'Magic? I'm not sure if what my people could do would be called magic. We couldn't cast any spells or anything, just ... move stuff with our minds and change the temperature of things and stuff like that.'

"Ah, so telekinesis and ESP, that sort of thing?"

'Among others, yeah.'

"I see, and no spell abilities, how did that affect the technological advancement of your world?"

'Well, we advanced. We had things like links and N.A.P.A.S. and mass transport and space ships.'

"What are links and napas?"

'Oh links are neuro links that we used to connect to tech stuff, like prosthetics, augmented interfaces, that sort of thing. N.A.P.A.S. stands for neurological and physical augmentation system. It's basically like putting a computer inside your head and then coupling it to an exoskeletal or cybernetic system so you can control things like they are your own limbs. During testing we called it the penis suit because they used a different acronym.'

"Ha-ha, that sounds really useful."

'Yeah, disabled combat vets like me can continue to fight if we're given a battle suit tailored to our faults.'

"How disabled were you?"

'Lost most of the stuff on my left side. Eye, ear, arm, both of my legs, the left lung and kidney. My .. uhh, well you know.'

"That's unfortunate."

'Well, at the time I was already a grandfather, and my wife had passed years before, so I didn't lose out on a family. They also did something similar to your situation by tampering with my DNA. They did things like make us more compatible to the hardware, stronger, live longer, stronger immune system, cellular regeneration, that sort of thing.'

"I see. The magic in the world you are going to is more advanced than that. However, at this point, it has regressed due to Grandia's destructive tendencies."

"Initially, they found they weren't strong enough because they kept losing, so they decided to secretly change their deity to one who would be able to satisfy their needs. From what I've learned, at first, they only summoned a few. I think three or four, just to test the strength of them. The puppets were not only stronger, but they also followed orders without question or fear. They created special armor for them, more flashy than strong, but it didn't matter how effective the armor was, the puppets proved themselves considerably. Since then, they summoned thousands, and sent them all over the continent to conquer and destroy any and every other civilization they came across. Plundering their gold and taking the young and weak as slaves. They could summon about 10 a day with just using the mana found in the nexus located under the capital, but the number could be increased to as many as they want, if they provided a sacrifice. At first, they used all the slaves, then the criminals, then the homeless, and orphanages. When a puppet became crippled to the point it couldn't fight, they'd use one of those.

"The commanders of the holy state became greedy with all this power. They plundered everything they could; wealth, women, children, there was no limit to their depravity. The women puppets who were summoned were pretty, and many times, they were used by the holy state to satisfy their lusts. When they tired of them, they became sacrifices for more puppets. Eventually their fervor needed a new outlet. It wasn't enough to just invade a country, they began to seek out other religions, works of art, literature, places of learning. Centuries of knowledge destroyed in a few years. People were driven out of their homes to try to survive in the dangerous areas, where monsters and beasts roam. Many fled undergrounds, but even then, were still pursued.

"As a result, much of the magical knowledge was lost. Not even the Holy State Grandia was spared the 'cleansing'. After time, the use of magic and spells became a family secret only to be saved for the privileged few. Even then, many of those refused to learn as the need was not there.

"But that doesn't mean it's completely gone. Some of those who went into hiding took their knowledge with them. Some who heard of what was coming prepared ahead of time by hiding precious tomes and artifacts in specially prepared locations. Some even traveled to the deepest labyrinths to hide their secrets, in hopes that one day someone strong enough would be able to recover them." Anomaly put his hand on his chin and looked around, "I wonder if there's anyone around here who would do such a thing."

'Yeah, yeah, I get it.'

"Good. So, their magic, while not as primitive as your own, still isn't entirely super advanced. There are no elements involved, it's based upon primal forces; kinetic, thermal, psychic, temporal... that sort of thing. The spells are categorized according to their element though. Spells are learned similar to creating a program. You'll have a mana pool inside your body, which over time will get larger. Learning the spell, programs it into your mana pool, and casting it becomes as simple as using a keyword. Oh, and a strong mental image. That's important. Since you already have a basic understanding of magic, you shouldn't have too much of a problem working out the spells. Kinetic magic is moving things. Thermal magic is changing something's temperature. Origination is a bit of creation and destruction. Well, in a roundabout sort of way that is. Stuff is created from things in the area around the caster and destroyed by breaking down to spread into the area around the caster. So, take the classic spell, the fireball. For that you'd use creation to gather the materials that'll be set on fire. Thermal is used to set it on fire, and kinetic is used to maintain its shape, and move it to the target, at which point the magic is released and stuff goes boom."

'It feels like you're making this out to be easier than it actually is.'

"Of course! Do you know the best chemical formula to use to make something burn at a slow enough rate that it just appears to be a ball of flame, can stay on fire as it flies through the air, and explode with enough force to cause damage but not too fast to just be a concussive blast, AND set everything on fire?" The man made a half smile as if to say, 'crazy, right?'

“I'll give you a secret, it involves layers." He said while putting one finger over his lips and nodding with one eye closed. "But once you've learned the spell, once you've programmed it in, you can just imagine how big you want it to be and say 'fireball'. It'll draw mana from your core, depending upon the size, and it'll send the fireball out toward the target you pictured. You can probably spend a bit more mana to maintain concentration on it to give it a little english though."

'English? What's that?'

"Well, I mean you should be able to alter the course a bit. English is meant by putting a spin on a ball to get it to roll in a different direction than straight."

"The addition of magic didn't necessarily stunt technology, but the lack of a need to create explosives from materials instead of magic forced it's path to elsewhere. Before the holy state's fiasco things weren't terrible. Agriculture was refined enough that food was in surplus. Housing didn't look like mud tents as construction methods had developed to the point where style and function meshed well. I believe horse drawn vehicles still existed, but the development of horseless carriages had seen the light."

'Ahh, I see. I have a general idea of it now.'

"Well, that was before everything was destroyed by Grandia. It's been a few years, so it may be some time before you find indoor plumbing. Anyway, now on to using it."

"All along the planet there are streams of magic called ley lines. And by streams, I mean it's somewhat like a denser atmosphere of mana. These ley lines meet up in an area called a nexus point. I can't confirm this, but I believe these nexus points are the sources of mana, while the ley lines are fields generated between them."

Anomaly ponders for a moment before adding, "If you put a magnet under a piece of paper and dropped some iron filings on top of them, it'd form these rings from the poles. If you had two magnets the lines would merge between the two, and there would be curved lines."

'Ah yeah, I did that when I was a kid.'

Anomaly nods, "It's a similar concept, just without poles and with straighter lines. I believe." Anomaly tilted his head as if he were considering other theories, and then shrugged with a carefree expression.

"So, moving on to the magical part of magic, and straying away from the scientific portion of magic, the people of this planet developed science fairly late in their society. Barely mixing it in with their magical ways before Grandia. So, all that stuff I said previously is as if the core of the magical spells. You see, these people had nothing, and had to build spells out of their own imaginations. The problem they faced is the spells were absolutely huge, just to do something simple." A holograph of the planet came up over his hand, with fuzzy white lines crossing over the surface. "The mages of the time came up with a theory. That was to cast a spell into the magic of the world itself at nexus points. These spells would then be accessed by certain keywords with a proper mindset. These keywords are used in the creation of the spells, that eventually get programmed into your own mana store."

'You mean they programed the spells into the world, so all you have to do is run the program?'

"Oh, that's a good way to put it. Yes, that's what they did. The method of programming the spell was stored within a tower in the southern portion of the continent. I say tower, but it was only about 5 stories tall, and much wider, like a stadium. When a new spell was developed, the spell was sent to the tower, where the scholars would pick it apart to prepare it for learning, then program the ley lines accordingly. Then a notice would go out to the creator of the spell, saying that the spell was then usable, with a fully completed formula, and the specific keyword to be invoked, if there were already a spell of the same name. The spells were catalogued with their original cast method, the "program", and the keyword."

"They were then categorized by the predominant type used, and a designation. For example, a fireball spell falls under the "fire element" category. While a heal cut spell would fall under the "holy" category, even though it isn't technically divine in nature."

‘I thought you said that there weren’t elements involved.’

The man raised his eyebrows, and looked to the side, “I did say that. Hmm, let me revise then. At the core there are no elements, but the spells fall under the classification of elements?”

'Ok, you said heal cut? It wouldn't heal anything more than that?'

"Healing magic came in very late in the spell development stage, as it was extremely difficult to understand how to heal wounds. Heal cut can only heal small, shallow cuts, and any injuries to internal organs would be very difficult to heal with surgery being done at the same time as healing. Sew the wound shut, cast a heal, sew, heal, sew, heal... As they had to work from the inside to the outside. The whole process would take a lot of time but would reduce recovery time considerably. There's a heal severe cut as well, if you get to the point where you may need it."

"Let me give you a rundown of some other spells. Most of them you may not be able to cast, but I think a few of the basic ones you may be able to use. If everything else fails, you can try falling back to the fundamentals of what you already know, like the ESP and telekinesis."