Reminder: Vetex himself said that he didn’t put much though into the science behind magic creation
Well, let’s categorize types of magic from what they’re made out of. We’re now left with 3 main types:
-Matter (earth, wood, water, etc)
-Energy (light, shadow, maybe more)
-Reaction (fire)
Since I’ve discussed about the creation of matter and reaction type magic in another post, I won’t be diving much into it, I’ll only be giving them a basic explanation, I hope to focus more on the energy type in this theory
Magic energy is a form of energy, so it’s very convenient because with enough energy, one can manufacture matter, generate and bend space, and so much more. So we can just leave it with the basic explanation of energy being converted into matters and transformed into other kinda of energy.
You can see my other topic about reaction type magic where I also discussed about the matter type:
But let’s dive deeper into the energy type, shall we? First let’s talk about light, we know that it’s a kind of energy so magic energy converting into light energy is very understandable. But light itself however, is very stable, so I don’t see it turning back into magic energy. Pseudo-matter that was manufactured from energy is unstable atomically, but energy isn’t unstable, so if magic energy was transformed into light, it shouldn’t be able to turn back as magic energy. Shadow itself is yet another hole that’s been bugging my mind… how in the hell do you generate shadow? Like what even the hell is the shadow mentioned in shadow magic, we know that it seems to be another kind of energy but not much else so I won’t be diving much into it.
Idk what’s your thought? My theory is still ongoing, I’d be happy to discuss it more
im pretty sure everything created from magic ( normal one, not curse user’s ) isnt the actual thing, like fire magic and normal fire are different, so what you see as light and shadow created from their magics isnt actually the real thing, just magic energy pretend to be them, which is why all magic made thing will turn back into magic energy, while curse user’s (if they want to) isnt as it the real thing
but hey im dumb and clumsy as f so take this with a grain of salt
yeah im pretty sure father said that trying to explain magic system in Arcane Universe ( or any tbh ) just isnt possible cause if you can then we would already have magic irl already
Spells are just magic energy casted in a way to harm people using the magic energy in your body to create something with similar properties to an element (aka whatever way you know to cast magic)
Oh also whatever you make seems to go back to the form of magic energy after a bit, usually on impact. It’s visibly not the case for curse users or very strong magic users, or at the very least it lasts much longer. Judgement Isle was made by a curse user, and also there’s an island constantly electrified by aether lightning after some sort of fight happened there with another custom magic user.
I think I had a decent hypothesis at some point. The magic gene allows the soul to control magic energy nearby it. Twisting it up in the right way turns it into a specific magic, and magic circles are used to prevent too much soul loss.
Apparently, arcane magic is literally just magic energy converted into a specific shape/form. In this sense, it’d probably more accurate to think of shadow as not having any thing specifically to do with shadows in real life, but just being an alternate way of shaping magic energy that happens to resemble shadows in real life the most.
Same thing as the point I made above, this doesn’t even really matter: light magic is not real light, it’s magic energy shaped in a way that most closely resembles the real life phenomenon that is called light.
Of course, since light magic is luminescent, this means that it’s still releasing energy in the form of electromagnetic radiation, but fire magic I assume releases infrared waves that is separate from the magic itself as well. Except if even the radiation that fire and light release is also a form of magic energy, which I haven’t even thought about until now.
It is magic, so it’s not really unimaginable, I guess.
Sorry I’m going to have to cancel you right here my guy I hate when people do this SO MUCH I’M GOING TO FLIP A DESK OVER OR SMASH A WINDOW.
Fire is as much a reaction as is Explosion or as much of an event that occurs as opposed to a physical substance as Wind, or even Lightning.
However I still think it’s not necessary to put them in a separate category of “reaction.” Although a reaction is occurring there still most likely is a substance of sorts being created no matter what way you interpret this.
If we’re being logically consistent with the idea of making a distinct category that would mean we would have to make a new category for Wind as well because Wind isn’t just air existing, Wind is the specific event in which air is blowing. However I would say that’s unreasonable to do that because either way (I’m not having it from ‘Wind is actually just a force!!!’ fans) there is still a substance being generated and moved in order to produce this event regardless of the fact that “wind” technically doesn’t refer to a substance.
If we just called Wind “Air”, Fire “Flames”, Lightning “Electrons”, Explosion “Combusting Substance” etc. then this semantic discussion would end in the blink of an eye, and I’m not all for changing the way I perceive Fire magic just because it’s called “Fire” and not “Flame” even though they’re still technically different things. Either way there is still a tangible group of matter that we recognize as distinctly different from clump of matter surrounding it, and when I think of a Fire I’m thinking of said tangible group of matter, not the conglomeration of fuel, heat, and oxygen collectively working together to produce an action.
If Fire magic was producing a fire off of already existing substances then yeah it would be different, but the flames are being produced by magic, not the magic increasing the surrounding temperature and somehow forming a fuel-less fire.
But, if you’re going to go out of your way to reclassify Lightning, Explosion, and Wind, at least that would be more logically consistent than only Fire. But it’s just tedious and creates useless debates when in reality if I hear about a Fire magic I’m thinking “dang it would be really nice to control the coalescence of fuel, oxygen and heat.” All I care about is the flame and in a discussion like this there is no definitive answer so I don’t think it’s necessary to create any more trouble.
Wait, people like that exist? That’s so crazy lmao
Wind is literally air in motion, that’s about it.
But yeah, in my honest opinion, discussions of the nature of magic in any magic system should not aim to justify and explain them using the mechanics of our world, but of the world that contains said magic system. Anything besides that is fruitless.
A productive question would be “what are minds and how are they formed”, and a less productive one would be “what the hell’s a magic gene and how does that even work”. One seeks justification from the mechanics of the real world, the other doesn’t.
Besides, the magic gene probably works in a way similar to photosynthetic cells. Seeing as magic energy is a readily available source of energy for life forms, it’s not that hard to imagine that some bullshit occurs for some life forms to be able to use it.
An exception would be when something in the magic system matches with an existing, demonstrable phenomenon in the real world, in which case asking about it could actually lead to a better understanding of the magic system.
I think you’re misinterpreting but yeah it bothers me. Basically, some people believe that Wind magic just takes existing air and just acts on it. I’m of the opinion that Wind works like every other magic and creates matter then moves it, not that it acts on already existing matter.
Also your other points are good that’s true there are a lot of discussions about how magic works that are useless and a lot that are insightful.
