Chapter 28: 28- Conduits

I left the elves and their elemental magic to the end because it was probably the most complicated power system in this world, and I needed quite a bit of time to organize my thoughts so I can put this down in an understandable way. So with all that done, I finally started going over everything Denethor knew about this system in my mind.

Magic, the ability to control mana like no other race, along with their longevity that gave them enough time to grow and train this ability, was what made the elves this world's strongest race.

As can be comprehended from the name, elemental magic had something to do with the Elements, there were five elements in this system, water, fire, air, earth and finally plants. Just like with the humans' Inheritances, each person can only use one element, there was never any news of someone using more than one. But, unlike what you might think from the name, elves weren't inherently able to use magic, they did have an innate connection to the mana in the world and they could control it in a sense, but they needed something to link them with the mana and let them pass on their desire to it, and that thing was Conduits.

Conduits, in a sense, were quite similar to Inheritances. Both were made from Ancestral Ore and both manifested when an individual interacted with it, but like how they had their similarities, they also had their differences. For example, Conduits were usable only by one person, once that person dies, their Conduit would disintegrate into specks of light that would float to the sky. Another difference between the two was how Conduits didn't disappear and reappear into a tattoo or the like whenever the user wanted them to, Conduits were always physical, always on the user, which leads me to the next point, Conduits didn't have many forms, unlike Inheritances there were limited forms a Conduit would take. A Conduit would usually be a ring, an earring, a necklace or a bracelet, there were times when a Conduit took the form of another accessory, but those were rare.

The accessory would always have their own designs and decorations, being different from own another, but one thing that never changed was how there would always be a gem in them. When I thought about that, I lifted my right hand and touched my left ear, or more precisely, my left earring, feeling the dangling gem at its end.

In a Conduit, a gem's colour represented the element that the users had. For me, the green meant that my element was plant, the other element had these colours: fire was red, water was blue, earth was brown and finally air was teal.

To explain what Conduits really did, I would need to explain another thing, which was mana cores, or simply cores for short. An elf's core was the place that held their mana, it seemed as if it could hold an unlimited amount of the ethereal energy. There was never any news about someone not having enough space for more mana. Usually what limited elves wasn't the amount of mana they had, but the amount they could grab and bring to their cores, that's what was different from one elf to another, one would be able to pull 10... Let's say units, of mana per hour, and another would be able to pull only 1, and maybe a third would be able to pull 100. That was what elves called talent, each person had their own talent.

Another thing that was different than what I thought this mana thing would be, is how the mana you pulled to your core didn't get spent to cast spells, instead, once you pull some mana to your core, it would remain there forever; or till you die, when your core would break releasing all your mana to the air. As I was saying, the mana inside your core isn't the mana that manifests your spells in the outside world, it was more like the keyboard with which you input what you want to do, and this finally brings us to the Conduits' real purpose.

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Conduits were a device that translated a person's thoughts to frequencies. To explain more, the mana in the outside world doesn't listen to words or thoughts or needs, mana is usually static, it's just there in the air all around us, and the only thing that mana reacts to is frequencies. Whenever mana vibrates at a certain frequency, something happens. That something isn't always the same though, for example, a frequency that makes a flower bloom this time might make it die the next time it is used, it is unstable like that. Many elves tried to find some kind of law that governed those frequencies, so they can be free of the Conduits, but no one was ever able to do so, it seemed as if there simply was no law to that, or if there was, it was simply incomprehensible to a mortal.

And this here is where Conduits came in. Conduits always translate your thoughts to the right frequency that you needed, if you want to make a flower bloom, the frequency a Conduit would give you would always make it bloom, even though it will always be a different frequency.

As I said though, the mana you control isn't the mana in the environment, instead, it is the mana inside your core, following the frequency you would get from the Conduit, you would make the mana inside you vibrate while opening your core to the outside world, the mana inside your core then would resonate with the mana outside, making it vibrate to the same frequency and getting it to do what you want. Also, the amount of mana you have inside you is equal to the amount you can make vibrate, so the more mana you have inside your core, the more you would be able to control in the outside world, and of course, the bigger and stronger the spell is, the more mana it needs and the more complicated its frequency would be.

What element an elf has is actually never known till they get a Conduit. What elements their parents had or the like did not affect what elements they themselves would have. The best idea for an explanation for why someone got what element, was that the place you were in affected what element you would get, people believed this might be the case because, for instance, in our small city, that was in the middle of a forest, there were more plant magicians than the other elements' magicians.

That was how elves used magic and how they cast spells, and with that, I was finally done with all the powers that the three races had. As I stood there on a bridge made with the same kind of power I had as Denethor, I felt at ease for a second with my thoughts finally not in a mess and me understanding what my bodies could do. With that done, I looked around me as I considered where to go and what to do next.

The first thing that came to mind when I thought about what to do next was Central City, the city that used to summon heroes from other worlds, I wanted to know more about that place, I felt that it most likely had some answers to many of my questions. Unfortunately, except for the bare minimum, there was little known about Central City, even to the elves, most of what was known about that place were things that you would get by asking anyone, things I was sure didn't hold the answers I wanted, even our library didn't hold much knowledge in regards to this supposedly magnificent city that disappeared overnight.

Even though our town didn't have much information about Central City, I knew of a place that did, after all, it wasn't a secret that most of the information about Central City was kept inside New Centre, the city that was built in the area where Central City was before. For some reason, New Centre's Chief, Elder Drusilia, did all she could to gather as much information about the City of Heroes, hiding most of it away from people's eyes.

New Center wasn't any close to our city, Hunbrug, though. It was one of the cities furthest from us, and a journey there was out of the question, especially with the unstable state of the world.