Chapter 15: Chapter 14: Sorting information.

Over the next several minutes, I had Tia explain what she could about magic, why Earth had no magic, and what the heck the magic arts she was talking about entailed. However, the explanation she gave was a completely disjointed mess of her jumping from one topic to another. The girl seriously does not know how to explain things at all. She would start explaining one thing as though we were already supposed to know what some term meant, and then we’d have to stop her and ask for the explanation on what that word even means. But that didn’t even hold a candle on when rather than a key term, it was just whether or not we had a piece of background knowledge that we didn’t even know to ask about. Overall, it was just a total mess.

“Ok, I don’t understand this at all,” Rolwen said.

“Yeah, that’s because Tia is bad at explaining things,” Levin said.

“I’m sorry,” Tia said, revealing a surprising ability our race had. Her ears actually drooped a little. The image this conjured up of a dog or a rabbit was just too strange, and I really didn’t know how to feel about the fact that my own ears should be able to do that as well.

“It’s fine,” I said, “you’ve just never had to teach others before. Besides, Levin, I bet you actually understand a lot more than you think. Let’s just try to re-arrange what Tia just told us to the best of our understanding. Actually… Levin, how about you lead the effort.”

“What? Why me?” Levin said, looking half panicked at the sudden pressure from the position I’d put him under. The main reason was that I wanted him to gain some confidence and come out of his shell a little, but there was another fairly important reason as well.

“Between the four of us, you are the only one who doesn’t have some kind of preconception on this subject,” I said. “I have learned a lot about meditation, and have apparently misunderstood the purpose of several aspects of it that were meant as things to help with magic. I’m still trying to sort out my own knowledge and preconceptions and how they all fit together. I have a whole lot of un-learning to do, apparently, so I’m not a good candidate to lead this effort. I have a strong chance of misleading us if I were to lead right now.”

“As for Rolwen…” I continued, “he is nowhere near as bad as me on this subject, but he did say something about cultivation webnovels. If it’s anything like the martial arts misconceptions I’ve seen some kids… and unfortunately even adults, have in the classes I taught, then he probably has a few strange ideas in his head as well. Your mind is the least tainted by preconceptions, so you are the least likely to lead us astray.”

Levin seemed a little uncomfortable with the expectation I’d just put on him, and gave Rolwen a pleading look. With no response though, he swallowed and seemed to gain some confidence. “Ok,” he said. “Umm… So… It was something like, for magic, elves are like plants, and spirit energy is like carbon dioxide. Elves breathe in spirit energy, and then they breathe out mana. Then, humans use mana to cast spells.”

“No, not elves!” Tia interrupted. “I don’t think there ever really even were any elves at all on Earth. It was fey in general! Also, what’s this carbon doside? I have no idea what that is.”

“It’s a science thing, don’t worry about it,” Rolwen said.

“That was my understanding too,” I said. “I think you understood a lot more about this than you think if you came up with an amazing analogy like that. As I understood it, the fey were also made out of spirit energy as well? That would be just like how plants very heavily use carbon in their physical structure.” That would also put a whole new perspective on Tia’s explanation about how the elves view my spirit-energy expelling meditation. If our bodies were literally made of spirit energy, then all the energy I’m putting out would look less like I’m bleeding and more like I’m thrusting my arm into a wood chipper. Seems like there was a lot going on I hadn’t really understood properly.

“You know what I think?” Rolwen asked. “I think we should have Tia explain how fey are made one more time.”

“Uhh… Ok!” Tia happily agreed. “So, fey are made from spirit energy, and spirit energy is given form by human thought. Well, spirit energy is really the energy of human thought and imagination in the first place. So, that means fey are creatures made from human imagination. They can take a number of forms and it’s all based on pretty much whatever humans think they should be. And demons too! Demons are—”

“Ok, hold on,” I said, halting the conversation, “you’re getting a little too excited. Calm down and take it slow. You’re going to lose your audience if you just start jumping around topics like that. Levin, what did you understand last time about the difference between fey and demons?”

“Yeah, that was the most confusing part of Tia’s explanation.” Levin said. “Something about… demons are also made from spirit energy and human imagination just like fey, but there’s something different about it, I didn’t really understand. Something about a destructive impulse and fearful thoughts. So, basically, fey are based on good thoughts and demons are based on bad thoughts?”

I looked back to Tia, who was looking a little hurt after how I cut her off like that. What a troublesome sister. She was the one who’s supposed to have been the oldest in our previous life, right? And not just by a little either. She was at least a full hundred times older than I was, and I was in my 60s when I died. Why is she acting like such a child?

“Ok then, Tia. Does that sound about right?” I asked.

“No, that’s not right at all…” She groaned and looked around at us. She looked even more depressed now that she realized Levin had gotten it completely wrong. “Yeah, demons come from fear, but they can also be transformed fey if they have enough fear directed at them. Also, fey are not made from good thoughts. Demons are made from destructive thoughts, but fey are made from the spiritual energy that is processed through their imagination of the unknown.”

“She’s doing it again,” Rolwen commented.

“No, I think we need to give her some credit this time.” I said. “It’s not her fault this is some very esoteric subject matter.

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“I still think she can do a better job than that though.” Rolwen said.

“Lay off! She’s doing a good job!” I jumped in to defend her. “Anyway, let’s just move this right along. Final point. The whole thing about meditations. That’s the area that’s always been really unclear. That’s also the part where I have the biggest preconceptions, so… Levin, did you follow any of that part of the explanation?”

“I dunno,” Levin said. “I got the soul is the true self bit, and then it uses the spirit to control the body like the software in a mech suit.”

“Did you just say what I think you said?” Rolwen commented. “Dude! That’s awesome!”

I rolled my eyes at their pop culture stuff. I don’t follow this newer entertainment stuff much, but I was no stranger to sci-fi, so that ‘mech-suit’ analogy certainly didn’t fly completely over my head. The main thing I didn’t get was the level of enthusiasm Rolwen seemed to be showing for the concept.

They suddenly started getting off topic, talking about some kind of favorite mecha anime or something like that. Anime was also a term I recognized as referring to Japanese cartoons, but it’s not something I really followed. All I knew was that they were going off, and it did not look like this ship was about to right itself.

“Guys, can we get back on topic please?” I said, catching both of their attention.

“Ah! What were we talking about?” Levin asked.

“Sorry,” Rolwen said. “Guess the former old man doesn’t follow otaku culture all that much.”

“Rolwen’s not an otaku, he crosses over into weeb territory,” Levin sniped upon seeing the opportunity, getting a bit of a chuckle out of Rolwen. Then, suddenly something flickered in his eyes.

“Well, listen to you being all sassy. Good for you!” he said.

“What the Sam hill is a weeb?” I asked. I recognized the term Otaku from my time studying in Japan, but this one was completely new to me. I could tell from context though that the terms were related somehow.

“Weeb is short for weeaboo,” Rolwen explained. “Otakus are like geeks, weeaboos are total nerds. An otaku is…”

“I got it,” I said, not wanting to let them drag me off into the weeds any further. I already know what an otaku is, no need for the full explanation. I don’t think this whole ‘weaboo’ thing is really going to matter to me in this world anyway..

“Right,” Rolwen said. “So, I think we were talking something about meditation. I could probably take this one, but old man Asa will probably give me disgruntled looks if I do. Hey wait! I just realized! Asa is Dax!”

Of course, said Trill Symbiont was perfectly within my generation to get the reference. Things are going to start getting awkward if Rolwen picks up a habit of regularly imitating Sisko and calling me ‘old man’ all the time though.

I’ve gotta revise my assessment. Rolwen is definitely every single last bit as bad as Tia and Nymph. No, maybe he’s worse. Those two seem to at least be genuinely trying to communicate well. Rolwen seems to be intentionally trying to disrupt communication in order to attract attention to himself. I bet he lived in a large family.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right on that one,” I commented. “Now, can we please just get back on topic?” I pleaded. Nothing’s going to get done if I let him just ramble off.

“Of course, old man,” Rolwen said, trying to do his best to sound deep and level with his shrill child voice.

Great. It’s started.