"Three cheers for fending off Gulla!" Lyon raised his glass.
"Hooray!" The crowd cheered once and the chattering resumed, everyone too excited to cheer multiple times.
The tables sat divided, but only with regard to the food piled on them. Both Simia and Master Lyck had thrown together feasts worthy of being called feasts; one for the normal eaters, and one for those with weird tastes. Whichever ones those were in the end. It was a fairly welcome break to Neinheart's packed rations either way.
Tear sat, gushing to Liuva about how she took on the man-eating Slurpy Tree, although according to the Nova girl the tree was significantly larger than anything the group had seen so far and probably breathed fire to boot.
Hayato had already apologized profusely for having lost his grip. Tear let the Bladed Falcon off scot free, save for a small punishment. Suffice to say, when the group finally got around to going back home, a video of a samurai in full armor dancing like a chicken was soon to go viral.
Yuuki was off describing Maple World to Simia; an entire world of people with weird tastes! The monkey girl couldn't believe it. Not to mention the potential for so many new ingredients…how might Yeti meat mix with Wolffruit? Would roasting on Flame Golem cores taste differently compared to a normal fire? Simia practically begged for Tangyoon's noodle recipe.
Aran leaned back in her chair and sighed. Such a long day. The group – sans Tear – had spent the entire time walking down a cliff with nothing interesting on it save a few odd-looking plants. And as for Tear, well…Tear had gone through what Tear had gone through. Aran wasn't sure if she pitied the girl for having gone through so much, or envied her for hogging all the action.
Seriously! Not a single monster on the path! It was dirt. Dirt and rocks. It was like walking down Luminous's sense of humor.
Pretty waterfall, though.
Aran kicked her feet up as she watched as the lucky girl who had fallen down a waterfall continued to blab on and on about how many monsters she killed down here, all for the sake of making a sandwich.
"She's gonna go far I think." Aran murmured.
"Yeah," said a new voice, "I think so too."
The warrior hero fell out of her chair with an undignified yelp.
"Ha!" Eskalade laughed. "That's what you get for trying to act cool!"
Aran grumbled an insult in the dragon's general direction. Xenon wandered after hearing the confusion and offered a helping hand, which the warrior begrudgingly accepted.
"May I ask what you're doing, Eskalade?" Xenon asked.
"Partying." The dragon answered bluntly. "Can't a mystical Nova god get out of the relic in which his soul is sealed and stretch his wings from time to time?"
"I am not too familiar on the details of sealing magic," Xenon said, "but to my knowledge if your seal is akin to that of a class-C relic-focused–"
"The answer is yes," Eskalade interrupted, "I can do that, because I'm doing that right now. Par-tay people!"
He did a little jug from the shoulders up.
"Really?" Aran asked with a smirk. "And how is the mightily wise and oh-so-powerful Nova 'god' going to 'par-tay' when his incorporeal hand passes right through all the food and booze?"
Eskalade glared.
"Fine, miss smarty-pants hero," he sighed, "I have a real question for you."
"Shoot." Aran said, half-seriously.
"These new-fangled powers you're playing with like toys…would you call them magic?"
Aran blinked.
"Uh, duh." She said. "What else would it be? You think this is some hackneyed sci-fi thing where the Erda are nani-whatevers?"
"Nano." Xenon corrected. "The prefix 'nano-' meaning 'one-billionth', referring to, in such sci-fi 'clichés', nano-machines, a variant on nano-bots which…"
"That's not what I meant!" Eskalade snapped. "I know what magic is and this stuff…I dunno…it feels…different, but the same."
"I mean…" Aran hesitated. "…Erdas are like the energy that makes up the entire world, right? Magic makes up the world too, but like, if magic is a building block of the world, then these powers are like…slightly…smaller…building blocks."
Aran gestured around a bit hoping to get the idea across, but eventually gave up.
"What I mean is," she said, "there's no point in classifying it as not-magic or even as a 'special' magic, because that would imply that it's…well…not magic. But it is. It's basically magic, anyway. If you want to assign labels to things then go call it 'proto-magic' or 'primal-magic' or 'super-mega-doo-dad-magic'. I don't care what you call it, because when you're fighting someone with it, they're not going to care about what you call it either."
"The energy is different," Xenon clarified, "but no more different than the variants that already exist. It is about as different as healing magic is compared to fire magic, or ice magic compared to technopathy. As interesting as it may be to have discovered such a new category, the difference itself is not particularly important."
"Again," said Eskalade, "not really the point. I just wanted verification of…something."
"Verification of what?" Xenon asked.
"Er, well, you know how Tear said she couldn't use magic on her own?"
The pair nodded.
"Tear can use magic on her own."
Xenon blinked this time.
"Because of the Erdas, you mean?" He asked. "If you did reclassify Erdas as a new brand of magic or even a 'proto'-brand of magic, that would make some sense for her condition, I suppose."
"Wait…" Aran gave Eskalade a look. "…you're not worried about her, are you? Like, you're not thinking the Erdas are some kind of poison and want Tear to be safe?"
"No..." Eskalade said. "I can tell the Erdas are safe, I just–"
"Are you jealous?"
"No!" He huffed. "I'm not…ugh, never mind. I just thought you'd be able to help clarify some things. Especially robo-boy, since he came up with the whole 'Arcane Force measurement' dealie."
Xenon blinked.
"I am going to be completely honest with the both of you," the cyborg said, "The Arcane Force measure has been largely irrelevant since we left the town on the Lake of Oblivion. Tear herself has not increased her Arcane Force by any significant amount in the course of this particular adventure."
Eskalade scratched his ghostly chin.
"So, what you're saying is those numbers you gave back on the lake are…"
"Bunk." Aran finished.
"Complete bunk." Xenon said. "There is no historical, magical, or scientific basis for a practical application of 'measuring' power. Magic power itself can be measured in any number of ways, ranging from energy output like watts or volts, to units of force like Newtons or pounds, even to things like monetary value, in certain albeit admittedly bizarre circumstances. You can measure it because it has an impact on the real world, and that impact can be measured."
He took a deep breath before continuing.
"But there's no reason to." Xenon continued. "Measuring magic doesn't really mean anything since magic can do, quite literally, anything. If you're trying to make electricity with magic, then measuring the amount of heat a spell can make isn't going to tell you anything. Measuring the amount of electricity it can produce would be helpful, but in most real-world applications, magic is either too wild to determine exactly what should be measured, or so mundane that most people simply do not bother, as the answer is obvious."
"And in combat," Aran went on, "it's even stupider to measure things. Being able to put out a million, billion volts of electricity isn't going to help when your opponent can fry you where you stand with fire powers, now is it?"
"Then why make the measurement?" Eskalade asked.
Xenon shrugged.
"I found something new." He said. "It helps to recognize that we are growing in strength. In addition, I was able to determine that Arcane Force acts as a shield; those who have it take less damage than those who don't. The numbers were mostly a byproduct of my internal programming attempting to assign a value to that which has no measurable value. Or, at the very least, has no useful one. Basically, what we've learned from my measurements is that having Arcane Force is what matters, not necessarily how much of it we, personally, have."
Eskalade nodded, soaking in the exposition.
"Well, either way," he said, "don't tell Tear what I told you. The spell she cast seemed pretty unique, and I don't want to goad her into trying to make new spells when I'm honestly not even sure how she managed to cast the first one."
Aran nodded.
"Solid." She said. "Now, I believe I mentioned there being booze, earlier…"