Quick Notes:
Warp points aren't used
The only supplementary spell the 7 heroes know is Celestial Swap
Time: Day approaching night
Location: Space, between Cassia and Puffoon's orbit
Planets Aligned: Cassia
Front Row: Pretzel, Sorbet, Pico, Mokka
Back Row: Marshmallow, Chai, Lassi
"There are actually many types of magic, in fact, uncountable. Simply imagining a spell gives rise to such spell, and as such, there are an uncountable number of spells. However we cannot cast all spells left and right. We are simply predisposed to cast under our starsign." Sugar explained. She then proceeded to summon a water magic circle from her right hand, facing it palm out towards Sorbet. "I can feel my aura radiating with Cassia, don't you too Sorbet?"
Sorbet nodded, and proceeded to manifest magic in her palm, though unsure with what to do exactly. "Like this?" Sorbet added.
Sugar smiled. She then proceeded to close her eyes, appearing deep in thought, and slowly, her magic circle began to turn gray, changing from the water starsign to the neutral starsign.
Everyone gasped at this novel display of magic, which even caused Sorbet to lose focus and disperse her magic. This mustered another giggle from Sugar, who then dispersed her magic. "That was transmutation, the shifting of starsigns. Sorbet why don't you try?"
Sorbet nodded and closed her eyes, summoning another magic circle. She took a deep breath in and breathed out slowly, repeating this a couple times.
"Heart rate is dropping to 60... 57... 52...49" Mokka added in increments that appeared to make Sorbet break out of her concentration. "Zip it Mokka! Sorbet is trying to concentrate!" Lassi cried. "Yes, but Sorbet tends to have a heart rate of 68 when casting spells." This raised bemused expressions from the crew, with Sugar even raising an eyebrow. "Don't worry, I know all of your heart rates when you cast spells, eat, sleep, and when using the bathroom." Mokka said with his usual deadpan voice.
:| /: /: D: $: }: o: o:
"Any luck Sorbet?" Sugar interjected, albeit trying to contain her laughter. Sorbet sighed and broke her circle, shaking her head.
"That's ok, it's not very easy. It took me about 2 years to be able to do that." Sugar added.
"Two years?! How are any of us going to get to that level in time to defeat Tarte?!" Pico shouted.
"Patience my hot-headed friend." said Sugar, garnering an embarrassed blush from the fire magician. "I can sense that you all are already masters of the spell responsible for mastering transmutation. In fact, you all have mastered the first spell to ever exist. Celestial Swap. I anticipate you all can master this, say, at most a week!"
"Woah! You mean to tell us that Celestial Swap was the first ever spell?" Chai said with wonder in his voice. "Yes my woody friend. All elite mages and archmages are responsible for mastering Celestial swap. In doing so, transmutation becomes effortless. The root of all magic is, well, itself. The neutral starsign is the basis of all magic. Think of it like a blank canvas. You may have encountered mages that have casted multiple spells of different starsigns. They are in fact familiar with this principle. Now, there are many schools of thought to how the extinct magics come about, but here's what we know for certain:
Everyone is born with one of the innate seven starsigns. Although Tarte could cast poison magic and produce a purple aura, her affinity is certainly not poison. It must be one of the seven.
An attempt to cast any spell that doesn't align with your starsign or an attempt of casting extinct magic without training will result in the spell not working, or simply summoning neutral magic.
If the seven starsigns are viewed as paint, then the extinct magics can be viewed as mixtures of these paints, being subject to different 'amounts' and 'textures'. Magic is classified as 'extinct' if not a lot of people can wield it. Tarte is just one person and so far the only one I know so far capable of using it, and so the magic is still considered extinct. Magic is classified as 'revived' if it was previously extinct, with enough people wielding it, and if the magical 'mixure of paints' is known. There is currently only one magic that is considered revived, which is love magic. It's magical 'composition' happens to be an equal combination of all seven starsigns. This magic generally was wielded by a powerful species called the Envoys of Love, who are now endangered and scattered across the universe. Strong enough magicians who can perform this combination of all starsigns can also cast love magic. In fact, a few of the retired elite mages of the kingdom can wield it. Now, I want you all to try to transmute your magics to neutral magic.
Everyone proceeded to do this request, albeit overwhelmed with the amount of information being bombarded by the powerful water mage, with Pico, Sorbet, Chai, Lassi, and Mokka giving up about 5 minutes in. It was then that Marshmallow and Pretzel simultaneously transmuted their magic, resulting in identical gray magic circles, causing Lassi and Chai to cheer, Pico saying 'lucky try' in a joking manner, and Mokka saying 'of course, leave it to the two prodigies' in an even more deadpan voice.
Sugar applauded the duo and said, "Now you two, use this magic to propel this rocket to Puffoon." This request caught everyone off guard, but before anyone could make a remark, the light and dark duo held out their hands in front of them and soon the rocket began to accelerate.
"5 hours...4 hours! " Mokka exclamed. "At this rate, we'll arrive to Puffoon's port in about 3 minutes!"
"Excellent job you two! While everyone can transmute magic, it has been empirically shown that light and dark magicians tend to transmute magic the most efficiently and effortlessly. The reason is not known exactly. This concludes what I intend to teach you kids for the time. Now you two, I want you to disregard the space port and take us directly to where you believe Choco is. Time is of the essence and originally I was going to accelerate us with this, but you two are truly out of this world!" Sugar delighted as she now was sipping her cup of blue Kovo tea that seemingly teleported into her hand from the navigation panel. "This water magician's tea was supposed to fuel me with enough mana to accelerate us to Puffoon. Here, Sorbet, if you're not a germaphobe." Sugar said sweetly as she handed the blue water to the magician who pondered upon the tea before taking a sip.
As soon as the rocket penetrated Puffoon's atmosphere, Sugar commanded Pretzel and Marshmallow to stop as she began manually navigating again at the panel.
Pretzel and Marshmallow breathed out in exhausted, panting, with applause from their friends. "Awesome job you two!" cried Lassi. "Yeah! You guys were on fire!" Shouted Pico. "I must concur, this was impressive, even for me." Said Mokka.
As the heroes were congratulating their light and dark magicians, Pico turned to Sorbet who appeared troubled and whispering to herself while staring into the now empty cup. "Sorbet, are you ok?" "Yeah, I'm fine. Thanks for asking. I think I would like to talk to you tonight about something if we could get the chance."
Pico's heart began to beat faster and turned slightly pink as his crush finished her sentence before quickly snapping himself out of his moment of infatuation and holding a thumbs up saying "You can count on me!" in his usual cheery disposition. Sorbet smiled back, thinking to herself, "don't you know I want you guys to count on me too? That I want you to count on me, you hot meat ball?"
Pretzel opened his eyes and looked up to see Marshmallow's own eyes meet his. "You were incredible!" said Marshmallow. "No, you were incredible!" Pretzel said with the kindest smile that Marshmallow was all too familiar with. "You and I should train more together!" Marshmallow stated which immediately followed with a feeling of dread and embarrassment in her stomach after realizing what she said. Pretzel who was flattered paused for a split second from his teammate's response, but regained his composure and replied "Right back at you!" "Hey! Don't leave us out!" Chai playfully said. "Yeah! You two gotta teach us your tricks!" followed Lassi. "Me three." blurted Mokka.
The rocket made contact with Puffoon not too far from the entrance of Honeymint, adjacent to the outskirts of Quinoa Plains where the duo led, close to Choco the Brownie who could be seen in the distance fishing in the windy empty space.
As the team and Sugar proceeded walking to Choco, Sugar looked up to see the tapered connected islands of Puffoon, Bena Rikashi, and an even higher up island. Night began to settle in as they came 250 feet from Choco. "There he is. The one who gave us the Tempus Forget." Lassi spoke. "What is that?" Questioned Sugar. "It was an item that slowed time down, allowing us to infiltrate the Space Police headquarters and rescue Chai!" Lassi said while ruffling Chai's high pony tail, who was met with no opposition from the now blushing salamander. "What can I say, you guys can't get enough of me" Chai said comically.
As the team approached within earshot of Choco, the brownie flatly said "The Cosmic Emerald is in Couscous Valley." "Well that was fast." Pico said with Sorbet elbowing his arm, effectively shutting him up. "Couscous Valley? And where might we find that, wise one?" Sugar asked. Choco pointed up towards the smallest and highest island in the sky and said "You can only get there by going against the current of the river of time."
"Wait, that's the ruins." Pretzel interjected. "No, not Couscous Ruins. Couscous VALLEY." Choco said even more flat. "Regardless, we know how to get there. We have the rocket, and if that fails, Chai was able to use his magic to erect a beanstalk to the island. C'mon everyone, we got no time to waste!" Pretzel said. The group proceeded to run back to rocket, with Choco now in the distance appearing to shake his head in disappointment. "You kids with hearts of gold, only wanting to grow up faster and more powerful. The only way to the Valley is down, not up..."