253, 1/2

“Resons and infinity are easy to understand, yet hard to work with. This difficulty is the defining feature of magic in this New Cosmology.”

Guile sat on a high chair, the blonde fox’s ten tails wafting around his small form, his voice clear and solid as he spoke to Erick, Destiny, Solomon, and Ophiel, all sitting around the table in Erick’s house inside Benevolence Itself. All of them were all ears, even Ophiel, who seemed like he was remembering something he had forgotten more than he was learning something new. Perhaps Yggdrasil was the same way, for he was surely watching in on this conversation.

Erick felt a spike of melancholy lodge directly into his tattered core and soul, all of him feeling ragged from top to bottom, as he felt out that part of himself that used to connect to Yggdrasil and instead felt nothing. Just a wound.

He wiped away a stupid tear and tried to get back into the moment of solving the world’s problems.

But Guile looked at him.

Erick shook his head, then said, “Please continue.” Destiny and Solomon looked to him. Ophiel put his hand on Erick’s, and Erick held that hand tight as he tried to smile. Erick strongly said, “Please continue, Guile. I’m not good right now, but I will be good.”

Guile accepted that, and continued,

“In this New Cosmology:

“ ‘Infinity’ is the multiverse and everything which could have happened, but which has not happened. There is no ‘true universe’ like the one that the gods dominate and make real on Veird. Instead, every universe is valid and solid and constantly spilling into new universes, with some major caveats. If you can target it, you can arrive at it. We will get to targeting in a moment.

“To navigate infinity correctly is to become a small god in this New Cosmology.

“To understand ‘resons’, we must first understand that ‘resons’ are not what they are called in all languages, but instead what we would call them, in Ecks, here on Veird. Other acceptable words include amber, cognizance, synth, ‘resin’ as from trees, and ‘reason’ as from ‘reason for doing something’. We call them ‘resons’ because of a bastardization of language. A reson, in short, is a coalescing of purpose to affect a change.”

Erick smiled.

Solomon said what Erick was thinking, “It’s almost like that time we messed up confusing ‘worm season’ for ‘wyrm season.”

Destiny eyed them both, and for a moment, Erick was thinking in English as Destiny asked, “How could you confuse ‘okapah season’ and ‘wyrm season’? What even is okapah season?”

“A foible of language,” Erick said, then nodded at Guile.

“Probably not just a foible of language,” Guile said, looking intently at Erick and Solomon. “Language is magic; what else would you call putting vibrations out there in order to affect change in other systems of action, except for ‘magic’? Whatever experience you have with the word ‘reson’, I would hear it.”

“… Well.” Erick said, “That word is similar in English to ‘reason’, but also a bunch of other languages on Earth.”

Solomon said, “English is ‘reason’ but with a bit more ‘ee’ sound there in the middle, and ‘resin’ sounds just the same as Ecks’ ‘reson’. French has ‘raison’, Latin has ‘ratio’, Japanese has ‘riyu’, Spanish has ‘razon’… For that specific definition of ‘reson’ as, like, a ‘reason for being’, not all of Earth languages say ‘reason’ like Ecks says ‘reson’ by a [Long Bolt], but a lot do.”

Guile nodded. “The words of mana trickle into many languages; this is known. It is not too surprising that our ‘reason’ is so close to ‘reson’ which is close to your ‘reason’ and ‘resin’, but it does make sense for someone like yourself, with such a background, to have tunneled through the universe to Veird, alongside your daughter. The language of magic already touched you way back then, or perhaps you touched it first.”

Erick and Solomon thought about that—

And Destiny said, “Resons? Actual use, please.”

“As for the actual use of resons,” Guile continued, “That is where magic comes from.

“The concentrated reasons for your actions and desire become like a resin seeping slowly out of your soul, into the universe, becoming a fuel that you burn to enact a change how you desire by bringing forth the parts of infinity that most match what you want.”

Guile let that stand.

Because Erick and Solomon were both having a small epiphany.

“It’s what we’ve been doing in the Dark, then?” Erick asked.

Solomon said, “It sounds like what all magic is.”

“All multiversal theory, yes,” Erick added.

Guile interrupted. “Don’t go further with those thoughts, because magic in this cosmology is more difficult than working the Black Gate in the slime dungeon—”

“Hold on,” Destiny said, “I need an explanation. Are you talking about all magic being rift magic, Guile?”

“Multiversal magic,” Erick clarified.

“Yes, that.” Destiny said, “Solomon spoke to me a little about your ideas there, and they’re interesting.”

Guile said, “Rift Magic in the New Cosmology is not nearly as easy as we have it here on Veird, but it is still similar to Rift Magic that we have seen in the Black Gate, and pulling things out of the Dark.” Guile said, “For starters, there are limits to infinity in this New Cosmology, and vast, vast limits to magic, because all resons decay into the multiverse, creating more multiverses. It takes a very special sort of person to hold onto a pure enough reson to enact any sort of change in this universe.

“Mana is much, much easier to work with.

“Pulling a fireball out of resons would require there to be fire in a nearby infinity that you can reach, and for you to really, really want that fire to explode on a target, or some other way. For all but Wizards, simply starting a fire with a bomb brought in from elsewhere would be easier than attempting magic. Even for Wizards, you would be better served by bringing a bomb you made with you and bringing forth the possibility that you exploded the bomb on the target, while keeping the bomb still unexploded and useful more than once.

“The closer the possibility, the easier it is to bring forth.

“For instance, if you are walking along the lava of a volcano then it would be easy to imagine a universe where lava exploded up from that pool to strike a target flying ahead. However, summoning a fountain of water from the lava would be near impossible.

“The waterball would require Wizardry because, much like the Bands of the Script, infinity in this universe is parceled out into primaries. It takes a Wizard to reach across those primary demarcations. And no, I have no idea how big a primary is, only that they exist.

“Making a [Fireball] out of mana is easy. You can pull Fire from the Elemental Plane of Fire and slam it into a target, or you can accrete Fire in your core and launch it forward at a later date. Or you could mana alter your mana into Fire and do the same thing. You can’t do that with resons and infinity.”

Guile went quiet, waiting.

Erick was the first to ask a question. “How many resons does it take to flip a switch?”

“I have no idea.”

Solomon asked, “What is Wizardry in this universe, then?”

Guile nodded, then said, “Primary demarcations in infinity are like the bands of elements here on Veird, but larger. For instance, I believe the God Pact world of Veird would be a primary. Nothanganathor is likely constantly trying to reach us, but we have secured a personal infinity for ourselves, through one way or another. I know not how.

“Other such primaries are the world of Earth as it is today versus the infinities of worlds where life did not arise on Earth, though I am less sure about that since I am not there, and I cannot go off of anything about Earth except that which Solomon has told me.

“Wizardry would be a guy from Earth suddenly shoving himself across the universe to step onto the God Pact world of Veird.

“Wizardry would also be someone mapping the entire universe in a blink, even though this cosmology could never possibly allow such a thing due to the speed of light… Unless there are shenanigans afoot. Perhaps, when you Mapped the universe you merely tapped into something that already existed. Yes. That is probably what happened.

“Wizardry would be stepping off of Veird, onto a rocky planet that is Veird, but completely dead, with no Red Leviathan on the sun at all. A Veird that died and took Nothanganathor with it.” Guile said, “I highly doubt it would be possible to Wizard up a Veird in which Nothanganathor is not a threat, or rather, you possibly could, but you would just be leaving all of us behind in this universe. You will not have solved anything at all, except to save your own skin.”

“Well that’s not part of the plan at all,” Erick said, picking up what Guile was putting down.

Guile breathed out, seeming to relax a moment, saying, “I appreciate this.”

Solomon had been suddenly concerned, but then he relaxed, too. He asked, “Do you think Veird is on the same slice of infinity as Earth? My Earth?”

Guile said, “By the process of logical deduction, I would assume that most civilizations of the New Cosmology are on the same slice of infinity, except those which germinate from Wizards punching through to new slices of infinity, and establishing life there. So this means, either, that Earth exists on this slice of infinity, or it is close, and there are probably markers somewhere that would guide people to the main slice of infinity upon which all of the universe interacts.

“Someone has to have built a main hub or even billions of main hubs somewhere, yes?

“As for your Jane being on any of those Other Earths, I have no idea.” He added, “In all likelihood, Nothanganathor has attacked us from a slice of infinity that held no one, thus ensuring his project to destroy the Old Cosmology went off without a problem, but I see that as unlikely because… I don’t know, actually. I was speaking too much there, without much knowledge. Nothanganathor certainly did not destroy the entire Old Cosmology on his own, did he? Doubtful. And yet…

“We have reached the end of my knowledge of infinity and resons—

“Ah. One thing.

“I believe I said resons are like amber? That would be the blood of trees. Resin. Yggdrasil will soon start producing vast amounts of amber, reson, resin, synth, etcetera, rather soon, if not already. He will likely hide this resource here, inside Benevolence and use it for Erick’s plan, or, if that is not necessary, it will become the start of Yggdrasil’s own Wizardry… Perhaps his New Cosmology Wizardry, though. Not Old Cosmology Wizardry. Or however it works for World Trees out in this cosmology. I am unsure. Trees usually get bigger and less prone to disruption, so I imagine that will be the direction of his growth; an ultimate fortress of strength.

“Probably not capable of fighting off Nothanganathor yet, though. Maybe if he grows a thousand times the size of Veird, but probably not even then…

“And I have reached the speculation stage again. Apologies.”

Guile stopped.

Erick had no idea of Yggdrasil’s power, and he didn’t want to use that as a part of his plan, so he said, “Yggdrasil is a part of the plan, but a safer part than what I will be doing. I wanted both him and Ophiel born so they could survive what comes next, even if I fail.” He said to everyone at the table. “And that’s kind of an issue. The whole problem with us, here, doing this.

“Veird has survived a long time without me being here; without us working against the Red. If we do nothing, Veird will continue to survive. If I do something— If we do things, then Veird is in danger—”

“We’re already in danger,” Destiny said. “This red dragon is fucking everything up for all of us. He must die. We MUST sunder him. There is no question of that.”

Solomon said, “We can leave the roaches in the basement and they won’t kill us as long as we don’t go down there. But I am with Destiny. I have too many plans in life to allow something like Nothanganathor to exist, to rip at us from the edges and kill us if we get too far out of line. Because that’s what it looks like to me, Erick. This isn’t a case of us ‘multiversal outrunning’ the Sundering, as you think it is. It looks like a ‘cat playing with its food’ situation. When Veird plays dead the cat gets bored, but it could still kill us at any time.”

Guile spoke up, “I prefer Erick’s comparison to a farmer raising fish. It seems to me that we were allowed to get back in line; allowed to retreat to the God Pact. It won’t touch us overmuch if we stay in line. But when we get out of line, it comes for us. I feel that it wants something from us. Or rather, from Veird.”

Destiny frowned at the fox. “You’ve been talking to Melemizargo too much.”

She wasn’t wrong, exactly. Guile was parroting Melemizargo’s old insanity, which was insane, yes, but based on facts that he couldn’t share with anyone.

Erick and Solomon shared a look.

Erick decided to stick up for Melemizargo, saying, “It seems more and more likely that Nothanganathor does want something, and he doesn’t want to allow us to escape his clutches, because if we escape, then he won’t get what he wants.”

“What could it be, though?” Solomon looked up, out, and shrugged a little—

Then he froze.

Erick felt a little jolt of power.

Destiny focused, and then she gasped.

Solomon went, “Oh.”

All three spoke in unison,

“The Mantle of the God of Magic.”

Ophiel softly said, “Never repeat that ever again.”

Erick felt a chill up his spine, and he knew they were right. Absolutely, 100% correct. Nothanganathor’s entire reason for the Sundering, for killing a universe, was to get control of the power of Darkness as the God of Magic… or maybe he just wanted to be the God of Magic? Erick wasn’t entirely sure what the God of Magic did, exactly, but Melemizargo had been the ultimate power in the Old Cosmology, and that Mantle passed down a family line…

Oh.

Nothanganathor was a family relation to Melemizargo?

Maybe?

Was the ‘Red Leviathan’ a leviathan? Or a dragon? Was there a difference, when dragons bred with everyone anyway? Ophiel had called Nothanganathor the Dragon Who Could Not Ascend, the Erased One…

But in addition to that, when considering the family history of where Old Cosmology dragons even came from in the first place…

Nothanganathor was at least a distant relative of the original Daughter of Fairy Moon and Gregarious; the very same Daughter who became the first Goddess of Magic, the first Dragon God, She Who Made Shadow. Or at least that’s how the fae told the story.

The Shades’ version of the creation of the Old Cosmology had the Dark Dragon making a middle path between Light and himself, thus creating Shadow, and thus the first God of Magic, in order to allow people to commune with the Dark. There were a lot of similarities between the two stories, but the actual attributions were different in both tales.

Erick believed the Fae version of events a tiny bit more than the Shade version. Fairy Moon had never lied to Erick, ever, but the Shades were born on Veird and they had grown up under an insane Melemizargo. The Shades might not have lied, either, not exactly, but they weren’t anywhere near Fairy Moon’s first hand account of simply being there for the birth of their universe.

Guile’s fur fluffed out in fear, at the thought of Nothanganathor targeting the Mantle of Magic. Perhaps he had made a whole lot more connections than Erick had in that possible revelation of intents. And then Guile shook himself and settled down. “Let us move on, please. I would speak of True Wizardry in the New Cosmology now.”

Erick, Solomon, and Destiny were also glad for the switch.

“In the Old Cosmology, a Wizard was a focal point of depths too deep for anyone else to change. Throw a fireball at them, and they could stop the fire any ten thousand ways, or they could just let it hit them and it would be like throwing a drop of water onto an ocean; not accomplishing much of anything at all. A Wizard achieved this by transforming into a full crystal that was also themselves and alive, but it only looked like a crystal. They were basically a mana ocean unto themselves. Their crystal self would be very, very dense, containing billions of mana effortlessly.

“In short: if a Wizard was enough of themselves that nothing else could touch them, and they remade the universe in their desired images always, then they were a Wizard in True.

“That was in a universe of pure mana, though.

“In the New Cosmology, a Wizard is much the same as in the Old Cosmology, but infinite multiverses complicate things. Perhaps you distribute damage among everyone? And healing among everyone? Perhaps you become a gestalt of all others, like Solomon is becoming? All good possibilities.

“I believe Yggdrasil will become an Old Cosmology sort of Wizard, growing ever larger and containing more and more mana of very high density, and such and such. Trees grow big. It is easy for them. But perhaps Yggdrasil will go the other way? I do not know. I don’t know how he could be a New Cosmology Wizard, but I have been surprised a lot lately. Either way…

“You cannot grow larger, so you have to go the other way, as most Old Cosmology Wizards would do, though they would also be partially on their own plane of mana at all times, too, so they did not have to deal with concepts of infinity, except with regard to Creation Wizards, who were the most largest of Wizards… Usually.

“Wizards are complicated. You don’t need to be too complicated, though.

“Just grow infinitely inward.”

Erick nodded a little, having already had a lot of these thoughts, but Destiny had never been exposed to this idea before, and Solomon was only most of the way, mentally, to where Erick was right now.

Destiny asked, “What the fuck? Infinitely inward?”

“We have examples.” Solomon said, “Some of those metamond crystals from the Glittering Depths. Are there any here— Ah. There’s this one. Wheatly?”

Solomon’s bracelet uncoiled from his arm, becoming a 3 meter tall solid gold mirror in the shape of a staff with a coil of gold at the top that surrounded a brilliant white sphere. The mirror reflected wheat fields, while the white sphere was filled with the silent radiance of Benevolent lightning.

Solomon said, “Wheatly’s sphere is an infinitely-inward space of power and intent. Or at least it can be.”

“… hmm…” Destiny narrowed her eyes on Wheatly’s core, as she asked, “Please explain the concept of infinity-inside to me. So we’re on the same book.”

Erick held up two hands, separated a little, saying, “Imagine the number 1 here, and the number 0 here. Pick a point between 1 and 0 and you’ll always be able to move left or right without crossing over a previous point. You can go from .5, to .4, to .45, to .44, to .445, to .444, to .4445, to .4444, and so on and so on, never reaching a point where you cannot go deeper into the space between.”

Destiny cocked an eyebrow. “Ah. Well. That explains that. And since mana is possibility, it can just do that.”

Solomon said, “Correct. Though it does take some convincing and the laying of a framework to get that started.”

Destiny held up a hand and mana began falling inward, into a spot of power that never grew brighter or bigger, but which fell inward and inward and inward. “That’s not that hard.”

“… How much mana did you put in there?” Solomon asked, as Destiny kept pumping the tiny dot full of what appeared to be Benevolence.

“At about ten thousand right now.” Destiny added, “That’s 20,000. Yeah. This is easy. Huh.” And then she snapped her hand and the mana exploded and then did not, flowing back into her body without damaging anything. “Okay. That’s simple. I’m going to expand my core using that method.”

Erick and Solomon paused. And then both of them laughed.

“That’s fantastic!” “Ah, that’s great.”

Erick wasn’t sure how she had managed that so effortlessly, for the Script actively prevented mana crystals from forming, and yet she had done exactly that. She had created a metamond outside of any no-Script space. Of course it had exploded in short order, but that was normal.

Solomon added, “You’re amazing, honey.”

“What! Like it’s hard?” Destiny said, smirking, knowing exactly how much she had impressed them. And then she admitted, “It might have been a little hard. The start was the hardest.”

Erick asked, “Can you do that with every single kind of mana, all of them along different axes, in a multi-resonant sort of crystal?” He said, “I’m pretty sure that’s how to get True Wizardry, but that is, I believe, impossible inside the Script, for many reasons.”

Guile spoke up, “While the nature of the Script simply preventing True Wizards is something we should discuss, I would advise all of you to not speak of your personal Wizard Ways. Every end goal of True Wizardry is the same; to become a slice of reality unto yourself. The ways in which you get there are as varied as the numbers of stars in the sky, and to use the methods of others is to impair your own Truth.”

Destiny said, “I’m really not interested in pursuing True Wizardry right now, because I am absolutely sure that Nothanganathar doesn’t like that, because why else would there never have been any True Wizards on Veird… Which makes me wonder if he put some shit into the Script to stop us from claiming our Truths.”

“He is the ‘Dragon Who Could Not Ascend’.” Solomon said, “And the Script is an adversarial system, accepting all valid inputs, because otherwise it could not exist. So yeah. Nothanganathor probably put shit into the Script, just like Melemizargo did, just like the Old Demons did. Just like everyone does.”

“He’s a malevolent asshole,” Destiny said, then added, “Times infinity.”

Erick and Solomon grinned at that.

Guile asked, “What specific things are you referring to, Erick, when you say you believe True Wizardry is impossible under the Script?”

Erick nodded, then said, “In the worlds where I escaped the Storm, the Storm destroyed the Script first, and I started releasing mana almost like a gentle fog. No exploding. Nothing deadly at all. I’m not sure what, exactly, the Script is doing to us, but it was meant to curb the excesses of Wizards anyway, so there’s no way to ascend to Wizardry inside this manasphere… Which is about all I want to say on that.”

Solomon frowned a little, but he saw that Erick didn’t want to talk about his plans, so he let it be.

Destiny hummed. Then asked, “So you’re planning on escaping Veird somehow and accreting resons out there? Or something?”

Solomon huffed a tiny laugh, as Destiny said what he had been planning on letting go unsaid.

Erick smiled, and said, “I’m not sure.”

“Yeah yeah. I get it. Fine fine. No talk of plans.” Destiny asked, “So how do we accrete resons and what good are they if mana is so much better?”

Guile said, “You must have a concentrated reason for what you want, and the resons make that happen. Controlling that power is something that must be learned. I do not know how.”

Erick thought he understood what Guile was saying, but he wasn’t sure. “Are you speaking about the act of Wizardry, as in ‘I will it into being, and thus it is so’? We must accrete that capability? We must accrete the very capability of ‘intent’, ‘communication’, etcetera?”

Guile nodded. “Yes. There is no true mana in this New Cosmology. Every single act of magic is Wizardry, no matter how small, all of it communicated through the multiverse of infinity by resons, which bring those possibilities here, to this current instance of infinity. Of course, the same could have been said for the Old Cosmology, and that would have been partially correct, but not fully.”

“So you’re saying that our acts of intent created resons, Guile?” Solomon asked, to see if he was understanding this new concept completely.

“Yes,” Guile said. “I imagine you will be able to use your mana production gained from the Dark dungeons in order to fake your way to reson capability, but none of you are reson-based Wizards, except maybe Erick, and that is a big ‘maybe’. I imagine that the overall difference between an Old Cosmology Wizard and a New Cosmology Wizard are a lot smaller and more nuanced than we might think. I do know that the Old Cosmology had a separation of general Wizardliness between Creation, Destruction, and Paradox. I imagine that perhaps only Paradox exists in this New Cosmology, though that feels wrong for me to say.”

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Erick and Solomon thought for a moment—

And Destiny rapidly said, “Yeah yeah. A universe where only Wizardry exists; no small mages and magics. Sure. What about how Wizards have bodies on this side of reality and mana realities on the other side? Like Erick with Benevolence? How do resons work with that?”

Guile said, “A great question. I have no idea.”

“Well…” Erick began, “In the Old Cosmology, everyone was mana, and that mana created side realities and personal bodies, right?”

“Correct,” Guile said, “Everyone made mana and made themselves in the process, but everyone also started off as a collection of Other, and purging the Other while keeping oneself intact was an important part of the ascent to Wizardry. That’s the crystallization of True Wizardry we speak of. If a person failed to maintain oneself and their full Wizardry self at the same time, Paradoxically, they would die. Many people never went further than archmage levels of power to avoid that final ascension, which is simply the gathering of a lot of mana in one’s core, to use as one wishes.”

Erick said, “So maybe True Wizardry with resons and infinity involved, in this New Cosmology, is just the same. The Wizard becomes a person who can step through infinity to their other selves and ensure that they never die or are harmed through the use of multiversal shenanigans.”

“So those other realities of infinity correlate with the realms of mana?” Solomon asked.

“Probably more complicated than that, but yes,” Erick said. “I imagine a capable Wizard could even start using their other selves to produce resons, if they become one with all their other selves or something like that. That seems like it would be ‘stealing the darkness’ from others, though; what Jane called ‘demon cultivation’ that one time.”

Solomon huffed a laugh. “ ‘Demon cultivation’! Ha. The incani did not like that.”

Erick smiled. “Yeah.” Then he said, “But if you ask for the resons from others, thus empowering yourself, then that seems more ‘cooperative cultivation’.”

“Plus, we’ve already invented [Renew], so that seems like it would…” Solomon paused. “Yeah. That’s probably the Benevolent Path working, isn’t it. Making mana of all types able to feed into other mana types. It probably works across more than just your own other selves’ mana, too.”

Erick nodded. Solomon had gotten to the thought at almost the same time Erick had. Erick expanded that thought, saying, “Maybe we could ‘cultivate’ whole other worlds. Maybe it’d be like using Mana Siphon. We could siphon the mana of a billion side universes that weren’t using that mana anyway, to use that mana here.”

Solomon went, “Huh. Have you tried using Mana Siphon on the Red Sparks?”

“I have not. Not directly. And yet… I think that’s part of how Benevolence is working at its base. How Yggdrasil is protecting us. How all of that is working. Mana Siphon is a reverse [Renew] that picks at the stray power of whatever spellwork we’re touching, using that power to bring power to ourselves. It doesn’t work that well against direct strikes, but it does work really well at sustained magical conflict on wide scales. The more surface area we expose to the enemy magic, the more disruption and siphon that occurs.”

Destiny went, “You lost me there.”

Guile and Ophiel simply watched.

“Okay. Well. Back on subject:” Erick said, “Cultivating resons—”

“We’re not calling it accreting?” Destiny asked.

“I’d rather not; that would be confusing,” Solomon said.

Destiny nodded.

Erick continued, “Cultivating resons sounds like performing Wizardry to enact a will upon a space. Perhaps there is a base unit of power? What does 1 reson do? How many resons does one person produce in a day? Where do they actually come from?”

Guile said, “No idea. No idea. No idea. No idea.”

Solomon said, “Well look on the bright side. I’m rather sure if there is a ‘demon cultivation’ versus a ‘cooperative cultivation’ then Nothanganathor is for sure the first, which would explain why he can’t find us. There’s only one of him.”

“So we need to go wide,” Erick said, “To escape him fully.”

“That does seem logical,” Solomon said, “But we just don’t know what we don’t know.”

“And then there’s the whole ‘what about time and space magic’ thing,” Erick said. “Can resons even do Time Magic? Soul Magic? Anything like that?”

Guile spoke up, “Considering the nature of the Old Cosmology as a thing-that-could-be-destroyed-in-days versus this New Cosmology which contains infinity in multiple ways, and considering that this universe does have a beginning in the Big Bang —according to Solomon— and is growing, then that means that this universe is stable. Perhaps quite a lot more stable than the Old Cosmology. In my opinion, this means that this New Cosmology is much more limited in what magic can do. Time Magic is probably not happening for New-Cosmology-Only spellwork. But also! This means that you, as Wizards with Old Cosmology powers in this New Cosmology, have access to mana and those powers, which will likely stick around through whatever other powers you encounter in this New Cosmology.