'Properties…'
Alec needed to reevaluate his definition of the properties of different attributes of magic. To do that, he first needed to clarify to himself what he thought a property was.
It was simple.
It was the characteristics of an element.
It was the heat, light, and flickering flames of fire. The cold, wet, and smoothly lapping waves of water. It was the slippery, biting ice. The crackling and searing light of lightning.
The properties of an element were what gave that element its identity.
Formless mana was mana without an elemental attribute.
In Alec's mind, that translated to formless mana not having any properties.
And since Aether was the foundation for both elemental mana and formless mana, its existence didn't click in Alec's mind. For someone who had lived on good ol' mundane Earth all his life, he had trouble properly grasping the foundation of something as unreasonable as Aether.
He had seen magic for himself, so he knew it was real. He desperately wanted to understand it, so it wasn't a question of will, either.
It was simply a lack of talent and comprehension.
His friends and peers had lived in this world for their entire lives. It was the only world they knew. And although to different degrees, they had been aware of magic and Aether since they gained sentience.
Ever since then, they had slowly worked toward awakening to Aether, though it couldn't compare to the progress they made under structured guidance toward awakening.
However, Alec didn't have those years of foundational understanding. He was fourteen years behind everyone else.
But at least he had the experience of being an avid fantasy reader since he learned to read. He had an imaginative mind, and because he found reality back on Earth boring and mundane, he often longed for magic. He had even thought up a couple of different ways magic worked in his books.
It was just that none of those ways were similar enough to the one his brother had made for "A Tale of Blood and Kings," so he had trouble applying his thinking to Aether.
But there was one thing he had figured out.
He needed a clear mental image. However, due to the conflicting nature of Aether and formless mana, getting clarity was difficult.
If only he could figure out how or what formless mana was.
Hollow Gale described it as a colorless, odorless, shapeless, and formless mass that swam around his body in irregular paths until it was ready to condense into a magic circle around his heart.
'Wait a minute…'
Until now, he had thought of properties as add-ons. The heat was what made fire.
Thus, the absence of heat, which was what made formless mana, removed one possible property.
He had gone through the list of elements and removed possible properties from formless mana one by one.
But that wasn't it.
A property wasn't just the existence of a characteristic. It could be the absence of one.
Not being hot wasn't the absence of a property. It was the property itself.
Formless mana wasn't the opposite of elemental mana. It wasn't what was left behind once the elements had taken everything. No, not at all.
It was everything that elemental mana wasn't.
It was the unlit fire, the dry water, the still wind, and the dark, silent lightning.
It was the silence between words, the darkness between stars, and the emptiness between atoms.
Even after looking twice or thrice, it was easy to overlook. Heck, even Alec had completely missed it, despite thinking about it for over a week.
But it was undeniably there. And without it, nothing else would work.
If the elements were the weights, formless mana was the scales. It ensured balance.
'Okay, this is crazy.'
Alec shot up with his hands on the table.
"I need to go." He needed two things. Peace and quiet. And to sort out his thoughts through a conversation with Reina.
Taryeon and Maura looked at him with wide eyes and worry. He had been silent with his head in his hands for a while. But he was odd and often sank into extended bouts of silence, so they hadn't interrupted him.
But Alec left before they could ask him what was going on. So, they could only look at him until he turned behind the bookshelf and disappeared.
They looked at each other.
"So, are you going to tell me what you two were talking about before I showed up?" Maura asked instead of commenting on Alec's abrupt leave.
"Of course."
In another corner of the library, the handsome, dark-haired man who gave Alec and Taryeon advice looked in Alec's direction with a smile on his lips.
Sometimes, a little push was all that was needed.
Alec hurried through the corridors and across the grounds, all the while thinking about nothing other than his insight, deepening his thoughts and clarifying everything he thought of. By the time he arrived at Reina's office, he felt like he already had it under control, but he still wanted to share.
He knocked. Reina told him to enter. Without waiting, he spilled his mind like an open can of worms.
His thoughts crawled out in a messy jumble before Reina could stop him. She tried to get a word in before she realized what was going on and quickly stayed silent as she let Alec ramble.
He needed to sort his thoughts through the oral filter known as the mouth.
If it had been another student who had just realized something about their element, Reina wouldn't have bothered unless it was a student she favored.
But right now, Alec was laying the foundation for his future path. He was laying the foundation for a 'new' kind of magic, one that didn't already have hundreds, thousands, and tens of thousands of practitioners.
She didn't know if he was on the right track or not, but she knew he was at least on track. Interrupting him could derail him.
So, she listened and did her best to figure out what he was talking about.
At the end, she only had one thing to say.
"That's…ambitious."