Never Die Villain

Ilya’s final class of the day was Mana Ecology.

By the time he and Lisbet arrived, most of the students had already taken their seats, and the board at the front of the lecture hall was covered by a large map of the Empire.

Several lines ran across the continents and oceans on the map, tracing an enormous network of mana currents that stretched through provinces and divided into smaller branches along the way.

"Mana is everywhere."

The professor stood beside the map with his hands behind his back.

"You’ve all heard that statement since you were children, and while it is technically correct, it has also given generations of students the mistaken impression that mana is distributed equally throughout the world."

He tapped one of the lines crossing the northern half of the continent.

"It isn’t."

Ilya opened his notebook.

"Mana moves. It gathers, disperses, changes direction, and reacts to its environment. The study of those interactions, particularly between mana and the living world around it, is what we call Mana Ecology."

The professor traced the line farther across the map.

"These are mana currents. They travel hundreds or even thousands of kilometers, running beneath the earth, through the atmosphere, and across the oceans. Their density changes constantly, but the largest currents have remained remarkably consistent throughout recorded history."

Another image appeared beside the map, this one depicting an enormous tree.

Yggdrasil.

"Which brings us to something most of you should already know. Where does mana ultimately originate?"

Several hands rose.

"The World Tree, Yggdrasil."

"Correct."

The professor briefly went over the prevailing theory surrounding Yggdrasil, explaining how mana was believed to originate from the World Tree before spreading throughout the world through the enormous currents known as the Roots.

None of it was particularly new to Ilya. He had already learned about the relationship between Yggdrasil, Æther, and the Roots before, so he just listened as the professor finished the review and moved on.

"Mana density, however, is only the beginning," the professor continued. "Mana does not simply pass through an environment without affecting it. Given sufficient time, the environment changes with it."

The map disappeared, replaced by illustrations of several plants.

"A forest exposed to dense mana for centuries will not remain an ordinary forest. Plants adapt first. Animals follow. Eventually, entirely new species may emerge that depend upon mana as naturally as ordinary animals depend upon food and water."

The next illustration showed a considerably larger creature.

"Monsters are the most obvious example."

A student raised his hand.

"Professor, where exactly do we draw the line between mana-induced evolution and species that are inherently magical? If prolonged exposure can change an ordinary species enough, wouldn’t that suggest magical beasts ultimately share mundane origins?"

"Not necessarily." The professor shook his head. "Mana-induced evolution accounts for a considerable number of magical species, and in several cases, we can trace that development back to their mundane ancestors. However, there are also species with no known non-magical ancestor at all."

He changed the illustration on the board.

"Dragons are the most obvious example. We have records of them going back farther than most surviving civilizations, yet nothing in the fossil record or magical genealogy suggests they descended from an ordinary animal. As far as modern Mana Ecology is concerned, they were magical from the beginning."

A few students began writing that down.

"So remember the distinction. Mana can transform existing life over generations, but that does not mean all magical life originated that way."

The professor returned to the map and pointed toward the northern territories.

"Take the North, for example. Ambient mana there exhibits an unusually strong affinity toward cold, something commonly attributed to its climate. That explanation, however, is incomplete."

Ilya looked up.

"The cold affects the mana, yes, but the mana also affects the cold. Over centuries, the two reinforce one another, which is why naturally occurring ice-aligned materials, magical beasts, and plants are considerably more common in northern territories than elsewhere in the Empire."

The professor’s finger moved farther north, beyond the cities and settlements marked on the map, until it reached the enormous stretch of land where there was almost nothing at all.

"The North also happens to be one of the most extreme examples of what happens when this relationship continues for long enough. Humanity occupies roughly ten percent of the territory we consider the North, and even that number is only an estimate, because we still don’t know where the region actually ends."

Several students turned their attention toward the map.

"Beyond the territories administered by House Belozersky, there are settlements, fortresses, and military outposts scattered throughout the frontier. Go farther than those, however, and eventually you reach an expanse of frozen wilderness where permanent habitation becomes nearly impossible."

His finger moved farther into the blank portion.

"And beyond that lies the Blizzard."

Ilya’s expression remained unchanged. He had heard all of this before, although hearing his homeland discussed as an academic subject was somewhat strange.

"A perpetual blizzard that no recorded expedition has successfully crossed and returned from. We don’t know what lies beyond it, how far it extends, or whether the land continues past it at all."

The professor paused.

"What we do know is that things occasionally come out."

An illustration replaced the map, depicting several creatures that had been recorded along the northern frontier.

"Monsters emerge from the Whiteout with enough regularity that the Belozersky territories maintain fortifications specifically to intercept them. Many correspond to known species, but others don’t, and new specimens continue to appear despite centuries of documentation."

He looked around the lecture hall.

"This brings us back to Mana Ecology. Why does the North produce such an unusually high number of ice-aligned species? Why do creatures found nowhere else in the world emerge from the Blizzard? Is the environment changing the organisms living there, or has the mana itself become fundamentally different after centuries of exposure to whatever conditions exist beyond our explored territory?"

The professor lowered his hand.

"We don’t know."

His attention returned to the map.

"Travel south and the relationship changes again. Volcanic regions develop high concentrations of fire-aligned mana, wetlands can produce mana associated with water and decay, and ancient forests often develop unusually dense concentrations of life-aligned mana."

He turned back toward the class.

"The environment changes mana, and mana changes the environment. Given enough time, it becomes difficult to determine which one changed first."

Ilya stopped writing for a moment.

For some reason, his thoughts immediately went to Niflheim.

The more Ilya focused on Niflheim, the more the boundary between it and reality seemed to blur.

The cold that only he could initially perceive gradually became real. Temperatures would drop around him, frost would begin forming across his surroundings, and snow would materialize where there had been none before.

It was as though reality itself was slowly being made to experience the same frozen world that Ilya perceived.

"...."

Ilya glanced down at what he had written.

Perhaps that wasn’t as unrelated to Mana Ecology as he’d initially thought.

And so, Ilya raised his hand.

"Belozersky."

"Yes, sir." Ilya lowered his pen. "What about Domains? Is there any correlation between Domains and Mana Ecology?"

The professor paused. "Domains?"

"Yes."

Several students looked toward Ilya, but he kept his expression neutral. He had no intention of mentioning Niflheim, much less explaining why the question had suddenly occurred to him.

He went on to briefly explain the relationship between Domains and their surroundings, particularly how the conditions imposed within a Domain could influence ambient mana and, by extension, the physical environment itself.

None of that was particularly new to Ilya, however, and it wasn’t quite what he wanted to know.

Ilya listened closely.

"How much influence?"

"That depends entirely on the Domain and its wielder. Domains are highly individual phenomena, Belozersky. Two Domains can operate according to completely different principles, so trying to establish a single rule for all of them is difficult."

He turned toward the board.

"What we can say is that a Domain temporarily imposes the wielder’s own magical conditions upon an area. Ambient mana entering that area may begin responding to those conditions, and if the Domain is sufficiently powerful, physical changes to the environment can follow."

Ilya’s fingers stopped against his notebook.

That sounded familiar.

"So theoretically," Ilya continued, "if someone’s Domain was associated with a particular environment, the surroundings could gradually begin resembling it?"

A few more heads turned toward him.

The professor considered the question.

"Yes. There are recorded cases of that happening."

He tapped the chalk against the board.

"A Domain associated with extreme heat might raise the temperature of its surroundings, for example. One associated with water could increase moisture or alter the behavior of nearby water-aligned mana. The exact manifestation depends upon the Domain."

"And the longer it’s maintained?"

"The stronger the overlap can become."

"...."

Ilya lowered his gaze.

That was enough.

He didn’t ask anything further, because doing so would eventually require explaining why he was so interested in the subject in the first place.

Still, the answer had given him something to think about.

After the lecture, Ilya parted ways with Lisbet and eventually made his way back to Vera’s office.

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