One Drop of Rain Drills the Rock #5: "Magic and the Universe." (Patreon)

I decided to give you all a peek behind the curtain today and explain how magic works in my universe—and what that means for the future of the story.

At the center of everything lies the Memory of the Universe.

Many cultures throughout history have imagined something similar and called it by different names. In Indian traditions, there are the Akashic Records. In Norse mythology, there is Mímir's Well, a source of profound knowledge, and Yggdrasil, the world tree connecting all realms. Some philosophers spoke of the Anima Mundi, the soul of the world—an all-encompassing consciousness containing all life, knowledge, and experience.

In my setting, the Memory of the Universe is the true blueprint of creation. It is where every concept that has ever existed is stored, understood, and defined. Through that understanding, concepts become expressed within reality.

If the universe were a living organism, the Memory would be its genotype—the underlying code. Everything else, physical and metaphysical alike, would be its phenotype: the visible expression of that deeper structure.

This is where Authority enters the picture.

In simple terms, Authority is the power to alter how the universe expresses those concepts. Importantly, Authority never changes the concept itself. It only changes how that concept manifests within reality.

Authority can come from many sources. It might be the collective belief of thousands of people convinced that something is true. It might be a singular mage wielding a specific power. Regardless of the source, sufficient Authority allows reality to bend and conform to the will of those who possess it.

So why is the Memory of the Universe important?

Because understanding concepts is what allows a mage to truly wield power.

The deeper a mage understands a concept—how it relates to itself, how it connects to other concepts, what opposes it, what complements it, what lies at its core—the greater their Authority over it becomes. A mage who understands only a fragment of a concept gains limited influence. A mage who understands the entire web of relationships surrounding that concept can expand their power into something far greater.

In my mind, conceptual understanding can be divided into twelve stages:

Recognition

Naming

Function

Structure

Relation

Symbol

Paradox

Universality

Essence

Inversion

Integration

Transcendence

A mage does not necessarily progress through these stages in order, nor does every concept require the same path. However, each step deepens understanding and, in turn, increases the scope of Authority.

To illustrate this, let's look at two relatively straightforward concepts: Mind and Fire.

(I am deliberately avoiding Artistic Creation for obvious spoiler-related reasons.)

The Twelve Essential Truths of Understanding

1. Recognition

Awareness precedes mastery.

Before a concept can be understood, it must first be noticed.

Examples:

Mind: recognizing attention, emotion, concentration, distraction.

Fire: recognizing flame, heat, smoke, combustion.

2. Naming

To name something is to separate it from chaos.

Names create boundaries and definitions.

Examples:

Mind: distinguishing memory, instinct, desire, reason, imagination, perception.

Fire: distinguishing flame, ember, spark, wildfire, forge-fire, funeral pyres, torches.

3. Function

Nothing is understood without understanding what it does.

Purpose reveals nature.

Examples:

Mind: understanding that people do not experience reality directly, but through interpretation and cognitive focus.

Fire: understanding the transformation of matter through burning.

4. Structure

Appearances arise from hidden mechanisms.

Every concept is built from interacting layers.

Examples:

Mind: understanding conscious thought, subconscious drives, memory structures, and cognition.

Fire: understanding fuel, ignition, consumption, and energy release.

5. Relation

No concept stands alone.

Everything exists within a web of connections.

Examples:

Mind: connecting mental landscapes, emotions, beliefs, and identities.

Fire: understanding fire's role in civilization, industry, survival, and progress.

6. Symbol

Reality acquires power through meaning.

Concepts become larger than their physical manifestations.

Examples:

Mind: invoking symbolic identities within a person's psyche.

Fire: representing purification, desire, illumination, passion, or wrath.

7. Paradox

True understanding requires contradiction.

A concept cannot be understood without understanding what appears to conflict within it.

Examples:

Mind: separating and reconciling conflicting aspects of consciousness.

Fire: understanding that it both creates and destroys.

8. Universality

A concept exists wherever its pattern exists.

Concepts transcend their most obvious forms.

Examples:

Mind: existing not only within individuals, but also within cultures, ideologies, religions, and collective thought.

Fire: existing beyond literal flame as ambition, fever, revolution, inspiration, hunger, and change.

9. Essence

Specific forms are shadows cast by a deeper truth.

(Think Plato's Cave.)

Examples:

Mind: understanding identity as a sustained narrative of continuity.

Fire: understanding it as rapid, accelerated, irreversible transformation.

10. Inversion

Mastery requires understanding negation and reversal.

Every concept contains its opposite.

Examples:

Mind: recognizing that the hidden opposite of mind is the absence of cognition.

Fire: recognizing the stillness hidden within motion and the emptiness left behind after consumption.

11. Integration

The concept is woven into existence itself.

Examples:

Mind: observation influences existence; belief stabilizes worlds.

Fire: all existence burns in some fashion, whether physically, emotionally, spiritually, or temporally.

12. Transcendence

Perfect understanding transforms the self.

Examples:

Mind: becoming awareness, interpretation, or cognition itself.

Fire: becoming catalyst, purification, destruction, inspiration, entropy, and transformation.

This is one of the primary ways mages increase their power beyond simply gathering essence and resonance, strengthening their soulmarks, or expanding their Domains.

A mage grows stronger by deepening their understanding.

This is exactly how Alexa's Authority over Artistic Creation has evolved. At one point she realized that music is also a form of artistic creation. That realization expanded her understanding of the concept and, by extension, her Authority over it. Future realizations will continue to do the same.

The Memory of the Universe, or Anima Mundi, is particularly important to Alexa's Identity soulmark.

When she paints fire, she doesn't need to possess a perfect scientific or philosophical understanding of what fire is. Instead, she points reality in the right direction through artistic expression and draws upon the concept itself as it exists within the Memory of the Universe.

The same principle applies to creations born entirely within her imagination.

Take the sp-eye-ders, for example—the moving tattoos with the eyes of the Shattered upon their backs. No such creatures exist naturally. They were conceived entirely within Alexa's mind. Yet once imagined, expressed, and given form through her Authority, they became part of the Anima Mundi. Their blueprint now exists alongside every other concept in creation.

In this way, new concepts can be born.

And the Memory contains countless concepts far stranger than anything Alexa has created so far.

Whenever a mage successfully calls a concept into reality, traces of that act remain behind. The Memory records more than the concept itself. It records how it was invoked. Whether it was summoned through a gesture, a painting, a ritual, a thought, a song, or something else entirely—the universe remembers.

Every invocation leaves breadcrumbs.

Which raises an interesting possibility.

Perhaps there is room in this world for something resembling a traditional Wizard.

Not a person who relies upon a particular Authority, but someone who studies concepts themselves. Someone who examines the patterns left behind by previous mages, learns how concepts were invoked, and replicates those methods through understanding alone.

A scholar of the universe's memory.

Someone who does not command reality because they embody a concept, but because they have learned the language through which reality itself is written.