The First Rule of Magic

by gigaherz

Concept idea I wrote sometime around 2009-2010

The first rule of magic is also the most important one. As my master and teacher told me: “Never, ever, cast an unbounded spell. In the best case, you would die, in the worst, you would destroy the world.” The reason? Simple: Magic draws magic.

Unbounded, magic would start a chain reaction, the power flow would increase exponentially, setting loose such forces that eventually they would attract the space and time themselves into a single point. In fact, is that not how the world came to be? We could then theorize that the world existed before, but someone managed to release magic from its bounds. The reality is, though, that such feat would not be easy. In fact, many consider it to be impossible.

For magic to happen, the user must drive the primordial energies through their own body, direct them using the words in the spell to shape their will, and finally release them towards the target. This creates a simple limit such that if the energy was too great, the user’s body would be strained to the point it stops functioning. To drive the amounts of energy necessary for the world’s destruction, one would need to either find a way to release magic itself, or obtain an immortal, invulnerable body. Surely there is no means to the latter, and the former is such a ridiculous concept it’s not even worth considering.

Or so we thought.