Chương 8: Chapter 7: The Five Bands of Resonance

"Every Resonant is born with an invisible lattice permanently surrounding their body," Arem began, his voice taking on the practiced cadence of a lecturer.

"Think of it as a personal anchor. We are each born with a tiny, isolated portion of the grid that once coursed through the very essence of the first World Weaver." Elma cut him off with a flat, impatient stare.

"I didn't come here for a history lesson or a sermon. Tell me how it operates." Arem didn't seem bothered by the interruption. He simply tapped the brass casing of his globe.

"This lattice is what generates the Resonance fields around us. But to understand how to use that field, you must understand what the world actually is at its absolute baseline."

"No. I don't." He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table.

"The foundation of reality is not solid matter. The world is an infinite tapestry of threads. Everything you see, touch, or breathe is merely an ensemble of extremely small, vibrating sections of these universal threads. Each vibrating in a specific pattern that gives it its property. We call those individual sections threns." Elma took a slow, deep breath, adjusting her tiny stance. It was clear this man was starved for an audience and was going to dump his lifetime of theoretical data no matter what she said.

Recognizing a tactical bottleneck when she saw one, she decided to stop resisting. She would simply wait him out until he reached the practical, high-value intelligence.

"These threns don't all vibrate at the same speed," Arem continued.

"There are five distinct categories of Resonants, each possessing a lattice tuned to a specific frequency band. These bands dictate which elements of the world you can resonate with. Let us start from the heaviest to lightest." Elma leaned in. He finally got to the important stuff.

"First is Geo. It possesses the highest frequency band, and its domain stretches from the center of the world up to the crust. Rocks. Iron. Mercury. The second is Flow —your mother's element, and presumably yours. It governs the lighter elements, stretching from the currents of the seas to the pressure of the sky, manipulating waters, gases, storms."

"I see," Elma nodded, finally getting a range of what she could affect.

"Then we move into the non-vibrational elements," Arem continued.

"The third is Spectro, which commands all non-vibrational waves, electricity, light and radiation. And alongside it at number four sits Void —the manipulation of total emptiness, the act of forcing the universal threads to go completely still."

"And the fifth?" Elma asked.

"The fifth is my element," he said softly, gesturing toward the jars of shriveled, preserved flesh beneath his desk.

"It doesn't exist on the standard scale because it was never meant to be part of the world's natural order. It is the physical remains of the World Weaver itself. Bio."

"Bio?" Elma asked.

"Bio," Arem repeated.

"All living things in this world are formed from the remains of the World Weaver. Bio Resonants govern that band—though its frequency naturally sits between Geo and Flow on the scale. My apologies for leaving it last." World Weaver. She wanted to ask, but she already knew what another question about it would cost her. Another hour of theory she hadn't asked for. She filed it away instead. Elma leaned in, her gaze dropping to the ink stains on his desk.

"What about making matter? Manifesting it from nothing."

"That is called weaving," he said, his eyes gleaming with academic satisfaction.

"Every Resonant can weave their specific element from the Void, bringing it into reality. Conversely, a Void Resonant can do the opposite. They can unmake existing matter, dissolving it back into nothingness. Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

"Woven matter, however, persists for about five hours before dissolving back into the Void. The only exception is when the weaving is performed by a god. Such creations endure indefinitely."

"Gods?" The word was out before she'd finished thinking it. She understood the mistake a half-second too late—the way Arem's eyes lit up, the way he straightened in his chair, the way his entire posture shifted from weary academic to man who had been waiting decades for someone to ask. Elma closed her eyes and pressed two fingers to her temple. Four hours later, she had the relevant parts: five original gods, each governing one of the five bands. The Bio god was the youngest.

Unlike the others, who favored humanity because humans resembled them, the Bio god valued all life equally. The other gods quietly aided humans—smoothing their path, tipping the scales in their favor—while every other species was left to fend for itself. The Bio god watched the natural order he'd built come apart under the weight of that preferential treatment, and compensated by strengthening the species being left behind. The friction accumulated over centuries. Eventually the other four gods reached a consensus.

They fought him, stripped his authority, and divided his domain between themselves. What became of him after that, no one agreed on. Arem certainly didn't. When Arem finally fell silent, Elma opened her eyes.

"That was very informative," she said, in the most measured tone she could manage.

"Could we return to the first subject now." Arem blinked. Then let out a short, genuine laugh.

"Yes," he said, settling back into his chair.

"We could do that." He tapped the table once, reorienting himself.

"Where did we stop—right. Weaving. Every Resonant can weave their specifi—""You already said that," Elma said. Arem paused.

"Did I."

"Woven matter. Five hours. Gods are the exception."

"Ah." He cleared his throat.

"Unweaving, then. It is different. It costs a Void Resonant considerably more effort—but it is the only act that is truly permanent." Elma's mind immediately flashed back to Christa snapping her fingers to create water, and further back, to Fenric's silver spear materializing inside her flesh. They were all temporary constructs.

"How do I learn to do it?" she demanded. The man leaned back in his leather chair, a dry, faint chuckle escaping his throat.

"You will figure it out eventually, little lady. Once you can actually sense the threns. For now, don't rush to weave. You just need to try and feel your specific elements first. Mastery over what already exists comes before creation."

"I understand," Elma said, filing the advice away. She paused, looking around the massive, dusty cavern of the library, then back at his ancient, ink-stained desk.

"I have never seen you outside before. How long have you been down here?" Arem blinked, his eyes tracking upward as if looking through the ceiling. He began to count on his fingers, his movements slow and deliberate, before letting his hand drop.

"Maybe... three hundred years." The number hit Elma with the force of a physical blow. She stared at his smooth, unwrinkled face, her eyes narrowing.

"Are you human?"

"I am," he answered with a chuckle.

"Then how?" Arem offered her a small, knowing smile, gesturing vaguely to the jars of floating, preserved organs hidden beneath his desk.

"Because I am a very, very good Bio Resonant." Elma stared at him, a sudden, sharp pang of envy twisting in her chest. Bio. It would have been the better element for her. Especially due to her vast knowledge on the subject. Recognizing that she had gathered all the actionable data she could for one day, Elma turned to leave.

"Little lady," Arem's voice called out, stopping her at the edge of the rotunda.

"Do you have a brother?" Elma froze. She turned her head, looking back at him over her shoulder, her brow furrowing.

"No. I don't." Arem tilted his head, scratching his gray hair.

"Strange. Last night, a boy with dark hair came in here. Sneaking around the shelves. But unlike you, he didn't speak to me. Just stared. He looked… confused." Elma's expression remained entirely flat.

"There is no one like that in the manor."

"Hmm. I see," Arem murmured, his attention drifting back to the mechanical globe and scattered notes.

"Will you return?"

"Probably," Elma said. The answer depended entirely on whether anyone else in this manor proved less useless. A faint smile touched the corner of Arem's mouth.

"That's good." Without another word, she turned and walked out of the library, the heavy doors clicking shut behind her. As her small boots clicked against the polished stone corridors, her mind began to race. A boy with dark hair? The only child allowed in the main wings of the Altheris estate was her. She wondered briefly if Christa wasn't really losing her mind. Two people seeing the same phantom made insanity a statistically unlikely conclusion.

Maybe a maid's son, Elma told herself, dismissing the anomaly as a security oversight. She had more important things to worry about.