Chapter Text
The afternoon sun filtered through the windows of the academy's arcane theory classroom. At the front of the room, Hinomori Shiho stood perfectly straight, her arms crossed and her expression characteristically stern. She tapped a piece of chalk against the board, pointing to a perfectly symmetrical diagram.
"It is a fundamental law, An," Shiho said, her voice steady and grounded. "Everything in the physical realm consists of the four primary elements: Fire, Water, Earth, and Air. They are the foundation for everything. You can't just invent new ones because you feel like it."
Across from her, Shiraishi An leaned forward, hands resting on he podium. "Okay, well Four elements are way too restrictive." An argued, trying to come up with an argument for what she was assigned. " There are definitely way more than four."
"Such as?" Shiho replied. "Exactly how many 'primary' forces are there, in your opinion?"
"Well... I don't know the exact number! But probably..." An began ticking them off on her fingers, her voice gaining speed and volume as the ideas flowed: "There's Gold, Wood, Ice, and Metal! Oh, and Wind and Lightning! You can't forget Sound, Dirt, Rock, Light, Blood, and... Poison! See? That's twelve right there, and I haven't even really started!"
Shiho crossed her arms and let out a long, slow sigh before picking her chalk back up.
"An, everything you just listed is a derivative," She said. She turned to the board and began drawing connecting lines outwards from the symbols on the chalkboard. "Those are compounds and sub-categories.” “Wind is just the kinetic application of Air. Ice is Water with an absence of Fire. Dirt, Rock, Metal, and Gold are all different densities of Earth.”
"And as for things like Blood and Poison," Shiho continued, turning back to face An with a resolute glare, "those are complex mixtures, not magical building blocks. The magic you use to manipulate them still pulls from the ambient water and earth mana within them."
An puffed out her cheeks, crossing her arms defensively. "But a poison mage feels completely different from a water mage. If the mana feels different, it should be its own element!"
"They're both derived from the same source An" Shiho replied flatly, dusting the chalk from her fingers. " You can't really manipulate poison without a foundation in water. It's simple"
An slumped over the wooden podium, as the assembly voted. She actually got some votes (which meant she wouldn't get a failing grade). But more people voted for Shiho.
"The logic holds," the professor announced, his voice echoing off the stone walls. "The assembly votes in favor of Hinomori's traditionalist model."
An pushed herself off the desk letting out a long breath.
Shiho offered a curt, respectful nod to her, preparing to step down, but the professor gestured for her to remain.
"We have time for one more challenge. Kiritani, you may take the opposing position."
Haruka stood up from the front row. She smoothed the front of her robed uniform and walked to the opposing podium, offering Shiho a polite, disarming smile.
"As expected of the Hinomori family" Haruka began, her voice calm and melodic. "You argued your point beautifully, Shiho, Your breakdown of the derivative elements was quite thorough."
Shiho straightened her posture, narrowing her eyes slightly. She knew Haruka well enough to recognize when she was being buttered up. "Thank you, Haruka. But I assume you found it unsatisfying?"
"Just a small question, " Haruka replied, lacing her fingers together on the desk. "Going back to your point about minerals. You stated that Dirt, Rock, Metal, and Gold are all simply different densities of Earth. Correct?"
"Yes" Shiho confirmed without hesitation. "They are all derived from Earth-aligned mana."
"I see." Haruka tilted her head, her smile remaining perfectly in place. "Then tell me, under the traditional model, what exactly is Lead made of?"
Shiho frowned. "It is a metal. Therefore, it is a dense derivative of Earth."
"So Lead and Gold are fundamentally the same material, just…packed more tightly together?" Haruka asked, her voice dropping to a quieter, more pointed register.
"Yes."
Haruka let the silence hang in the air for a long, deliberate moment.
"Then why, in the three-thousand-year recorded history of this academy, has absolutely no one been able to turn Lead into Gold?"
A hushed wave of whispers broke out across the audience.
"If they are truly made of the exact same elemental building blocks," Haruka continued, leaning slightly forward, "transmutation between the two should be a simple matter of say…compressing one to create the other. Yet, the greatest sorceresses in history have dedicated their entire lives to this exact conversion and failed. If Earth is the only foundational element involved. what is stopping them?"
Shiho’s chalk snapped in half inside her clenched fist. The pieces clattered against the wooden floorboards, the sharp sound cutting through the murmurs of the gallery. Shiho looked down at her hand, took a slow, steadying breath, and brushed the white dust from her palms. When she looked back up at Haruka, her composure had returned, though her eyes burned with intense focus.
"Haruka," Shiho countered, her voice ringing clear across the silent room. "The failure to transmute Lead into Gold is not proof that they belong to different elemental branches. It is proof of our limitations."
Haruka tilted her head, her polite smile unwavering but her eyes sharp. "Limitations of?"
"Limitations of law, faith, and human capacity," Shiho corrected, stepping away from the chalkboard and gripping the edges of her podium. "No one has been able to produce Gold from Lead because no one is able to produce Gold from anything. It is strictly illegal under the High Council's decrees, and it is widely considered sacrilegious to artificially recreate it."
Shiho swept her gaze across the classroom, ensuring the observing students understood the gravity of her words.
"Furthermore," she continued, "even if a rogue alchemist were permitted to attempt it, they would fail. The sheer mana cost required to compress the Earth element into a state of absolute purity is beyond the scope of an ordinary mage. It isn't an elemental impossibility; it is an issue of immense magical output, or something that requires demonic pacts or dark magic."
Haruka raised a delicate eyebrow. "So it's not a fundamental barrier in the laws of magic?"
"Yes," Shiho said. "I guarantee you that if the Headmasters of this academy wished to do so, they could compress standard dirt or Earth directly into Gold. They simply choose not to, out of respect for the divine order, and the world's economic and spiritual balance. The four-element model remains intact."
Haruka let out a soft, thoughtful hum.
From the shadows of the tiered seating, the presiding professor stood up, his deep blue robes rustling in the quiet classroom. He looked between the two students.
"A fascinating exchange," he said.
He struck a small brass gavel against the desk.
"As neither proposition can be definitively proven without committing a severe magical crime..." He said. "...I declare this debate a tie."
A collective exhale swept through the classroom. Haruka offered Shiho a genuine, respectful bow across the aisle, which Shiho returned with a crisp, formal nod, the academic tension dissolving between them.