Human Recipe

“Life is that thing that happens in the background while you are doing important stuff.” according to old Earthling wisdom. I once expended four legal months trying to find out how is the author of that sentence. Gave up in the end. I think I was 11 years old at the time, was little before my vocation kick in. Back in those days my plans in live involved computer engineering and Fairy-Human Diplomacy.

I was obsessed by Sun System History, and particularly Earth. The fact that we still use the natural cycles of that blue planet to regulate our lives. Calling it “Standard System”, or “Legal System”, caused a strong impression to me, since the first time when I realized why our “legal days” have 24 hours.

However, when you have 11 “legal years”, 4 “legal months” are a lot of time. Something distracted me from that research before I was able to solve the mystery.

Then little more than a year passed, and my vocation manifested. Changing my relation with time forever.

Ever since I didn’t invested any significant time thinking about Baby Steps Age, or the time pre-Baby Steps, when the entirety of human race was still confined to only one planet.

The Transmigration Spell is the one thing the aliens know by us as Elder Vampires didn’t taught us, not even the roots of it. Since human mages disturbed their long hibernation those aliens helped us directly and indirectly. The contract between them and humanity gave us the human-based vampires and the Mechas. Two tools that make the survival of humanity in this stelar system possible in the long run.

By the very nature of the matter or his body and mind an Elder Vampire would have no chance to consider the Transmigration Spell.

About every single human mage plays with the ideal. Commes so naturally to us that is next to impossible not to toy with it. However, one thing is play with a fantasy, another very different is to actually know it is possible. Yet another is to know how to do it.

The existence of that spell is the most guarder secret in the Altral Plane. Only a handful of Cabals know the spell is not theoretical anymore.

Select few mages, members of the Hidden Circle at the core of the High Circle of their cabals have performed the act.

The spell demands a ritual, and some preparation. It allows an old mage to take the body of a young one, permanently. Starting life again, in the physical real, whit all the accumulated knowledge and power of his present level of development in the astral plane.

Would be possible, and a lot easier, to take the body of a common human. However, that would mean give up the access to the astral plane, and all magic comes from that access.

To keep the secret is necessary to kill the young mage. In the astral plane. And allow the body of the old mage ****.

That is a key for human immortality. Since the fairies have no way to know the exchange took place. They don’t have access to magical phenomenon or the Astral Real. The veteran mage is now able to surpass the 300 years settled as limit for human life by the Alexandrine Consensus.

I did not invented the Transmigration Spell. Was never my plan to use it myself.

When I was included in the select number of those who know the secret I was with 211 years. On Gerunda that is very old age, older than what most hope to reach.

As a mage I had lived a rich life, subjectively, much longer than any live humans can hope for. Except for those ancient fellows born before the Alexandrine ****-Line, who kept their biological immortality without lose the legal status of humans. I didn’t wanted to die, but I was ready for it. Curious, even.

However, my cabal had different plans. They didn’t wanted to pass my researches for someone else. Fearing the lost and the delay such process implies.

Would be wrong of me to pretend I was a victim. I won’t do that.

If I didn’t knew as much magic as I know I would never be a member of the Inner Circle. To say nothing about the Hidden Circle, know only by a select few among them. I should have noticed the clues, if I really wanted to, fully, I could have prevented it from happening even during the ritual itself.

They took me by surprise, and I didn’t reacted immediately.

Part of me didn’t wanted to stop the ritual.

If I had prevented the Transmigration they would kill the boy anyway. To protect their huge secret. However, that is a cheap excuse. The fact is that: I took the chance of steal the body of that student. Who was barely 20 years old. He is dead and gone, I am still here.

My work in Energy Conversion and Teleportation Spells in the Astral Plane had been recognized as a relevant achievement, important to help recover some of the influence lost by our cabal in recent centuries. We have sources of energy available in the Astral, that surpass what can be explored in the physical world. The cost to collect and distribute it in is less significant here, and with the distribution of energy we get a tool to share information as well.

Two main directions to evolve, that absorb much of the attention of mages in all colonies are the establishment of a trustworthy line of communications between the colonies in Lira System, and the conversion of astral energy into physical energy, by technomagic.

The combination between those developments may one day realize the old dream of allow the use of magic in the physical plane. Long before that the possibility of transmit energy from astral sources to the physical world would open a virtually infinite alternative source of energy for human cities. And eliminate the need for transmission of energy in the physical.

Reliable transference of energy between astral and physical improves all technomagic. Recent advancements made possible the use of temporary clones in the physical world by mages. Travellers from other colonies can experience the physical world in our planet thanks to that. Since expend time in the physical consumes way too much time in the astral the applications for that technology are limited, but the potential is astronomical.

In theory we may one day dispense the need to kill young mages, and prolong the existence of all mages, indefinitely, by improving the connection between physical bodies and our astral ones.

How the fairies would react to this development is a mystery.

Biological immortality is available outside Lira as a easy, reliable and cheap technology since thousands of years ago. The decision to limit human life again to just 300 years was a political and philosophical one. Never had anything to do with technological limitations. Circumvent the legal limitations may prove to be harder than solve the technical issues. Nevertheless, this could be the path to make our stellar system economically relevant for the rest of humanity when we finally reconnect our system with the outside world.

More than 4 thousand years separate us from the last contact our ancestors had with Earth, Sun System, and the rest of humanity in other stellar systems.

We still have the maps and projections for Expansion Age. They were made in gorgeous detail. If nothing too out of ordinary happened human expansion must have reached a point where it is starting to be visible in maps of the whole galaxy. Still a very small dot, and only visible in a very large representation of the galaxy. However, the expansion should gain speed as the number of populated systems grow.

One argument many people make is that we can count with changes in those plans.

Because who did those plans expected “Mystery Fleet” to go through what we call Lira System, populate it, and keep going. That was by far the largest seeding fleet every planned, and save for our ancestors it was all completely destroyed. Almost everyone in those fleets died violently short after the ships enter our stellar system.

No one knows what kind of effect this event produced in the rest of humanity.

One possibility is that such a tragedy caused humans to lose interest for Expansion Age entirely. More plausible than that is that they would slow down the expansions, favouring additional security measures.

We do not know, but there is a group of scientists, engineers and mages entirely dedicated to find out. Supported by mages on all colonies they have their headquarters on Litmus, the most external habited colony. The objective of those people is to reestablish contact with the rest of the galaxy. Piercing through the shell of shadows that surrounds this Stellar System in all directions. **** our way out by any means, does not matter how.

Ideally, bring back help.

The idea never attracted me, as a mage. The pre-adolescent I was before manifest the vocation would have jumped to embrace the chance to live and die for that goal.

As a mage I understand that this is the only interesting place in our Universe, to say nothing about our galaxy. We have a world build in Lira System, many times older (in subjective and effective time) than the world build in the physical real by non-mages. Outside Lira, there is nothing.

Whatever allows shadows and vampires to exist. Whatever keeps them prisoners in this stellar system, unable to go beyond a certain distance from lira. That same thing grants us the capacity to awake in our dreams, build fully functional astral bodies, and explore reality that way. Interacting with each other in the Astral Real. Learning the rules of nature in this layer of reality.

To a mage the Universe beyond Lira must be an empty desert. Possibly as deadly as the space between planets is for our naked physical bodies.

Only after that ritual when an innocent boy was sacrificed to prolong my survival, I started looking at the progresses and plans of Exploration Order with renewed interest.

I had to keep those main projects going, they where the reason why the cabal invested in that Transmigration Ritual in the first place. So, my next 30 to 50 years were tied to Gerunda and the activities in the First Temple of our cabal.

Beyond that, our cabal was committed with many different projects. We were, from instance, part of this Exploration Order since the order was founded.

To send a member of the Inner Circle in person, physical body included, to Litmus was an excessive display of commitment. No one expected that much from us. However, if I started publishing contributions to the project of reunite Lira with the rest of humanity, and carefully increased the frequence and consistence of those articles. After five decades my name would be strongly connected with the Order in Litmus. In the minds of all mages in the inner circle.

Specially those without the knowledge of my real identity. Before the ritual of transmigration.

The Exploration Order is one of those useless, hopeless projects that counts with implicit sympathy from everyone. In mage community and outside it. Is hard if not impossible to find anyone openly opposing it for whatever reason you can imagine.

Litmus would love to have me. A mage with status and skill to be part of the inner circle of one of the most prestigious cabals on Gerunda is a prize. Valuable enough to send Litmus Fleet in expedition, even if no expedition was planned to Gerunda in that period. Once I had the ground for that properly cultivated, no one in the Shadow Circle would dare to manifest opposition to my departure.

That way, this obscure project became my emergency exist from a situation that had become intolerable.

On Litmus I could start fresh.

They probably have Transmigrator Mages up there as well, but I would not start my trajectory under the wings of any of them. This time I was an outsider, and I would have time to build counter measures that would prevent the repetition of that trap I had fallen in here in Gerunda.

In this body I will arrive on Litmus, as a mage around 70 years old. Up there is not unusual for people to reach 300 years. They saved more of Sun System technology, and have less issues with microscopic shadows due to being under constant light of Lira. The planet does not rotate.

I should have around 200 years to live, build my ground of influence in their mage community, and develop counter measures against the transmigration ritual.

Maybe when that time ends the proximity of **** will weight so much that I will change my mind. And actively look for a chance to repeat the transmigration. I hope not! In any case, I will not find myself tricked into this impossible situation again. Knowing some promising young mage is dead because of me and all I have to decide is if I will give his **** some purpose or let it remain as a stupid waste of potential.

I cannot tell anyone about those plans, that goes without saying.

For everybody my only reason to move from Gerunda to Litmus will be to get directly involved in Project Reconnection. Work at the core of it.

According to all accounts the govern and the people of Litmus are very proud of that project. Along with the Litmus Fleet that is their most important investment as a Colony. Start a discreet live may not be easy. The Expansion Order has some public attention up there.

I will need to dedicate most my time in the astral plane to the Reconnection. Possibly, a considerable part of my time in the physical to some sort of public event.

Additionally, I have to keep in mind, I will need time to frequent doctors. Make physiotherapy and acupuncture for chronical pain. Least in the first years. Since Litmus has a very low gravity. About the same of Planet Earth, half the atmosphere of Gerunda. Up there I will be a dwarf, half the size of average locals.

Like the medieval fantasy dwarves, I will look more muscular and more resistant than normal people.

Makes no difference in the astral, where most my existence takes place is anyway. Nevertheless, those are things to have in mind when we approach life changing decisions like that. Potentially irreversible decisions.

Could even happen that this hopeless project turns out in success. During my life time.

Almost unlikely enough to be nothing but a joke, but still, the possibility exists.

Would be nice to talk with humans who live outside Lira System. Find out how they are advancing. If Expansion Age is still the main collective effort of our specie. Or something else emerged, and that obsession was throwed in the trash can of History. I would like that, for curiosity sake if nothing else.