Andrew Rowe - On the Shoulders of Titans

This book is dedicated to every person who has had to live in fear of persecution due to their sexual preferences, gender identity, ethnicity, disabilities, religion, or any other element of who they are.

This is also dedicated to anyone who has suffered because of their lack of characteristics that others have tried to impose upon them, such as sexual preferences, gender, or religious beliefs.

The map above shows the continent of Kaldwyn, where this novel takes place. It is divided into four major nations — Valia, Edria, Caelford, and Dalenos. Each major nation has one or more of the Soaring Spires; these are also shown on the map.

Sufficiently Advanced Magic took place entirely within the nation of Valia.

The Serpent Spire and Lorian Heights Academy are both located in Beaufort, in the eastern nation of the nation of Valia.

Corin’s home is located in Hathridge, a city south of Beaufort.

On this continent, no one is born with magical abilities. Instead, when humans reach a certain age — which varies from nation to nation — they’re eligible to visit their local “Soaring Spire” for something called a Judgment.

The spires are huge towers filled with monsters and treasure. They’re also basically giant death traps. Their goddess must have a sick sense of humor.

That seems to be an unfortunate trend among the gods I’ve encountered in general.

Yeah, so, survive a Judgment and you get an “attunement”. Attunements are marks, seemingly similar to the dominion marks from back home, more complex. I have some theories on how they work, but I’ll get into that later.

You don’t get to pick which attunement you get after you finish your Judgment, as far as I can tell. And the place the attunement shows up on your body impacts how your magic works. It seems like people can train to work around that, but the location of the mark determines what is easiest for you.

These are the attunements for the kingdom of Valia, where I’m visiting soon.

Diviner:Standard information gathering attunement. They can also make memory crystals and store memories inside.

Mana Types:Mental (Primary), Enhancement (Secondary)

Guardian:Guardians are capable of focusing mana into specific parts of their bodies, imparting vastly enhanced physical combat capabilities. Also capable of discharging their mana through contact, enabling them to harm creatures impervious to conventional force.

Mana Types:Enhancement (Primary), Life (Secondary)

Elementalist:Ranged combat experts with fire, air, and lightning magic.

Mana Types:Fire (Primary), Air (Secondary)

Enchanter:Capable of imbuing items with permanent enchantments, similar to Dominion Marks back at home. It’s strange to see so many items with runes around here.

Mana Types:Transference (Primary), Mental (Secondary)

Mender:Healers. Enough said.

Mana Types:Life (Primary), Earth (Secondary)

Shadow:Concealment specialists. They can also use shadow magic to suppress other forms of magic, and have some physical enhancements.

Mana Types:Umbral (Primary), Enhancement (Secondary)

Shaper:Able to conjure and manipulate mana constructs, including simulacra. Extremely flexible. Reportedly excellent duelists.

Mana Types:Earth (Primary), Enhancement (Secondary)

Summoner:Form contracts with monsters to exchange their own mana for some of the monster’s power, similar to Soulblades up in Dalenos. I’d love to learn more about how these work.

Mana Types:Air (Primary), Transference (Secondary)

Attunements get stronger as you use them. As your attunement gets stronger, the color of your aura changes.

Locally, they refer to attunement levels by gemstone names. Some of the other nations use other styles.

The colors of their auras follow the color of the rainbow.

They are as follows:

Quartz:Clear aura. This is the level where people start when they first get an attunement.

Carnelian:Red aura. At this point, people develop an aura that protects them from attacks called a “shroud”. Sounds useful. Wish I had one.

Sunstone:Orange aura. At this level, generally learn to manipulate their shroud, including suppressing their attunement abilities to avoid detection.

Citrine:Yellow aura. I always get this confused with Carnelian. At this level, they gain access to another type of magic.

Emerald:Green aura. This level supposedly lets them manipulate ambient mana.

Sapphire:Blue aura. They claim these don’t actually exist, but I’m pretty sure they do.

Notably, some of the attunements don’t give out abilities in exactly the same sequence. For example, Guardians get their shroud immediately at Quartz, and I’ve seen some attunements that can suppress their shrouds as soon as they get one.

I’ll write down more notes when I’m done with this visit. I have a feeling it’s going to be a long one.

Okay, Keras.

In case you don’t remember me, I’m Corin Cadence. We never really were properly introduced. I’m a student at Lorian Heights Academy right now, but we met a little before that.

I suppose that’s a good place to start.

I’m sure you remember being in that weird crystal prison.

Well, when I found you, I was supposed to be taking my Judgment. That’s a test that someone can take when they come of age in Valia, assuming they can afford the entrance fee.

There were two main reasons I wanted to take a Judgment.

One, because surviving one means you get an attunement. Each attunement comes with magical powers. And everyone wants magical powers, right? Right.

The other reason is a bit more personal. My brother, Tristan, disappeared when he took his Judgment five years ago.

Everyone told me that meant that Tristan was dead. I wasn’t convinced that was the only possibility. But even if he was dead, I also knew that if I managed to get strong enough to climb all the way to the top of the spire, I could ask the goddess for a boon. Bringing my brother back to life seemed like a reasonable thing to ask for.

Of course, climbing all the way to the top of the spire would be much harder than just finishing a Judgment, but I needed to start somewhere.

Our local Judgments are held inside the Serpent Spire, one of the six Soaring Spires. I assume you went in through the Climber’s Gate, which is a different entrance meant for groups of veterans who are trying to climb to the top of the spire.

Yeah, thought so.

Anyway, I found a book early on in the test. “Trials of Judgment.”

When I opened said book, it started to give me advice. No, not verbally. That would have been even stranger, but possibly more hilarious.

Text started to appear on the pages. It wrote me “helpful” comments about each of the rooms I was going through, like, “This is the Room of Eternal Death. It’s like the Room of Normal Death, but somewhat more repetitive.”

That sort of thing.