//------------------------------//
// Lesson 2: Nature of magic 
// Story: The Basics of the Equestrian Magic 
// by MirroredHawk 
//------------------------------//

“Today I will tell you about the nature of magic, where it comes from. During the physics lessons you learned about the abstract energy. Such as kinetic, potential and internal. Magic is placed as a fourth type, which, kind of, can be considered a part of internal energy, but it won't be correct to the full extent. Magical energy exists everywhere. Every cell, one way or another, creates some magical energy, spending some internal for it.

“But, unlike earthponies or pegasi, we are able to create way more magical energy and store it. Our horn is the main tool responsible for the magical manipulation in our bodies. There is a joke that in order to catch a unicorn you need to break his horn first. In every joke there is a bit of truth. Yeah, unicorn loses the ability to cast directed spells with broken horn. But all magic accumulation happens in the horn base, thus unicorn is still able to use magic, though it will demand gigantic amount of training to be able to control it. This happens because horn acts as a platform to direct the flow of the accumulated magic energy.

“Enough side-tracking. How I already mentioned, magic is created and accumulated in everything. But not every creature is able to accumulate the same amount of it. Even fewer – are able to actually use it.”

“What is the difference between the enchanted object and the environmental magic?” asked one of the students.

“Good question. Practically, there is no difference aside of one thing. Enchantment is created artificially by the creature. In fact, there is a heated debate within the Order of Belladonna as to whether or not enchantment should be identified as a separate category of magic, but for now, enchantment is considered a separate science, and enchanters try to separate themselves from researchers of the environmental magic. Personally, I'm more inclined to believe that enchantments are part of environmental magic, even though enchanted objects interact with creatures more often.

“Back to the nature of magic. Thus, everycreature or object has its own limit of accumulated magic energy and a way to release or absorb it, meaning, converting it back to the physical energy. For example, after the battle for Cloudsdale there was a terrible magical storm. In the ruins of the city every object got overfilled with magical energy and it is still released even to this day making it dangerous even to pass by the ruins, not talking about entering. Only the skilled magicians are able to control the magic flow around them in such place saturated with magical energy.

“By the way, we're lucky. A healthy unicorn is able to block the external flow of the magical energy. But, as you can guess, use of the magic in such place will result in the contact of the external and internal magic and our horn simply won't be able to release magic in such conditions. Even now, concentrated, you will be able to sense the background magic. Thus, our horn is able to sense the external magical energy. Usually, we don't pay much of attention to that, but you surely felt sometimes kind of unusual, when it was harder to use spells. It happens due to the magical storms. Air isn't transporting much of magical energy, but still, it's sometimes enough to feel it. For example, South-West wind comes with the over-saturated magical air from Cloudsdale to Canterlot, making unprepared unicorns dizzy.

“Cloudsdale is the great example of the magical conversion and thus it will be mentioned more than once during our lessons, be sure of that. Conversion from the magical into the environmental as well as into the creatures' magic happens in its ruins. Once I have seen a unicorn, who was sick with the magical permeability, who was brought from there. That was quiet a horrific sight, his face was disfigured and he constantly was mumbling. His horn flashing as crazy even though they put a horn restrictor on him. So, be very careful. It is possible to step over yourself and use magic through force, but you may end up with irreversible consequences. Cloudsdale is far from being the only dangerous magical place on Equus.”

“But why there is so much magic in Cloudsdale?” somepony asked, but before lecturer opened his mouth other student answered:

“Magical tools and machines. Cloudsdale was the only weather equipment producer on all of Equus.” The teacher continued after that:

“Moreover, Cloudsdale was founded on the magical cloud, which was able to create rain and snow on its own. Later with help of unicorns they were able to utilise its power in order to create devices for the weather control. This is a great example of the enchantment school used on the environmental magic. Enchantments were very different from the environmental magic earlier, weren't they? It changed overtime and now we are able to enchant objects without using different machinations or, Luna forbid, sacrifices.

“It was a short introduction for the nature of magic. Nowadays it's mostly studied by many scientists in the Order of Belladonna, which is the foremost player in the matters of magic.”