—recovered from a water-damaged field journal, author unknown, classification: PUBLIC DOMAIN (academic curiosity only)
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1. The Three-Layer Thesis
Reality, observed the anonymous student, behaves like a struck bell.
Strike it with thought → you get an echo.
Echo plus belief → you get Resonance.
Resonance plus repetition → you get Codified Power.
No gods required—only witnesses.
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2. Frequency Bands (colloquial names in parentheses)
- α-band (Heartbeat Mana) – 0.8–1.2 Hz
The "starter" frequency every toddler unconsciously hums.
Feels like warm blood in the ears.
Overuse colours the whites of the eyes light-pink—harmless, but cosmetically inconvenient.
- β-band (Copper Mana) – 13–20 Hz
First controllable layer; conducts through metal, wet wood, or nervous classmates.
Popular for lamp-lighting and cheap party tricks.
Tastes faintly of pennies.
- γ-band (Glass Mana) – 35–60 Hz
Moves faster than pain.
Responsible for 73 % of accidental self-amputations among first-year Battle Departments.
Audible as a high-pitched chime only animals and the clinically insomniac can hear.
- δ-band (Void Mana) – 0.1–0.5 Hz
Does not echo; erases other frequencies.
Illegal in most city-states unless you possess a "Silence Permit" (bribes payable in triplicate).
Leaves perfect spheres of missing air—researchers still argue whether the holes are 2-D or 4-D.
- λ-band (Story Mana) – variable; synchronises to the listener's pulse
Rare, unquantifiable, and the reason fairy-tales can kill you.
Only confirmed source: sentient narratives (see §5).
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3. Personal Tuning Fork
Every sapient possesses a "root tone" fixed at birth.
Discover it before puberty or the growing bones warp the frequency—imagine a violin that thinks it's a drum.
Standard test: hum into an empty bottle; the pitch that shatters the glass is not your tone, but the inverse of it.
Reverse-hum that note mentally; if the shards reassemble, congratulations, you owe the academy a new bottle.
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4. Equation of the Day (graffiti version)
> Power = (Suffering − Complacency) × Witnesses² È Resistance
Resistance here means both electrical and social.
A mage alone in a desert can be omnipotent—and still die of thirst unremembered.
Gather a crowd first; then set yourself on fire.
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5. Sentient Narratives – red stamp: "THEORETICAL"
Stories that know they are stories leak λ-band mana.
The more retold, the denser the leak.
Ancient epics behave like underground lakes; modern web-serials behave like sprinkler systems—shallow, but everywhere.
Rumor claims a certain expelled student learned to drink from sprinklers and is still alive, rewriting himself chapter by chapter.
Administrative note: Do not verify. Do not romanticise. Do not become subplot.
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6. Classifications of Practitioners (market terminology, not official)
- Hummers – rely on innate tone; limited repertoire, zero tuition fees.
- Stringers – carry physical mediums (copper wire, catgut, enemy tendons) to modulate frequencies externally.
- Breakers – deliberately snap their own root tone to access δ-band; life expectancy measured in semesters.
- Weavers – braid multiple frequencies into chords; require perfect pitch and perfect maths.
- Ghosts – their tone has already shattered; they cast no echo but can still hear everyone else's.
(No evidence proves Ghosts exist. That is exactly what they would want.)
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7. Safety Reminders (usually ignored)
1. Never ground yourself with both iron and regret simultaneously.
2. If your reflection begins humming a different note, break the mirror before it finishes the chorus.
3. Lightning is just mana that got impatient; encourage patience.
4. Should you encounter a perfect sphere of missing air, do not stick your head inside to "check the acoustics."
5. Above all: record everything.
Even the echo that kills you is data.
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8. Open Question (bonus credit on mid-term)
If reality is a bell, who—or what—holds the clapper?
Answer in ≤ 13 words; extra points for original onomatopoeia.
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End of field notes.
Pages 37–42 are missing, cut out with surgical precision.
The remaining paper smells faintly of ozone and bedtime stories.