Chronos stared at the emerald and gold parrot not sure what to make of it.
All of his senses told him it was a normal parrot, but Micheal was speaking to it with a level of respect reserved for powerful seniors.
"What's wrong boy? Bird got your tongue?" The parrot asked.
Shaking his head Chronos pulled himself out of his stupor.
"Maybe, I've never met a bird that looks so normal but clearly isn't before. It's a pleasure to meet you Archivist Quillfeather."
Chronos offered his hand for a handshake.
"Who says I'm not normal? Maybe it's all of you hairless monkeys that are the strange ones constantly feeling a need to classify what qualifies as intelligent life. Hmph."
Archivist Quillfeather looked immensely pleased with himself before extending a claw to shake his hand.
"I am glad to know that even a werewolf's senses can't tell me apart from a normal parrot though. Now show me your system and tell me about how you gained it."
Chronos nodded, opening his system for the Archivist but before telling him about how he gained it.
"Before I answer everything you want to ask, can you tell me why the archivists are interested in the system? It has been approved of by the gods already, so I don't think there's a reason for you to look into it so much."
Archivist Quillfeather flew over and landed on Chronos' shoulder to get a better look at the system.
"Approved of by the Gods and safe for mortal use are two entirely different concepts. To understand your question, you need to understand how magic is categorized. Do you know much about magic categories?"
"Just that they are separated by rank."
Archivist Quillfeather shook his head in disappointment.
"Then you know nothing at all. Rank only tells you how powerful you have to be to activate a spell's minimum requirements, not about the spell itself."
Archivist Quillfeather tapped the screen as he began his explanation.
"Archivists separate magic into categories based on how much they affect. Using the military units as an example, a magic that affects a single target is a one-man magic. It doesn't matter if it affects someone at the fifth rank or the first rank it is still a one-man magic. Most one-man magics are not that dangerous so they aren't a big deal."
"I disagree; a fifth rank spell can kill a fifth rank being. That would make it superior to other weaker spells."
Smack! Ow!
Archivist Quillfeather smacked Chronos in the head with his beak.
"Don't interrupt me boy and as for the spell killing a fifth rank being that is beside the point for the archivist ranking system. Our ranking system is used to chart how much collateral damage may happen due to a spell being cast. In that regard a single person dying isn't a big deal."
That… was true.
"Now the next rank up is squad magic which affects 5-10 people at once. These magics are more dangerous as they affect more people. Then there are platoon magics which can target up to 50 people, followed by company magics that work on up to 200 people, battalion magics for 1,000 people, regiment magics for 4,000 people, and brigade magics for 6,000 people.
The danger of the magic continues to grow the larger the group is. Are you following me so far?"
"I think so, your ranking method doesn't track individual damage but group damage instead, right?"
"Yes, but what we're really worried about is the excessive damage these magics can cause. And now we've reached the point where archivists categorize magics as strategic class magics since they start to affect whole armies.
At this level you have division magic which targets 10,000-20,000 people, then there is corps magic that goes up to 60,000 people, and army magic for up to 300,000 people. That last one is a massive jump for a reason."
Chronos wondered if there were any militaries large enough for army magic, then he remembered that his own nation's military numbered nearly one million. And there was the Empire that had an army just as large as there's.
He thought about if there were other nations that could field such massive armies for a minute before asking another question.
"But a fourth rank lord can affect a portion of an army on their own. Is there really a need to classify magic like this?"
"What you're referring to is the disparity in rank and that can be crossed by throwing enough bodies at the target. After all a lord might be able to affect a whole army but they need to use numerous abilities to do so. These magics only need to be cast once and can't be stopped once they've been cast except by a similarly powerful magic.
And above these destructive magics there are still two higher classes of magic: national magic and world magic. They're named this way because they have the power to influence entire nations and even the whole world. It's these magics that archivists are truly afraid of and guard against."
That made sense. If someone cast a death curse on the whole world there was no telling what they would have to do to break it.
"So, you're worried that the system is a world class magic?"
"Actually, I was worried that it was a forbidden class magic, but it seems to just be world class magic."
Chronos couldn't help asking about the new term.
"What's forbidden magic?"
"Forbidden magics are spells that break the rules of the world and the divine. They always have an extreme price to be paid."
Chronos frowned, "That doesn't sound much different from paying a price to cast magic."
Archivist Quillfeather gave him a knowing look.
"The price is different by several magnitudes. For example, the Ancient Caldrian Battlefield, do you know who created that place?"
"History says that the nation of Caldria was at war and started using necromancy which seeped into the ground and in the end a large ritual was used that corrupted the land. Is that not what happened?"
Archivist Quillfeather shook his head.
"We don't know what happened, we simply assume that's what happened but the archivists around the world have confirmed that a forbidden spell was cast in that land.
Think about it, we can dispel or recover nearly anything with magic and the help of the divine yet there are certain parts of the Ancient Caldrian battlefield that remain corrupted even after two hundred years of purification.
And what about the ones that cast the magic? We have records from all over the world of countless nations and people that existed over the last ten-thousand years yet there's barely any mention of the Caldrian's anywhere in the world.
We don't even know who their king was, if it wasn't for finding a stone tablet in the battlefield, we wouldn't even know that the nation was called Caldria. Don't you find it strange that this nation was somehow erased from history?"
Chronos pondered on this.
It was strange, he could name nearly a thousand different nations and cultures that had existed in the last two thousand years. Caldria was supposed to be within that timeframe, but he couldn't remember anything about their nation. Just that it had once existed.
"So, the world erased them because someone cast forbidden magic over the whole nation?"
"Yes, this is the real danger of forbidden magic. No matter who casts it, nearly all of the people involved are punished, erased from history, and oftentimes their very souls suffer for using forbidden magic. This danger is what the archivists strive to protect against."