Obsessed with magic

After work in the bakery you're sitting in the library again and look into different books.
You're really getting into these old, rather ancient books.

Recently you found books about magic.
First you thought, the stories in these books must be fictional, but the more you read, the more it makes sense to you.

While reading a book about magic again, Nina comes in.

Oh, here you are again!
I shouldn't have shown this place to you.

Nina laughs while saying this.

Yeah...
I guess I'm spending more time at this place than with you.
But I'm sure there have been times when you've been here more often as well.

You smirk at Nina.
Nina just laughs sheepishly.

So what are you reading?

Oh, just some book about magic.

Yeah, such books can really be exciting.
I've also been into fantasy a lot.
I really liked stories about time travel.
Sometimes I wish this was possible.

Why?

Oh, because of my grandma. I really liked her, but besides that I remember nothing of her...

Oh, that's really sad.

But it doesn't exist.
It wouldn't even make sense if it did...

Do you think it's the same for magic?

Yeah, it's just fantasy after all.

But all of these stories just matches our known world so well.
Everything I was reading in the history books would just make much more sense if magic was real.
What else would be the reason why the largest city is in the middle of our known world?

I don't know.
Maybe because it's more likely to end up in the center of the world than close to the edge?
Or maybe we just don't know more of the world because the people from the city are the most advanced and aren't able to explore anything further away from their home?

Yeah, that might also be the case.
But this still doesn't explain everything.
Why are there exactly six towns?
Why is the civilization getting more sparse the more you get a way form the city?

I don't know how magic would explain this any better.
Maybe just don't get too involved with these books.
I'm sure history and geography books also have good explanations for this.

Yeah, probably.

You get up and look for other books.

So you don't want to come outside with me?

Sure, we can also go outside.

You just go outside with Nina and spend the rest of the afternoon with her.
You walk around and soon the two of you sit down on a bench next to a small pond.
There you put out some delicious pastries you took with you after work in the bakery and eat them together with her.

Just spending time with Nina might seem kind of boring.
But you still like it very much.
In the city you've never just met anyone without a good reason.

It wasn't really possible to spend time with somebody casually like this.
So you try to enjoy this boring afternoon with Nina as much as possible.

The next day you go to the library again and try to find the history and geography books.
You had to think of this all night.
You find some and skim through them.

Maybe you just didn't look hard enough, but whatever you look into, nnothing seems them explain this world in a reasonable way.
So you end up reading books about magic again.

Later you even find a book about using magic.
Why would such a book even exist if magic wasn't real?
Is it really just a fantasy book?
Maybe you could do this, too.

So the next day after leaving your job at the bakery, you go outside and try everything you've been reading in that book yourself when nobody is around.
But nothing works of course.
You should have expected this...
But you still want to believe in this.

A few days later you are sitting in the library again, reading books about magic as usual.
You sit on the floor and have multiple of these books spread out in front of you.

As you are deeply engrossed in one of these books, your friend Nina comes in.
You are a little annoyed. You are so close to finding out something important. Any distraction might make the whole research of this day useless.
But it's too late already.

So you look at Nina.
She doesn't seem particularly thrilled either.

Oh, these books again?
Do you still believe in that nonsense?

This isn't nonsense!
Didn't you know how the magicians basically created the world we know?

I don't really care.
I just want us to spend more time together again.
I thought I found a great friend with you.
I never had such a cool friend before.
Why do you even need to know all of this?
Everything is fine here. We don't need magic to have fun, right?

You have to agree.
Just spending time with people you like might be worth more than trying to accomplish something.
Whatever you find out about magic, even if it's true, nobody will care about it anyway.

However, I found something you might like. Maybe it's helpful to you.
If you find anything in there that I can help you with, feel free to drop by.

She throws you another book and walks away.
It looks very old. Even older than most of the books you've been reading.
That's really interesting.
Where did she even find it?

You take the book in your hand and look at it more closely.
It appears to be a book about dream magic.

You've read about dream magic before.
It relies on the assumption of this world being much like a dream, except that you can't wake up as easily.
And a lot of things in the world follow the same logic as dreams.
So things that you believe to be real will become real.
And this way you can influence reality according to your imagination.

But you also tried it. Some days ago you were sure, Nina would come by. But that day she didn't.

Even if Nina was right, and you should probably spend more time with her, it can't hurt to take a look into that book, and just read the first few pages.

It will definitely be a good change from reading these complex theories explaining all the different kinds of magic.
Dream magic seems to be much simpler and doesn't rely on knowledge about physics.

You just want to skim through the book at frist.
At the beginning the book roughly explains what you already know.
Then comes a more detailed explanation of their worldview.

But then you are hooked and have to read it more carefully.
It explains how the world is said to have come into being, how the consciousness of an individual and the collective consciousness influence each other, how reality arises from this interaction and how this is all connected to quantum physics.

You slowly understand the basics of this theory and begin to have doubts about your negative attitude.
Especially when the next section deals with common misinterpretations of dream magic.

Even if you don't understand everything, you really enjoy the book.
But soon you're getting tired.
It turns out to be late at night already.
So you leave the library and go back home.

Sadly you didn't manage to spend some time with Nina this afternoon. But tomorrow you don't have to work, so you'll definitely find some time for her while still having enough time to continue reading.