Book One – Chapter 3

Wizards could certainly partake in eating and drinking, but they also had the potential to exclusively nourish their life force with energy. There were numerous records of wizards surviving without physical sustenance for decades. Already during his time at Emery Thurm, Yves had learned that his kommilita had a sheer endless supply of great-great-grandfathers who had apparently set or broken all those legendary records. Yves didn’t see the point of such pride. It was not an accomplishment; it was a choice. If Yves practiced his magic or engaged in quests and duels, he depleted himself of world energy through spellcasting. If there was not enough left to sustain his body, he needed to eat and drink, simple as that. If, in contrast to that, he were to hide out in the farthest corner of the world to do absolutely nothing with his life, he could comfortably and safely sustain himself on world energy. He failed to see how that counted as an achievement. Mastering magic was an achievement, and so Yves used the world energies he harnessed for spellcasting and anything but his own body. Also, eating was far more pleasurable.

Well, the key distinction was that humans had a physical body they could only maintain by consuming the tangible world. Some could go for weeks without food, depending on their physical build, but their bodies would decline and consume themselves with every day. More striking was access to liquids. Several independent studies confirmed that there was hardly a human who could survive more than four days without water.

In Yves’ dimension, he had a physical body too, but he could sustain it through the non-physical — world energies. He could do so willingly. Humans ate, and then their body digested their food on its own. His body did the same when he ate, also on its own. But what he could control was energy. He could actively control when to channel these non-physical world energies to nurture his physical form or, alternatively, to utilise them for casting magic, such as the manipulation of shards and light.