ace

I can’t thank the WHA community enough for helping me with translating the spell info on volume 12’s bonus page. As of now, 7 people have sent and/or shared translations with me, and having so many sources to draw from really helped me to draw some meaningful conclusions. Here are my findings.

Findings From the Vapor Bubble

The sign underlined in blue had the same translation every time - "cooling.” It likely does exactly what the name implies; cooling stuff down. We'll just call it a cooling sign. I cannot tell you how long the spellmaking side of the fandom has been waiting for a canon way to make ice spells, and we FINALLY HAVE ONE!

Next, we have the sign underlined in red, which I got a few different translations for, including “gathering,” “collection,” and “assembly.” Based on these translations and the spell’s behavior/structure, it is likely that this sign allows spells to pull in and gather material from the surrounding area for the spell to then manipulate. I’ll be referring to it as a gather sign. Gather seems to share many similarities with collection, but gather's ability to pull in nearby material sets them apart, as collection can only absorb material either in contact with or very close to the spell.

Findings From the Pegasus Carriage

An important thing to note before we begin is that the pegasus carriage spell was first shown in Chap 1. Oftentimes, the closer you get to the start of WHA, the less ironed-out and consistent the magic system becomes. Many, MANY spells from the first 2 volumes (especially Vol 1) were retconned, changed, or replaced later on in the story. This spell is a great example of this.

We'll start off with the sigil underlined in green, which was consistently translated as being a "wind" sigil. We actually already knew prior to this that it behaves very similarly to a typical wind sigil based on its behavior in Chap 1, the only chapter it was ever shown in. Within this chapter, it was drawn on both the pegasus carriage and on Qifrey's sylph shoes. By Chap 3, Pg 2, the modern wind sigil had made its first appearance, and by Chap 4, Pg 2, the sylph shoe spell was changed to its modern form, directly retconning this sigil's inclusion within the spell. For all intents and purposes, the sigil seemed retconned, until now. I am unsure why Shirahama chose to bring this sigil back, but I doubt we'll be seeing it anytime soon. Let's call it the old wind sigil.

Next up we have the sign underlined in yellow, which was always translated as "gas." Literally no one knows what this is supposed to mean. However, we actually know this sign and its effects, as it is part of the wind sigil. When wind sigils have this bad boy (which we'll call gas), it makes them manipulate the air nearby. Aeroform sigils have a different sign in place of gas which makes them generate air instead.

Next up we have the sign underlined in purple, which was translated as "whirlwind." It made it's only appearance on the pegasus carriage Chap 1, and appears to be made of modified old wind sigils. That is literally all I know about it. It makes spinning air, I guess? I have zero evidence for this outside the name, so I'll just call it whirlwind. This one gets a big fat IDK.

Next we have the sigil underlined in blue, Wind Underfoot (it already had a name). We already suspected that it creates a wind platform below the spell capable of supporting weight, and all the translations we got (“wind with a foothold seal,” “scaffold-like wind,” and “underfoot wind”) seem to support this idea.

Lastly, we have the two glyphs underlined in red (which do the same thing), translated as "stabilize" and "balance." You might notice that both are float signs. Why would a float sign "stabilize?" Well, after going over it with three of my fellow magic system "experts," we managed to figure it out. Previously, we thought that what float did was make things ignore gravity, but this isn't the case. Instead, float causes the spell and what it manipulates to try and maintain or "stabilize" it's current altitude. We aren't sure weather this is in relation to absolute altitude or the surface below the object or spell, but the idea holds true for the floatglow lamp spell, the carriage spell, and the spell that Beldaruit used to dig up the ground that one time (it's a spoiler if I detail any more). If the official release of Vol 12 matches the translations, we may just have to rewrite everything we know about this sign.

I'm not even done with this post, I still have two more spells to go over, but at this point I've been writing for over an hour. I'll come back to this later and complete it.

Credits

Twitter

@acelessx (translation)

@Bonis_Kkha (spell analysis)

@hypomanix (translation)

@merchantarthurn (translation, scans)

@Okay668 (spell analysis)

Tumblr

@chromaticflare (writing, spell analysis)

@kirbypoyopoyo (translation)

@romistery (spell analysis)

@wild-icarus (translation)

Discord

crayoni#7716 (translation)

sora.haneul#4273 (translation)