Questions, questions and more questions (READ THE OP FOR ANSWERS)

[Random]

The artificial Root that the Philosophy Foundation simulates is the same as the fusang tree, right? I'm not just making that up?

[Takashi]

Also if you wander in the Himalayas long enough you might find her.

That's most likely a joke entry. Arc is completely incompatible with extra.

[Comun]

The artificial Root that the Philosophy Foundation simulates is the same as the fusang tree, right? I'm not just making that up?

I don't remember any indication of that. The running speculation, at least here in BL, was that the Philosophy Foundation is the Taiji Diagram.

[Lily Emilio]

The artificial Root that the Philosophy Foundation simulates is the same as the fusang tree, right? I'm not just making that up?

The implication atm is that the artificial Root is based on Taoism's highest metaphysical concept of Taiji, and it is a mystic code fused with the planet.

The Fusang Tree OTOH seems to be more like a terminal, or a local version of it. The tree is a treasure trove that contains all mysteries of life and secret of the Xian arts, and all of that is stored within its own pocket dimension, and thus if you gain access to it you also gain access to those valuable knowledge without the need of the Keys. QSH was able to keep Xian art working for 2000 years and obtained the magitech of the Xians through obtaining the tree and the information it stores within. My guess is that after the Xians created the Foundation, they created the tree as a sort of access point like a free wifi hub that all of the Xians living in the Xian realm can access at any time. But normally humans cannot go to the Xian realm to get it so it is considered a lost treasure in PHH and the only ones who can access the Foundation now are those who have the Keys and those Xians who still have access to the tree, I guess.

[Random]

Yeah, that makes sense. So it's basically an ethernet port in that if you're right there you don't need a special pass to access its stuff...

Day n of checking my preconceptions are correct in ways that I swear are related: to my understanding, Pseudo-Spiritrons seem to be the entry points/shadows of the higher-dimensional Spiritrons into the material plane, rather than a substance in their own right?

Edit: Wait, I got it. I just needed to see it rephrased. Pseudo-Spiritrons are artificial Spiritrons composed under thaumaturgical theory to fit an atypical definition of the soul.

[Hermitfold]

Didn't Araya study in the Spiral Manor at one point? That might explain part of where he got the idea for his plan from.

The more I learn about Philosophy Keys, the more I wonder if Magic Crests were Western mages ' way to copy them.

[Reign]

Crests were Solomon's invention, right? I guess it'd depend on when the Philosophy Foundation was created.

[Kamera]

Most likely it existed as far back as the Yellow Emperor, so it could predate Solomon for a millenia and half.

[All fictions]

Didn't Araya study in the Spiral Manor at one point? That might explain part of where he got the idea for his plan from.

Seems like he isn't.

Taiji

A philosophy originated in ancient China, a graphical representation of the Yin-Yang theory.
It attempts to capture the essence of everything on a conceptual level: those that are active are defined as Yang (white), and the opposite are defined as Yin (black).
The Taiji symbolizes opposing concepts such as day and night, light and darkness, male and female. At the same time, you may also call it a condensed version of the ever-changing, dynamic World.
Furthermore, there is a dot of Yin in Yang, and conversely a dot of Yang in Yin. This indicates that the distinction between Yin and Yang is not absolute. There is darkness even in light.
Taiji is the “one” at the beginning, the Yin and Yang that divide the “one” are called Liangyi.
As an aside, the magi in this story were all practitioners of Western magecraft who were incompatible with Chinese philosophies.

[Comun]

The original line is a bit ambiguous in whether it's saying "all mages in KnK are incompatible with Chinese philosophies" or "Western magecraft is incompatible Chinese philosophies" but even without the current context I'd still lean more toward the latter.

What we do know that Araya studied somewhere before going to the Clock Tower, and that the Guan has a spiral motif and values architecture as an element of magecraft, two traits associated with Araya.

[Random]

We can clear up this confusion right now by just deciding he's a westerner. It worked just fine for Josaphat.

[Reign]

The original line is a bit ambiguous in whether it's saying "all mages in KnK are incompatible with Chinese philosophies" or "Western magecraft is incompatible Chinese philosophies" but even without the current context I'd still lean more toward the latter.

Side Material also said the at-the-time-unnamed Chinese organization was incompatible with the Clock Tower:

Also, they are fundamentally incompatible with the sorcery foundation of the Middle East and the ideological sorcery of mainland China, and the three groups are currently feigning nonaggression.
また、中东圏の魔術基盤、大陸の思想魔術とは相容れず、互いに不可侵を装っている。

[Random]

It's sort of weird that Western Magecraft is incompatible with the Magecraft of the Middle East given what we now know about... how it came to exist in the first place, right?

[Takashi]

Probably statements to give out a cool exception.
That can use both western and eastern magecraft to assert dominance

[Ismail2002]

Maybe, because the split in faith from the three Abrahamic religions cause some sort of split between western and middle east magecraft. That is a possibility but I don't much about the Nasuverse. This is just me throwing speculations

[Reign]

It is. I suppose you could say the Middle Eastern style it's talking about arose some time after Solomon's students moved into Europe to found the Clock Tower.

I think our only examples of Middle Eastern magi are Atrum and Flueger. Atrum was part of the Clock Tower and just used their style. I don't remember if Flue did or not.

- - - Updated - - -

The next El-Melloi is going to be in Egypt, so since we just got a Chinese and Japanese magecraft infodumps from it recently, please look forward to Middle Eastern info soon, probably.

[Ismail2002]

Actual that makes me wonder from the info that we have what are the stand out things about middle eastern magecraft compare to the rest of them. Is there any noticeable difference

[Kamera]

Supposedly they use Curses a lot more

[OnesFleetingGlory]

I see it more as after people migrated from Middle East to build their own schools in the West and East, the system developed independent to each other, affected by their respective culture and society with time, causing extreme divergence from their root.

[Reign]

Oh there was the Iraqi guy in episode 1 of the El-Melloi anime too. I think the only thing we saw him use were Binding mystic eyes though.