Magic on an atomic level?
There is a TLDR section below for those who don't want to read the dialogue
„So, what is magic?“, young <PERSON> asked. „Well“, said <PERSON>, trying to buy herself some time. „Magic is a lot of things.“ – „Yes, I know, but how does it work?“ – „It works in a lot of very different ways. There is not just one kind of magic.“ She knew what the other adult mages think of her and about her qualification as a mentor. „There are, at least, three different forms of magic I will tell you about, whilst we are together trying to make a mage out of you who will not kill himself out of stupidity.“ Sometimes, she thought they were right. „There is the <PERSON>’s Living Magic that can grow by itself. Then, there is the summoning magic sorcerers use, which needs quite some physical commitment to do its things.“ <PERSON> was not sure if she understood the following part as much as she should, considering that she is about to teach someone to use difficult and dangerous things. „And then, there is the magic we can use. But even our magic doesn’t just work in one way. Nonetheless, we will focus on one way for today. Everything in our world is composed of tiny pieces we call atoms. They are composed of even smaller things, but you will understand this better when you acutally learn how to cast magic.
Also, there are two kinds of magical energy in our world. One is everywhere around us. It seems like it's just flowing around and through everything. The other one is in us mages. That is what makes us different from peasants and kings alike.“ This took really long for her to get when she heard it first. „While the energy around us never seems to deplete, whenever you use your magical abilities your own energy will leave your body. To renew your magical energy you need to meditate or sleep. I will show that to you later on.“ It will take hours until she sees the essentials she forgot to tell the boy. „Now listen, this is really important. I will tell you how you can alter the world.“ For her it was always something she feels more than knowing or understanding it. „You can guide your magic out of your body. 624
It will flow like a small river, always connected to you. Intuitively, you can let it out through your fingertips, but really every part of your body works equally. If, in the future, you will be more experienced,“ she never was, „you can guide it with your mind. But, also, using your fingers will help you a lot to get the hang of it. Now comes the hard part: With your magic, you can influence the magical energies of the world I talked about before. You can convince these energies to alter the atoms of objects and thus altering the objects themselves. You could make air more flammable or water to wine or even gold out of iron.“ – <PERSON> got quite an interested look on his face. „So why aren’t all mages rich and have castles out of gold?“ – She knew this question would come. It was one of her first questions, as well. „Because nature knows better what nature should be.“ Also, castles made of gold are typically not that stable and are prone to attract unwanted attention. „As soon as you stop fueling your spell with your energy, something known as natural balance will start to set it, reversing what you did as good as possible.“ Which killed or crippled more than one stupid mage who forgot about this rule. „Think about it like cooking soup. The soup is the object you want to alter, the fire is the magic of the world and the logs are your own energy. Without some wood the fire would instantly go out. But even then it would take a while until your soup is cold again.“
<PERSON> seemed lost in his thoughts for a few moments before he asked: „What about altering people? ... I mean, for healing purposes for example.“ That wasn’t his first thought and she knew it. But there was no need for lying to him. „In short: you can’t. We don’t really know why, but the human body seems to have a natural defense against intruding magical energies. But there is a way. If the recipient actively wants to let your magic flow into his body, you can do whatever ‚healing purposes‘ you have in mind. Though, at the moment he loses his trust in you, or his conciousness, your spell will got cut off and start to fade. 300