Highbeast

Highbeasts (騎獸, Kijuu) are the primary means of transportation used by nobles. By dyeing a specially prepared feystone with one's own mana, it can be morphed into the shape of an animal, that will move according to the user's will and fly through the air. The changes are according to the user's imagination.

Despite looking like raw feystones in their original form, highbeasts are technically a type of magic tool. Before the feystone can be morphed, it is colorless, and the user has to fully dye it with his/her mana. This process is very mana-intensive, hence most nobles would use the mana stored up in their mana-draining magic tools since birth to complete the process. After the feystone is fully dyed, it would respond to the user's mental image and transform accordingly. A fully dyed highbeast feystone would be almost exclusive to the user who dyed it -- only people with similar mana color may still operate it, but it would still be vastly inferior compared to one that's fully dyed with their own mana.

A highbeast consumes mana when performing all forms of action, including shape-changing, levitation, and acceleration. Contrary to what many nobles believe, the wings are not actually part of the mechanics that lift a highbeast into the air. When it's accelerating, the speed is proportionate to the mana expended. It is also possible for another person to infuse his/her mana to further accelerate the highbeast, but it's not a technique used often. It is also possible to make the highbeast hover mid-air without moving, even in a blizzard, but it would consume more mana to counteract the wind.

If one needs to maintain the highbeast while being away from it for any reasons, s/he can do so by placing a charged feystone on it.

Highbeast creation and riding is one of the practical lessons taught during year one in the Royal Academy. After nobles learned how to create and control their highbeasts, they would carry the feystone around in a small cage hung on their accessory belts. When knights are wearing their full body armor, they would embed the feystone in the back of their gauntlet.

While nobles are free to morph their highbeasts into any animals as they see fit, only the archduke's family members are allowed to model their highbeasts after the duchy's banner animal. For example, since the banner animal of Ehrenfest is the Lion, only members of the archduke's family are allowed to make their highbeasts into lions. Generally, the Archduke's family created winged but otherwise regular lions, with the Aub using a three-headed one.

Riding a traditional highbeast with an opposite sex is considered a very intimate act. If the relationship between the riders isn't lovers or guardians, it is considered an indecent act that could cause unpleasant rumors to spread.

Currently there are two types of highbeasts -- the traditional type that takes the shape of winged animals, and the drivable type pioneered by Rozemyne.

Nobles generally turn their highbeasts into a mount resembling winged animals, like a pegasus, griffin, or some regular animals with added wings. A few of the more eccentric individuals also use feybeasts like shumil or Bahelm with wings as their mount. For ease of maneuvering and comfort, reins and saddles are usually added.

Rozemyne is the first person known to create a wingless beast, in her case an automobile with the head and tail of a red panda, often mistaken for the feybeast Grun. She calls her highbeast a pandabus and gave it the name Lessy. Rozemyne's highbeast is considered revolutionary because it has the following advantages:


 * The size can be increased and decreased to accommodate the user's needs, which makes it possible to carry more passengers or luggage.
 * It does not have wings, which allows it to move easily in tight spaces like corridors and forests.
 * Since the rider doesn't have to ride on a steed, s/he is able to sit on a chair. Female users will be able to wear their finest dresses while riding, instead of changing into their rider costumes.
 * As the inside is an enclosed space, the user is unaffected by the weather outside. The windows are covered with transparent mana membranes.
 * Since it is created from the user's mana, anyone with less mana than the user cannot destroy the highbeast and harm the passengers inside. If the user has an exceptionally large mana capacity, it is nigh-impenetrable in terms of defense.

However, the practicality and advantages do not come entirely free, since such a highbeast requires more mana than the traditional variant. It is also ill-suited for knights, who need to use their weapons in airborne combat.

When Rozemyne showed her pandabus at the Royal Academy, its practicality, and particularly, the fact that women could keep wearing their regular clothes rather than having to change into riding gear made professors and students alike very interested in the concept.

Professor Hirschur was the first person to successfully change her highbeast into a drivable one inspired by Rozemyne's Pandabus, though modelled after a shumil instead of a panda. Since she was already used to the more traditional way of controlling a highbeast, she replaced the steering wheel seen in Lessy with reins and was able to successfully control her new drivable shumil highbeast with ease.

With several of the female students attempting to create drivable highbeasts of their own, mostly modelled after shumils like the one Hirschur made, there are signs for these kind of highbeasts to become a new trend among those with a sufficiently high mana capacity to sustain them.

The following table details nobles with known highbeasts:


 * Generally a highbeast will have the same colour as the mana colour of the user, albeit differences in the precise nuance of the colour are possible as can be seen in Lessy's tail for example.
 * The anime added differently coloured saddles and tack to the highbeasts, but as of now this is exclusive to the anime.
 * It was once thought that the feystones used for highbeasts cannot be restored if they are broken, but Rozemyne proved it wrong by putting a fragmented feystone back together using her mana.