A fantasy series by Andrew Rowe. Set in the fictional continent of Kaldwyn, the story is told from the perspective of Corin Cadence, the seventeen year old son of a minor noble setting out to take his Judgment, a test at one of the magical Shifting Spires that exist across the land. Taking a Judgement (and more importantly, surviving one) unlocks a person's magical potential, earning them a special mark on their body known as an "attunement." Each attunement has a different specialty, with variations depending on where the mark appears on the body.
There are four books in the series so far:
- Sufficiently Advanced Magic (2017)
- On the Shoulders of Titans (2018)
- The Torch That Ignites The Stars (2020)
- The Silence of Unworthy Gods (2022)
- Six Sacred Swords (2019) - Prequel told from the perspective of another character, Keras Selyrian, a mysterious swordsman from a foreign continent.
This series provides examples of:
- Abusive Parents: Corin has been "trained" by his father for his entire life, and it only got worse after his brother Tristan disappeared. Magnus Cadence pulled his son out of public school, isolated him from everyone, and then mercilessly beat him to pulp on a regular basis under the guise of "training." The result is that Corin's body is covered in scars and his dueling hand is already at risk for mana scarring even before he takes his Judgment.
- Annoying Arrows: during the fight with Mizuchi during the winter ball, one if the guests keeps firing magic arrows at her. They don't seem to do much damage (if any), but they do provide distractions at key moments.
- Awesomeness by Analysis:
- The appropriately named Analyst attunement gives this as its main function. It enhances sensory perception and the attuned's ability to process that information. This can also be augmented using information gathering spells, which is, naturally, the type of magic the Analyst specializes in.
- In the third book Corin learns the Accelerated Computation spell which basically turns the caster into a living super computer for as long as it's active.
- Adventure-Friendly World: The Shifting Spires are tests that provide magic and power to all those who enter. Once someone has been marked (called an attunement), they gain magical talents and the ability to improve upon them with training and practice. Gaining extra attunements is possible and results in more power, but it is rare.
- Chronic Hero Syndrome: Poor Keras. The guy is just trying to use his unspeakably destructive powers for good, but has a tendency to try and save literally everyone he happens to cross paths with.
- Death Bringer The Adorable: Sheridan has a tiny, fluffy dog named Mister Eviserator.
- The Dog Bites Back: In the fourth book Corin duels his father, Magnus. The man who constantly tortured him under the excuse of "training" and "discipline" while berating him for not being as talented as his brother and getting an Enchanter attunement instead of one more combat focused. Corin defeats him by using his Arbiter attument to change his Father's from a Shaper to an Enchanter. With a simple handshake, he absolutely destroys his father. After unsuccessfully trying to use his Shaper magic, Magnus simply crumples to the ground, knowing his dueling career and reputation are now irreparably destroyed and he has to now live with an attunement he has publicly mocked and ridiculed every single chance he got. The fact it's done by the child he had written off as useless is the real clincher that causes him to surrender without a single spell being thrown.
- Everyone Is Bi: Sexual orientation as a concept never really comes up, and people treat couples of any kind of combination as entirely unremarkable.
- Gadgeteer Genius: Corin is this, or at least a magitek equivalent. Due to being an Enchanter, he realizes early on that his attunement's greatest strength is adaptability through various items and actively seeks to make countermeasures to every challenge he might come across. A good portion of the fun is seeing what kind of crazy magic gadgets he'll come up with. It gets even better when he starts making items that make it easier to make more items, like his various mana batteries.
- Genre Savvy: Corin as well as several other characters like Marissa display a sophisticated understanding of tropes and deliberately will subvert them to their advantage when they can.
- Hammerspace: the Jaden box is a particularly advanced example. It seems to have no upper limit to what it can store, and even has a system to allow you to pull out the appropriate item when needed. Unlike most examples, items don't need to be able to fit through the opening. If the object is over the opening it can be stored regardless of size. Corin quickly takes advantage of this to loot nearly everything he can find while in spires.
- I Never Said It Was Poison: Played for laughs when discussing possible methods to help Corin protect himself better politically, Meltlake floats the idea of him marrying into house Theas. Corin responds that he doesn't think Sheridan would agree, prompting Meltlake to point out she hadn't said a specific Theas to marry, much to Corin's chagrin.
- Mana: What is used to power magic items and activate attunements. There are many different types of mana, generated from seven different places on the human body: The left hand, the right hand, the left leg, the right leg, the mind, the heart, and the lungs. An attunement mark will appear on one of these points and indicates which part of the body is best at producing mana for improving that attunement. Corin is terrified of overusing his mind mana because it can cause brain damage, but everyone tells him he is being overly cautious. He invents a watch that can identify how much mana someone can use before it starts becoming dangerous, and discovers that everyone was right, he really was being too careful with his mental mana.
- Magitek: How Enchanting works. Through the use of different rune/mana configurations, enchanters could theoretically make magical items for every situation. Enchanters are even treated mostly like engineers and inventors and are responsible for most of the technological advancements in this world. Even the few cars we see are enchanted items powered by mana.
- One Twin Must Die: Twins are referred to as "cursed pairs;" it's considered bad luck to even say the word "twin." While the local religion is pretty light on commandments, it's very explicit that all twins are cursed, and letting both live is considered an invitation to disaster. The heroes are shocked when, in a historical scenario dating fifty years back, they find out that a duke kept both of his twin daughters alive. Apparently the Goddess doesn't say you have to murder one of your twins, they're just going to bring misfortune if you don't, so no one can force him to kill one. Even the modern characters consider sparing both twins daring at best and more than a little horrifying. Sera manages to exploit her summoning abilities to rescue one of the twins from the scenario, even though she was never technically "real" to begin with.
- Parental Abandonment: Corin's mother left when his brother Tristan disappeared, taking Sera with her. He hasn't even heard from her in years (though part of that is because his father was screening his letters), and when Corin does ask her for help she gives him little more than excuses for why she can't come back.
- Physical Gods: The Visages are unspeakably powerful, to the point that the mere idea of fighting one is unheard of. Seeing a mortal with two or three attunements is rare; there are estimated to be fifty or more, and the Visages have all of them.
- Pieces of God: Corin's country teaches that the Visages are all shadows of the single divine goddess. Other countries believe that they are a family of lesser gods, or that they are mortals who reached the tops of the towers and gained incredible power.
- Pragmatic Villainy: Part of the reason that Corin refuses to work with Professor Orden (besides the moral objections) is because the organization keeps taking massive risks in order to advance their country's place in the world, but if they make any mistake along the way, their entire nation could be wiped out. Corin just isn't willing to work with people so reckless.
- Snark-to-Snark Combat: The main method by which Corin and Sera communicate with each other. It starts off antagonistic, but quickly settles into friendly banter to signify their closeness, especially after Corin truly accepts her as his sister.
- Throwing Your Sword Always Works: A running joke in the series is that Corin has bizarrely good aim when throwing swords at people.
- World of Snark: Corin himself is a deadpan snarker, but Sera, Keris, Derek, Vanniv, Vellum, Mara and pretty much every character that gets more than three sentences will probably have a snarky wise-crack in there somewhere.
- The Un-Favourite: Corin lives in the shadow of his missing older brother Tristan, whom both he and his parents held in high esteem. Compounding this is Corin's attunement, Enchanter, which attracts scorn from his family and several teachers for not being combat-focused. Even worse. After getting his attunement, his father shows blatant favoritism for Sera, Corin's bastard half-sister who happened to get a more useful attunement for battle.
