Kaede looks like he wants to argue the point but drops it.

"You said you'd need cooperation from someone else? And if other people can do it, too, it would help corroborate your story if one of us tried it," the lady suggests.

"Yes, the cooperation of a non-mage," Felix clarifies. "I will explain the steps of the ritual and then you can make Kaede and I sleep so we can't tamper with the results. We hope that should be enough to prove that it's a new kind of magic."

If there are no objections, Felix will explain sorcery.

Naoh starts bouncing again as Felix explains, and the other four people in the delegation listen attentively to the explanation.

And once that is done Felix will accept one or more volunteers for people that want to learn how to do a specific ritual for testing purposes.

They will all want to learn.

Felix teaches them, being very careful to be sure they all get it right and very patient with questions.

Eventually they have all learnt.

All right, time to proceed with the test then?

That it is. "We will knock you out with a spell, which should last two hours or until we try to wake you up, if that's acceptable."

Nod. He gets comfortably horizontal and waits.

And they are knocked out by a one-sentence spell with some hand gestures.

When they wake up, the other four look... rather disconcerted. The lady in robes, who still hasn't introduced herself, is staring in fascination as Naoh tries to light a match and it completely fails to take. phe Bez and the other man, who also did not introduce, are looking at the two speculatively. "This is rather interesting."

The match will fail to light up and will go out as soon it gets in the ward's radius.

"We guessed that you would find it so."

"Where does your magic come from?"

Felix shrugs helplessly. "We don't know, it is just how it is. If there is an intelligent will behind it it's likely good because it sent sorcery to save my people from really horrible slavery..."

Felix then proceeds to tell the story of the Daliath people - his people - and how they were oppressed and considered pariah, worked as slaves to the corrupt class. And also, how that same oppression that worked them to physical and mental exhaustion, caused to drown on rivers to flee or subject them to terrible punishments meant that Daliath could develop sorcery gifts and fight back. Felix also mentions how it was a group of Daliath that discovered the right set of Elsewhere ruins that revealed the secrets of ritual sorcery. It goes on like this. Gosh, it was certainly something suspiciously similar to positive divine intervention that led Elan to acquire sorcery.

They are very satisfied with this explanation.

"If it works here, then Laoku must have allowed it," reasons phe Bez.

"Unless Vinkar brought it," counters the lady in robes.

Well, Felix is hardly going to tell them otherwise. Are he and Kaede allowed to talk to Naoh?

No of course not the ambassadors want to discuss theology.

Of course. What do they want to discuss? Felix will be glad to answer.

Mainly they want to know how they can be sure this isn't some trick that will be terrible for everyone.

Well, discovering how sorcery rituals work is extremely counterintuitive and mages appear to have the upper hand in terms of both versatility and sheer strength. And insofar as that is reassuring, Felix can point out how his world uses sorcery for constructive purposes. Plus the fact that sorcery costs lifeforce.

How exactly is the fact that it costs lifeforce an argument either way?

He meant that people can't be wasteful or reckless with it. Or rather, they can, it is just not really sustainable.

Is it possible to make someone unable to perform sorcery, or learn rituals? Purely hypothetically, of course.

There are various wards that could prevent magical effects. And learning rituals is... pretty much the default? Sorcery rituals were only rediscovered because someone with translation magic was blessed enough to find the right set of ruins. Why is this question hypothetical? While Felix does view sorcery as a positive thing, if an inter-dimensional visitor came along with some completely new kind of magic it would be completely prudent to want to know possible ways to defend oneself. Elan has a saying: "You can be offended by a raised sword, but you can't be offended by a raised shield".

Right, sure.

So... how does one learn more rituals? Can he teach them?