Fernando

Fernando is a founder and senior leader of the Congress of Magic, the grand arcanist known as the Lord of Storm, and the teacher of Lucien Evans. His public identity combines formidable storm magic with work across thermodynamics, electromagnetism, elements, and later nuclear research. Beneath his impatience and famously cutting speech, he repeatedly protects other sorcerers, accepts evidence that defeats his own position, and treats the search for truth as more important than rank, etiquette, or comfort. An early list renders his surname as “Hudson,” while later chapters consistently use “Brastar.” (Chapters 173, 326, 796, and 854)

Biography

From hunted sorcerer to Congress founder

Fernando's beginnings are revealed late in the corpus. As a young senior-rank sorcerer after the collapse of the Magic Empire, he led the Paphos County branch of the Union of Sorcerers while the Church's night watchers hunted its scattered members. He was already known as the “Dark Storm,” had killed a red-robed cleric, and had reached seventh circle, but survival forced him to temper personal pride with operational discipline. When night watchers exposed a safe house and killed Ingrid, he suppressed his immediate fury long enough to cover the survivors' retreat, investigate the betrayal, and preserve the Union rather than waste lives on blind retaliation. His grief instead hardened into a plan to strike the Inquisition in a way that would frighten persecutors and show other sorcerers that resistance was still possible. (Chapters 854–855)

The arrival of Douglas gave that plan both greater force and a new intellectual direction. Fernando initially measured himself against the older archmage, but Douglas's mathematical work quickly won his respect. Fernando insisted that Douglas's safety mattered more than the proposed raid, then planned and executed the attack with him: he gradually shaped an apparently natural thunderstorm to conceal magic waves, used prepared timing and mutual trust to kill the Inquisition's senior defenders, and publicly marked the destruction as punishment for predators and betrayers. When Union leaders tried to punish Douglas for following Fernando's orders, Fernando surrendered his own office rather than accept the unfairness, arguing that the Union's professed ideals meant little if it rejected a valuable newcomer out of hierarchy or jealousy. The dispute began a partnership in which Douglas's questions and Fernando's sharp practical insights pushed each other forward. (Chapters 858–862)

Fernando also became one of the links between persecuted sorcerers and dissatisfied nobles. He helped teach the young Hathaway mathematics, maintained a decade-long correspondence with her, and eventually recognized that her work in calculus had surpassed his own. He used disguises—including the female identity “Nando”—to gather intelligence, recruit talent, and test possible alliances while refusing to mistake dangerous discoveries about faith and deification for a complete answer to the world's mysteries. In Rentato he negotiated for time and information from nobles rather than demanding an immediate revolt, correctly treating limited cooperation as the first step toward a broader political realignment. (Chapters 863–864, 879, and 883–891)

The sorcerers' attempted uprising ended in catastrophe when allies defected and the Church ambushed them. Fernando watched Arnold die, was stabbed while trying to escape, and awoke wounded and briefly convinced that resistance had become futile. Douglas's Mathematical Principles of Magical Philosophy restored his conviction by showing how calculus and natural law could strengthen both magic and the community that practiced it. Fernando then joined Douglas and Hathaway in planning a new institution built around public arcana rather than the old empire's hoarded knowledge. He traveled among surviving organizations, taught calculus without demanding their secrets, recruited sorcerers such as Oliver, and argued that shared theory could gradually unite groups that would not yet accept political merger. This work helped turn the ruined Union into the Congress of Magic; when the restored Allyn rose, Fernando followed Douglas into the operation that announced the Congress's return to the world. (Chapters 893–896 and 903–910)

The Lord of Storm and Lucien's teacher

By the main narrative, Fernando is a grand arcanist, a third-rank legendary sorcerer, a member of the Highest Council, and the founder of Thermodynamics. His influence is established before he appears in person: his citations can transform the reception of a young arcanist's paper, his name is attached to widely used electromagnetic and thermodynamic spells, and he helps lead large cooperative projects such as the investigation of druidic nature magic. Although his temper dominates his reputation, he can admit error directly when Douglas's strategy exposes a flaw in his own judgment, showing that his arguments serve results rather than pride alone. (Chapters 173, 200–219)

Fernando takes Lucien as his student after judging both his research and his conduct under pressure. He dispenses with the traditional ceremony because their mutual agreement is sufficient, then immediately brings Lucien into the monthly research meetings of his students. His teaching is demanding but tailored: he has Lucien answer correspondence in Fernando's voice, work through difficult spells, read across multiple fields, and shift to a meditation method suited to his unusually rapid spiritual growth. When Lucien prepares for senior-rank advancement, Fernando stands ready to break the rite rather than let him die, investigates the strange result instead of forcing an explanation, and warns him to consolidate his foundation. (Chapters 326–327, 333–358, and 372–375)

Lucien's discoveries repeatedly force Fernando to balance scientific openness against the danger of a cognitive-world collapse. Fernando and Hathaway prepare elementalists for the divisibility of atoms before releasing the evidence, not to protect a dogma but to prevent unready sorcerers from dying when it breaks. He helps test equivalent elements, accepts the electron after the evidence becomes unavoidable, and later overturns Hathaway's earlier atomic model with his own scattering experiments. He can be abrasive even while helping—describing major discoveries as “messing around”—yet he offers Lucien materials from his demiplane, seals dangerous work when secrecy is useful, and arranges an Ice & Snow Medal early when the resulting item will better protect his departing student. (Chapters 334–350, 366–375, and 449)

Their academic relationship remains resilient through deeper disagreements. Fernando rejects interpretations of quantum mechanics that he considers insufficiently mathematical, while Lucien refuses to surrender the implications of the experiments. Neither turns the dispute into personal hostility, and Fernando continues trusting Lucien with research, strategy, and the Congress's future. Ultimately, Fernando is the one who insists that the delayed-choice and quantum-eraser experiments be conducted despite the danger to accepted worldviews: an arcanist who avoids an unwelcome result, he argues, has abandoned the purpose of arcana. (Chapters 655–668, 689–690, and 796–800)

Defending the Congress and probing forbidden realms

As the Congress grows strong enough to challenge the Church, Fernando becomes both strategist and battlefield anchor. He and Hathaway cautiously hear Sard's offer to undermine the Church in Holm, conceal the Congress's true rate of advancement, and bring the decision to the Highest Council rather than acting alone. Fernando plans for betrayal as well as success, accepts heavy expenditure of rare one-use protections, and uses himself as the trap's center. During the battle over Rentato, his Storm Barrier holds multiple saints in place for Eternal Blaze; Simulacrum, spell triggers, reversals, and prepared replacement bodies let him survive attacks that tear his apparent body apart. His decision not to bring his best-known legendary items helps conceal the plan until escape is impossible, contributing to the destruction of five saints and the political victory that opens a new era for the Congress. (Chapters 537–562)

Fernando's suspicion is equally valuable away from open war. When the Highest Council plans an expedition into the World of Souls, he presses for an accelerated investigation but demands safeguards against concealed information, particularly from Vicente Miranda. In the Temple of Spirits he uses a storm domain to contain two false saints and a Lich King at once, remaining the team's top-legendary bulwark while the expedition uncovers the mechanisms behind inherited godhood. Later, he and Douglas enter the Realm of Gates searching for Lucien, and Fernando's relief at finding his student alive emerges first as an angry demand for an explanation. (Chapters 611–627 and 644)

He also lends power to operations whose aims he accepts without needing personal credit. When Lucien needs to deceive Gonheim, Fernando allows a summoned projection of Thunder Hell to deliver one top-legendary storm attack alongside Douglas and Hathaway, making the false intervention strong enough to wound and distract the demon prince. The projection lasts only for that prepared strike, but the combined display convinces Gonheim that a full coalition capable of rivaling a demigod has arrived, giving Lucien and Natasha time to seize the Time Plate. (Chapters 700–701)

Nuclear power and the struggle against Viken

Fernando's later research turns destructive spell theory into infrastructure. Working chiefly with Hathaway, and later Raventi and Morris, he reverse-engineers atomic fission into a reactor intended to power Allyn. Early prototypes repeatedly explode because the team lacks a sufficiently detailed account of neutron behavior; Fernando survives through passive and triggered protections, inspects the radioactive wreckage personally, and stubbornly treats each failure as a research problem. Once different neutron speeds and reactions are understood, the team produces a stable, controllable reactor. Fernando immediately looks beyond the achievement toward smaller reactors for artificial planets, airships, trains, and large experimental facilities, while still acknowledging that earlier errors delayed the result. (Chapters 689–692, 730, and 783–784)

His theoretical work broadens with the same refusal to stop at a convenient model. Fernando participates with Brook and Lucien in establishing quantum field theory for electromagnetism, speculates about the weak interaction before experiments confirm it, and remains alert to evidence that protons and neutrons may themselves have deeper structure. The work does not make him more doctrinaire: even after the delayed-choice experiment shocks him, he turns to seeking an alternative explanation rather than rejecting a repeatable result, and he argues that the Congress's top legends can protect younger arcanists while their worldviews recover. (Chapters 749, 784, 787, and 797–800)

Against Viken, Fernando repeatedly accepts assignments suited only to top legends. He protects the false demigod ritual in the World of Souls, holds off the Lord of Hell with Storm Barrier, deploys the prepared gate that summons the Will of Abyss, and escapes through his demiplane when God’s Arrival destroys the decoy. During Viken's final bid to become a true god, Fernando joins Douglas, Hathaway, and the other highest powers in stripping away his defenses and sustaining the boundary that prevents his transformation from completing cleanly. Fernando survives the conflict and remains active afterward; the later academy-era material still names him among the researchers pursuing controllable fusion. (Chapters 791–794, 812–823, and 827)

Appearance and personality

In youth, Fernando is a short, stout, handsome man who appears to be in his twenties. He has red pupils, wears a blood-red magic robe, and sometimes gives off bright electric arcs; the scholarly air around him softens an otherwise forceful presence. In the later era, Lucien first sees a pleasant, humorous little old man whose face retains signs of his youthful good looks. Fernando continues to favor an ancient-style bright-red robe, while his gray hair is usually untidy enough to reflect how little attention he pays to appearances during research. His red eyes are repeatedly compared to an approaching storm. (Chapters 326, 333, 730, and 854)

Fernando is impatient, loud, sarcastic, and sparing with praise. His insults do not respect title, age, or power, and even allies may experience an academic discussion as a thunderstorm. That bluntness coexists with intellectual honesty: he asks for explanations when he does not understand, changes his position when facts compel it, and can recognize another person's superior achievement without resentment. His temper is real but controlled; under pursuit he postpones vengeance to save survivors, and in later crises he habitually plans for the worst rather than confusing confidence with safety. (Chapters 855, 858, 891, and 896)

As a teacher and leader, his care usually appears as criticism, preparation, or practical protection. He opposes unfair punishment of Douglas, guards dangerous knowledge until vulnerable arcanists can survive it, provides Lucien with training and materials, and quietly arranges resources that make his student's journeys safer. His defining conviction is that neither fear nor established belief should halt an experiment capable of revealing the truth. (Chapters 862, 350–375, and 796)

Magic, abilities, and skills

Fernando is an unusually broad grand arcanist whose spellcraft joins storm and electromagnetic magic to thermodynamics, elements, force field, illusion, and light-darkness. In the later narrative he is repeatedly classified as a top legend, but the supplied corpus presents his established ranks rather than a reliable chronological sequence of formal promotions. His principal strength lies in combining deep theory, modified spells, prearranged triggers, legendary equipment, and careful operational planning. (Chapters 326, 538, 571, and 617)

Storm and electromagnetic magic

Lightning and storms are Fernando's oldest signature. As a young seventh-circle sorcerer he could create a forest of lightning, direct natural bolts through his own magic, and use Weather Manipulation so gradually that a manufactured thunderstorm looked natural rather than magical. The storm concealed arcane traces across a city and enabled the raid on the Inquisition. In later battles, his attacks expand into a roaring legendary storm capable of breaking layered defenses or being lent through a demiplane-summoning ritual for one remote top-legendary strike. His control is therefore useful not only for direct damage but for weather shaping, concealment, battlefield disruption, and long-distance cooperation. (Chapters 854–860 and 700–701)

Storm Barrier is his major containment and defense spell. It forms a domain of violent magnetic fields, lightning, alternating heat and cold, distorted space, and space shackles; Fernando can integrate his apparent body into it and use its attraction to keep enemies inside. It holds several saints long enough for Eternal Blaze to land and later contains multiple near-peak opponents in the World of Souls. The barrier is powerful rather than absolute: coordinated saints can break its layers, the Lord of Hell's intervention leaves Fernando unable to stop every accompanying threat, and Eye of Storm does not establish its item-assisted version fast enough to stop Viken's Light of Judgment from piercing it. (Chapters 561–562, 617, and 791–793)

Fernando also created or systematized practical electromagnetic spells. Fernando's Electromagnetic Message enables communication through enchanted devices; Fernando's Lightning Smelter is a fifth-circle spell that Lucien builds into his soul; and the early models of Thunder Eye and Invisible Crematory are credited to Fernando while he is still simplifying them. The corpus demonstrates their existence and adoption but does not give a complete operating account for every spell, so their precise mechanics beyond their named applications remain unresolved. (Chapters 205, 310, and 333–339)

Defensive spellcraft, illusions, and survival

Fernando's survivability depends on layered preparation. Spell Trigger, Spell Sequencer, Magic Order, teleportation, passive protections, Simulacrum, and replacement puppets force enemies to defeat several bodies and contingencies rather than one target. Abrupt Magic Reverse creates a patterned mirror that reflects a single-target spell repeatedly; in Rentato he uses it against Light of Judgment while continuing the longer operation around Eternal Blaze. Even after his body is cut into pieces, electrical replicas emerge, and when the remaining images are destroyed a prepared puppet becomes Fernando. These defenses require planning and can be exhausted or bypassed, but together they make killing him quickly exceptionally difficult. (Chapters 561–562)

His breadth extends beyond his signature schools. Fernando uses transformation and petrification in the early Inquisition raid, advanced force-field defenses when threatened, astrology to test Lucien's distorted destiny, and illusions sophisticated enough that the text places him only somewhat below legendary specialists in that field. He nevertheless recognizes limits: he cannot explain every component of Felipe's soul rite, has never encountered some specialized dream creatures, and benefits from exchanging ideas with dedicated illusionists such as Stanis. (Chapters 860, 372–375, 884, 891, and 904)

Thermodynamics, atomic theory, and magical engineering

Fernando founded the school of Thermodynamics and helped formulate its second law, giving his theoretical work direct importance to heat, energy, spell analysis, and the rejection of impossible perpetual systems. His research later spans isotope separation, atomic scattering, nuclear forces, quantum field theory, and reactor design. This work does not merely produce papers: it changes atomic models, strengthens spell construction, powers Allyn, and points toward smaller energy sources for transport, defense, and experimental infrastructure. (Chapters 173, 327, 350, 449, and 730–787)

His research method is aggressive but empirical. He is willing to work from reverse-engineered legendary magic, yet repeated reactor failures force him to acknowledge that a functional destructive spell is not the same as a stable energy system. He accepts Lucien's useful criticism, investigates neutron behavior with Hathaway, brings in other legendary specialists, and ultimately helps create a reactor whose output can be controlled. The same rigor shapes his teaching: he uses difficult correspondence, spell analysis, meditation methods, and collective research meetings to turn knowledge into repeatable practice rather than inherited authority. (Chapters 327, 333–358, 689–692, 730, and 783–784)

Power progression

Relationships

• Douglas: Fernando first receives Douglas as a valuable newcomer to the Union, defends him against unfair punishment, and becomes his closest early intellectual and organizational partner. Their complementary temperaments help build arcana as a public discipline and the Congress as its institution.
• Lucien Evans: Fernando chooses Lucien for both talent and character, then becomes a strict, protective teacher. Their theories often conflict, but evidence and mutual trust keep the relationship intact through research revolutions, political crises, and battles.
• Hathaway: Fernando helps teach Hathaway as a child, exchanges mathematics with her for years, and later treats her as an equal collaborator. They work together on atomic structure, isotopes, fission, strategy, and the defense of the Congress.
• Alferris: Fernando finds Alferris as an egg and raises the crystal dragon as both pet and student. Their familiarity is affectionate beneath Fernando's sternness, and Alferris often stays near his office or accompanies him.
• Thompson: Thompson is one of Fernando's established students and helps introduce Lucien to Fernando's research circle. Fernando entrusts him with instruction, laboratory work, and the collective exchange among his students.
• Vicente Miranda: Fernando respects Vicente's abilities but openly distrusts his habit of concealing dangerous information. Their antagonistic exchanges persist even when they fight on the same side as members of the Highest Council.

Items

• Robe of Dominance: Fernando's growable legendary robe, earned through a paradigm-shifting theoretical contribution. He deliberately leaves it out of the Rentato trap so enemies misread his defenses and remains prepared to sacrifice it when the Congress's survival requires the loss. (Chapters 559–566 and 576)
• Eye of Storm: Fernando's offensive legendary item, manifested through his eye as a storm-filled black-and-silver world. It can establish Storm Barrier, although Viken's Light of Judgment strikes too quickly for the barrier to fully form. (Chapters 559, 562, 627, and 791)