As befits a sciency novel with a nerdy protagonist and a big world, Komoreby has a plethora of words that may be unfamiliar. Not just science terms and weird places, but there are words from anime, video games, history, Greek/Roman mythology, various cultures, other languages and more. This is Glossary I (Prologue and Chapters 1 to 11).

Note: This is organized by chapter for easy use while reading the story. If you're looking for a specific word, make use of the "find" tool on your web browser.

PROLOGUE

Calabi-Yau manifold: In string theory, the Calabi-Yau manifold is a shape that represents extra spatial dimensions. Scientists suggest that every single point in our universe is actually a compactified Calabi-Yau space in six dimensions. The string theory is often said to be the most promising candidate for the theory of everything.

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1  |  A LEAF IN A WHIRLWIND

Mobs: The word "mob" is usually used to refer to a hostile non-player character (NPC).

Purupurupuru: The sound made by Den Den Mushi snail phones in the anime, One Piece. It's also a Japanese onomatopoeia for what's soft and jiggly.

Rogue character: In online role-playing games, rogue character classes specialize in stealth and surprise attacks.

Lunar elf: One of the playable races in Arcana Online. Evanna's character is a lunar elf.

Honor points: Honor points can be earned by certain high-level quests and by killing players from the opposing faction. The points can be used to buy special gear.

Komoreby: A futuristic eco-city. The name is derived from the Japanese word komorebi, which means sunlight filtering through trees.

Komoreby High: The most prestigious high school in the city of Komoreby.

Nuara: Evanna Zeller's hometown. It's a mountainous little city surrounded by misty forest. The name is derived from the Sinhalese word for Kandy, the hill capital of Sri Lanka (නුවර Nuwara). Nuara is inspired by the Sri Lankan cities of Kandy and Nuwara Eliya.

Serin Drive: A shady suburban road where Evanna's house is located. The word Serin is composed of the Japanese "se" (星) meaning star and "rin" (林) meaning forest.

Pixel art: A visual style where individual pixels act as the building blocks that make up the image. Some modern video games like Undertale opt for this retro style due to its nostalgic charm, bringing to mind old DOS games like Prince of Persia.

Holy cowsies: Evanna's catchphrase. This is a nod to the novel Holy Cow—a cute, funny story of a cow who learns the horror of meat farms and journeys out into the world with her farm animal friends. The author of this book is David Duchovny, the star of the popular sci-fi horror show X-Files, which is the longest-running sci-fi TV series in the U.S.

Hive: The iconic administrative building in Komoreby High. It's hexagonal in shape, which has earned it its name. It houses the main lobby, admissions office, the library and the staff room.

Arcana Online: A massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) that has been inspired by World of Warcraft. The setting is an epic fantasy world with two main factions.

Alpha: One of the two identical buildings that house classrooms in Komoreby High. Alpha is allocated for Advanced Level classes.

A Levels: Short for Advanced Levels, consisting of grades 12 and 13, for students aged 16 to 18. This is a school-leaving qualification that is in place in the UK, and due to colonial influence, has been established in a number of Asian countries, such as Singapore, Malaysia, India and Sri Lanka.

Beta: The building allocated for Ordinary Level classes.

O Levels: Short for Ordinary Levels, consisting of grades 10 and 11, for students aged 14 to 16.

Prefect: A prefect is a student who has the power to enforce discipline in the school. Due to colonial influence, the prefect system is in place in India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Singapore and Malaysia. In the past, prefects had so much power that they could also mete out corporal punishment.

Class 12-B: Evanna's homeroom at Komoreby High.

Head boy: The male head prefect in the school.

Head girl: The female head prefect in the school.

School house: At Komoreby High, the student population is divided into 4 houses. The house system exists in Asian schools, including Sri Lanka.

Sports Day: A day when the school holds competitive sporting activities, as well as a creative drill display that requires the participation of all students.

Urbanites: The most popular fashion magazine in Komoreby.

Miss Teen Komoreby: An annual teen beauty pageant held in Komoreby.

Soy cheese: There are commercial soy-based cheeses, as well as freshly made soy cheese. Some of the best known plant-based cheese brands include Daiya, Violife, Follow Your Heart, Miyoko's Creamery, So Delicious, Vitalite, Sheese and Miyoko's Creamery.

Zeus: The king of the gods in Greek mythology, who abducted mortals of great beauty.

Converse: An American shoe company known for its iconic sneakers. Evanna's sneakers are all-black high-tops.

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3 | A SHIP IN A BOTTLE

GORPP: An acronym for Global Organization for Research in Particle Physics. This has been inspired by the real world's CERN and Fermilab—primarily the former.

CHC: Short for Circular Hadron Collider, the largest particle accelerator in the world. It has a 80km tunnel that stretches out beyond Komoreby, a hundred meters underground. It's inspired by the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), which is located in Geneva.

Particle accelerator: A machine that uses electromagnetic fields to propel charged particles to very high speeds and energies. When particle beams are made to collide, scientists get to study atoms, molecules and the laws of physics.

Particle physics: Particle physics, or high energy physics, is a branch of physics that studies the nature of particles that constitute matter and radiation.

Nydus worm: This is a specialized lifeform from StarCraft, a military sci-fi strategy video game. A Nydus worm has no brain and acts as a biological structure to quickly transport units from one location to another.

Dungeon: In massively multiplayer online games, a dungeon is an "instance", or special area, that generates a new copy of the location every time players enter it.

Guild: A group of people who work together for a common goal in Arcana Online—not unlike writer communities on Wattpad.

Boss: The final enemy in a game level or the game itself.

Animorphs: A YA sci-fi series by K.A. Applegate. Spanning 54 books and companion stories, it has a word count that is almost 1.5 million. It has a rich story universe and deals with heavy themes such as war, dehumanization, sanity, morality and freedom.

DID: Short for "damsel in distress", a phrase used to refer to helpless maidens in traditional stories, who await rescue by knights in shining armor—or the equivalent.

Pitipit: An extruded snack made of corn that is popular in Komoreby. The name is derived from a similar product that is popular in Sri Lanka—Tipitip.

Assassin: A member of the Assassin Brotherhood in the Assassin's Creed video game series. Clad in a hooded outfit, the lone Assassin is known to sneak up on opponents and stab them with a hidden blade.

Hans Zimmer: A German music composer who has created some of the best-known and most influential film scores of our time. Evanna is particularly moved by his music for the sci-fi movie Interstellar.

Detector: In a particle collider, accelerated particle beams are made to collide inside huge detectors. Just as hunters can identify animals from their tracks, physicists identify subatomic particles from the traces they leave in detectors.

Superconducting magnet: An electromagnet made from coils of superconducting wire. To operate in a superconducting state, which means zero electrical resistance, they must be cooled to cryogenic temperatures. At the CHC, and its real-life counterpart, this is achieved by circulating tons of liquid helium.

Proton beam: A beam consists of thousands of proton bunches, and each bunch contains billions of protons. Protons used here are isolated from hydrogen atoms.

Speed of light: At 300,000 km/sec, this is the speed limit of the universe. The protons in the particle collider travel at 99.9% the speed of light because traveling at that speed is impossible for particles that have mass.

Quantum field: What we perceive as particles are excitations of quantum fields—such as photons from the electromagnetic field, the Higgs boson from the Higgs field and so on.

Petabyte: The equivalent of 1000 terabytes (TB).

Dosimeter: A device used to measure an absorbed dose of ionizing radiation.

CTD: An acronym for Colossal Toroidal Detector, one of the main detectors of Komoreby's particle collider.

Santuin: The name of Kim "Max" Minsoo's lycan character in Arcana Online.

Croizar: Kim Junho's lycan character in Arcana Online.

Hadron: A subatomic particle made of two quarks (mesons) or three quarks (baryons). A proton is a baryon.

Beam pipe: Proton beams are accelerated through pipes made of beryllium. Beryllium has a low atomic number and density, which allows colliding particles to pass from the vacuum within to the detectors.

Quench: The electromagnets have to be maintained at a temperature of absolute zero—colder than outer space. If beam particles hit the magnets in one spot and heat them up, they stop superconducting. This is called a quench.

Hazmat suit: "Hazmat" is an abbreviation of "hazardous materials". At the CHC, this suit comes with radiation shielding, as well as a full face respirator to protect the wearer from radioactive particles in the air.

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4 | A TIPPING PAN

JUST egg: Plant-based egg alternative made with mung beans. Once cooked, it's indistinguishable from scrambled eggs. It's a product from an American company called JUST.

GRC: An acronym for Greek and Roman Civilization. This is an Advanced Level subject offered in Sri Lanka. It covers history and politics of ancient Greece and Rome, as well as epics and dramas—such as the work of Euripides, Aeschylus, Aristophanes, Sophocles and Virgil.

12-E: Evanna's homeroom class in the parallel universe.

Obsidian: A rock band that is popular in Komoreby. Its members are Shane Evans, Ash Gevaria, Kim Junho and Kim "Max" Minsoo—all of whom are students of Komoreby High. The band is named after Tsunokory ("Obsidian Unicorn"), the school house they belong to.

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5 | A BLACK UNICORN

Tsunokory: The House of the Obsidian Unicorn. The house name is made up of Japanese tsuno ("horn") and kori ("ice"). The house color is black. Creative individuals and troublemakers are said to gravitate towards this house.

Class monitor: A student who is responsible for maintaining order in a homeroom class.

CoN: An acronym for Champions of Novidus, a MOBA game popular among teens in Komoreby.

12-A: This is a classroom located on the first floor of Alpha. It's Alcina's homeroom.

Alter-Ev: Used by Evanna to refer to the version of herself that existed in the parallel universe.

House cup: In Komoreby High, the annual house cup is awarded to the house that has scored the most in academics, sports, discipline and the arts.

Games captain: A position that holds as much authority as a head prefect. The games captain is the head of all sports clubs in the school.

Benriuka: The House of the Ruby Dragon. The house name is made up of Japanese beni ("crimson"), ryuu ("dragon") and ka ("fire"). The house color is red. Sporty, outgoing people tend to flock to Benriuka.

Raitory: The House of the Emerald Thunderbird. The house name is made up of Japanese rai ("lightning") and tori ("bird"). The house color is green. This house has a large number of students who are into science and environmentalism.

Shirotsume: The House of the Ivory Gryphon. The house name is made up of Japanese shiro ("white") and tsume ("talon"). The house color is white. The most disciplined students are often found in this house.

HEPLOK: An acronym for High Energy Physics Laboratory of Komoreby. This is what GORPP is called in the parallel universe.

Synchrotron: A type of cyclic particle accelerator, descended from the cyclotron, which was patented in 1932.

Linac: Shortened form of "linear particle accelerator", as opposed to cyclic.

Hypnopompic hallucination: A visual hallucination that occurs upon awakening, which can be frightening.

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6 | A RAY OF LIGHT

MOBA: An acronym for Multiplayer Online Battle Arena, It's a subgenre of strategy video games where two teams fight in a predefined battlefield with the ultimate goal of destroying the enemy base. MOBAs are the most popular esports. League of Legends and Dota 2 are the most-played MOBAs.

A Tale of Two Cities: An 1859 historical novel by Charles Dickens, set in London and Paris before and during the French Revolution.

Charles Dickens: A British novelist and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era.

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud: A lyric poem that is the most popular poems of William Wordsworth.

William Wordsworth: An English poet who was born in 1770. He was one of the leading poets of English Romanticism.

Naruto: A much-loved Japanese manga series, written and illustrated by Masashi Kishimoto. It's the fourth best-selling manga series in history, selling 250 million copies worldwide.

Fizzy: A video game distribution and instant messaging platform that is widely used in Komoreby. It has features found in Steam and Discord.

Breaking Benjamin: An American rock band leaning towards hard rock and alternative metal with angsty lyrics.

Zerg creep: In the sci-fi video game StarCraft, creep is a superorganism of the Zerg, a race of terrifying, biologically advanced aliens. Creep spreads rapidly on the ground and consumes structures in its path.

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7 | AN ELF WITH A BOW

For oft, when on my couch I lie: This is an excerpt from the last stanza of I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud by William Wordsworth.

Artemisia: The name of Evanna's lunar elf character in the game. The name is derived from Artemis, the Greek goddess of wild animals, the hunt, nature, moon and chastity—as well as the patron of girls. Artemisia was also the name of the only female commander under the Persian King Xerxes, and she commanded five ships in the Battle of Salamis in 480BC.

Attributes of life: There is no scientific definition of life, but there are key attributes as observed in Earth life.

Stellar civilizations: Evanna's thought exercise in biology class during her first week in the parallel universe. Although the idea sounds far-fetched, it is speculated that very different kinds of life can exist in extreme environments. Lifeforms of this nature are explored in the hard sci-fi novel Medusa Chronicles by Alastair Reynolds and Stephen Baxter.

Oppa: A word popularized by K-dramas. The word means "older brother" (오빠) in Korean, but in Korean culture, it's used by a female to address not just a brother, but any older male in an informal way. Oppa is often known to be used on attractive boys, love interests and boyfriends.

Shoujo: A genre of manga and anime targeted at girls with a focus on romance and humor. Shoujo (少女) means "young woman" in Japanese.

Kom High Times: An online school newspaper that Marilda likes to contribute to.

Olympus: A tuition center (shadow education) located in a pedestrian precinct in downtown Komoreby. It holds small and medium-sized classes.

Indie game: Short for "independent video game". It's a game created by individuals or smaller development teams without the financial and technical support of a large game publisher.

Point-and-click game: A type of video game in which the user interacts mainly with the mouse or any pointing device. Examples are Day of the Tentacle and Broken Age.

Deponia: A point-and-click adventure video game developed by Daedalic Entertainment. The game's story follows Rufus, an inhabitant of the junk planet Deponia.

Sevanalla Inn: In Arcana Online, this is the main inn of the lunar elf capital. An inn serves as a resting place for characters. The name Sevanalla means "shadow" in Sinhalese (සෙවනැල්ල​).

Anda Molad: The capital city of the lunar elves in the game. It resides in the Vale of Amorelle, and it's the main city of the Umbra faction.

NPC: Short for "non-player character".

Needleworking: One of the professions available in the game that allows characters to create clothes and light armor.

Mage: One of the ranged classes in Arcana Online that specializes in magic and burst damage.

Serafina: The name of the player Evanna befriends in the game.

Mount: A creature that can be ridden by a character.

Umbra: One of the two factions in Arcana Online. Umbra is the darker faction, and it's at war with Lumino.

Vale of Amorelle: The starting zone of lunar elf characters. It's a beautiful zone under perpetual night, illuminated by twin moons and bioluminescence. The lunar elf capital of Anda Molad is located here.

Diatryma: An extinct genus of large, flightless birds. These birds are found in Loch Eos in Arcana Online and can be obtained as a mount.

Kappa: An amphibious yōkai demon or imp found in traditional Japanese folklore. They are depicted as green, human-like beings with webbed hands and feet and a turtle-like carapace on their backs.

Loch Eos: A zone in Arcana Online with prehistoric animals. Its name comes from the lake that dominates the zone. Loch is Scottish for "lake", and Eos is derived from "Eocene Epoch", a geological epoch when modern mammalian orders were found to have emerged.

Ranger: The archer class in Arcana Online. Their primary weapon is a bow or crossbow. They also possess the ability to tame wild creatures and often have companion animals.

Tank: Characters that deliberately attract enemy attention and engage in melee combat to act as decoys for teammates. They are heavily armored.

Mana: A unit of energy used to cast spells in video games.

Gallenea: A large coastal city in the game that acts as a neutral hub for the two factions of Umbra and Lumino.

Lycan: One of the playable races in Arcana Online. Lycans are sturdy and have coarse, thick hair, along with other wolfish features.

Berserker: A class that is similar to a tank in MMORPGs. In Arcana Online, they can act as a tank or off-tank in a team. They wear heavy armor and often wield maces.

Knight: The classic tank class in Arcana Online. Using chainmail, plate armor and swords, they engage in melee combat.

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8 | A RABBIT HOLE

Schrödinger's cat: A thought experiment devised by physicist Erwin Schrödinger in 1935 to illustrate the concept of quantum superposition. A cat is placed in a sealed box with something that has a 50% chance of killing it. The cat is either alive or dead inside, which can be observed by opening the box. If the behavior of subatomic particles was applied here, the cat is paradoxically both alive and dead at the same time—and once the box is opened for observation, it assumes one state. A particle being in many states or places at once is what's known as superposition. The act of observation causes the particle to assume one state (behave like a particle than a wave)—which is called the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics.

Subatomic particles: "Subatomic" means smaller than or occurring within an atom. Subatomic particles, or elementary particles, are units of matter or energy that are the smallest building blocks of all matter. Examples are protons, neutrons and electrons that make up atoms—the former being composed of quarks.

Superposition: A particle being in many states/places at once—acting more like a wave than a particle (wave-particle duality).

Many-Worlds Interpretation: According to the Many-Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics, the different states of a particle corresponds to different universes. This means there are copies of us in parallel universes.

Quantum mechanics: Science dealing with the behavior of matter and light on the atomic and subatomic scale.

Grandfather Paradox: This is used to describe a time travel paradox—if a person travels to the past and kills their own grandfather before the conception of their parent, the traveler would not be born.

Uber: The global transportation company Uber exists in Komoreby, but Alicos, the city's driverless taxis, are getting more popular.

Hydroponics: A type of horticulture that involves growing plants in nutrient solutions with no soil.

Dendron Square: A mixed development complex near the city center of Komoreby. Dendron Mall is a popular haunt for teens. The name Dendron means "tree" in Greek (δένδρον).

Komoreby Tower: A monolithic tower at the city center of Komoreby.

Leap of faith: A feature in the video game series Assassin's Creed, where the character can leap off high places into a haystack at the bottom.

Down a Rabbit Hole: A quirky retelling of Alice in Wonderland by an author from Komoreby.

Debu-chan: Evanna's plush panda.

Kawaii Kawaii: A small anime merch, cosplay and manga store located in Dendron Mall. This is Evanna's favorite store.

Sharingan: A powerful red eye with distinctive markings from the manga and anime Naruto. It's a feature of the story's Uchiha clan.

Uchiha: A ninja clan from the popular Naruto manga and anime.

Sasuke Uchiha: One of the major characters in Naruto. A skilled ninja from a young age, Sasuke is Naruto's best friend and rival.

Natty Nymph: A cosmetics, skincare and perfume company in the story world. It adheres to eco-friendly policies, and all its products are free of animal testing and animal-derived ingredients. One of its stores is located in Dendron Mall, from which Evanna buys her personal care products and cosmetics. In Greek mythology, nymphs are minor female nature deities regarded as personifications of nature.

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9 | A FLEETING MOMENT

Uni Kom: Short for University of Komoreby, which is a large, high-ranking university—the largest in Komoreby.

Bountiful Gaia: The shop next to Olympus, from which Evanna buys her terrarium. It sells plants and flowers. In Greek mythology, Gaia is the goddess of Earth.

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10 | AN ALIEN WITHIN

Star Trek: Initially a TV show that debuted in 1966, Star Trek is a very popular sci-fi franchise. The show is a space opera that takes place in a massive universe (or multiverse) and runs to this day.

Star Wars: An epic space opera multimedia franchise created by George Lucas, which began as a film in 1977.

X-Files: A sci-fi horror TV show that first aired in 1993 and gained worldwide popularity over the past decades.

Scully: The female protagonist of X-Files. She is an FBI agent and medical doctor who inspired a generation of women to pursue careers in science, tech, engineering and math. This is known as the Scully Effect. 

Milky Way: The spiral galaxy that includes our solar system. The name comes from the galaxy's appearance from Earth—a hazy band of light seen in the night sky.

Drake equation: A probabilistic argument used to estimate the number of active, communicative extraterrestrial civilizations in the galaxy.

Megastructure: A very large artificial object—mostly theoretical structures proposed under space engineering. Examples: Dyson spheres, orbital rings and ringworlds.

Owl-wraith: One of the wraith animals in Arcana Online with magical powers.

Kaminari: Evanna's owl-wraith in the game. Since her character is a Ranger, she's able to keep companion animals. 

Monkshood Deep: A barren, red zone in Arcana Online. It has a gigantic gorge occupied by a horde of ghouls.

Dark matter: A hypothetical form of matter thought to account for approximately 85% of the matter in the universe.

Mini black hole: Hypothetical tiny black holes. They are also called quantum mechanical black holes or micro black holes.

Black hole: A region of space-time where gravity is so strong that nothing can escape from it—even electromagnetic radiation such as light.

String theory: A theory that proposes that the fundamental constituents of the universe are one-dimensional "strings" rather than point-like particles. Its equations require that the universe has extra dimensions beyond the three we're familiar with.

Theory of everything: A hypothetical theory that fully explains and links together all physical aspects of the universe. This theory would be a unification of general relativity and quantum mechanics.

CRC: An acronym for Colossal Ring Collider. This is what the CHC is called in the parallel universe.

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11 | A DARK NIGHT

Skyhook: A class of orbiting tether propulsion that aims to reduce the cost of placing payloads into low Earth orbit.

Atlas: In Greek mythology, Atlas is a Titan (giant deity) who holds up the heavens.