(6x11) The Children of Antiquity: Part 1, Episode 2
The first of his pupils Keius takes on, before even revealing this plan to the public, is his former supervisor and current lover, Tatia, who has been by his side through all of the turmoil subsequent to his discovery of the Cosmic Egg. He knows already that she is intelligent enough to be trained in the use of the power, and moral enough to wield it justly.
But Keius fears to grant even her the immortality and invulnerability that was his own first use of the nanites, in case somehow someone should abuse the power and need to be stopped some day. He cannot imagine it would be Tatia, but he knows with this power he must be cautious. Instead he only reprograms her nanites with prepackaged energy-field manipulation effects, "spells" as they would later be considered, and trains her in the interface with the nanites to activate those effects.
Several types of interface are available, all of them visible only in the mind's eye of the mage accessing them. The primary interface is a menu system that can be interacted with through pointer-like hand gestures, or through spoken commands. Some menu commands can be accessed more quickly through shortcuts on an imaginary keyboard. A direct command interface can be interacted with through spoken commands or through hand gestures on the imaginary keyboard. And an imaginary chording keyboard can access the direct command interface or the menu interface shortcuts with smaller in-place hand gestures. All of these give the appearance, to other users who can't see the imaginary interfaces, of magic being cast by waving or contorting the hands, and the incantation of spells. But any of these interfaces can be accessed, with greater difficulty, entirely in the imagination of an experienced users who can accurately imagine the normal metavirtual interfaces, with the same effects, giving the appearance of wordless and gestureless magic.
Tatia is a quick student, and soon she has advanced to the level that she can begin teaching students of her own. She has not been granted the power or the knowledge to modify others' nanites herself yet, but she is soon entrusted to select new pupils on her own, who Keius will grant powers to for her to then train. On the site where the Cosmic Egg was discovered soon came to be built the greatest temple of the new Ehrban religion, and at Keius' request, that temple was also the seat of the new school of "mages" that he and Tatia founded.