Volume 2, chapter 1 is now finished as well.
-------------------------- Hereafter is speculation, but educated speculation ------------------------------
fiendmaw wrote:I gwess the Contractor 'eyes' weaken from generation to generation,as the power of one's control over fire,but the degree,I cannot say.
This is almost definitely incorrect. As I mentioned earlier, the proof of the contract is the Stigma itself, and thus it should not pass on. The contract is not made between the spirit lords and groups, but rather between the lords and individuals (i.e. Solomon, Moses, the first Kannagi chief, Kazuma).
fiendmaw wrote:As Kazuma is himself a contractor,thus a direct 'contract' with the wind,and is not a relative of one,it's not safe to assume he's the only one.
This is a direct consequence of your previous, I feel, unjustified assumption. Furthermore, as I said previously, it's not that Kazuma is the only Contractor, it's that as the only
living Contractor (that we know of, anyway), his is the only contract that can currently be confirmed, with certainty, to exist.
Edit: Given the apparent confusion arising from my thoughts, perhaps an example would fit best.
Let us assume there is a simple bet; a coin will be flipped, and if heads, Man A will take $1 from Man B, and if tails, the reverse will occur. Let us also assume that there are 10 people watching.
Case A, this is analogous to the Contractors of legend: You, not present at the bet, hear the testimonials of all 10 witnesses that Man A won. Further, you know that Man B gave $1 to Man A. From this, you conclude that the coin revealed a heads flip. However, this is only the case with high probability. Without having been there to witness for yourself, you cannot know
for certain that the coin landed on heads; there may have been other circumstances (the witnesses all lied, etc).
Case B, analogous to Kazuma: You are present at the bet, and watch it land on heads yourself. You
know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that it landed on heads.
In other words, it is indeed probably the case that all the Contractors of legend were, in fact, Contractors, but the only
currently verifiable case is Kazuma's, as he is the only Contractor still around (again, excluding any who may or may not appear in later novels).
"There is always an easy solution to every problem - neat, plausible and wrong." H.L. Mencken (1971)