[ Generally speaking, concepts like eksth'alva are too abstract to be much use to Qubit, since they're so difficult to pin down and observe and quantify, but he's trying to get a handle on it. The immediate hurdle lies in how the term sort of conflates life with magic, when to him they're clearly not equivalent at all. Drawing on "life energy" would be weird for Carlisle, what with the fact he's not alive and all, so framing this stuff as "magical energy" is a little less of a stretch.

As he tries to extrapolate what makes this so unusual, he finds himself revisiting the "life" definition, but... even then, it doesn't quite track. ]

How do you mean? I was under the impression the undead were fairly common where you're from - is it something other than eksth'alva that powers them, usually? - Or do you mean that you in particular shouldn't be able to do it?