Chapter 74 - Resizing

Lily considered writing a letter back immediately but decided to hold off until she had passed the magic examinations. Most of what she wanted to tell Rose couldn't be written down if it would be scrutinized before it reached her.

Lily even considered saying nothing and just surprising her when she eventually arrived at Regarth—a fitting punishment for Rose's forgetting to respond and the vagueness she included in her letter concerning Alice and Puff.

Lessons continued her daily routines in a vastly more regular manner. No buckets were thrown this time, and it seemed like Mark had been suitably punished. Lily had even been informed that Tim was not involved, much to her surprise. Mark had acted on his own, hoping that his friend would cheer up if he heard his tormenter was embarrassed.

I'm the tormentor? How absurd…

To her relief, Mark was informed directly of what Tim had done and the consequences of his own actions. While Mark still partially blamed Lily, at least it looked like there would be mutual leaving each other alone.

When Lily was free, she spent much of her time with Theo and occasionally Richardus, which allowed them to kick their practice up a notch thanks to the safety provided by his direct supervision. Alone, they had to keep things to a minimum or risk being forbidden from practicing altogether.

Arakil had been entirely accurate about the competition fostering growth, as Lily could visibly see Theo's progress in his previously lacking control. Likewise, thanks to the extra target practice, Lily could finally work on shortening the Starburst and try to recreate the mastery she had displayed in the heat of the moment against Tim.

Although admittedly, Lily mainly focused on her Nebula Veil, as she was determined to make it her first signature spell. She tried to maintain it constantly during her solo time, as Arakil suggested, while during practice, she would work on making it a more reactive defense.

The latter training, however, was giving her some great results. There were times when she was in the zone and felt like she'd gained an extra appendage through the spell. The moments were frustratingly few and far between, causing Lily to push harder and harder to recreate them.

The former, however, was a bit of a struggle for Lily, as the spell either ran out of Mana or was canceled early if she was too startled by something. Keeping it running without Mana required her to keep her Mana Core in its state of semi-perpetual rotation, and that was a tall order for her.

Arakil had likened it to breathing unconsciously, and there were a few times Lily managed to produce that result. She habitually checked on it routinely and was always peeved when she discovered it halted without her knowing.

Maintaining passive concentration was a bit of a different factor entirely. Typically, the spell would keep going until it ran out of Mana, or Lily canceled it, but that was assuming she had direct control over it. In the passive state, a big enough shock would cause it to fizzle out either momentarily or entirely—a terrible thing for something you wanted to protect you.

To aid Lily in bolstering her resolve against surprise, Arakil had revealed a new sigil to her—sound! Initially, Lily was extremely excited to add to her glyph repertoire after what seemed like ages of stagnation. However, that was short-lived when she discovered the practice idea Arakil had in store for her.

Arakil designed alarms that would trigger terrifying noises at seemingly random intervals, causing Lily to nearly jump out of her chair at times. She thought she would eventually grow used to it, but her own anxiety awaiting the alarm seemed to only boost the shock and surprise when it finally went off.

Thankfully, remaining a perfect statue was not the criteria for success, and Lily only needed to keep her Nebula Veil active throughout. Even if she leaped out of her chair at the terrifying claxon or banshee wail and fell on her butt, if her starry cloak remained, then it was a success. Painful but still a success.

To Lily's regret, the optimal time to practice this was often late in the evenings, which only added to her anxiety due to the spookily dark and silent atmosphere. It also didn't help that, thanks to limiting sigils, the sound would not permeate beyond the boundary of her room, so it could be as loud as possible to test her.

Arakil had said she would be thankful for such rigorous training when it stopped an assassin's blade. Lily desperately wanted to refute that she would never be in such a ridiculous situation in the first place, but she held her tongue and complied with the training despite the mental toll.

Outside of her practice, things were pretty much just routine. She spent fun times helping Camilla make concoctions or drawing carefully labeled glyphs to add to her stockpile. The woman was terrified, as if Lily would disappear at any moment, and was trying to stockpile as much of a reserve as possible.

Speaking of reserves, the Mana situation had eventually reached its finale. One night, when she was topping up the book's cover, it shimmered with an iridescent wave before settling down. Lily had tried to continue the imbuement process, but the book actually refused her Mana.

When she opened the book to consult Arakil, it had abruptly enlarged to its original size when she first got it. It was so unexpected that Lily let out a cry and fell over, losing her Nebula Veil in the process.

[It looks like the cover has been renewed, and the size-altering function has been fully restored!]

"You didn't have to scare me like that!" Lily whined.

[Did your Nebula Veil drop?]

"Yes…" Lily admitted warily.

[Then it sounds to me like it was perfect for training.]

Lily grumbled in reluctant agreement. "So now that your cover is done, what's next?" she asked. "Fix your eye? Or one of the other functions of your book?"

[We can start stockpiling Mana to restore the eye. However, now that I can freely change the size, we should try venturing out.]

Lily opened her mouth to respond right as Arakil's book shrunk to the size of a notepad. She slowly closed her mouth as she stared at it in fascination.

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"I could keep you in my pocket!" she replied excitedly.

The book returned to a diary size as Lily provided it with ink.

[That's the plan. While I won't be able to see the outside world, I want to know if absorbing the Mana from the monsters you've mentioned previously is possible.]

"That's great!" Lily cheered. "And if you can, that could speed things up, couldn't it?"

[Possibly. Outside of raw Mana, I seem to take it in at a penalized rate, which is undoubtedly somehow related to my seal. If monsters dying temporarily raise the ambient Mana of the area, I may be able to harness it. I'm cautiously optimistic.]

"Optimistic? I thought you said to always prepare for the worst," Lily teased.

[Perhaps a particular bunny is rubbing off on me. Although, even if it fails, that is fine as even with the conversion penalty, the Mana you've been supplying me should be enough to restore more of my book's functions with time.]

"So we'd just be saving time?" Lily asked to confirm.

[Yes. Which we have ample of, as I'll remind you. So, while it would be nice to have, I'm not dependent on it.]

"And there might be something we can do or use at Regarth," Lily added. "We know Mana potions work, I'm sure there's bound to be other things."

[Quite, my optimistic little apprentice. Now, shall we prepare for tonight?]

Lily nodded excitedly, "Yes! It feels like it's been ages, and I'll have you with me this time. I just need to draw a shadow cloak glyph and maybe a soundproof glyph for good measure."

[You can never be too careful.]

"Clearly, you're rubbing off on me too!" Lily giggled.

***

Lily placed Arakil in her breast pocket, marveling at the convenience of his miniature form, and pulled out two of her newly drawn glyphs. After activating them both, she was surrounded by the shadowy cloak and a tiny zone of silence. She even tested it by jumping up and down on the floor, but her steps were utterly silent.

She tried to cheer, "Yes!" but found that even her voice was gone. Depending on the situation, that could certainly be both a blessing and a curse, and she wondered how it would affect chants. But before getting too lost in thought, she began sneaking out of the orphanage and onto the city streets.

Under the cover of darkness, she silently approached the city gate. She was a little unhappy that she was using the shadow cloak glyph rather than her Nebula Veil, but she had to admit it was better suited for espionage.

She made it to the gate in record time and without even a hint of being out of breath. Lily couldn't help but feel in awe at how healthy she felt lately, even though she'd seemingly stopped growing any taller.

Just be happy to stand out in the sun and no longer need a breather after a slightly brisk walk. She reprimanded herself.

While sneaking past the guard post she held her breath again until she realized the utter absurdity of the situation and tried to laugh. Silence.

Lily even saw Oz, who looked to be swapping posts with another guard, and tried screaming out his name. She giggled silently to herself as she snuck past with almost zero worry. When she was finally well enough away, she removed the silence talisman and laughed mirthfully.

"I can't believe how effective that was. This is amazing," she whispered excitedly to the notebook. "Now, let's see if we can find a monster or two."

Lily replaced the shadow cloak with her preferred starry one and then summoned some Starlights to guide the way. She set them out in a low orbit around herself, giving her sufficient vision of her surroundings as she began to scout.

It didn't take long for her to find a slime, which was, to her surprise, feasting on a gremlin. Lily shuddered a little, wondering how the seemingly harmless slime had defeated an adversary with such a wicked bite.

It is still a monster… Maybe they aren't as weak as I thought? Wait. Why is the gremlin not bursting into those black flakes?

While she was eager to dispatch it with a Starcluster, she was more curious about the strange occurrence. She quickly maneuvered a star directly next to the slime, which paid it no attention as it continued to slowly feast. Lily got her answer and almost wished she hadn't.

"It's still alive!" Lily cried in a muffled whisper.

The gremlin wasn't entirely dead; it was unconscious or perhaps drowned in the goo. Directly where the slime was focusing its efforts to eat its captured prey, Lily spotted the familiar black flakes slowly being released at the edges of the gremlin's body before dissolving in the slime.

While she was revolted by the idea of the slime slowly eating its catch alive, she couldn't help but be morbidly curious if that was what all monsters did when eating each other.

Was the slime gaining more strength by eating it in this manner? If a gremlin bit down on a slime core, would it grow stronger?

I suppose I'll get answers to these questions once I get to Regarth. The dungeon course would absolutely know stuff about monster behaviors. Also, if the gremlin isn't dead yet, that means it's a two-for-one special!

Lily giggled to herself, thinking of the bargain deal before her, one that would make Camilla's mouth water. She raised her hand, ready to cast her spell.

"Arakil, get ready. I'm taking out two monsters," she informed him, and then, with a brief hand flourish, she cast her spell.

Lily held nothing back, and tonight's lucky number was four as quad stars were summoned forth. They went flying forward toward the slime and gremlin before crashing into them into a burst of stardust. The first star struck cleanly, possibly killing the slime outright and scattering dust, then the second hit and burst, followed by three and four exploding shortly after.

"I should have probably stuck to a maximum of two stars," Lily sighed.

Stardust was everywhere, but unless someone came to this exact spot within the next five to ten minutes, there would be no trace of it left, something Lily had eventually figured out in her testing with Theo. Lily looked at where the slime and gremlin were but couldn't find any trace of either.

A little worried that there would be no more black flakes, she quickly entered her meditation with routine efficiency and sighed with relief as she saw countless little black Mana flakes waiting to be gathered up.

"Okay, Arakil, eat up," Lily said as she nervously looked around and hoped nobody spotted the four incrementally increasing stardust bursts.