<~> Chapter 207"So," I said to the twins. "The real question is what do you think we need the most?"

  "What do you mean?" Man asked.

  "This book gives me the building blocks I o create whatever basic spells I need as long as I power them at the same time as [Light Scribing], but there's too much here for me to try and i spells on the fly. So instead I figure we identify where we're g the most and use this to fill in the gaps."

  Torien tapped on her in thought. "Normally, ritual magic is mainly used for utility things. Most spells are for simple stuff like finding water and starting campfires. Since you use ritual magic without any additional tools by using light magistead, you speed that process up signifitly. I think you may end up being forced into using this magic creatively, it's a poor substitute for something as simple as throwing fireballs."

  "I think I disagree. Well... mostly," Man said. "If you think about it, ritual magic is simir to wild casting. Like Theo taught us on our trip, there are a lot of magic spells that ge in power drastically simply by sing out the kind of element they draw their power from. The be of the approach Lilith is taking to ritual magic is that she's essentially treating ritual magic the same as wild casting."

  Man leaned forward and poi one of the partial circles in the book. "This is a pohat gathers fire. If you sed this part out for a pohat gathers water, you would get a simir but different effect. Even if all you wao do was cast a fireball, casting it this way would allow you to make fast ges on the fly."

  "That wasn't my point though," Torien replied. "Most ritual spells do things like 'gather water' ather fire' I doubt any of these rituals are as direct as 'shoot fireball' even if you want to shoot fireballs in this way. I think you'll have to be creative to even do something like that."

  "Mmm, I see what you mean," I said. Flipping through the book there were a lot of pos for different things but the circles weren't categorized in the book much at all. "I think the first step to figuring out how much we do with this book is s things into different groups and then ing up with some sort of framework for iing new magi there. How creative we have to be to get the effects we want will bee evident from what kinds of pieces we have to go on."

  I hahe book tan and got up from the bed. "Let me go grab Mimi real quick, I want to grab some stuff from my chest."

  When I stepped out of the room Silva was waitihe door for me. She looked a bit embarrassed, not very much like her usual self. "Hey, Lilith... Did Torien tell you why she's been avoiding me?"

  I took a few steps away from the door and leaned on the baly railing. "No. She's been quiet about it. Either she doesn't fully know what she's mad about or it's not something she wants to talk with me about. Also, it's hard to tell how much of it is you and how much of it is her, the two of them aren't pletely back to normal after being freed from svery. The steps I wanted for them to take to help them accept that they're free has been deyed."

  "What did you have in mind?" Silva asked.

  I sighed. "Well, clothes shopping to start. Even if we don't pletely repce their servant uniforms, they o be adjusted to not look as weird without a colr being visible. I was also hoping to push them into keeping and spending a little bit of money on their own but I'm not sure if they would accept that yet."

  "Right..." Silva looked away and scratched the back of her head.

  "I don't think you should push too hard. I'm not telling you to avoid her too but maybe try letting her e to you first. I think she needs a bit of time to process things, it's been a crazy couple of days for all of us."

  "Yeah," Silva grunted out.

  My eyes trailed down at her new glossy bck fur. "Why bck? Your fur that is."

  She looked down at her bck rabbit feet. "I'm tired of the blood staining my fur..." For a brief moment, a wash of plicated and flig emotions pushed through the bond and I frowned even as she cmped down on the bond to hide them from me.

  I sighed again. "I'm sorry. There's a lot we probably should talk about ourselves. I'm not sure if you tell through the bo but I don't think our retionship is pletely okay either. I still feel a bit pissed off about how much you kept from me, about yourself and the Order of Lilith. I uand why you did but it still upsets me."

  Silva's brow furrowed. "Then why did you accept me into your family?"

  I scratched my horn and frowned. "Because even though I was unhappy about it, you're still my friend and I want to be able to trust you again. You've done a lot for me in the short time we've known each other so it sucks that I feel this way."

  "Would it help if I promised not to lie to you anymore?" she asked.

  I shook my head. "No. Not yet. I'm sure you'll win my trust back, but it's going to take a little time first."

  "...Okay," Silva replied.

  "I will try to help you with Torien though. I hate seeing her mad at you when you normally get along so well. She really needs a friend that isn't me or her sister and I think you've been good for her so far."

  Silva gave me a sad smile. "Thanks, Lilith."

  I nodded and stopped leaning on the railing. "I o go grab Mimi though. The three of us are w on some new magic."

  "Even Torien?"

  I chuckled. "Yeah, surprisingly. She was more ied than I thought she'd be."

  Mimi was idly chatting with Cecilia, Sibyl, and Raya but turo me the sed I came in range of her bond.

  "Hey, Mimi. Do you mind ing upstairs with me for a little while?"

  "Sure!" Mimi jumped up and hugged herself around my neck. "Carry me up!"

  I ughed and ed my arms around her. "Woah, where'd this e from?"

  "It's fun!" she said matter-of-factly.

  Because of her body, she was a lot heavier than she looked but luckily I also had plenty of strength to make up for it. Raya was ughing at Mimi's antics as I walked through the room with the Mimic girl hugging herself against me. I felt a strong sense of love and affe ing from Mimi right now, it seemed she really enjoyed being hugged and doted on. I probably didn't do it enough. I adjusted Mimi's weight as I went up the stairs but didn't dream of putting her dow. She was more happy that I was indulging in her sillihan actually being carried.

  I leaned in and gave her a quick pe the lips which caused her to giggle.

  Awkwardly I reached out and opehe door before bringing her into the room. The twins looked just as amused as everyone else had been by the time I sat down with Mimi still in my p. "Enjoy the trip, Mimi?"

  She was grinnio ear. "Yep! Now what do you need?"

  "I need my trunk. I have some chalk and chalkboards in there, plus that magic book."

  "No problem!"

  Rather than spawire chest Mimi materialized the chalkboards and the tainer of colored chalk into one pile and the book in her hand. "Is this the one?" she asked.

  I took it from her and looked it over. It's been a long time since I looked at this. "Yup! The Book of Recolles. We found it in the dungeon, you said that I'll be able to remember anything I write in here as long as I hold it open."

  "You sure, Lilith?" Man asked. "I remember that you said it was soulbound. I see the value for what we're doing but it's probably worth a det amount of gold too."

  "I'm sure," I said. "I've actually been saving it this whole time for this. The ability to remember everything I've written in the book bined with the ability to cast rituals using [Light Scribing] seems like a powerful bination. That's worth way more than I would get for this. I do o make sure it works the way I'm hoping it does though."

  "What do you mean?" Mimi asked.

  "When you identified it for me you said that 'anything written in it' be perfectly remembered. I don't know if drawings t or not."

  "And there's only one way to tell," Man said with a sigh.

  I ughed. "Yeah. I think this book would be helpful regardless but I'll still be a bit sad if it doesn't work for what I'm trying to do." I rested my hand on the front cover of the book. "Here goes." I pushed my mana into it and filled it up. The moment the book was flush with magic I felt a e snap in pce a little like how the bond feels when that ects for the first time.

  I opehe cover to the first page and looked at the off-white color there. "Okay, what should I try it with?"

  Torien chuckled. "You actually attuo it without having a pn for what yoing to test it with?"

  I shoved her a little bit while ughing. "Quiet you."

  "How about this!" Man said while pushing the ritual book over to me.

  Torien peeked over my shoulder and gasped. "They have a ritual for that?"

  I looked down at the ritual she was indig. It was one of the plex ones he back of the book, made from some of the more intricate circle pos. It would be a challeo copy in but if it worked then it would be amazing. "Detect hostile creatures," I said out loud.

  Man nodded. "The book says that the most effective way to use this one is to e with it pre-prepared on wood tablets or slips of paper. Normally that's pretty expe if you replicate it using yht scribing magic, it would be great for all kinds of things."

  I nodded. "Okay, I'm going to o practi one of the chalkboards first though." Unfortunately, we only had one copy of the book so the twins spent time teag Mimi how to read using the other book we had gotten from Sorsette while I hogged this o retty cute seeing the two of them help Mimi. Mimi seemed to have a photographic memory, or something close to it, but the moment she had to assign sounds to different groups of letters she started tle a lot. At one point Man realized that Mimi had remembered aire word instead of putting the letters together herself san and Torien had to rethink their strategy. Iingly, it seemed that the reading part was going to be a lot harder than the writing part for Mimi.

  After a while, I had my first chalk copy of the intricate ritual circle. As in the book, it had a ssh down the middle to stop it from actally activating. "Okay, I'm ready to try and cast it."

  Torien looked bad forth from the book to the chalkboard. "What does that prove?" she asked.

  I closed the ritual book. "If I cast it while looking at my copy then I should have made a good enough copy to reference. If it doesn't work I messed up the copy without realizing it."

  Taking a deep breath I activated [Light Scribing]. Lines of magic burhrough the air above my outstretched hand as the spell structed the ritual magiy hand. After a moment the spell had finished f and I held it there unactivated.

  Man squi it before looking back at the book and paring the two. "It looks pretty close to me, I don't see anything obviously different, but I holy don't know enough about ritual magic to know if you messed something up somewhere."

  "Okay, I'm gonna try it," I said. I activated the spell and the glowing magic circle in my hand disappeared. I felt mana pulse around me in a roughly five yard sphere through the building and in every dire. I frow the result.

  Torien looked at me seriously. "Is someone nearby hostile?"

  I chuckled. "The problem is, I 't tell if it worked without knowing for sure if something hostile is nearby... I didn't get any readings from this at all."

  The four of us collectively facepalmed.

  Saine

  Hello! One of my favorite things in stories is when the character creates hings iside the narrative rather than just showing up with it ter already developed. It's fun to see the characters work through their ideas and figure out how things work. This chapter also had some heavier stuff, Lilith's short versation with Silva. It's versations like this that help patch up retionships. Thanks as always for reading, I hope you ehe chapter!

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