Lily spent the better part of the morning after breakfast trying to figure out the number of logistical problems that had found themselves on her doorstep. For starters, the communication barrier was going to be a big issue over the next day or more. If only she could talk to the goblin, it was going to make things difficult. Plus, if she found herself in that situation again she really wanted to have a solution already in mind.

  Like, an area wide version of her translation spell. She might just be able to cast it in a very large circle. But then it’d only work in that circle’s bounds, and on top of that, the larger the spell the more mana it took. For a spell meant to be cast and stick around for at least a conversation and maybe longer, size would start to be a serious concern. Maybe she could create a spell that would imprint a spell circle of her choice on any target in the range…? She didn’t know how she could do that. But then the lasting spell would just be on each person after the initial cast faded.

  The other thing was, she really did want to figure out her skills. And her new class. Just because it wasn’t the most important thing right now didn’t mean she wasn’t curious. So, while she had other things on her mind, after breakfast she did her first test.

  She pulled out her notebook and handed it to Sunica.

  “Okay, I’m going to try and recite as many of the numbers I wrote earlier as I can, alright? You tell me when I start getting them wrong.”

  “Um, Lily?”

  “Okay, sure it’s not the best test in the world. But it’s what I came up with.”

  “Lily, I can’t read this.”

  “What?”

  “Your list. I can’t read it.”

  “... oh.”

  That actually made a lot of sense. Of course the writing would be different. Come to think of it, Lily couldn’t remember seeing any written language around when she was in town before. Not even at the store? She tried to remember, but couldn’t.

  “Well. Shit. Um. I guess tear me off a blank page and I’ll just try to replicate it?”

  “Right…”

  Sunica stared down at the notebook. After fifteen seconds or so, Lily cleared her throat.

  “Sooo. Gonna… do that?”

  “It’s just… Paper is so expensive…”

  Lily sighed and took the notebook. She tore out an empty page and then handed it back to Sunica without finding the one with her writing on it again just in case she happened to catch a glimpse.

  Then it was experiment time. Lily set her pen against the paper, and tried to remember what she wrote. She had started with a simple power of two repetition. Two, four, eight, sixteen, thirty two, sixty four, one hundred twenty eight, two hundred fifty six, five hundred twelve, one thousand twenty four. She had stopped there, because it would be predictable, and then… She thought back to writing the note. In her mind she could almost see it. A notebook opening and showing…

  “Oh my god!”

  “What? What? Did it hurt?”

  Lily giggled.

  “No! I figured it out!”

  When she closed her eyes and imagined opening the notebook up, she could see it! She could see everything she wrote before. She tried to mentally flip the page back to see the other notebook pages, but…

  “Oh. Wait. Huh? That’s the first page…? Gimmie that.”

  She snatched the notebook out of Sunica’s hands. No, it was not the first page. But it was on the one in her head…? Lily’s head spun for a second before it became obvious. That was the first thing she wrote down since getting the skill.

  “Ohhhh. I think I get it.”

  “Well! Don’t just keep ooooh-ing to yourself! Tell me!”

  Sunica fidgeted in suspense. So, Lily took a breath and tried to explain.

  “I think I intended this to be notes as I wrote it, and it ended up in a notebook uh… in my head? I can see it clearly. Like, clearly clearly! Like I was looking at it in my hands. It’s actually a little hard to explain, because I’m not looking at it. But I can read it as clearly as if I was… That’s. Hmm. I gotta try some things!”

  Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

  Lily was getting excited now. The most fun thing about any skill system in any game was exploring synergies with other effects. [Perfect Handwriting] and [Mental Notes] already seemed like a match made in heaven. Not that they were the most useful thing in the world. Although, she would be able to handily ace just about any test she wanted in her world. Wait, but… if you could write notes like that, wasn’t that still different than learning the material?

  Hmm. She’d have to be careful about that trap. Not get lazy? Did it matter if it was always on hand? Whatever. Time to figure that out later. For now…!

  She jumped up and ran outside, ignoring Sunica’s calls after her. She wasn’t going very far, she just had to know how it worked!

  Sitting down in the snow, Lily started writing some things out by drawing with her finger in the powder.

  ‘Test Note: Sunica can’t read my writing. Important! Remember!’

  Then she kicked snow over it, and came back in. Upon having a seat, she tried to recall what she’d written. Sure enough, it was there in the notebook now! On another page. In her… head?

  She closed the mental book. Then, she opened it again and tried hard to think about finding important notes. … Nothing.

  “Damn.”

  “What? Lily, you’re acting crazy. At least tell me what you’re doing!”

  Lily had to laugh a little.

  “Okay, okay! I wanted to see if I could automatically search the mental notes too, but it doesn’t seem like it. It’s still very useful. But it’d be even MORE useful if I could use CTRL+F.”

  “Control… eff?”

  “Um. Search. If I could find stuff easy. But, I’ll just have to remember where I put them. When I have a few more pages I’ll have to see if I can like, sort the pages somehow or something. But, that’s still real useful! It really just brings up more questions though…”

  “Lily, does anything you encounter not bring up more questions?”

  Lily gave her companion a wholehearted grin.

  “Nope!”

  She was in a great mood now. Exploring, curiosity, magic! Experiments! This was her element!

  Next experiment! She held out her hand flat, and with one finger drew on her palm. This time, she also used mana, as if she was drawing a spell circle. Because she was. It was still on her mind, so she thought of the translation spell. Could she jot it down in her [Mental Notes] by writing it out on her palm? It’d save a lot of material if it didn’t have to be written in anything, and the snow had worked.

  Focus. Easy spell. Draw ambient mana, and translate. She wondered if she could figure out a node that would draw mana from the person she drew a circle on. Although, it could be the same one she used to put mana into objects… Not the time, focus! Focus! She drew the circle out onto her palm. The [Perfect Handwriting] skill really came in handy for this, because she would have butchered a circle made that small with something as unwieldy as a finger before coming here. But… it came out as flawlessly as she was picturing it.

  Then, she erased it. Easy come, easy go. She watched the mana that had made up the circle evaporate off her as the circle broke down, returning the mana to the… air, she guessed? That was another thing to explore sometime…

  She shook her hand off, and realized Sunica was just watching her intently. With a blush she tried to explain.

  “Um, trying spell circles now. Sorry, I’m used to doing all this exploration alone, or with Star who really super doesn’t care about how magic works.”

  “It’s okay. I just want to make sure you’re not doing anything dangerous…”

  That stopped Lily in her tracks for a moment.

  “Um, dangerous? Can your own skills be dangerous to you?”

  Sunica nodded.

  “Sometimes. There are skills with a cost.”

  “Like… a mana cost?”

  The girl shook her head in reply, then got thoughtful.

  “Well, I’m sure some of those exist too. But, there are some skills that come at a great cost. Things meant to only be used if you’re in dire need, or willing to pay that cost. Not that I think something called [Mental Notes] is likely to be like that. But, knowing you, supervision is a good idea.”

  Lily flushed a little. Well, Sunica had her there. Okay. She’d be a little less cavalier, and think about whether any of her tests could hurt her at all first.

  “Ah. Um. Thank you. I’ll be more careful. But I can’t see how anything I’m doing right now could be harmful. Unless I flubbed the spells I’m working on big time, but that’s less about the skills and more just that magic is dangerous.”

  Sunica nodded, and took a step back but continued watching intently.

  And then it was time for the next step. Lily opened her mental notes, and sure enough the spell was right there. She grinned, and then wrote some more on her palm to accompany it.

  ‘Translation spell: Ambient Mana - Will not work in very low mana environments. Find alternate power? Heat to Mana? Light cooling effect instead?’

  There. She closed her eyes again. There it was! Perfect. One final test. She put her hand over the sleeping goblin and focused. If [Perfect Handwriting] allowed her to create circles as fast as she could think of them, could she copy them directly out of her [Mental Notes]?

  If that was how it worked, the possibilities were endless, and she could create a ton of complicated spells to simply copy and paste as she pleased. She was excited. She needed to calm down to focus.

  Lily took a deep breath. Look at the spell on the page. Cast it on the sleeping form. Look at the spell. Cast it. Look at the spell. Cast it.

  The magic flowed out of her and into the shape she wanted, forming the circle exactly as she had drawn it on her palm.

  Yes! That’s just what she wanted! That was going to be so much fun! She had to get to work, copying all the spells from her physical notes. Even the world hopping one! There were so many things she could do with this!

  The excitement built in her chest until Lily cheered. The goblin screamed. Lily screamed. Sunica Screamed.

  There was a knock at the door.

  Lily was pretty sure she was having a heart attack.