I barely have time to get them properly airborne before today’s time is up, though they enjoy every moment of those twenty minutes. After that I deem them ‘good enough’ to fly, with one final test: a non-magically-assisted landing.

They pass that test, and I have them revert to human forms. Then I have them change clothes, taking back the flight-form tops. I mean, they’re really just sheets of silk with a hole for the head and a belt on the bottom. I put them in the bags.

“If you want to keep them, you can buy ‘em though. The bags too, though you might want one customized since a basic bag is not very good for moving around in, not to speak of flying.”

They agree to meet me in the eastern forest at the usual time tomorrow, then Tom heads off to a friend who called him during the practice. Silje stays behind, and after staying quiet for a while, speaks up as we move towards the city.

“Uhm, the elf from the video. You said you made her, right? Is she a… puppet, like the one the wyvern made?”

“Yeah.”

She keeps silent for another while. “So you can make female puppets. Can you make men as well?”

“Yeah. I mentioned earlier that you can shapeshift or transform, right?” A nod. “It’s really the same thing, but transforming is turning into a puppet, whereas shapeshifting is changing your ‘main’ body.”

“Isn’t transforming changing your main body?”

“No, you’ve seen how you can have a puppet and the main body? You can do that and then withdraw the main body. That puts it in a ‘subspace’.”

“Like your magical bag?”

“Hmm, no. That’s just spatial expansion. ‘Bigger on the inside.’ It’s more like… A piece of spacetime that usually isn’t connected to our spacetime?”

“Can you make subspaces too?”

“Mm, sorta? I’ve experimented a bit, and I can… use subspaces. It feels… Doesn’t feel like I’m creating them. It’s hard to describe. [Aspect Magic] makes them for you, uhh, seemingly. Each puppet has its own subspace, and there’s also one where all the extra ‘mass’ is stored. You can’t just become a big creature without having extra mass - conservation of mass and energy, you know?”

Seems like it. “That subspace gradually fills as you eat. Uhm, probably. It seems like it but I haven’t really tested it. Well, I’ve eaten a lot lately. Like, several times my own body weight. Most of that ended up in the subspace.”

“Eww.”

“I haven’t seen the subspace, only ‘felt’ that there is stuff there, but yeah, it’s probably be like those organic infestation alien things you see in sci-fi horror. …I’d rather not have thought of that. Anyway, I have a hypothesis regarding that.

I mean, usually I wouldn’t be able to eat as much, right? Or at least put on some weight. I know I’ve been getting a lot more more exercise, but yeah. Anyway, I think [Aspect Magic] makes me subconsciously change my body to fit my body image, or ideal, or something like that. The ears and eyes and stuff are intentional changes, of course.”

At this point we’ve entered the city proper, but she either hasn’t noticed or don’t care. Well, she’s the one who has a longer way home. “I think the body also draws on it if you don’t eat in a while, since I haven’t really been hungry lately. I mean, I have felt peckish, but I haven’t felt that gnawing hunger I usually get after forgetting to eat for most of a day.”

She slows down for a moment, seemingly in thought, before catching up to me. “So you can change your body to look better?”

“Yep. Well, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And you need examples. While not large the city still has enough of a population that a hour in the city center should be all you need. Or one metro ride during rush hours. That said, you need the Human aspect.”

“How do you get that?”

“I would say like with any other aspect: find an example and ‘sense’ the aspect from it. But as it turns out it’s really fricking hard to sense your own aspect. A ‘can’t see the forest for the trees’ thing. As it turns out it’s really easy to sense it when it’s wrong, though. You should be able to sense it from a non-human taking on the aspect.”

She stays quiet for the short while until I slow down to land. “Is that your apartment?”

I bob my head side to side. “Yeeah. Obvious?”

“That’s- it’s- Have you enchanted your entire apartment?”

“No, it’s a lot more complex than one enchantment. Hm, try sending mana inside to sense what’s there or something.”

“Why?” She says, still doing as told. Must be a family thing. “… huh? Why doesn’t it go in…?”

“Because I’ve set it up to stop people from using magic into my apartment. I have at least three different ways to invade someone’s privacy. In fact, I think I have a way I can essentially ‘teleport’ even if there’s a wall. Huhm. I should look into that.”

I open the door to the building, giving it a solid push open after going through. She catches it. “Can I come in?”

I turn around and give her a stare, under which she shrinks and looks at the ground. “Oh.”

“No, no, it’s fine. That’s why I threw open the door. I have to do a few things, but I can still talk or whatever.”

“Is that a big popsicle?”

“No, it’s a slime. That I froze.”

“Why do you have a slime in your freezer?”

“Because I forgot to put it in the fridge before I left this morning.”

She looks at me dumbfounded. Right, the full explanation. “I’ve been researching the slimes from the water temple. I only briefly mentioned them in the video, but there’s quite a few of them there. I can make a puppet, but it needs a core. These things don’t, however. You can even split them and they still work.”

“Still work? Don’t you mean still live?”

“No, still work. ‘Life’ is pretty vaguely defined, but I think these literally about as smart as bricks. And as dead as them, too. Or rather, it would be better to compare them to some smart-material since they go towards mana. Anyway, I brought some here to see what happens if I microwave them, freeze them or heat them in the oven.”

“So what happens?”

“Dunno, it has to unfreeze first.”

“Is the mana here so dense because of the magic box?” She says, before taking another bite of the previously frozen pizza.

“Yep. Makes it easier to use magic, and the hope is that it will make it easier to… uhm, how do I put this. I am looking into how the body changes from mana, and related to that, how you can change the body to better use mana. Both my beast companions have a mana core. -in fact, even the pink fluffy rabbits in the eastern forest have small cores. In addition, Leda has crazy dense mana in her body, and it flows really well.

I don’t exactly have tools, but I think mana flows better in my body now than it did just after the Upheaval. I’m pretty sure the physical body changes somehow. All these things that affects mana in the body, I’ve decided to call it ‘mana physique’. So Leda has a mana physique which allows for extreme density and flow without getting mana burns.”

“Mana burns?”

“Oh yeah, if too dense mana enters your body, it’ll give you a horrible, burning pain. Injures you, too.” I notice I subconsciously hold my left side. “The same happens if too much mana flows through it too fast, too. Oh, it’s not just bodies, mind you. It will happen to wood and rocks, too. I think all materials have some sort of ‘burn point’ for both flow and capacity, as in density, of mana.”

She has a look of mild horror. “You got mana burnt?”

I nod. “Leda accidentally gave me mana burns when we first met. I tested my limits in an experiment, too.”

“How… bad was it?”

“Mmm, the one from Leda hurt like hell, but I healed it as soon as I got control of the mana. The other was like touching a hot plate or something. Like, uhh, first degree burn? The one which only makes your skin red.”

We eat the rest of the pizza in silence. As I clean up afterwards she squats down next to the central box that controls the magic in the apartment. Hmm, I should find a better name. Central… artifice… core? Unfortunate acronym, but I can just call it the artifice core for short, problem solved.

“How does it work?”

“Trade secret?” Well, it’s not like she could recreate it, probably. I guess I can at least tell her what it does. “Well I can tell you what it does. But first, what do you think it does? I’ll just say it has multiple components, so try to guess both what each part does separately and what it does on the whole.”

She looks around to the various component, lingering at Tåke’s corner. It’s not really part of the whole system, though it does use the levitation module. She stands up. “Uhm, so, like-” she bites her upper lip, looking a bit frustrated. “The box controls everything. Uhm, this string leads out to your balcony and it… makes mana?”

She looks at me as if asking me. “I’ll answer you once you’re done.”

She lets out a breath and points at one of the anchors for levitation. “Those are being used by the sheet there, I think it makes it hover. There is things in the walls, floor and roof, which form a barrier, that’s what stopped me from sending my mana in, but it also stops mana from getting out. That’s why there is so much mana here.”

She kneels next to the box. “These crystals are like batteries, and it charges them here.” She says, pointing at the crystal generator. Then this part send the mana to the other parts. This and this has something to do with the barrier, and this one does something to both of those. It feels like [Force Magic], but different.”

Good, good, she has gone over the main parts and was mostly correct. “I don’t see what this part does, but the triangle here glows from your mana.”

“Huh? But I haven’t used it.”

“No, I meant, it glowed when you used magic next to it.”

I experimentally boost the power of [Body Enhancement]. No result. Only external mana? I lift myself off the ground. “Oh yeah, it does. That’s good to know.”

“What does it do?”

“Ehh, just experimenting with magical locks. Anyway, you were mostly right about what each part does, but…”

“Okay, I’ve done what I needed to. How’s the wand looking?” I say, turning to Silje.

“It’s not as good as yours. It feels like the wand snags the mana, somehow.”

“Lemme see.” She hands me the wand. “Hmm, better than my first wand. Oh, the snag is from this part here. There was a branch connected here, see? Aside from experience, the main difference comes from the quality of material. The ones I made has an aluminium core and magical wood. You can turn any stick into a wand, but that doesn’t make it a good wand. Well, [Mana Crafting: Wood Shaping] helps.”

“Can we learn magic crafting tomorrow?”

“Hmm, maybe. I want to make sure you guys won’t get yourself killed from flying first. Well, failing to fly. So you need to practice air magics. You might also want to get the Wyvern aspect up to the level where you can shapeshift on your own.”

“Oh.”

“On that note, if you want to see something interesting and learn a new aspect, I’m going to the wolves’ den now.”

“Flying around like this is so fast…”

“Ehm, technically we’re not flying, just hovering. Though I suppose that’s quibbling. Pretty sure flying by definition needs wings. Well, flying like that is even faster, if a bit cumbersome for short trips.I guess it’d be fine if you just stayed in a flight form or at least wore flight-form friendly clothes.”

“Mhm. My father said he’ll pay for the bags and clothes.”

“Wonderful. I can customize it if you want, a little bit at least, and improve the enchantments.”

“That’d be nice. Wait, they’re enchanted?”

“Yep. To keep a comfortable temperature. Can get really cold up there. More than you realise until you fly high.”

“Can you enchant it so you can’t see my boobs from the side?”

“Ah, the dreaded sideboob. Honestly, I’m not sure if I can enchant it for that. There are two other solutions, though. Learn to properly shapeshift yourself, and just remove the boobs.”

“WHAT?”

“I mean, like, uhh…” I put my hands on my nonexistent chest. “Make it flat. And scaly. Wyverns don’t have boobs.”

“But Leia had boobs on the human form?”

“Leda. And that’s… a good point actually. Might be partially my fault, but that form is made to not be horrifying to humans. Different intention.”

“And the other solution?”

“Just tweak the design a bit.”

She makes a slapping motion in the air, and I am hit by a little gust of wind. “Why didn’t you say that first!”

“Because I’m an idiot… at times? That aside, good use of magic. Learn to do that, but with your wings as you fly and you get all the freedom of the skies.”

She blows air from her nose “Freedom of the skies? Really?”

“I meant that I consider you to have passed in terms of learning to fly. And that you can do aerobatics. There’s an ability for that by the way.” We enter the forest. Well, fly/hover over it. “It’s pretty close now. See that fog over there?”