--- Kat ---

Lily continued to work with the paper storm spell, perhaps not her favourite in general but certainly her favourite with combat uses. Shadow manipulation didn’t really count and her spells for shadows were honestly lacklustre in comparison to simple manipulation. It made her two affinities stand out when compared to each other, with space remaining it’s own secret little thing.

Back to the spell though. Lily tried a few more things with the runes but didn’t waste time casting spells when it was clear they’d just break. She did try once more to cast a ’bent’ spell to see what would happen... but it proved to be much the same. A sort of awkward effect that ripped away large chunks of mana she didn’t want to spend for minimal effect. It wasn’t even the same one. The second time she used it instead of one big chunk, several smaller fist sized paper balls few straight up to the ceiling. They didn’t have the power to do damage, or even reach the roof but it was weird to see.

They also had some inconsistent durations. Some vanished before they reached the ground, others vanished soon after and one in particular just... hung around for a while. At least five minutes, and Lily had no idea what made that one in particular any longer lasting than anything else in the spell. It wasn’t like it was the first one that would’ve gotten all of her mana, or the last one that was most fully formed. It wasn’t perfectly in the middle either when she reviewed her memories. It was about two-thirds of the way through the spell.

Lily continued to try to practice with the spell, both snapping it into existence with various thickness and sizes as well as attempting to grow or shrink the spell after the fact... and honestly it was a pretty mixed bag. For a while Lily seemed to get it down, perfectly managing the variations... and then other times they seemed to be all over the place. So Kat asked, "Are you getting this down?"

"Not really," Lily sighed as she flashed her spell into existence once again, holding it for a few moments before firing off the paper to burn away in Kat’s flames. They slowed down hitting them as the demonic fire ate the mana, and then shattered against the back wall before disappearing not too long afterwards. "The issue is that I can make everything bigger, that’s not hard. It’s just wasteful. I’m not sure that I’m really learning anything doing it this way... 𝙧𝙚𝙚𝔀𝒆𝓫𝓷𝙤𝓿𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝙤𝓶

"But if I just try to push smaller and smaller I can’t seem to manage it. Something always seems to go wrong when I do that, and even if I can fix it up after a moment of attention that’s not what I’m trying to do. I’m trying to get my mana to instantly, or close to it, shape into the full sigil for the spell... and I just can’t seem to do that quickly if I’m trying to make the spell efficient.

"I don’t know if it’s a real thing, but it seems like the sigil has a preferred size. It’s not the most efficient... but I think it might be more efficient then it should be given anything else, and I can make as many of these as I want," Lily said as she swiftly pulled up six sigils as a set. Kat even checked the memory, and they’d all sparked to life at exactly the same time.

"Well... is it possible to use this technique to power up your spells? You seem to be able to manage it fine," Kat offered.

Lily made a ’so-so’ gesture. "Depends what I want from the spell. This makes MORE paper to chuck at my enemies but it doesn’t make any of the paper I cast stronger. It’s never going to do something like that. Worse, while this is six times the output... it’s closer to... maybe eight times the cost? Something like that. It just doesn’t scale that well, I’m still losing mana to inefficiency, even if it looks fancy. Maybe if I was being attacked from a bunch of directions?" Lily shrugged.

Kat nodded along as she looked at all six circles. "I suspect that if one breaks all of them would?"

Lily shivered and quickly let the spells vanish instead of actualising them. "Yeah that probably WOULD happen. Unless you had super-human control over your mana, the first break would throw off your concentration and control, probably leading to the rest breaking as well... or maybe just dissipating? No it WOULD be a break if you actively casting."

"I’m glad I don’t have to worry about this sort of thing," sighed Kat.

Lily shrugged, "I suppose so, but I wouldn’t want anything different. You’ve certainly got your own problems..."

Kat grinned, "Ah, but the temptation to hurt yourself in training is surprisingly present isn’t it?"

Lily grimaced but nodded, "Yes. I sort of hate that fact... but yeah I kinda do understand it now. The want and need to get better and knowing a bit of pain will come from it. I suppose it’s just an extreme form of that exercise burn you get when you do things properly. Not that we can really get to that point easily anymore, but you understand my point."

"Yeah," Kat agreed. "Though, that does make me want to ask. What exactly is your plan then? We haven’t spent too long on this, and you don’t seem to be improving... but again, it hasn’t been that long."

Lily sighed, "Yeah I don’t know what I was expecting. Perhaps for my practice to make a bit more sense? Or for me to make at least some progress. Instead it almost feels like I’m going backwards if anything. I’m also a bit low on mana now. I might have had some chances to recover, but I spent plenty of time casting spells to offset that, and those few... broken casts were exhausting."

"Well we can head back through the wards if you want? Find a place to rest? I’m not sure exactly what time it is now but it’s probably quite late," offered Kat.

Lily shook her head, "No I want to try and work out what’s going on here," Kat shrugged as Lily got back to her casting. Then she got an idea... what if she made her runes different sizes but only in parts? Lily formed the circle and messed around with them... but quickly realised this was a dumb idea. If slightly folded runes that looked the same didn’t work there was no way this would. Lily chewed on her cheek for a few moments before shaking her head.

"Yeah not even going to try that..." grumbled Lily. "Though... hmmm..." Lily played around with the runes a bit more. Trying to expand or contract single runes. Not to cast, but just to see if she could. The answer was... somewhat. It seemed that without having to concentrate on the entire spell Lily could shift around singular runes without too much issue. There was still a lower limit to how small she could compress them, but it showed that she was capable of it.

"Hmm... do you think I should practice making every single rune tiny, or should I instead focus on the whole sigil?" pondered Lily.

"I’m not sure... but was it really the fact that you were looking at just the one rune, or was it the fact that you took a lot longer to change them, slowly and deliberately, instead of all at once," countered Kat.

Lily frowned at the question but Kat was right. She’d just been trying to see if it was possible, even if it had been slow, Lily was just trying to get some proof. Which... she supposed was the point. That slow search for proof did prove at least part of what she needed. "Hmmm... I guess I test that with the whole sigil? Would that even be easier though? Having to shrink so many things at once... even if it was slow... and could I do them one at a time? I suspect no..."

"Is there a reason not to test it?" asked Kat.

"I guess not," Lily admitted, as she began her tests. First, start with the base spell and then try to shrink just one part of it-. Lily winced, as soon as she messed with that singular room the spell fell apart. It wasn’t quite as painful as it normally was when spells shattered, but she could still feel it. The experience was a bit like a slap on the wrist, though spread out across her entire body.

Lily shivered, "Yeah ok that’s not happening... so what do you think? Slow and singles, or slow and multiples?"

"Multiples probably," Kat offered with a shrug. "You said you wanted to be better at casting just a few spells... so just focus on those few spells. The singular runes might be nice, and maybe as a super basic start you can do a couple, but I don’t think it will help the way you want here,"