B4 - Chapter 27 - Daydreaming

When Lily woke up the next day, the very first thing she did was start playing around with her Nebula Veil again. After the excitement of its upgrade and her ability to draw enchantments on it, she spent most of the night tossing and turning, thinking about the possibilities. Now that it was morning, she had a limited window before she needed to head to classes, and she was determined to make the most of it.

When she conjured the cloak, she immediately noticed her connection to it and especially the stars reflected on it. It seemed that, despite being indoors during the day, her cloak could reflect the starscape as it should in its current state. Arakil had already told her the cloak was a backup for Astral mages so they could still access their constellations, and now she personally understood how true that was.

Next, she started exploring what else had changed about the cloak, since she had mostly skipped over it, more concerned with it retaining its previous functions and the miracle of drawing enchantments on it. So she sat on the ground and started manipulating it, trying to see how far she could push it and what she could discover.

Some pretty obvious changes showed up now that she was focused on looking for them, and it seemed its overall level of finesse had increased. Lily thought this meant she could use the cloak to manipulate objects, and while that was true, she was still quite limited in what the cloak could pull off. Despite looking more powerful, the Nebula Veil hadn't broken its physical restraints, so what it could actually lift was still minimal.

But… What if I added an enchantment?

Lily thought of the defense enchantment she drew last night, which had given the cloak more physicality, but at the cost of reducing its ability to flow freely. She thought that might let the cloak exert more force, but the drawback made her second-guess how useful that would be.

"Is there an enchantment just for strength?" Lily wondered.

[I assume you mean bodily strength and not just a boost in power or performance. If so, yes, there are, although that goes above the basic enchantments detailed in the notes you received. Duncan focused more on simple reinforcements, so more along the lines of protection against heat or cold and the sort.]

"I'm not sure how useful that is; my cloak already was resistant to most magical attacks. Physical attacks were its biggest weakness, which that first enchantment should hopefully cover. I was more interested in using my cloak for other things, like lifting things up or maybe even doing tasks. Imagine if I could have my cloak brew a potion for me, or even draw a glyph."

[If you need to lift things, why not use telekinesis? Brewing potions might be useful, or just fetching things off a high shelf, I suppose. As for the last part, I don't want to stifle your creativity, but once you can draw with your mind, it would be rendered entirely obsolete.]

"I was more thinking of trying to see if it could use a pen, but I guess it would be a waste," Lily admitted, giggling at the thought of her cloak holding a pen.

[It's a fun idea, but the effort required to guide the cloak would likely mean you couldn't be drawing one yourself. I suppose it would be a good party trick, but in terms of mental effort, again, drawing with your mind would be far easier. Splitting one's focus isn't as simple as it sounds, and it's something we will work on in the future.]

"I'm guessing it's not the same as casting two spells?"

[Most certainly not, and that's including genuine multicasting. What you've been doing can't be considered multicasting, as it's more like maintaining existing spells. Forming two separate spells at once is far more complicated, whereas you currently form them separately and then only need to tax a small portion of your mental acuity to maintain the first one. It's sequential rather than simultaneous, or if you'd prefer an analogy… Perhaps juggling? It's easier to get one ball into the air and then add another than to throw two balls simultaneously.]

Lily nodded, getting the gist of what Arakil was trying to say, as his analogy was weirdly helpful this time. She would never admit it, but sometimes she felt his analogies swung wildly in their usefulness.

[Simultaneous multicasting is often done by separating the casting method: you could cast one spell verbally while another is using somatic gestures for the most reliable method. An upgrade would be changing one of those to silent casting, and so on. With a bit of practice, you could probably conjure your Nebula Veil while unleashing a Starburst together, since you're close to perfectly silent-casting both.

Also, that said, I think you'll find it easier than most when it comes time to mentally draw multiple glyphs. You've been diligently practicing and know several glyphs like the back of your hand, which is key. You're effectively turning the thought of "I'm drawing this glyph like I always do" into reality.]

"But I digress," Lily chimed in with a mischievous giggle

Arakil sighed, then let out a chuckle of his own.

[Yes, we have veered off the original topic quite considerably. Going back to where we started, I do like the idea of using your cloak for more, and you did say you wanted it to be your signature spell. I don't foresee it drawing talismans for you, but if you wanted an extra set of hands, or perhaps some wings, I think that enchantments could help.]

"I didn't say anything about wings."

[You didn't, but I thought I'd put the idea out there.]

It was Arakil's turn to let out a mischievous chuckle, leaving Lily speechless. It was a bit out of character for Arakil to tease her like this, even though he had been softening up the more time they spent together, but he very rarely said something without also meaning it. So, while he had playfully poked Lily, he also thought it was a genuinely good idea, and even she had to admit that it was certainly more appealing than other forms of flight.

If I have to fly, I'd rather it be with my trusty cloak.

Obviously Duncan's book had no such enchantments, but Lily had no doubt Arakil's archives probably held something he had in mind. Of course, that was for future Lily to worry about, and right now she wanted to keep things simple, even though she did enjoy exploring hypotheticals with Arakil.

Returning to her cloak, she kept manipulating it to see what else it could do, and to her surprise, she eventually found something new. Previously, when Lily wanted to sneak around, she had learned how to hide the stars on the cloak and even darken it, a sort of "stealth mode." Not only could the cloak darken more, so much so that she thought it was becoming the shadow cloak, but it could also become vaguely intangible.

Lily was surprised by the change, though she couldn't figure out what it could even be used for. The only benefit she could see was that it let her spread the cloak out to cover a wider area, but at a severe cost to its defensive abilities. When she asked Arakil about this strange form, he answered quickly.

[I'm not sure why you are surprised; nebulae are basically a bunch of space gases. Then again… I don't think this world has done much investigation on space, so I can't fault you too much.]

Lily spent the rest of her free time trying to figure out a use for this "space gas" mode, but it felt like a dead end. Possibly the only use was combining it with stealth mode and trying to blanket an area, but a shadow glyph would be better for that.

Or… A shadow enchantment? But would the enchantment even hold if the cloak isn't solid?

Lily had no idea, and unfortunately no time left to think about it, as she rushed off to her first class. It was another boring lesson on Arcane Theory and Principles with Sir Barnard Bladwell, and she found herself thinking about her cloak and enchantments throughout the whole lesson. Even her stomach's complaint that she had skipped breakfast went ignored as she kept thinking about all the new possibilities open to her.

Arakil had teased her by mentioning using her cloak as wings, and that single seed fueled by "if flying is possible, what else is?" had sprouted like crazy. Thankfully, she got through the lesson without repercussions, and she kept speculating all the way to lunch, when her friends finally broke her out of her stupor.

"Were you up all night?" Lotte asked expectantly.

"You really should take breaks from the stargazing," Hana suggested.

Lily blinked rapidly and shook her head. "Um, actually, I think I'm done with that for now. And no, I didn't stay up too late."

"Meaning you only slightly broke curfew?" Lotte teased.

"Wait, you're done?" Hana interrupted. "Did you succeed? Or are you giving up?"

"Oh, damn, I didn't even notice that," Lotte admitted. "Spill the beans, Lily. What happened?"

"I didn't give up. I did it," Lily replied defensively.

She was admittedly a little upset that her friend would think she'd ever give up, even if it had taken a lot longer than normal. Of course, that was only if you compared it to a normal bloodline intuition, which hers definitely wasn't.

"Congratulations! I knew you could do it!" Lotte immediately cheered.

Hana let out a sigh before smiling. "I was growing worried; I'm glad you finally settled it. Is that why you skipped breakfast, and why you've been so distracted this morning?"

Lily nodded.

"Knowing Lily, she's probably overthinking it," Lotte replied. "I bet you're thinking about how to change everything you've done."

Lily flinched. "Am I that much of an open book?"

"No, I think Lotte guessed," Hana answered.

Lotte didn't answer, just stuck out her tongue playfully and refused to elaborate.

"So what did your bloodline teach you? Is it a new spell?" Hana asked excitedly.

"Not exactly… More like it changed everything," Lily tried to explain.

"Wait… Are you serious? Cause that sounds like a resurgence," Hana replied.

"Resurgence?" Lotte asked before Lily could.

"It doesn't happen often, so I'm not surprised you don't know about it. But it's basically when your bloodline awakens for a second time."

"Like yourself?" Lotte asked.

Hana shook her head. "No, not to be confused with a second bloodline awakening; it's the same one, just again. As I said, it doesn't happen very often, so I'm not surprised you've never heard of it. Although judging by Lily's surprise, she hasn't either, which is surprising because I'm positive that Rose has had a resurgence, maybe even multiple."

"Rose is terrible at explaining things," Lily grumbled.

[Indeed… I can't believe she left out this information. I would have loved to have added it to my notes.]

"Well, it's not really a secret or anything," Hana explained. "Basically, think of it like your bloodline getting stronger, or maybe just different. In my family it's surprisingly common, which is why it's often mistaken for a double awakening. The only correlation seems to be if it's a powerful or old bloodline, like Rose."

"Oh no… Please don't tell me I'm going to have a resurgence," Lotte lamented. "What will I do if my poison gets even worse? I only just got a relatively normal life back."

Lily quickly hugged her friend, hoping to reassure her. "If that happens, we will just have to spend even more time in the dungeon. Or force Sylwel to brew you a potion to lower the toxicity."

Hana nodded. "Don't worry about that, Lotte. If it happens, you'll have our support."

Lotte thankfully calmed down pretty quickly; it seemed the girl had much more control over worrying about what-ifs than Lily did. Then the conversation was brought back to Lily and her changes.

"So. Do you think you had a resurgence?" Lotte asked on Hana's behalf.

"Um… Maybe. My Mana feels a bit different, like it's more Astral, and my Astral spells have all upgraded as a result."

"Well, that sounds like a bloodline resurgence to me," Hana replied. "When it happens on my mom's side of the family, the person's light spells usually go from a lantern to a beacon."

"That makes sense… But how do Lily's spells become more astral?" Lotte asked, turning to Lily.

"Good question. Things like light, fire, and even wind have clear ways to measure them. But for Lily… All I can think of is them becoming more starry."

"As expected of our star mage," Lotte joked.

"Please don't call it star magic again," Lily sighed. "As for how it changed, it'll be easier to show you."

Both Hana and Lotte sat forward, eager to see what Lily wanted to show them. Usually, her go-to way to safely demonstrate Astral magic was to cast Starlight, but that wouldn't have the same wow-factor as her biggest change. So, she summoned her Nebula Veil and watched with amusement as her two friends were stunned into silence, with eyes as wide as saucers.