"Right, so I’ve gone through the box… and it’s well…" Lily started to explain before pausing and thinking of the best wording. She’d spent the afternoon going over the basics of everything in the box, and while she hadn’t technically read the entire thing… it wasn’t too far off.

"Wasn’t worth it?" offered Kat as an answer.

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"No… that would be a bit rude… there not worthless… but they aren’t the best either. Of course, I’m not trying to imply that Bodeir skimped out on us… because if I had to guess this is a collection of everything they have on shadow magic… it just… isn’t all that much," said Lily.

"Why do you say that?" asked Kat, feeling like she knew the answer… but any excuse to get Lily to gush about something was one to be taken.

"I think I was really spoiled by Thyme and that book he gave me on paper magic. When Thyme said it was the life’s work of a paper mage, I don’t think I gave that the recognition it deserves. Whoever wrote that paper magic book? They really did dedicate a lifetime to it. I wouldn’t be surprised if it took a full hundred years to compile the thing. It’s a ridiculous amount of time an effort…

"From somebody that likely spent the rest of their possibly long life researching and investigating everything they possibly could about paper magic and then set out to preserve the practice. I don’t think I have even half, no, a sixth, of the passion for all magic that this one man or woman had for paper magic," explained Lily

"Wait… don’t you know?" asked Kat, feeling the need to interrupt a bit… but only so Lily could catch her breath.

"No, and that does annoy me a bit even if I can respect it. The damned book is written "by a Paper Mage" which, of course it was, because the whole thing was made with magic, and could only be written by someone intimately familiar with paper magic… but I wish they’d left a name so that I could thank them properly, even if fame clearly wasn’t on their mind when they wrote the wonderous book. Any paper mage in Thyme’s world is being given the holy grail of paper magic.

"In fact, when I finish studying that book? I think I’ll know more about paper magic then Nixilei knows about healing magic, and she’s a super spy that’s been training since she was a child. It’s just that well organised. I suspect that most magic users keep their signature spells close to their chest? Not whoever the Paper Mage is. They catalogued everything, and there is even a quite a few other sections that I know exist, but I can’t access yet because I’m not good enough at paper magic!

"It might look like a small book Kat… but it’s the equivalent to a full library. Perhaps a only a small one, but a whole library of books nonetheless. Sure not all of it is relevant to me, but so much of it IS, and it’s wonderfully organised and… and honestly I think that the creator of those books? Their death was a great loss. Even if I’m much more likely to make it past Rank 5, and perhaps even reach the top, Rank 9 with you? I think I’ll still be a worse paper mage then whoever wrote that book,"

Kat pursed her lips, trying not to frown. "I think you’re underestimating yourself Lily. I bet that in the future, you’ll be a wise master of magic and you can come up with your own ultimate paper mage book, then a shadow magic one… then finally, a space magic one. I really do think you’ll be great someday,"

Lily smiled and said, "I appreciate the confidence boost but I’m not sure… I don’t know that I can dedicate myself to paper the way this person did… maybe it’s something I’ll only understand when I’m older… but it feels so far beyond me, that even a century of time dedicated to paper magic won’t be enough,"

"Lily," Kat intoned with a deadpan look, "our lifespan is already measured in thousands of years. A hundred years is nothing,"

Lily nodded slowly. "I… I guess it is? That’s… that’s an odd thing to think about. I’m not sure it’s really sunk in… but I really do have centuries to spend on this if that’s something I want… I’m not all that sure it IS something I’d want to do… but I could do it if I wanted to," mumbled Lily.

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"It sure is," said Kat with a smile, "But tell me a bit about the spells you got from Bodeir,"

"Ah… right, I didn’t mean to get distracted," mumbled Lily. *It’s not like I intentionally poked you to encourage you going off on a rant. Not at all.* "I can hear you Kat. You’re not shielding your thoughts,"

"I know," said Kat with a grin on her face. Pausing for a moment, Kat decided to just keep going, and bounced over to Lily before pulling her into a big kiss.

Lily flopped down onto the bed, panting a bit from the kiss. "T-that’s a pretty good way of distracting me,"

Kat shrugged, "I was just showing you my appreciation for your rant. I really like seeing you passionate about things, and I don’t want you to think I’m just messing with you. Hopefully that kiss shows you that I’m serious when I say I enjoy hearing you talk,"

"I… I suppose it does. I’d make a joke about needing a few more examples as a test before confirming the hypothesis… but I don’t think I’d be capable of higher thought for a while if you were to actually call my bluff, and I do want to talk about these spells," said Lily.

"Well that’s your call. Remember, as much as I enjoy the look on your face after I kiss the daylights out of you, that’s purely because it makes me happy to see YOU happy, not because the kiss itself is doing much for me. Honestly, praise succubus instincts for my continued success, because I don’t know what I’m doing," said Kat.

Lily rolled her eyes, "I will claim your lips for my enjoyment later so stop distracting me, I’m going to talk about these spells. The first thing you have to know, is that a couple of them are the same spell with a different name, and slightly different image associated with them. Just as an example, I have ’shadow dagger’ ’shadow arrow’ and ’shadow bolt’ which are all essentially the same spell at Rank 1, and aren’t any better at Rank 2. Perhaps if I had a Rank 3 version they’d finally separate…

"But the basic gist of them all is hold your hand out, gather power into the shadow below your arm, and then fire that shadow off at people. It packs a decent punch, and it has a neat ability to travel through shadows without really being visible… but overall it’s not that strong.

"What I think of as the best spell of the lot is called ’Blend with Shadows’ and at first it seems like a spell that pulls the shadows up and around you to keep you hidden in dark areas… but I think with a bit of effort I can figure out how to make a spell that takes you into the shadows, or coats you in shadows if I can’t quite get into them without space affinity.

"Then there is ’shadow shield’ which isn’t actually a shield at all. It just pulls up a wave of shadows and then uses them to slow down projectiles. Not great, but easy and cheap to cast by the looks of it and if I combine it with my paper shield spell it can probably do some good work, but that will require some testing after I can actually cast all of these spells.

"Then there is another version of ’shadow bolt’ that’s supposed to do more damage, and isn’t like the first ’shadow bolt’ at all. It’s all about creating a dense shadow that you can then throw at someone. And I do mean throw. It doesn’t launch itself. It sticks to your hand until you throw it, then it clings to the enemy. Not sure how useful that one is… maybe if you can get it in people’s eyes? Not sure if that would damage the eyes… or just cling there… might call that one ’shadow gunk’ instead.

"Then there are the scraps. Sure none of these are the originals… but the scraps, even if they are written on nice clean paper… are missing large chunks of themselves. I don’t know if how many of them I can force a spell out of, or even how many of them ARE spells. Which is annoying, but it’s fine really. It will give me something to work on," explained Lily.

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