The next morning, Cera decided to try to access her natural abilities again, focusing on her spirit once more and seeking to locate anything that felt new. Eventually, she thought that she should check her energetic body at the same time. Due to this, she noticed a new linkage between them that was unnoticeable unless looking at both at once.
Focusing her mind on the linkage, she found that it was possible to manipulate, though quite difficult. Opening her eyes again, she pulled on it and willed it to manifest, ready to act if it happened to be fire. Fortunately, as she had hoped, her first find was illusion, judging by the chaotic blur that appeared before her.
She was still unable to manage to do anything useful with it until well after breakfast, however. Eventually, she managed to make a simple blue square, though it seemed nearly two-dimensional, being unable to be seen from anywhere except the front and back. While she’d used illusions many times in her past life, it was through an entirely different method, meaning she couldn’t just rely on her past skill.
On the other hand, she at least understood the general process behind making a proper illusion, letting her speed up her experimentation. In the end, it appeared far harder to hide something than to make something appear.
After several more days, nearing the deadline for appearing before the others or having to manage to hunt with her weak magic, she finally succeeded. As long as she remained mostly stationary, she could hold an illusion in place as long as there was something directly behind what she was hiding, such as the chair she was using to sit in the living room.
She did find that she lacked the skill to hide her ears, however. Fortunately, the clothing in her room included some loose hats, and with Falron’s help, she was able to find one that wouldn’t shift when her ears tried to twitch below it.
With little time left, she practiced maintaining focus on her illusion while also talking at the same time, finding it far more difficult than expected. But at the same time, she should have expected it to be difficult without the modifications to herself that she used to offload many processes to before.
Eventually, it was time for the resupply from the village. As the villagers knocked on the door, Cera put her hat on before taking a seat and pulling the illusion over her tail, hiding it from view. After Falron verified that she was properly prepared, he went to the door and invited in the people who had come from the village this week.
As they entered, Cera looked up from the book that was her excuse for not standing, and waved to the group before introducing herself to them, “Greetings, everyone. I’m visiting from a very faraway place, and Falron has been helping me learn magic. I’ll be staying around for a while, though I’m not sure how long exactly.”
After they shared their own greetings, she turned back to her book, ears attempting to twitch below the hat as she listened to them unloading the food in the kitchen. Shortly afterward, they moved to the living room as well and began speaking with Falron, who was able to keep most of the attention from her.
Occasionally, Cera had to answer a question or two, stating that she wanted to surpass Falron in magical skill, and demonstrating the shield spell she had improved. This led to questions for Falron, who admitted she had a better shield than his was originally, and his own demonstration of a much larger shield of the same type, leading to expressions of relief from seeing that he could use a much larger version of the improved shield as well.
Seeing their expressions, Falron couldn’t help but chuckle before remarking, “She is creative, but she has a long way to go, and can’t cast much. You don’t need to fear her—even if she were more powerful, she is a friend.”
Hearing him refer to her as a friend, Cera smiled and nodded her head, though the villagers were focused on Falron and unable to see her actions.
A while later, however, one of them asked why she was wearing a hat inside, so she responded, “Well, I was feeling lazy today, and I didn’t bother brushing my hair, so it is pretty messy, and I didn’t want to look bad, so I bundled it up under the hat.”
Technically, it was the truth, just not exactly according to how it would be viewed. She always felt lazy, even if she didn’t always act like it, and she didn’t brush her hair purely to have an honest excuse to use. She’d been heavily against lying in her prior life, and didn’t intend to make a habit of it in her new life either.
In time, everyone seemed satisfied with their visit, and the group left, with Falron escorting them to the door. As the door closed, Cera finally dropped her illusion and pulled off the hat with a sigh of relief. The strain of keeping the illusion up as her tail twitched had been quite difficult, and the hat pressing her ears down was quite uncomfortable as well.
She stood and put the book back on the nearby bookshelf before returning to her room to flop onto the bed, tail hanging limp across her legs. Frowning at how it made her mood so obvious, she rolled over and pulled it into her arms to hug, starting to feel better almost immediately as she felt the fluffiness.
For the rest of the day, she gave into laziness and simply stayed in her room on her bed petting and hugging her tail until it was time to eat dinner. She didn’t have any immediately important deadlines anymore, after all, so she could afford a little time to relax.
Eventually, she fell asleep, though she didn’t sleep long, waking up in the middle of the night instead of the morning. Since restoring her soul seemed to increase her mana capacity, as well as might help ease her natural abilities, she focused on that for the next several days. In between sessions of working on her spirit, she also spent time with Falron to learn more magic.
She found herself incredibly happy to finally learn how to make ice. She’d specialized in crystalline energy structures in her prior life, and ice was a form of crystal, allowing her to finally touch her old ways once more. Almost immediately, she shocked Falron once again as her ice was immediately completely clear and without impurities.
As if that wasn’t enough, she also kept the ice from melting with ease, not to mention sharp enough to double as a knife. Seeing his expression, she couldn’t help but smirk before explaining why she was good at this spell as well, and explaining the science behind ice and its microscopic structure and properties to him.
Unfortunately, she still had very little mana compared to what she should, and was unable to maintain the spell for more than a dozen minutes before she ran out and the ice began to melt. Before it could drip too much, she went to the kitchen, made sure the edge was melted, and then placed it in the ice chest. No point in wasting the ice, after all.
The rest of that day was spent working on her spirit once more before finally going to bed for the evening.
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