“You look down,” Pauline noted as I flopped down on my chair. “Look, I know how discouraging it can be to keep banging ahead against your wall without any apparent progress, but you’ll figure it out eventually! I’m sure it’s just a matter of time before you can carve your core.”

“No, I figured that out already,” I admitted, pulling out the messy piece of paper I’d written upon waking up. “It’s something else that has me in the dumps…”

“In the dumps?” Pauline questioned.

“Yes, it means sad - do you not have that phrase here?”

“We do. It’s just a bit odd to hear you speaking so… well, normally, I suppose. Lady Amelia was always a bit grandiose - she probably would have said something like, ‘my thoughts are in turmoil’ or something, instead.”

“Is that so?” I asked, arching an eyebrow. “...Well, I suppose that’s how I would have written her, myself… but while I may have retained some of her habits, and even her way of speaking, the content of that speech remains very much my own.”

“Yeah,” Pauline confirmed, tucking a bit of hair behind her ear - something I’d detailed as a nervous habit in the books. Though how much I could rely on what I’d written to translate into reality, I had no idea. “Sometimes, you act a lot like her, you know? But then you’ll say or do something that’s so incredibly unlike her, that I can’t help but think you must truly be a different person…”

“Didn’t we cover this?” I asked. “Professor Devulchas even made me show you my core.”

“Yeah, I know…” Pauline confirmed. “I’ve never heard of anyone blanking out their cores - except maybe in fairy tales, and childhood fables… but Professor Devulchas confirmed that it shouldn’t be possible in real life. It’s just… I don’t know. Sometimes, Prince Jethroo always sounds so certain when he says it’s a trick… He said that if anyone could pull something like this off, it would be you… and as much as it pains me to admit, there’s a part of me that fears he’s right, even now…” Pauline sighed, then frowned. “Wait. What did you mean when you talked about writing her?”

“Ah…” I blushed. “Has that story not spread? I suppose I should thank Bridgette for keeping her lips shut, then, but it’s no great secret - back where I’m from, I was a writer. In fact, I wrote a story that pretty closely mirrors this land, and its people… Most especially Amelia, I suppose. That’s the conduit the demon used to pull me here, and put me in this body.”

“Then you wrote a story about Amelia?” Pauline said. “And she used that to… to turn you into her, or some such?”

“Something like that,” I confirmed. Bridgette had warned me away from telling everyone about the demon, saying that I should try to keep it secret from all but the king. I’d argued that it was bound to come up eventually, what with their tendency to appear at random, but apparently it was best for the king to disseminate that knowledge. Something about me being indelicate, and being likely to turn myself into even more of a social parriah… “Though the story wasn’t really about Amelia, per se…”

“No?” Pauline asked. “Then who?”

“That’s… It was about… I mean, that is to say, it featured a girl of commoner birth in a school much like this one, and her romantic relationship to… to the ah… Prince?”

“To… Prince Jethroo?” Pauline asked. “I’d have to wish her luck, then. The only one he seems to have eyes for of late is…” She paused, her physique paling. “You wrote about me?”

“Not you. Not really! I mean, I had no idea you even existed!”

“R-right. I mean, it’s not like you were magically stalking me from afar or anything… right?”

“Of course not! I swear! I mean no harm - in fact, if anything, I’d consider myself something of a fan, I suppose? Your romance with the prince was the entire point of the story, after all.”

“My… romance?” Her expression was perplexed, for some reason. Before I could dig into it further, though, I heard a clap from behind me.

“Is that it?” Professor Delvuchas asked me. “Did you finally get it?”

“Y-yes,” I confirmed, turning to face her. “It came to me in a dream. I know it’s a bit messy, but-”

“Messy?” The Professor scoffed. “Of course it’s messy. It’s a representation of you. Unfortunate, yes, in terms of space it’ll take - but short of reforging your very identity, which I hardly think we have time for, there’s little to be done about it. The real question is whether it will work. Are you ready to start the carving process?”

“Already?” Pauline protested, speaking up before I could. “She doesn’t even know how to carve!”

“We’ll have to walk her through it,” Professor Devulchas replied. “It shouldn’t be a problem - even babies can carve, after all… albeit poorly. Still, there’s no time to learn like the present! Though we’ll only have one shot at this, so I suppose it’s best you listen up…”

“Shouldn’t I practice it first?” I asked, frowning. “I mean, you just said we only have one chance at this…”

“Yes, well, this is unfortunately not the sort of thing that can easily be practiced,” the professor admitted. “The only way to do so safely would be by manipulating magical energy - energy you won’t have access to until after you’ve made your first carving. Which is, of course, something of a problem when the first thing you’re carving is the most important of all, but… Well, I have faith in you. Mostly because it would be incredibly difficult for you to fuck it up.”

“That’s… reassuring… I guess?”

“Good.” The dark haired professor smiled. “Now, there are two ways to do a carving - Pauline? If you would explain?”

“Of course, Professor Devulchas,” Pauline replied, sitting up a bit straighter. “The first method is ‘wishing’ - that’s how most babies carve. Though I guess it’s not really carving, as you’d understand it? It’s when the power comes bursting out all at once, in response to something you greatly desire. The pattern is more or less created for you, in those cases - hence why even babies can do it - but in return, you have little to no control over how it’s shaped, or where it’s placed. That’s what makes them so difficult to work around…”

“Correct,” Professor Devulchas confirmed. “And the superior method?”

“The second method is to plan it out and carve it yourself - that requires figuring out what the glyph you’re carving is going to look like from the start, and then carving it out manually. To do so, you generally take hold of your magic power, and use it to… Well, different people describe it in different ways, but personally it feels like I’m kinda burning it into my core? Except it doesn’t hurt.”

“Because of your light affinity, no doubt,” the professor confirmed. “I’m afraid you’ll have to figure out how your power works for yourself, Amy - but first, you need to extricate a bit of it.”

“Extricate a bit of it?” I asked, frowning. “And how do I do that?”

“Very carefully.” I would have laughed, if not for the serious expression on Professor Devulchas’ face. “You must first search for it within your core - next to your heart - and then take hold of it. Then you must shift it, shaping it into a needle of sorts, which you can use to pierce through the core. Then, once it’s out, you’ll have to go about making the rest of the carving…”

“Why can’t I just make a pinpoint exit and then leave it at that?” I asked. “Then I’d have some magic to play with, right?”

“True - but you’d also be left with a pinpoint spell. A small, probably useless carving that you wouldn’t be able to properly integrate with the rest of what you’re doing.”

“So it’s all or nothing?” I asked, to confirm. “All at once, or I ruin it forever?”

“Correct!” the professor confirmed, a smile on her lips. “Of course, I’m not concerned - you’ll get it! I’m sure.”

“And if I don’t?” I asked, worried.

“Then you’ll be a waste of time. Don’t worry, though - I’ll take responsibility and help you figure out something to do with your core, even in that case. It’ll still be a worthy challenge to optimize, if nothing else, I suppose…”

“…Right…” I took a deep breath, held it for a moment, and then let it out again. “Alright… So the first thing I need to do is focus on my core… You said it’s next to my heart?”

“It is,” the professor confirmed. She might have also nodded her head, but I also saw the start of that motion, for I’d already closed my eyes.

The core, next to my heart… Hadn’t I felt something like that before? When the thugs challenged me - when I’d been reaching desperately for my power… It almost felt as if I’d done something, that day. Perhaps I had? Perhaps I’d been about to make my first carving, powered by that desperate wish… In which case I should probably be grateful that I was interrupted.

Rather hard to be grateful for a knife through the throat though…

I shook that thought off - figuratively and literally, actually shaking my head to clear it. Then I focused deeper, on my core. On my magic. It was… surprisingly easy.

“I’ve got it,” I murmured after just a moment, concentrating on the core in my chest. There was a light burn coming from it - so faint I wouldn’t have even noticed it, had I not been focusing. I was used to some random amount of aches and pains coming from my body, after all - or I had been, in my old body. Becoming twenty had mostly solved that, making it a bit easier to find.

“Really?” The professor asked. “Most struggle to find it within them. I’ve had some students try to compare it to feeling the rush of blood in their veins…”

“That’s probably because they were born with it,” I surmised. To me, it was novel. New. It made it easy to detect, now that I was looking for it. Not just the core, but the energy too - I imagined it as a well of inky darkness, like a bottle full of ink. Full to bursting, as it happened - that was where the faint burning was coming from. It was because my core was completely full, and yet more was still coming in. Not much - the faintest of trickles, really - but enough that I could feel the energy pushing at my walls, seeking release.

If I let it all spill out, I’d be in trouble… but if I could control it, it would become the source of my strength. So, first, I had to reach into it. I had to take it, shape it - again, easy… at least in part. I could take it in my grip, but there was too much of it. It was all present, all there - I needed to separate a bit of it, somehow…

I needed… I needed a pen. Not a quill, but a proper modern pen, which would hold the ink within it. One that was impossibly thin - like a needle… but still a pen… a tattoo pen, then? It wasn’t what I was used to using, but it fit the concept rather nicely, so… a tattoo pen, then.

I imagined it - sort of. I didn’t actually know what a tattoo pen lookedlike so the image was somewhat vague, and blurry, but… that was fine, wasn’t it? My alignment was shadow, to begin with. So I was working with the shadow of a pen. A shade of what could be.

In my imagination, I took hold of that pen, within me, and I pressed its needle up against the top of my core. There was a moment’s hesitation on my end, as I wondered if this could truly work… and also how tattoo pens actually worked… was there a button to be pressed? Or did I press?

I was being silly, though, because it didn’t matter how they worked in reality, only how they worked for me in this moment. So I imagined a button - one that would put constant and predictable pressure into whatever surface it touched. Then I pressed the button, in my mind - and flinched. It stung.

“Is something wrong?” the professor asked. “Did it hurt? It shouldn’t hurt… Unless you imagined it hurting, anyway.”

“It’s… probably the nature of how I did it,” I admitted, frowning. Tattoos meant pain to me, after all… but even if I could change my mental image at this point, I wouldn’t. A little pain was a worthwhile price for what I stood to gain.

With that thought in mind, I again took hold of the tattoo pen in my mind - except now it was outside the core, drawing its ink up from that little hole I’d formed.

“I can do this,” I murmured, as an affirmation to myself.

“I’m sure you can - aren’t you?” Professor Devulchas asked. Perhaps she nudged Pauline or some such, too, for a moment later the girl chimed up with, “Me too!”

I ignored both of them, focusing instead on the tattoo pen. The tattoo pen and the image I had created last night. I’d thought I’d need to look at the picture I had drawn, but now that I’d actually begun the carving the image had solidified in my mind as clearly as it had in the dream. I knew exactly what lines to draw, and that’s exactly what I did.

I don’t know how long it took me in the end. My core felt vast, within my mind, for all that I knew it was small - perhaps a little larger than my fist. It had only so much room to it, and I was taking up much of it with this design… but it would be worth it.

I drew the carving I had made - four books, four stories, with interconnected plots and themes. I drew it line by line, carefully going over my flesh with the tattoo pen as it rhythmically punctured and stained my core with shadowy lines that seemed to blur the more I looked at them - until at last it was done.

“I… I did it,” I said, witnessing the scene within my mind’s eye - the pulsing black power within each painstakingly carved line. “I did it!”

“Good!” The teacher said. “Now, the test - can you open and close the quadrants?”

“I’ll… I’ll try…” I said, closing my eyes. Closing them - how did one close a book? By shutting its cover. Not that I’d really drawn covers, per se, but… somehow, I still knew it could work that way. With a mental nudge, I closed each of the book covers, closing my quadrants completely - and as I did so, I felt something change within me. The ink - that trickle of shadowy magic within me - had stopped flowing out of the orb. It was just like it had been at the start - at least mostly. There was less ink, now, I realized. Less pressure… I’d used up some of my power, and it would likely take time to get it back.

Still, I’d worry about that later, I decided. For now, I was going to open one of the quadrants. To open the cover, and reveal the story within, awaiting its central theme - its spell. To that end, I reached for the ink within myself, and pushed against the interior of the book. It was… harder than expected. Much harder. Still, the cover inched open as I pushed, the magic within me pressing against it… but even as it opened, I could feel ink beginning to slip away, out of the crack I was opening. Not much, but enough - enough to reduce the pressure within the core, and lessen the strength I had to work with. By the time I got the cover completely upright and off the book, I felt drained - it took everything I had to push just a little bit further, and lock the open book in place.

As for opening a second cover… “It’s impossible…” I whispered.

“What’s impossible?” Professor Devulchas demanded, startling me. I’d half forgotten that she was there… that I was in class.

“I… I can’t open up more than one of the covers - I mean, the quadrants.”

“What?” The professor narrowed her eyes, before stepping forward and placing her hand upon my shoulder. I didn’t comment, even as I felt the foreign energy pushing its way inside me, and checking over my core.

“I see… the way you designed it - to open from within, yes? It relies upon you having a certain amount of mana within your core, so that you may exert pressure from within it.”

“So… so I just need to wait for my mana to refill?” I asked, my worries somewhat diminished. It was a pain, since it meant I probably wouldn’t be able to switch quadrants on the fly, but-

“I’m afraid not,” Professor Devulchas said, giving me a look I could only describe as ‘pity.’ “The way you’ve carved this - if I’d realized what you’d intended, I would have warned you off of it… Relying on internal pressure to open your quadrants was an innovative way of wrapping your head around the idea, but it’s inherently flawed. By nature, your mana regeneration will only go so far - eventually, you’ll reach an equilibrium between your natural regeneration and the amount of mana that leaks out. Long before you manage to get enough pressure to open the quadrants. The only reason you were able to open this one again is that you were a bit overfilled with mana to begin with, what with not having a way for it to exit before…”

“So… I’m stuck?” I asked. “Limited to just one spell? Why - why didn’t you tell me that was a potential risk!?”

“Well, if you’d stuck to the efficient carving I provided, this wouldn’t have been an issue! You’d be opening it and closing it through a specialized valve, or some such - it’s the result of your own designs, and interpretations of them, that created this mess…”

“So… I’m stuck…” I repeated. “I’m completely stuck?”

“Not… completely…” Professor Devulchas said. “A powerful mana regeneration potion would tip the scales, in the system you’ve built - it would result in you gaining mana faster than you can remove it, which would in turn up the pressure enough for your little system to function.”

“Professor,” Pauline said, speaking up for the first time, “those potions are expensive… and Amy isn’t a noble, anymore.”

“Yes, well… there is that…” The professor grimaced.

“There are mana potions available to commoners,” Pauline pointed out. “Would those work?”

“That core-less trash?” The teacher scoffed. “No. It would never be enough… she’d be better off making her own potions…”

“Is that something I can do?” I asked, clutching onto straws. “Make my own?”

“Of course,” the teacher confirmed. “In fact, it’s quite simple. All you really need is some beast cores.”

“Also expensive, Professor,” Pauline said, clearly exasperated now.

“Not if she hunts them herself,” the teacher replied. “This school has electives for sword fighting, and magical combat - if you can’t buy what you need, you’ll simply have to become an adventurer and get it yourself! And if you happen to prove the strength of my theoretical designs to everyone in the process - why, I imagine that would only up your worth in this country, no?”

“But… I only have one spell to work with,” I pointed out.

“And it’s subspells!” she remarked. “But yes. I advise you to choose what to carve wisely… though if you’re really against the plan, I suppose I could take responsibility and hire you as a magical exper- I mean, assistant…”

“Thanks…” I replied, already deciding that no matter what else happened I would not be doing that. “But I think I’ll need to think on it…”

~~~

Author's Notes

If you're eager to see what comes next, I'd recommend checking out my Patreon, where you can read up to chapter 17 for as little as $1. You'll get to read a couple chapters ahead on most of my other works, too! 

I'm really excited about sharing chapter 15... not to mention 17... though 16 is pretty good too, I'm told? Really helps to flesh out Bridgette. 

Also, tomorrow's meant to be an editing day, but I might work on getting some Double Trouble done? Saturday's a day off and Sunday's a day with my GF and then Tuesday I have a game, so... basically I'm trying to set myself up for a potential Monday MOV chapter. We'll see how that goes, though.