Chapter 1726 Practice Makes Progress

--- Kat ---

"So now you know what I’ve been doing… what have you been up to practice wise? I know you were sort of trying to keep it a secret," asked Kat.

Lily let out a long sigh. "Well… I had a few ideas that I wanted to surprise you with but none of them really panned out. Or more accurately, I’m not sure I can make use of them properly here on earth so they’ve been shelved for the time being. Though I will bring up that cleaning again. It’s much better practice then I thought.

"It also ties back to something I learned recently. See, my shadow claws are a bit inconsistent in regards to how solid the whole thing is. Quite often it’s only the claws themselves that have any… collision? I guess? Like even if the shadow has other limits I don’t have to make the entire thing ’real’. There are reasons to, and I can get to them later… but yeah I don’t HAVE to.

"The cleaning is good because I can make parts of the hand claw things shadow again and clean in tough to reach places… but I can’t make them completely ’normal’ either because then the shadow ’breaks’ or maybe ’snaps back’ would be more accurate? Anyway, it’s been interesting testing that out. Not sure how well it carries over, but it’s nice.

"I also found out that my shadow claws are not the default everyone goes to. I mean… I get that it’s not universal, but I sort of thought that it was a nice basic shape people would gravitate towards... but nope. Apparently the first exercise is ’shadow boxing’ and you essentially just have your shadow follow up with secondary attacks that mimic your body."

"Why are you only just finding out about it now if it’s so basic?" asked Kat.

"It’s because it’s so basic actually. Most of the books don’t cover it at all, and the only reason I know about it now is because one of them has an ’advanced shadow boxing’ section that goes over some fancier techniques… that I had no context for. So I sort of had to piece together how that all worked. It was… a thing," explained Lily.

"So… shadow boxing?" offered Kat as a hook.

"It’s what it sounds like. You have your shadow not-quite mimic you so that you land two blows one after the other instead of just the normal one. I don’t really know how I’d practice it or why because I’m usually in my Memphis form and it’s just easier now to use the extra claws with my mind.

"I don’t know if I just happen to think that way or if it’s the cat instincts that make it so easy for me… but it does seem like it’s a LOT easier then it should be and I’m working on making it better all the time," explained Lily.

"You did mention that cleaning was actually good for that. I was sort of expecting it to be more of an excuse…" added Kat leadingly.

"I guess I was to? Wax on, wax off sort of thing. Mum was certainly joking when she said it but it’s turned out to be true. The most interesting challenge was actually cleaning behind the bookshelves and other standing furniture that’s pressed up against the wall. There’s space there, and usually enough for a cloth… but a cloth and a hand not so much. Working out how to squeeze my shadow limbs back there while making them real enough to interact with just the cloth on the fingertips was really tricky and not something I managed consistently," said Lily.

"Ooh, that’s even more interesting then I thought. So… do you normally use the ’fingertips’?" asked Kat.

"Yeah pretty much. Just… hang on…" Lily pulled out a shadow claw to show off and then started to focus on the fingers specifically. She coated them in a fake ’fire’ that was really just her moving the shadow around in a fancy pattern. Kinda hard to keep up but it gave a great example. "That part is what’s normally ’solid’ though sometimes the palm is as well, and of course sometimes I make the whole thing solid.

"I really wish I knew why. Nothing in the books mentions it specifically, just the occasion mention of ensuring different parts of the spell or shadow construct are always solid. Which… well it’s useful advice but more of a top level thing? Like ’don’t go swimming there because of the potentially deadly bacteria’ as opposed to ’swimming there will make you sick’. Hmm… no that’s a bit of a bad example but you get what I mean right?" asked Lily.

"I think so," said Kat with a small nod. "Not quite sure how I’d explain it either but it’s something that I can understand at least,"@@novelbin@@

Lily nodded for a few moments before speaking. "Yeah so there’s that… and I’ve hit a bit of a wall with my paper studies. I feel like I’m missing some key detail, especially because I can tell there’s more of the book both with my paper sense and magic sense… but it won’t open up to me. Despite that, I’ve gone over everything currently available, I can cast all of the spells on the list even if not all of them seem useful and I’m just not sure where to go with it,"

"Well… what are they? Not sure if I can help but maybe one of them will have some not-so obvious use?" inquired Kat.

"Um… well there’s a spell that’s basically an eraser, a few spells for different attacks that just seem like weaker version of the paper-cut-storm I like to use," Lily paused at Kat’s deadpan expression. "Fine. Um… one makes a fake crane to attack, one makes a sword that flies at someone another makes nicely folded ninja stars that attack on their own. Errr… there’s a few more like that but they’re essentially the same just cosmetically different,"

"I see what you’re saying… but perhaps you’re wrong? I mean… I get that it’s just magically charged paper that looks different but perhaps the fact they look different helps in some way? It IS magic after all so I can see a magic paper sword doing more damage then random bits of paper even if it’s all just magic," retorted Kat.

Lily opened her mouth to counter Kat’s point before closing it and thinking for a few seconds. "Ok… you might actually be right. A lot of them are the more advanced paper spells but I tested them here and it was hard to tell… but that might be because I tested them here and there’s nothing tough enough for the difference to matter? I just thought they were less many efficient because they’re fancy… but yeah… I might be looking at this all wrong. Woops,"

Kat shrugged, "Seems like an easy thing to miss,"

"On the one hand, I do agree with you… but on the other hand I’ve always love magic. I have ’researched’ magic from a young age and read a whole bunch of fantasy novels. ’Don’t science the magic’ is a pretty common trope. Or just various instances of emotion helping things along for one reason or another.

"The fact that I didn’t stop to think ’maybe the fact that this looks like a sword makes it cut better’ is actually annoying to me. I’m not super beat up over it… but it’s like… like… I can’t think of a good comparison. It’s just super obvious to me now that I’m thinking of it," explained Lily.

Kat gave Lily a few pats on her head as she replied, "Eh… true but you’re not writing a book you’re trying to work out what real magic is like. I’m sure you got a bit caught up in the ’I’m sure I can puzzle this out’ mindset. I mean, if the different forms change things that might be why spells are constantly reworked. Different things might work better at different times," Find more to read at NovelBin.Côm

"That… might be a bit too far but I can definitely see different spells working better in different worlds? Isn’t qi about that sometimes? Like… sword qi and stuff? It’s not really my genre," said Lily.

Kat shrugged. "Not sure but we can always test it out in the future,"

"I guess we can. Though that does mean I’ll have to properly work at mastering or at least understanding all of these other spells. Still not sure it’s worth having so many of them. I mean, the utility stuff is nice but there’s just… less of them then the attacks. What I really want is a spell that lets me read a whole book at once," said Lily.

"Would that actually be good? Just reading a book instantly? I feel like that would tarnish the experience," retorted Kat.

"Eh… maybe? It certainly could at lower levels but personally I think it would still be nice, especially if I don’t want to read the book more than once OR if I want to really study it. I don’t have to make multiple passes just to figure out what’s going on," explained Lily.

"Perhaps… but it might be a rather literal headache," added Kat with a cheeky grin that caused Lily to groan. It was not a pleasant idea.

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