I will strive beyond this cursed bloodline!

 

The soulscape.

For some, it was a sacred place where they went to rediscover the self since it was a reflection of the soul... It was a good place to look at oneself and see what they were.

For others, it was a place to make contact with higher beings, be those Elder Gods and Eldtrich abomination from the void. Demons from the depths of hell... Or Lesser/High gods and angels.

For Elizabeth Starbright?

It was a weird place, a great library/laboratory.

A maze of untold depth. And more importantly.

A vestige of her past life.

A life she no longer remembered but still echoed across her soul.

"What in the seven hells did I do before to end with this?" was the same thing she always asked when she was here.

Walking among the many aisles of the library half of her soulscape she could see how marvelous that past life was.

Or she could imagine since one must have some past with books or knowledge to have this kind of soulscape.

Either way, she could only wonder since no memories were stirred in her. No epifany came her way. And most important, no actual information was in the books in her soulscape.

Most of these held information she knew, as in her memories, and then the books would repeat themselves. Each and every bookshelf held the same books.

So she stopped inspecting them and kept walking searching for the end of the library and the place where she saw a certain little girl.

She had questions to ask after all.

So after a few minutes of walking, she made her way to the heart of the library, the place where the most advanced technology of this place was held (Besides the laboratory of a certain blonde asshole that is).

And there...It happened.

"Eli-Eli!" She was thrown into the floor by a flying tackle from a little girl.

Of course, the tackle and the fall didn't actually hurt her.

But still "You will injure yourself or someone if this is your normal greeting." She admonished the little girl.

For her part, said little girl at least acknowledged her mistake and looked downcast.

Elizabeth almost felt bad for scolding her, at least until the little girl spoke.

"Right. I forgot that Eli-Eli was more squishy than momma," and to that the blonde girl could only wonder. What kind of monster was her 'momma' if she could endure a full-strength tackle of this monster of a little girl...

"Brother always says that I need to mind my strength more than ever unless I want Eli-Eli to go splat on me." Oh right, there is the brother too.

"I came here to build a few spells, should I just start drawing on a paper over there or...?" Said the blonde girl trying to steer the conversation away from such dangerous topics.

Somehow she could tell that finding more information about these monsters' families was a bad idea.

"Are you alright Eli-Eli?" Asked the worried little girl "Why would you want to use paper when brother prepared a [Program] in the PCs?" and the little girl pointed to one of the booths with PCs.

A Program?

"Oh right, I could use the program your brother prepared..." Said the blonde girl while walking to one of the PCs.

What the hell?

Was this how it was?

Her teacher said that one should focus her mind and soul to build the spell node in her soulscape and leave it ready for casting.

Her mother always complained about making a new spell in her soulscape since it was tedious and draining. That was part of the reason why she made so many and just used them as needed instead of building a few for multiple uses.

But then again, her mother was a monster in her own way...

"Just use the program huh..." mumbled the blonde while the PC was loading, at least this one looked normal enough. It even had the same loading screen as her personal computer at home.

So as needed she used her normal username and the usual password.

And surprisingly enough her usual desktop was showcased to her.

Her favorite programs were lined up like always, and her [Shadow Pact] wallpaper was there...

The only new thing here was a program that wasn't there before, with the icon of a magick circle and a wand on it and the name [SpellForge].

So without further ado, she clicked on it...Then clicked again since you need a double click to open something from the desktop.

And like that, she waited...

And nothing happened...

Besides the program opening that is.

She kinda expected some nefarious plan to spring on her, like... A sudden attempt at possessing her body by using the soul or something.

But nothing happened even after she just kept staring at the window.

"You okay Eli-Eli?" asked the little girl that was hovering near her.

"Yeah, your brother's program is quite neat..." answered the blonde girl.

For her part, the little girl just giggled "It's not my brother's program, it's his [Program]." Said the little girl before running away after a butterfly that somehow got into the library.

She didn't quite get what she meant by that, probably some kind of internal joke. Since she couldn't notice any difference in how a program was a [Program].

So she thought nothing of it and started navigating the tutorial.

It was quite clear about how to edit a Spell and how to build one from zero if you felt inclined to it. It also pointed to the spell repository where most of the spells would be before being edited, debugged, and executed.

Said spell repository already had a few in there, the [Bolt] spell she had studied was there, along with the multiple elemental variations. Also, a few advanced versions such as [Spear] and [Lance] spells.

She didn't study those...So were those a freebie from the blonde asshole?

She would prefer a [Shield] or a [Fly] Spell, but those were more advanced uses so maybe it was too much to ask.

"But why the advanced version of [Bolt] without any explanation?" The blonde girl asked to herself.

She didn't understand the train of thought of the blonde asshole.

"Oh that, brother didn't send you any free stuff, he is quite constrained right now after the [Railgun] Shenanigan." Answered the little girl who suddenly was seated near her.

"But I didn't study the Spear nor Lance Spell," said Elizabeth pointing to said spells.

"Eli-Eli, [Spear] is just an elongated [Bolt] and [Lance] is just a longer duration [Spear] that doesn't fly away. If you tweak it a little you could even turn a [Spear] into a [Magic Sword] and if you add again the flying code you could even turn it into [Dancing Swords]." Answered the little girl in a matter-of-fact tone.

And that was...Kinda right?

It shouldn't be that easy though. If it was that easy to do, wouldn't there be more high-tier magic users around?

"Is it always this easy to make spells?" If you don't know ask the question as always.

"Nope, you have it easy since brother is tweaking [The system] so it can access your memories and build the [Spells] for you. So long you study a spell it will show in the [Spell repository] so after that just tweak it as needed." Said the little girl.

But then again she was a monster in her own way and if what her teacher said was true most magical girls had a few spells that could be used for several situations.

She was planning on going that route too since she didn't want to waste too much time working in here when she could be sleeping outside.

But if all she had to do was read a book...

That changed things.

"Well, don't mind if I make use of this..." Said the blonde girl while starting to prepare her spells.

She had great plans and she would use the best of two worlds.

She had studied a few elemental manipulation spells after all, not many since she wasn't sure how much her [Origin] would affect her spell-casting needs. Only a basic four elements so far.

And sure enough, she would need to burn a few magick circle slots if she wanted to use these, but it was all for the greater good of obfuscating her true [Origin].

She wasn't sure why she wanted or needed to, but the gnawing feeling was there so she would do it.

Soon enough it was all working. She probably couldn't get away with this if she wanted to do it for higher tier spells, but while on school grounds?

It would suffice.

Magick Spell Slots 0/20 -> 10/20:
[Fire Manipulation], [Water Manipulation], [Wind Manipulation], Earth Manipulation], [Light Manipulation], [Bolt], [Merge], [Amp], [Spear],[Lance].

Those manipulation spells, amp & merge wasted one Magick circle slot each too, so her Magick Circle Slots went 0/20 -> 7/20

She in the end added one extra Magick Circle to round it up and to disguise her use of skills and to pretend that it was a magick circle the one helping her use shadow spells.

So it ended as 8/20 when she added [Magick Circle Manipulation], its original intent was to create magick circles on the fly.

Her use for it?

She would project the magick circle for the [Shadow Element] and pretend it was that the one helping her manipulate [Shadow Mana] and not her [Skill] for it.

And after finishing burning through half her spell slots and almost half her magick circle slots she started searching for the [Shift] Spell.

And she found...Nothing.

"What? I spend so much time studying that one spell and it didn't get into the repository? Is it bugged?" said the blonde girl while searching again for said spell and finding nothing.

There wasn't even a help button to complain.

Was she going to need to go to the other half of her soulscape to complain?

She wouldn't be able to build Spell Nodes on that half though...

"Oh the [Transformation] thingy?" Said the little girl who was eating ice cream for some reason...

Where did she get ice cream?

"Brother said that it wouldn't work well with the [Program] since the [System] integrated it first, so he said you would need to use that." And so the little girl pointed to another booth.

It was a somewhat special booth too.

"Why is there a Photo Booth in a library?" Said Elizabeth who couldn't believe what she was seeing.

Before standing up she clicked Save and Execute to initialize her new spells though.

It wouldn't do for a power outage to ruin all her previous work, would it?

WOULD IT?

----------------------

"That isn't a Photo Booth Eli - Eli, it's a [Photo Booth] it isn't the same!" Said the little girl giggling away.

She still didn't get the joke, but for now, she only walked into it wondering if the heinous trap would spring in that encased space.

Nope, nothing either.

She could see her reflection projected in her magical girl outfit as a full-body mirror instead of the usually small screen.

"How am I supposed to use this then?" said the blonde girl striking a few poses since why not?

"You use the touch screen!" Answered the little girl touching the screen and soon enough plenty of options got displayed.

With sliders, tons of sliders for everything.

Want a longer pair of stockings? Slider to the right.

Want a longer skirt? Slider to the right, not that she touched that one, her skirt was the right length thank you very much.

There was even a slider to the far left alone.

"What is this supposed to do?" Wondered to herself the blonde girl while moving it to the left.

And soon enough the answer came. In the form of a squealing little girl.

"A Small Eli-Eli!!!!" the little girl was screaming while the world became bigger for Elizabeth.

Of course, it was not the world becoming bigger, but Elizabeth becoming smaller.

Soon enough she went from her usual height to almost below 100 cm in seconds. At least her clothes changed size with her.

She quickly swiped right-said slider to default again returning to her normal height.

"So that's how mother controls her age and height huh..." mumbled the blonde girl while shuddering.

"Wait, isn't that like a higher tier and really complicated spell form?" asked the blonde girl astonished.

It was supposed to be really hard to do since it was one of the pieces of evidence of masteries over magicks.

"It is? Brother said it was easy enough and just left it there as a joke, he was sure you would move it and turn into an old lady or something." Answered the little girl.

That blonde asshole... Luckily she went to Loli instead of Baba, if not she would kick that man where the sun doesn't shine.

"Why is there another slider near the skirt?" Wondered the blonde girl who didn't learn from her mistake and moved to another unnamed slider.

Soon enough she found the answer as her legs started growing both in size and "Why a thickness slider?" she couldn't help but ask.

The little girl found it hilarious so they played with her leg's thickness a little before said little girl got bored and left to do other things.

So Elizabeth took this chance, looked outside to make sure no one was near (Not that this place could have more people... There shouldn't be people, to begin with), And went ahead and searched for other sliders...

Other sliders near her chest and torso area...

ANYWAY!

MOVING ON!

-------------------------------------

She soon found out what all of her sliders did. Some were more fun than others, and a few depressing ones if she tweaked her body sliders just right. It was a fun way to find out how she could have grown if she didn't have the genes of her mother and father.

Hard to grow as anything but the beautiful girl she was with her mother as the provider of her genes though.

And she didn't look that good with green eyes so she thanked her father for the blue eyes. Maybe it was something in the character that made mother look good with green eyes?

Either way, she didn't tweak her body sliders. She tweaked a little her face to look somewhat more innocent and made her hair shoulder-length instead of waist-length.

But that was all.

Since this [Shift] would be mostly for school since she had to showcase her mastery of the spell not many things about her appearance would be changed. Besides blue nails she hated doing her nails, but if the magick could take care of the work? Why not.

So after getting that done, she moved on to her clothes.

She was still wearing the same [Shadow Theme] outfit. But since she wanted to hide as much information as possible...

"Out with that!" Exclaimed the blonde girl before pressing the button on the touch screen to take away all the clothes present.

"Should I be happy or annoyed?" Wondered the blonde girl while examining her reflection.

On one side, she was now only wearing underwear and not naked, but that meant the blonde asshole had programmed underwear for her?

It wasn't the one she was wearing in the real world, that was for sure.

"At least they are cute..." Was all she could say before moving on to personalizing her outfit.

For starters, she got herself a pair of comfy sneakers with sky-blue shoelaces, also a couple of white stockings with a design of cat ears at the top.

She added a cute cat nose with a star motif on it for extra cuteness.

After that, the next stop was the skirt, a blue sky skirt to keep the theme of blue that she started with the shoes with pockets (That was important).

Next came her shirt, she went for a sleeveless simple sailor shirt, not many decorations on it besides a star instead of a ribbon.

On her arms she placed a couple of white arm sleeves, she didn't get gloves this time, since they would counter the point of her blue nails.

Also no jewelry, no point of it either. Especially if she liked it and wanted to use them later on.

On her face...Nothing much to change, she tweaked her eyes to make them look like they had a constellation on them though.

Not like her usual star motif, but they would look as if you were looking at the night sky. Only if you paid attention though.

So from afar, you wouldn't notice, only if you stared at them from a close distance you would see it.

This was her attempt at deceiving without actually telling a lie.

It would look like her mastery of the shift spell was poor and it couldn't hide her [Origin].

It was a nice spell and a good way to change clothes, she couldn't help but pose and walk around the booth thinking about the possibilities for trying shoulder-length hair without compromising.

Then it hit her.

"MOTHER F...Mother uses the shift spell..." Her mother uses the shift spell to change her hairstyle when she is too lazy to go into a saloon.

Of course, her mother would trivialize such a spell in that way...

It was a scary thought...The brilliance of doing so was astounding, and the complexity of it since she had to build her own body into the matrix, to keep her from changing.

To go against the most basic workings of this spell that should change your body and perception...

It was a work of art.

And also a misuse of the spell, but that was mother for you.

Now...Into the safeguards that she would build into the spell...

Time to activate the security.