I will strive beyond this cursed bloodline!

How does one create the [Shift] Spell?

If you asked a senior of the academy they would answer that it was a tedious process of meditation and building node after node. Sometimes they would tell you how they spent the weekend meditating and building the perfect set of nodes, only for it to collapse on its own weight.

If you asked a teacher they would say that simplicity was best and to not worry about security nodes on the school premises.

If you asked the Legendary Stardust Explorer? She would tell you that she just went with feelings.

If you asked Elizabeth Starbright? She would tell you plenty of things, none of them would be the truth, since the truth was weirder than fiction.

Who would believe that she build her [Shift] in a Photo booth, no sorry, in a [Photo Booth] that asked her to install a dubious app on her cellphone.

That somehow was inside her soulscape, to then go into a PC booth and plug it in to allow the compatibility from the cellphone into the [Spellforge] app.

So she could finally build her [Security SpellNodes].

For one, the same Elizabeth Starbright wouldn't believe it, but she had no option but to believe.

Since she was doing just that.

"At least I didn't need to install some weird update..." Mumbled the blonde girl after watching the progress bar finish.

"I updated it today just in case" Answered the little girl that was the librarian of this place.

Alexa.

Another weird thing about this whole situation, she still didn't know why her soulscape had other people inside.

"It looks like it's ready Eli-Eli" but they both were somewhat useful so she didn't mind them.

Not that she feared the blonde asshole that somehow could shoot [Railguns] from his hands... Nor she feared the mysterious little girl that kept getting food and candy from god knows where.

No sir.

"Let's see if the repository now has those security spells..." She wasn't changing the train of thought either.

She did come here to build the [Shift] after all.

"Ah? They look...Different?" Came the voice surprised of the blonde girl.

The security spells she had studied were there. But now she could understand them better.

More like she understood what they did, she still couldn't read how they did it though. She just had a better understanding of them.

"But how...?" Asked herself Elizabeth.

"Oh, that...Hmmm..." Wondered the little girl too, before putting both hands on her temples and focusing on something.

For now, the blonde girl started moving the Nodes around, till they all shuffled themselves around and now they had shorter descriptions of their effects.

"There it is. I asked [Brother] to fix the [¡̸͙̰́͆̆̎̌̍̈̈́̓̋̎̐͆̊̚ͅd̶̢̧̺͔̩̯̝̗̲̲̀̓̊͝Σ̷̨͈̮͉͓̭͓̹̞̻̥̫͚͇̩͋͆͗̐̾̚͠͝͝͠ª̶̛̥̈́́̽̉̃̓̓̽̉̍̀̊̓̌] on them, they should work better now." Said the little girl who then started eating a popsicle.

Where does that food come from?

"Wait what? The what?" Came the confused voice of the blonde girl.

"hmm...Sorry Eli-Eli, I don't think I can simplify that one further, not unless I pay something to [The Librarian] as brother did." Said the little girl somewhat downcasted.

"It would be easier if you could pick on the clues..." Mumbled at the end the little girl before standing from her chair and running off.

Something weird was going around...And she had been given clues?

Maybe she should pay more attention?

She didn't remember anything weird going on besides the stuff that went on in her soulscape though...

For now, she would finish her [Shift] spell though.

"So... The closer the [Node] is to [Shadows] the more I can shove in..." said to herself the blonde girl.

She could use the shadows to hide her transformation...

Most of the [Shift] examples she found used some type of element to hide the body while the magick did her things and changed it.

Theories were going around about how the body was changed, some said the real body got shoved into the soulscape. Some said the original body of all the magical girls was destroyed on the awakening and they were using cloned bodies made of mana.

She...Didn't care about that.

That was of course because of Mother's teachings, according to her most of her body was healed or replaced with magick at some point. So nothing of her original body remained after some point.

Between magical healing and magical modifications...Yeah, one would be hard-pressed to find a fully natural magical girl around.

And that didn't take into consideration the ones that used heavy body modifications...

And we aren't talking about alterations to the form. So many magical girls gave themselves...Extra Attributes.

To create...Better Plot.... for their Shows...

They increased their booba.

There.

And after you went into the plastic surgery magick...Well, it was harder to keep something natural.

She herself didn't want to go that way (Yet) that was the reason she didn't tamper with her body besides nails and hair.

And the eyes.

But she knew that at some point she would.

Not that her body was normal after she started moving status points around.

But she was digressing!

Security!

"First...Cognizance distortion." She moved the first node in.

She would make it so her [shift] create shadows around herself that clinged into her body to hide her. These would in turn stick to shadows around and infect the people that saw her transformation.

Severing the connection between her magical girl self with the civilian self. They wouldn't see the connection and so would stay non the wiser about it.

It was a standard security node. So it was easy enough to do. Her [Shadow Origin] would make it easier to propagate to anyone that saw the shadows in her body and so it would work through the surveillance.

Since most if not all of it had some degree of affinity to magick it would work wonders on the security system.

It was defended against most normal affinities (Since it could be abused by villains too) but since hers was special it should work. She would ask her mother about it later.

Next came the obvious one.

"Second...Skirt enchants..." That one would protect her dignity.

If someone tried to see below her skirt they would only see darkness. She amped the shadow part (Since it was cheaper this way) and dialed down the darkness and void part (Since that was the thing that made it expensive).

The effect would be the same for a fraction of the cost, and since her shadows were solid (Or in this case would be solid). No one would be able to grope nor see anything that she didn't want to be seen!

It was perfect!

She added some extra details so it would work on her chest since her sailor shirt was kinda thin, it would make the fabric harder to peer through. Since they would only find darkness (shadows) behind or below it.

Now here is where it became harder. She had the basic one now were the complex one.

"Hmm...Discerning next..." She picked one to allow her to turn the effects of the first one on and off (The second would always stay on) on selected people.

So if she wanted someone to see her and know it was her, this would allow a whitelist to pass through it.

Not many people would be on it though, besides mother & father (Not that she expected the first one to work on them).

After that...Not many good ideas came.

"Reinforcement?" A good one as any at this point. Reinforcing the fabric of the clothes so they would be closer to armor.

It required a base material to work, so she would need some fabric to use this node on first, maybe one of those body armors father wanted her to use?

Oh...

That gave her a good idea for later!

For now next!

"[Redistributed damage] is a good one" This one would reroute the damage of the clothing to other parts, she would prioritize the damage on certain areas and keep it away from others.

It would not negate the damage, it would not protect areas beyond their normal threshold.

The clothes of the shift were special in the case that even with a part of the body exposed that part still had a degree of protection since the clothes were magical.

So it didn't matter how tattered one was, they would still hold a degree of protection. So long they had part of the outfit.

The outfit as a whole only served as a kind of meter of how much armor you had left. The less of your outfit you had, the less protection you held.

So what this enchantment node did wasn't that useful.

But it was still among the more popular ones.

Why you ask?

Well, ask on the streets to any girl you met, if you could choose what part of your clothes got destroyed last, what would you choose?

So of course, Elizabeth Starbright was among the many that choose to prioritize her dignity and made sure that her choices would protect her chest and crotch area. That was the part of the outfit that would stay longer without being destroyed.

She could use the alternate enchantment [Armor Reinforcement] that made the clothes less durable but made each part more sturdy.

But that wasn't compatible with [Redistribute Damage] and that one was only used by males anyway.

They didn't care what they showed after all.

The brutes.

Now she was closing to an end, not many good choices were left.

Or not many that she could explain how she managed to get in since most only managed to get one node in the first shift.

"Hide is the obvious one next" so she would prepare her excuses, this one would allow her to hide the nodes in shadows away from prying eyes. Since it was of the [Shadow] affinity, it was like a ring made for her.

"And the On/Off node to finish it all." And like that, she ended with the node that allowed her to turn other nodes off.

She needed this one for several reasons. First, if she ever found herself with other [Magic User] with more mastery over shadows than her, they could peek through her [Hide] node.

The On/Off one was useful because it turned off the mana to the nodes so they didn't show in most scans.

If they could peek through that she was screwd anyway so no security would help at that point.

This allowed her to sidestep more dedicated scanners that would look for mana used on the spell.

And finally, she kinda wanted it to turn it off and on to annoy people that could feel how many nodes there were on someone.

Turn off her hide node, scare someone, then turn it on to pretend nothing happened.

It would be a fun way to spend time.

"And that is that export, debug and execute!" Said the blonde girl finishing her first [Shadow Shift].

She still had other slots on the thing, so maybe another day she would follow her mother's example and pick a few interesting hairstyles to use in her free time.

Or go a step beyond and try to use it as a wardrobe?

She still hadn't checked that [Inventory] skill, so maybe search for some way to integrate it into the Shift skill?

The description sounded like it was possible for integration between the skills.

But that was stuff for another day since for now she was leaving the soulscape.

Too much time was spent in here already.

And since the time wasn't dilated here, it was burning in real time too!

"I will leave for today Alex," said the blonde girl looking for the little girl.

She found her drawing on one of the notebooks on the tables. So they were hers?

"Kay~~" answered the little girl without a care in the world.

"See you later..." Said the blonde while walking to see what she was drawing, she found a picture of that meadow where she awoke the first time, and then the world turned blank.

She was again in the meditation chamber.

Only the pink-haired girl was sleeping on her thighs.

At least she didn't transform into the new magical girl outfit.

That would have been embarrassing if the outside world saw all the modifications.

Because she hadn't...

Right?

RIGHT?

.....................She wouldn't ask the pink-haired girl for answers, she would just stare at her to see how she changed while editing her [Shift] spell...

Yes. She would do that.

*Stare*