Progress

Kedra's routine continued on with the occasional study and practice of magic engraving here and there. She quickly felt herself progress physically and mentally, and time began to pass quicker and quicker. She had gotten engrossed in her routine, not straying from it once.

Before she knew it, three months had passed. Not once did someone stop by the residence to check up on things. Kedra was relieved that she had guessed correctly; her father clearly did not want anything to do with her.

As Kedra began her drills, she felt that something was lacking; she had gained an impressive amount of muscle, and swinging the kitchen knife had long since become too easy. Thus, she switched to a piece of wood, vaguely carved into a sword-like shape by Lucie, but even that was starting to become too light. 

Swinging her wooden sword for the thousandth time, her displeasure was finally too much to bear.

"Argh! This is just so unsatisfying! I need a real sword, damnit!" Kedra stormed back into the residence, leaving the stick in the garden where she had begun to train once her room started feeling too small.

She walked up the stairs to the head maid's office that had been claimed by Maria and opened the door. Inside, she found the blonde maid writing down what seemed like a grocery list. Noticing Kedra, she quickly stopped and looked up.

"Yes, my lady? Is there anything I can do for you?"

"I need to go to the village."

Maria felt confused at the sudden request, and after a few seconds, she began thinking of the dangers of letting Kedra leave the residence.

"Are you certain, my lady? If your existence becomes known, there's no telling what your father might do in retaliation."

"It's not like people will immediately know that I'm his daughter, though; it'll be fine."

"You cannot be sure of that, my lady; you bear all of the traits of a Deslandes, after all, from your scarlet hair to your emerald eyes; even your gaze is similar to the duke's."

"Well. If I hide myself, it's fine, right? I'll just borrow one of your cloaks and keep the hood on." Kedra's desperation began showing through her tone, breaking the calm and collected facade she usually wore.

"My lady, what has you so determined to visit the town all of a sudden?"

"I need a sword, a proper one, made out of steel. It'll be hard for me to progress if I can't get used to the feel of a real weapon." 

"If it's just that, I can simply pass by a blacksmith when I'm in town and pick up a sword for you."

"No! I have to choose in person; I won't back down on this."

Not wanting to displease her lady and knowing full well that the fact that Kedra bothered to ask her in the first place was an act of kindness and not of necessity, Maria sighed before looking her in the eyes and smiling.

"Alright, my lady, tomorrow me and Mona are going to go out to restock our food stores; you can come along then."

"Thank you, Maria." Kedra did not say another word; she simply eclipsed herself from the office and returned to her bedroom. Upon reaching the room, she immediately shut the door behind her and punched the air in excitement.

"Alright! There's so many things I want to see tomorrow!" 

'Thinking back, I've been cooped up in this place ever since I got here; I don't actually know what this world looks like. It seems to be similar to medieval Europe in terms of culture and history, though magic has really increased the level of technology. I mean, thanks to that, they have working toilets after all!'

'Well, I'll find out tomorrow; I just need a way to pass the time now.'

Kedra didn't feel like returning to her workout, and going back to ask Maria to teach her something would've been awkward, so she turned to magic engraving.

'There's something I wanted to try out. The book said that paper is only usually used as a support for one-time-use spells because it disintegrates after usage due to the energy generated by the circuit, so that means that if I write circuits on pieces of paper, I'll have a bunch of expendable spells at my disposal.'

"Alright, let's do this!" 

Kedra carefully made a small incision on her index in the same place that she always did, making sure not to create any additional scars. She then took a piece of paper and drew a simple water creation circuit composed of a circle, three arrows pointing to its center, two lines outside of the circle that designated its run time, each line equating to one second, and finally a spiral.

Holding the piece of paper in her hand, she smiled contently, touched the spiral with her thumb, and threw it on the ground.

After a moment, a small orb of water began forming above the paper. Two seconds later, the paper began disintegrating. Once the paper disappeared, the orb of water fell down with a splash.

'It's a success!' Kedra clenched her fist in happiness. Soon after, she took another piece of paper and wrote down a more complex spell with components that she had discovered after reading the book on magic engraving more in depth.

The spell was by and large the same as the previous one, basing itself on water manipulation. However, an additional circle was drawn next to the first. The second circle contained a four-pronged star, a symbol that generated subzero temperatures once activated. Next to that circle was a square with the vague silhouette of a dagger drawn into it.

As Kedra activated the magic circuit, the usual water orb instead coalesced into the shape of a dagger. After it fully finished forming, the second circle activated in turn, freezing the water and creating a dagger made of ice. When the spell completely ended, the paper burned away, and the dagger fell to the floor.

Kedra's jumped up and down in celebration, fully engrossed by the success of her experiment. As she grabbed hold of the dagger, she noticed that the ice was much more solid than normal and that it did not melt as quickly as regular ice. Excited to try it out, she thrust the dagger into a nearby cabinet, the tip of which firmly planted itself into the wood, before snapping off.

"It really works! And it was better than I expected. I better make a few of these for self-defense." 

Kedra spent the rest of the day drawing similar engraved circuits onto pieces of paper, trying to make the spell's activation time faster with each try, occasionally stopping to allow blood to flow back into her finger. By nightfall, she had completed the final design for the circuit, speeding up the activation time to half a second at the cost of more ambient mana. She had managed to draw three of the fully completed circuits before succumbing to fatigue, partly caused by a slight anemia.