Alice's journey had taken most of the day and it was now a few hours to sunset. She had finished setting up her things in her hut and decided to use her remaining time productively. Alice wanted to work on her magic, and while others might have thought it was her strongest area, Alice thought she could do better, much better. Her flame thrower spell was quite powerful, but Alice felt that it was just a way of hiding from a deeper issue, namely: Alice wasn’t that good at magic.

To cast any spell, one needed to follow the simple steps of channeling mana and imposing certain properties onto it. It was easier to impose properties that one was familiar with and someone’s life experiences would change the kinds of magic they could use. For example someone who lived in an icy tundra would find it easier to make ice than someone who lived in a desert, but there were other ways to make magic easier. Making something out of ice would be easier and less mana intensive if the spellcaster knew the properties of water molecules, but strengthening that ice to make it viable as a weapon material would require an absurd amount of mana, or knowledge on exactly how to improve the molecular structure of ice, taking a larger mental toll on the caster to manipulate individual molecules.

At the end of the day, magic was a tool to shape the world to match a persons imagination, but if the image wasn’t clear enough or their will strong enough, a spells difficulty would spike. And Alice felt that this was her issue. Her flame thrower spell didn’t take much mana due to her understanding of fire and how to make it, but it took too much time and concentration to use. The alternative would be to place all her attention on the image of a fire and make it entirely from mana instead, but there was a secondary problem: Alice’s imagination was too weak. She could imagine a ball of fire just fine, but when it came time to use it as a weapon, she failed. Her only experience with fire had been the warmth of a campfire or her [Flames of Vengeance], neither of which had ever burned her. Thus she couldn’t make fire hot enough to burn without making it from scratch.

The issue only got worse with other kinds of magic; for example, she could summon a breeze easy enough, but a wind blade was entirely beyond her, not only did it not form naturally, it also went against the image she had of wind. Because of this, Alice had started using her understanding of the subjects in her mom’s textbook to avoid fixing either of these issues, but today she would, this would be her first step toward leaving the forest. Her first goal was to copy the earth spears that Karandi threw at her in the morning.

Alice went back outside into the forest and started channeling her mana for her first attempt. She sent it into the ground tried to gather a sizeable chunk of dirt. Immediately she realised that this strategy would be a waste of time. Since her ball of earth was surrounded by dirt on all sides, pulling it out would almost definitely cause some shaking in the ground which would telegraph her attack before it happened and make it easier to avoid. Alice changed the shape of the ground she was manipulating into a cylindrical structure so that it wouldn’t face any resistance as she took it out. The result was a crumbling mess that couldn’t hold its own weight, after all, dirt was dirt. She tried using rocks instead, but since she couldn’t fuse them together she had a similarly crumbly mess. Alice wasn’t worried though, she was here to practice, and practice took time.

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The sun was about to set and Alice had gathered a large pile of dirt infront of a similarly large hole. She had made barely any progress since she had started, with her biggest breakthrough being the creation of a spear that didn’t crumble under its own weight. It apparently had the decency to wait until after it had been thrown to do that. Regardless, this spell would take a significant amount of time to add to her arsenal. As she walked back into the village she practiced the process for her spells and tried to shape a handful of rocks and dirt into a makeshift spear.

Dinner seemed to operate similarly to last night, but since it wasn’t a celebration there was less food on offer, though it seemed like anyone could bring their own food to cook if they wanted more. This looked to be a way to get people to contribute to the village more as the goblins that went hunting throughout the day traded excess meat and hide for various other items and favours. Alice thought that she could start following their business model to get various things from the villagers, though it might get her some animosity from them due to a simple fact. There had been a giant boost to the workforce but the number of jobs to be done had only increased marginally, especially since despite most jobs relating to food security, the goblins had yet to discover agriculture. Not that Alice understood this though.

Alice played with the goblin children for a bit, though there were a few who thought playing around was too ‘childish’ for them now, even though they had only been adults for a single day. Alice decided long ago that she would never give up something she enjoyed just because she had grown up. And while thinking about things that wouldn’t matter for the next five years, she went to sleep.

Alice was still woken up in the morning for training but she was told yesterday was the last mandatory session. Alice still went though. And today, instead of sparring matches, the instructors were showing them simple techniques and maneuvers that would help in any combat situation. Alice also thought of joining the magic training multiple times but decided to wait until after the others had finished linking their soul to their mind.

After morning training, Alice foraged for breakfast before hunting using her magic. Alice made a simple pitfall trap by digging a hole and covering it with magically pressed dirt and leaves, she had to use sticks and twigs as support as she couldn’t make a platform strong enough to support itself without support. Her pitfall was carefully balanced to collapse when something around half her weight walked over it, she tried to reduce the threshold but the pitfall needed to be able to withstand its own weight as well. Alice made five of them and spread them out while also using different kinds of berries, nuts and fruits as bait. She also looked for any natural water sources to stalk for prey and found a small pond.

By end of day she had caught nothing and one of her traps had collected an injured deer.