Everything became easier. After the class with Horace, it was the musical rotation again. My fingers still hurt like hell, but I was keeping tempo and almost stopped making weird noises from pulling the bow wrong. I had less improvement with piano. Tiny fingers didn't like properly sized pianos.

I tried elongating my fingers with mana sticks, one main per hand and one switched between them. The results were simply put, freaky. Still, it was fun and after an hour I managed two per hand. It allowed me to hit four wrong keys in rapid succession.

Singing, on the other hand, was just easy. I think, with all the powerful people speaking in sounds, the language around these parts evolved to be a song. So, with Madeline's mind properly tied to my soul, I found myself singing. After that lesson though, Cate told me I won't be having any more singing lessons since I wouldn't improve without a better teacher and there was only so much time Horace could spare. Anastasia was only interested in magic, so she wouldn't teach me.

I should stop procrastinating. I stopped doodling my day in the diary and got back to writing down math. As far as souls and brains go, knowledge only goes one way. If you want your past life knowledge to boost your new brain, you've got to register your knowledge with one of the physical senses.

It was just so unexciting. I sang what I wrote.

Singing did make the experience fun enough. I only noticed time pass, when Jon came to lit the candles.

"There is no need Jon, I will turn in to sleep." I waved down the butler and hopped down from the chair. Tomorrow would begin with waving daggers so I wanted to get breakfast before practice.

Madeline loved speaking the full name of her teddy-dragon, I didn't. From now on, it was Tiamat. Tiamat made falling asleep so...

...easy.

"Waving daggers around is not easy at all!!" I grumbled loudly when again I failed to push myself away from a slash from Cate. I almost returned the spider eggs with squirrel bacon I had for breakfast, but food was sacred. If it came down to it, I'd hold it down with a mana bubble.

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Cate just stood straight and looked at me impassively. So boring. I boosted myself up and when her slash came, at an angle to the right, to get at her side. She leaned back, so I boosted forward, dagger held in both hands, pointing at her neck. She deflected, sending me further to the side. I pushed to fly at her knees and just before her kick connected with me I was boosting myself up to slash at her midsection. My breakfast almost came up again, from the opposing forces, but I was so close.

I rolled on the ground and couldn't feel the dagger in my hands. I heard it resound from hitting the wall just as I stopped rolling. Now I had to use that bubble.

"You seem to be waving yourself more than you are waving your dagger mistress." She said impassively. I sat up and squinted at her. She almost didn't sound boring just now.

Her face was a mask, just looking straight ahead. "Well, I'm too small to wave it and I can't hold it properly!" I huffed.

"You almost sound like you were complaining mistress." Came the toneless voice. That was positively interesting, I was almost tempted to inform her.

I got up, but before I could get back to practice, a knock resounded. It was time for more lessons with Horace. I waved to Cate, who in turn healed me so I wouldn't be distracted with pain, during the next lesson.

"Have fun mistress." Came when I was stepping out the door. I think I was going to miss them, once I left in two weeks. Still, I was certainly going to go adventure. Who comes to another world and just spends months grinding in one place.

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Mistress Mads was more interesting than the last child Reborn I trained. That one stubbornly stuck to the ground and kept trying to cut my ankles.

What new, exciting ways to batter herself, would mistress come up with?

I chided myself mentally. I might have gotten a Mimic side-race, but I was still a Shifter. I picked up mistresses dagger and set it in its exact place on the rack.

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Horace was just cramming knowledge into my brain. I knew I'd recall it over time as my mind improved, but it was just exhausting.

I spread a thin film of mana on my face and stuck the ice cream cone I was eating to my forehead. The sun felt nice. I extended the mana over my hair and closed my eyes.

Extending firm mana over my entire face was a dumb idea. I sat up gasping for air. "Nastra!" What? I guess I was dreaming of the last lesson. Nastra, Nastra... Eastern end of the continent, a country in the north there.

I shook and hanged my head. The ice cream was melting onto my pants. I blasted it over the edge of the roof, so it'd fly into the forest. I would need to change before the music lessons.

I jumped down and was caught by a Jon standing on the balcony at the top floor. "Thank you, I will walk to my room myself." Jon put me down. "Yes, mistress."

Equipped with a red dress and a black vest I run down to torture my hands.