Chapter 2: Book Mimic | 2.2 Book Mimic Familiar
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The glow grew in moments, brightening the room. Iris shut her eyes against the intense light, and when she sensed it dim, she opened her eyes to check the desk. The journal grew bigger. The covers became thicker with retractable teeth, and a fabric ribbon-like tongue emerged between its pages.
“…” She speechlessly stared at it. An eye formed on its cover, and it looked around. Turning toward Iris, it sent a telepathic message to her mind. She heard it softly whisper, ‘Master.’
A chill ran up Iris’s spine. The situation was just too much. Losing her balance, she fell back against the bed behind her. She kept gasping for breath without breathing out. Grabbing her chest, she closed her eyes and breathed out. Focusing just on her breathing, she breathed in and out for several minutes.
Once Iris had calmed down, she peeked at IT. It was still there, sitting on her desk, waiting. Freaking out, she tried not to freak out. Peeking at it and then looking away, she slowly, very slowly accepted that IT was there.
Remembering that it had spoken into her mind, she hesitantly spoke, “C-Can you understand me?” It did a little hop. She flinched slightly, but then heard its telepathic message, ‘I can understand you, master. I am born from you, master.’
Confused, Iris asked, “B-Born from me?”
It confirmed. ‘Born from you. Born from your words. I am a part of Master.’
Breathing slowly, she listened processing the book mimic’s words. ‘Born from me, my words? A part of me…’ An idea came to Iris, and she summoned her status page.
* Status Page (Iris Neil, 10, F.)
* Magic Level: 1 (100 Mana | 3 / 100)
* Magic Affinity: Neutral
* Magic Trait: Book Mimic
* Skills: [Magic Writing Lv. 1], [Familiar, Nameless Lv. 1]
She quickly read the information and took a deep breath when she read ‘Familiar, nameless’. “Wow…” Blinking her eyes, she realized what happened, and slowly transitioned from confusion to understanding. ‘This never happened before. No memories emerged when she first saw the book mimic.’
Feeling overwhelmed, she grabbed her chair without looking and sat down blankly. Her mind racing in all kinds of directions. ‘What led to this?’ She examined her current self and quickly realized that she would normally never keep a diary. Writing about herself seemed useless. She was only going out of her way to write things down because the magic mirror jumbled everything up, all her memories and habits.
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‘So…’ She turned and looked at the book mimic. She said slowly, “You need a name…I’ll call you Lexi, short for lexicon.” Her familiar did another little hope. There was no telepathic message, but she felt like it was happy.
Feeling exhausted, she asked, “Can you-I don’t know… hide?” It hopped again. Closing its single eye, Lexi transformed back into a journal once more. Surprisingly, it looked like a normal notebook.
‘Wow…’ Impress, Iris nodded blankly and crawled into bed. Sleep quickly took her away. Her alarm caused her ID bracelet to vibrate a few times, but that didn’t wake her up. She slept deeply and didn’t wake up until her mother nudged her awake for breakfast.
Yawning, she tiredly rubbed her eyes. As she became more aware, Iris sensed her familiar bond, the connection she shared with her book mimic, Lexi. The invisible connection informed her about Lexi’s location and status.
“Wow…” She whispered. It felt surreal. Iris had always taken her magic trait as figurative. ‘I can’t believe I made a book mimic…’
“Iris!” Her mother shouted from downstairs. Perking up, she climbed out of bed and went downstairs for breakfast. The smell of bacon was in the air. Everyone else was already at the table. ‘Why am I always last…’
Holding back a sigh, she sat down and started cutting into her Saturday waffle. Filling the waffle cups with syrup, her twin brothers followed her example. Caster filled in his waffle, making a blocky smiley face with syrup. Connor tried as well. But he poured too much syrup, so the smile wasn’t right.
Waking them, Iris’s stress shot up as she saw him frown. Anticipating him making a fuss, she commented, “Your waffle face looks like a vampire. Those are pointy teeth.” As she pointed at the misshapen syrup smile, he glanced at it in deep thought before smiling about his work.
As the twins started comparing their waffles with each other, Iris's mother spoke, “I contacted the school yesterday while we were unpacking.”
Perking up, Iris paid careful attention to her mother’s words. She even stopped eating as she waited for more information.
Sipping her coffee, Casey continued, “They were hesitant at first, but I eventually persuaded them. The program is from 8 am to 12 pm. Are you really okay with spending 4 hours every day of the week at school until school officially starts?”
Iris quickly nodded. “Okay, then on Monday, we’ll go to the school to finish some paperwork. They said you can spend your time in the library or mana realms… I was a little worried about you getting hurt in their mana realms, but they said there was a monitor inside.”
Looking at her daughter a bit uncertain, she asked again if she was sure about spending her summer at school, but Iris responded with a smile. “I’m really looking forward to it.”
Reassured, Casey relaxed a bit. ‘Ah, my daughter's so diligent.’ She felt proud. ‘I hope she makes a couple of friends.’
On the other hand, Iris was thinking about something else while eating her waffle. ‘How many levels can I get from slimes? 100 would probably get me a single level…’
It was a peaceful breakfast, and when Iris returned to her room, she faced her familiar. “Hey, Lexi.” She spoke softly. “Do you need to eat?”
The book monster transformed releasing the illusion of being a normal notebook. Lexi answered using telepathy, ‘Yes, I can eat mana.’
‘Does that mean she eats mana stones or cores?’ Thinking for a moment, Iris asked, “Hmm. I don’t have any mana stones or cores. Is there anything else you can eat?” She was a little worried about Lexi starving over the weekend.