It turned out Serah actually did have a few more books for him. As if in anticipation of this Mr. Garry had prepared a small stack of rather sinister looking tomes and while Serah, as a homunculus, was unable to perform magecraft in the classical sense, she assured him that since enchantments were mostly static versions of their counterparts, pointing out the specifics on the talismans she’s prepared (the pile of what he’d mistaken as sticky notes) would serve as a just as good, if not better example for the required mana structures.

Ed figured that if he was going to learn anything, it was probably better to be as hands-on as possible about it.

“Why is this so easy?” At first he’d thought it’d be hard, but besides the fact that accuracy allowed for faster priming speed and that there was an eventual a hard limit for structure accuracy that caused the spell to ‘fizzle’ doubling the mana cost and failing the spell, the whole magecraft thing felt surprisingly lenient.

He was currently channeling mana out of a coin she’d taken out of the canister from before. Officially they were called dragons but she explained due to a historical quirk and the desire not to confuse them with actual dragons most supernaturals west of the mountains called them Drachma, a sentiment shared with the Clocktower and a few other European countries.

“I am told it is by design. Thousands of years of research has gone into the perfection of these spell formula, what would be strange is if it was not ‘easy’. The light hop illusion piece is said to be one of the harder ones as well.”

Ed watched in wonder as he stuck his hand through the small zone he’d created. Whenever he put it in his hand would appear to vanish, no matter the angle he looked at it from.

“Now in combination with the spark stick structure piece you would be able to perform the Raymonds box of invisibility spell. Along with a pact with a lesser space wisp from the Warlock branch, what is achieved is the common Osmans cloak of invisibility synth. Though that is only the technical term, you will commonly hear it called Osmans spell, or if someone refers to the usage of invisibility in general, Osmans cloak of invisibility is usually what they are referring to.”

Ed cut the flow of mana and the spell dissolved. Invisibility, poison, spark snuffing, haste, a rapidly spinning super compact needle of dust. That last one had been rather flashy as it had sort of swirled all the dust in the room into itself as it hovered at the tip of his finger and when he’d released it; after learning a farsight pact from Serah of course; examining the tree he’d aimed at had revealed it had apparently gone clean through and formed a tiny hole in the ground behind it too.

“These all seem rather, uh,” Ed didn’t really know how else to put it. “Evil?”

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Serah simply nodded as she opened the next book to a page for something called Salazar’s sinister suggestion synth.

“The dark magic reformation released many previously shunned ideas into the common spheres but it was only after the collapse of the old shogunate and the release of advanced eastern talismans to the west that modern magecraft truly became what it is today. Tamtilus finds it ironic that without the Catholic arms race there may have never been a modern magecraft to begin with. So yes, most of this would be considered, perhaps not evil, but primarily dark.”

In fact, that was apparently the entire point. While Serah had eventually admit she didn’t actually know that much about what went on beyond the scope of the Oregon territory, she had been a part of Mr. Garry’s apparently coastal wide homunculus network for the better part of a decade, piloting clones throughout his entire gradual takeover of Oregon and beyond.

Or so she said as evidence to support her claims that it was indeed rather brutal out there and that while Ed was surprisingly lucky to have sparked within Mr. Garry’s territory, the exact scope of the spells he was learning was very much a necessity.

Which, now that he thought about it, was her explanation for all the support he was receiving too.

“All mages are born perfectly equal. Since the discovery of crystal, the difference in mana capacity lifted the wall for mages like Tamtilus and created a field, where even a baby, if given the right spells, could go head to head with even the oldest of archmages. Not that this was immediate. Tamtilus, a merely 200 year old archmage, is one of the foremost drivers behind modern magical combat theory and it would not be an exaggeration to say his practical execution and rapid territorial gains were, and still are, one of the primary factors in the increasing influence of magecraft in the supernatural spheres.”

“Which is exactly what you are here for.” She tapped her pencil against a coin. “The more magic you learn, the more the churches may hunt you, so regardless of your choices, every new mage who pursues the study of magic is an additional thorn in their side. If you had sparked just two kilometers further east, you would have been stripped of your magical potential in your sleep. Mages east of the mountains are taken in by the crows and experimented on, you are very lucky you did not spark there.”

Well, that was quite the info drop. Not that it really explained why most of the magic she’d showed him appeared targeted towards other mages, or in the case of the thralling techniques, humans. “So basically you want me to kill priests.” Ed didn’t like the sound of that. Not that he was going to say that to her.

“No.” She shook her head. “Despite what you might think, battling exorcists or other mages is something over ninety percent of the supernatural population will never see in their lives. Starting first with these spells is a bit like giving you pepper spray. Regardless, in your gratitude for cutting your mortal ties for you, Tamtilus hopes you will help him with a certain plan of his perhaps twenty or so years down the line. He is convinced you will be of help. As you might have suspected, unlineaged mages do not appear often.”

Ed blinked at her. Then sort of rewound his mind a bit. Gratitude for cutting mortal ties. No way had he just heard that. That made it sound almost as if… “Cut my mortal ties.” He said as evenly as possible. “And by that you mean killing Harriet Jacobs.”

“Yes, though he disintegrated her, and I believe his main body was not physically at the target.”