I was on my way back to Cellestra. I wasn’t running at my top speed because I had too much on my mind. I was thankful that I somehow seemed to be able to completely shut that part out of my new life when I was in the dungeon, but now the feelings and thoughts returned tenfold.

How would it feel to properly hug Cellestra if I was still my old self?

Why did I keep thinking about such impossible things? This was just torture. I started liking her more every day, but it was downright impossible for her to feel the same way.

Elysa… why?

I felt like sitting down, perhaps in a tree, and just… crying?

I’d never felt so hopeless about anything in my life. I didn’t know what to do. Should I tell Cellestra about it?

The question popped up in my mind once again, and once more, I dismissed it. I did not want Cellestra to view me as a strange being. Well, stranger than I was…

I heaved a deep mental sigh and continued onward. Trying to get my mind off of things, I took a look at my enhancement options. There were still a few spells that I could take or upgrade and I had more than enough points to take everything and still have plenty left. I decided to wait, though, as I was nearing the next evolution, and the only thing I still needed for it should be fairly easy.

I wondered how I was going to find the ant queen. There should be one down in that nest, but goddess knows how big it is. Perhaps I could try using my flame beam ability and just shoot it down into the nest from the mound?

That didn’t seem like a terrible idea. In fact, it was the only idea I could come up with.

A lot of time passed, with my thoughts going in circles. Eventually, I reached Cellestra’s home. The sun was pretty low over the horizon, already, but there would still be a few hours before nightfall. If that was the case, I figured I should get working on creating some kind of shelter.

I feared the current roof would become too small for me in the near future, and I would prefer to stay dry if it rained again. Now would be a good time to work on it. I just needed to find a way to easily expand it when that time came.

Then I remembered I also wanted to practice spells with Cellestra whenever I had the time… which was also now, theoretically.

I wondered if I could somehow do both…

The door was closed, and the letters were no longer in the grass. It wasn’t hard to grasp that Cellestra had taken them back inside. I walked to the window and tapped it. The elf soon came walking out the door with the stack of paper.

“Welcome back,” She said with a smile. “Hope things went well?”

I nodded with my limbs as Cellestra stepped onto the grass. Somehow it was only then that I realized that she’d closed the hole that she’d dug earlier quite nicely. Not a trace of it was left. It only proved the point that she’d covered it up well.

“I’m eager to hear how things went,” The elf spoke with excitement in her voice. “And I’m looking forward to you telling me where you got that scroll. If it is what I think it is, you have found quite something.”

She pointed at the scroll that was still in my pedipalps. I turned my body to face her as she walked past me and laid out the letters in the grass.

It was interesting to see that Cellestra may have an idea of what this scroll was. It made me all the more eager to talk to her.

I skittered over to the letters as soon as she’d finished placing them and started spelling out with my front two legs.

“Dungeon went well. Stepped into trap but barrier blocked damage. Got achievement from stepping on trap. Dungeon was massive swamp with path to smaller room. In smaller room I killed sand slime. Was floor boss. Then wall opened to second open area. Was giant ruined city with skeletons. Triggered trap as I found treasure chest. Skeletons came to life. Killed them with holy pulse spell. Got scroll from treasure chest in dungeon. Do not know what it is.”

I had used as few words as possible, but it still took a long time to spell that all out. Honestly, the patience that Cellestra possessed was admirable.

“Sounds like an interesting dungeon. I’d like to see it for myself some day. Also, with regards to that scroll, I think it’s a spell scroll, but I can’t know for certain until I read the first few words.”

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A spell scroll? I’d never heard of that.

“Spell scroll?” I spelled.

“A scroll that contains either the knowledge of a spell, or a one-time use of the spell. The former is far more valuable.”

“?” I simply pointed at the question mark.

Cellestra giggled. “You’ve never heard of these, have you?”

I shook my pedipalps.

“Well then,” The brunette started, “When you read the scroll’s first words it will tell you what it is. You need to be careful not to read too much or the spell contained within will activate in part. When that happens, the rest must be read, or the spell within is lost. If it’s a single-use scroll, there aren’t many words to read. Once the words are read, the spell will activate. This allows people without much mana to still cast spells. They are quite pricey for this reason… at least that’s what I’ve been told. The other type, as I said, is more valuable, as in, the spell can be learned. You can read the scroll and then use the spell yourself however many times you want. Though, in that case, there is the restriction that you need to have enough mana. One usually gets scrolls like those appraised to see if they will be able to cast the spell based on the spell’s name and the person’s mana pool. It’s quite a complicated process, but it’s just the way things are.”

That was a lot of information to take in, but I think I understood most of it. I stretched out my pedipalps and held the scroll forward.

“Check spell,” I wrote with my legs.

“Are you sure?” She asked.

I nodded with my legs. “Want to know what spell is.”

“Alright,” Cellestra said as she took the scroll from me and removed the ribbon. She then rolled out only a small piece of the paper so that only a few lines of text, at most, would be visible.

“By the goddess. Kealyna, you’ve struck gold here. It’s a permanent spell called Holy Bolt. What do you want to do with it?” She asked as she rolled up the paper again.

Holy bolt? That sounded like a more direct attack than the one I’d used to fight undead. While the spell sounded useful to have against undead, I knew that my spells worked quite differently from the ones that others used. What would happen if I tried to cast “normal” spells?

To be fair, I didn’t care so much for this spell. I didn’t intend to go down to that floor again anytime soon. I’d like to stay as far as I could from any undead. I imagined I could get a more direct holy-based spell sooner or later anyway.

“You can have,” I spelled out.

“For real?” Cellestra asked. “You could also sell it, if you’d like. I can ask the traveling merchant if he’s interested…”

“Keep it. Is fine. Have no need.”

“I…” Cellestra seemed confused. “Thank you…” She said softly.

She turned her head away for a moment before looking back at me. “I don’t know what to say…”

“Is fine. See as gift.”

“You have no idea how expensive of a gift this is…”

“Is fine,” I spelled again, earning a slight smile from the elf.

She nodded and put the scroll in a small pack on her belt.

Cellestra seemed at a loss for words. I decided to ask the question that was on my mind earlier.

“Want practice magic?”

“Sure,” She replied, with a slight smile still on her face. “What spell did you have in mind?”

“Was thinking multi barrier. Curious to know if previous spell makes easier. Spell is combination of physical and magical barrier.”

“That does sound interesting. Let’s find out, shall we?”