The last two months had been quite exhausting for Mary, while the test had given her some ideas for her magic development, she had first thought back to her morningly experiment and then tried to expand all her senses while trying a few other things as well, every other one proved to be futile though. The only thing she managed to improve was her sight, as her magic was unable to work around it's limitations for everything else.

Both of the new spells were different from her previous ones, as they consisted of way more shapes which were interlock in each other. They actually had no shape in common, which told her the spells were like her spell against exhaustion, her magic interpreting her wishes as best as it could. The sight spell was the easier of the two, and she managed to understand its basics quite fast, it only arranged some parts of the air around her to form a crystalline shape in front of her eyes.

The shape was kinda like the cut off bottom of a sphere, and somehow managed to make everything seem closer, the orphanage was to small to use it effectively though, but she imagined it would be quite awesome to use on the grand plaza. The spell to improve her hearing was way more complex, because of that she needed the biggest part of the last two months to understand it. It's range was determined by a shape she already knew, the one that was used by her plant and earth spell, so like these the range was affected by the mana put into the shape. The rest was really strange, it took some kind of energy from the conversation and transmitted into her ears, so while understanding the basics of how it worked she lacked the patience to really find out the deeper dynamics behind it, being content to find out how to influence the different factors and not caring enough to explore deeper for now.

Continually casting the sightspell was relatively easy as it's mana cost was relatively cheap compared to the hearing spell, which she could, depending on range, only cast up to a minute.

The test had wanted to know something about wards, which were apparently a spell that was cast and sustained itself from the mana used to cast the spell, she had to ask Nandelia what the word meant as she had never heard it before. They sounded quite intriguing but so far she hadn't managed to replicate them.

As her mana was full right now and she had explored the new spells to full effect anyways, she decided it was time to try casting a ward again. Like every time she had developed a new spell, she willed her light spell into being without casting it and then told her magic to alter it's structure to stay until it's mana was depleted, but the same problem that stopped her previous tries remained, she didn't have a shape which made her mana keep it's form after she let it out of control. All her spells so far relied on her keeping them up manually and her magic didn't seem to know how to to it as well.

Not one to give up easily, she extended a strand of mana again, starting from zero this time, using about three times as much as she would need for a normal light spell and willed it to form a lasting light that would stay there for as long as it's mana supply didn't run out. Like many times before, at first the spell formed as intended, but lacked any new components Her magic obviously also didn't know a way to circumvent this as well as lacking any direct control.

After another few tries where the spell always fizzled out soon after she cut off her control and mana, she finally gave up as her tries in the past months had yielded the same results.

A week later Mary was playing hide and seek with another group of children, they were currently searching for Maleg, one of the tallest children of her age, well at least the others were trying to find him, she knew where he was hiding after all, she remembered that, while she may not have the possibility to find the shape required for wards herself, there was a spell that was doing just the thing she wanted to.

The spell that changed her ears worked even when she exhausted her mana and furthermore had been there for her whole life. That meant the spell had both of the characteristics she wanted, the shapes staying like they were intended and it's mana not using itself to overcharge the spell when control was relinquished. Remembering her previous experiences with it, she groaned inwardly and decided now was not the time. She took off with a start and sprinted towards the tree she knew Maleg was hiding in, running up the tree’s trunk for two meters until she reached the lowest branch. She then proceeded to climb up the tree until she 'accidentally' found him sitting there.

“Found you!” she exclaimed loudly from behind his back causing him to jump.

“How did you find me this time? And how did you manage to climb up here, you should be too small to reach lowest branch?”

“By chance, I wanted to climb to the top to look for you so I just ran up the trunk to then climb up!” he stared at her in disbelief

“You ran up the trunk sure, nobody helped you. That doesn't explain how in all hells you managed to sneak up on me?”

“I didn't sneak! You were just unobservant.” she beamed at him “I told you I’ll find you anywhere!”

"Yeah, yeah, whatever.” he grumbled and climbed down.

She followed him, jumping down the last two meters. Suddenly she heard someone yelling her name.

“Mary come here right now!” The voice did sound quite annoyed. She looked in the direction it came from and saw one of the orphanage’s workers looking at her, he always yelled at her for being 'reckless'. She wasn't reckless! She just liked to enjoy herself and never did dangerous things. He didn't believe her though and sometimes yelled so loud her ears hurt afterwards. Still, she obediently went over to him to hear the same speech as always.

“What did I tell you about being reckless, you shouldn't climb that tree and more importantly you shouldn't jump it down! How did you get up there anyways?” she tried to look apologetic.

“I ran up the trunk. But I wasn't reckless, I jumped down only two meters this time.” she smiled at him innocently

“Don't give me that look we both know you don't regret anything! Just be careful! Just imagine how sad Nandelia would be if something happened to you!”

She nodded and even had a bad conscience for a moment. She ran back to join the others shortly afterwards, the warning already starting to fade from her memory.

On the next day she started the task of going through all the different shapes that the spell on her ears consisted of, tying every shape to a simple light spell. As that was decently mana exhausting she predicted she’d manage about three to four hours per session.

The next six weeks flew by, until finally she managed to isolate both shapes, of course the shapes had to be the last two she tried. Keeping the shapes in form worked by creating them in a continuous sphere, adding the shape in between the first and last shape. The shape that kept the spell in shape was a really strange one that somehow connected the spells input with the last shape, somehow preserving the spells shapes in the process. The preserve shape actually had to be the last on added to the spell as it would create a closed system out of the spell.

That was where the other shape came in, it was most definitely the most strange shape she knew. First of all it was the only one that had two distinct parts, while the first part wasn't all that unique, except it being only a part of a shape of course, it was like any other shape, though many times harder to cast than the others she knew. Back when she first tried analysing the original spell it had been the only one she didn't manage to recreate, and though her control had increased by leaps and bounds in the past months, she still needed nearly fifty tries to successfully cast it even once. The most interesting part however was what happened when you successfully cast the first half, because the other half then automatically used parts of the mana in the first half to come into being without any doing of the mage, even repeated tries to reign her man in to create the second part by herself proved impossible.

Casting the second part was beyond her anyways, as even trying to cast the other part of the shape first proved impossible for now, though she was sure she would manage in due time.

While she now had a way to cast wards, it was kinda useless, as the wards she created had no actual use, being permanently active and the needed to sustain them was ways beyond her.

Sadly her mother's spell didn't have a part to toggle the spell, which would be really useful for all her spells.

Viscount Snaketon was very pleased with himself, he had managed to find a way to ruin his enemy’s birthday, his spies found some very interesting things about the Baron when his people started digging, at least if you wanted to know another way he was different from other nobles. Apparently his rival liked to keep his birthdays small, only inviting the closest family and his most trusted retainers to celebrate it.

The same went for the few ceremonies he had performed so far, always using his isolated lands and the difficult to reach capital of his duchy to excuse himself of properly conducting the ceremony.

After finding out, he immediately sent a notice of that to most nobles, asking them for support to petition the emperor to command the Baron to do a proper ceremony.

While he got enough support to bring the matter to the emperor and succeed he didn't get as much support as he would have thought, as most nobles residing out of the capital seemed content to ignore it. Luckily a fair amount of the empire’s nobles lived in the capital, and most liked a proper ceremony as much as any other such event. Now his failure from the bet actually came in handy, as all nobles that were invited spoke highly of the quality of the Barons ball, increasing the interest in a repetition of such an event.

He definitely looked forwards to destroying the impression the child, which would be the evenings biggest attraction, would have of its new stepfather.

Emperor Vibius Blythe detested most of the nobles living in the capital, so when that slimy Viscount had once again asked for an audience, he had, as always, given him the latest possible date which would not be overly impolite, after all he would probably once again try to convince he was fit for his own plot of land, thinking himself clever enough that he wouldn't notice.

He had been quite surprised when the Viscount came with the support of most the other useless nobles to ask him to command the former Grand Duke to arrange a proper ceremony.

He actually didn't care how it was performed, but thought part of the traditions the nobles in the capital insisted on barbaric and cruel towards the child that was adopted, after all on top of dealing with finding yourself in a wholly different world you were presented to a bunch of useless nobles all gawking at you.

He did it anyways, as it would placate the useless nobles for quite some time, as they got ‘the better of him’ he would have peace and quiet for a week at the least. The next day he got a reply from the Baron that asked how he should properly perform it, he was new to the capital after all and the tradition was different in the north.

He had his secretary throw up something as he didn't see the need to do so himself and could use his time better by dealing with other matters that were of actual importance, he had an empire to rule after all, and only so much time to do so.