Andrea admired her new form in the mirror. She couldn’t believe this was hardly her—she could barely recognize herself. Was this really her? The little, shy girl she always saw in the mirror was no more. Well, physically, at least. On the inside, she hadn’t changed at all. She was still the low-confidence witch.

  Bethany kicked the room door open and rushed inside. “Alright, what is it this…,” Bethany said, looking at her daughter and noticing the significant and unreal changes in her. “Time.”

  “Well?” Andrea asked, smiling. “What do you think?”

  “I think… I think I never woke up,” Bethany answered.

  “I know the feeling,” Andrea said.

  Rufus knocked on the door. “Can I come in now? I don’t want a repeat of what happened before,” Rufus said. He was referring to an incident when he walked in on Andrea while she was in the middle of changing. He was yelled at all day by both his wife and daughter.

  “Yeah, Dad. You can come in,” Andrea answered.

  When entering Andrea’s room and seeing how she was now, he had a different reaction from his wife.

  “Whoa, that’s quite the growth spurt, kid!” Rufus said.

  “I know, right!?” Andrea said, jittering, almost like she was a little girl. “This is so AWESOME!”

  “I’m glad you’re feeling better,” Bethany said.

  “Not just feeling better—looking a lot better too,” Andrea said, spinning her body. Her long hair followed as well.

  Bethany originally had a look of great concern on her face, but seeing her daughter in such a joyful mood put a smile on her face. She could worry about the strange transformation later. All that mattered was Andrea’s happiness.

  “So, are you ready to talk about why you were so upset yesterday?” Bethany asked.

  Andrea's joyful movement suddenly came to a stop. Bethany quickly regretted asking that question. ‘Maybe I shouldn’t have asked. It was probably too early,’ Bethany thought.

  Andrea sighed. “Yeah. I will. Just not now,” Andrea answered.

  “It’s okay, darling. You can take your time. When you’re ready, I’ll be here to listen,” Bethany said.

  “Thanks, Mom,” Andrea said with a soft smile. “Can you and Dad give me some privacy?”

  “Of course,” Bethany said.

  Her parents left the room, giving her the privacy she asked for. As they did, Andrea noticed that she had outgrown the clothes she was wearing. She currently wore a hoodie that failed to cover the entirety of her stomach and shorts that hardly reached her knees.

  “I gotta go shopping for new clothes. Although…” Andrea trailed off, looking at her reflection one more time. “I kinda look hot like this. Nah, if I went out like this, I’d never hear the end of it from me.”

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  “Maybe I’ll have some clothes that’ll fit me in one of my drawers.”

  She went and opened one of the drawers close to the bed. As she did, the grimoire she had placed on top of it fell next to her.

  “Oh. I forgot all about this thing.”

  Andrea picked it up, and the page with the unknown language written in black marks opened.

  “That’s weird. I’m a hundred percent sure there weren’t any writings on this yesterday.”

  “Evolution spell?” Andrea read. “What’s that?”

  “Wait!” Andrea realized another strange occurrence. “How can I read this?”

  What was written on one of the pages should have been gibberish to Andrea. This was the first time she had laid her eyes on such a language—if it could even be called that. And yet Andrea could understand it effortlessly.

  “Evolution, huh? I guess that’s a weird way to describe what’s happened to me. It’s a weird way, though.”

  The memory of the grimoire connecting itself to Andrea using a special kind of light to bind to her flashed through Andrea’s mind. “Back then, my body felt strange, but so did my mana.”

  “If my body’s changed, does that mean…” Andrea closed her eyes and focused on her mana. She visualized it and saw and felt a bright green light traveling through her entire body.

  “Whoa,” Andrea said, amused. She had done this several times before. It was one of the first things taught to all mages at the academy. A way to know how much mana you had left was incredibly important, especially if a mage was in a life-or-death situation.

  Although Andrea had performed this technique to see her mana reserves countless times, this time, however, was different. Before this strange morning, Andrea would have had to put some effort into seeing her mana. But now, no effort was needed—all she needed was to think about it, and she could see and feel it.

  It was like a small candle flame had turned into a large campfire. Andrea grinned. The good news just kept on coming.

  “I don’t know what’s going on, but if my mana is somehow greater, then maybe I can cast my spells better.”

  Andrea quickly opened her eyes and brought out one of her palms, facing it upwards. She was going to cast a very basic spell.

  “Igni.”

  As she said the word, a rush of flames quickly burst out of her palm and kept going. The height and power of the elemental spell were far more than what Andrea had expected.

  She started to panic. She almost screamed but stopped herself. She would not get her parents rushing after her for a third time. She feared that she would burn all of her room if she didn’t get this under control.

  She started taking deep breaths. “Okay… okay. Calm down. Just reduce the amount of mana being put into the spell,” Andrea said to herself.

  She took her own advice. She slowly reduced the mana output on the fire spell, and its size reduced greatly. Before, it seemed like a wild and untamable beast, but now it was calm.

  Andrea looked at the red flames in her hand and felt a sense of pride. She had dreamed so many times of being able to cast any spell so effortlessly. She could perform spells before, but not this easily.

  “It’s not as hot as Caroline’s,” Andrea thought. She hissed as the thought crossed her mind.

  “Why did I have to think about that bitch?” Andrea complained.

  In the midst of her disgust, the grimoire opened to another random page. Andrea turned her gaze to the grimoire when she heard the flipping of its pages. On both pages, burn marks started to appear, forming some sort of shape.

  The burns slowly faded away, leaving a drawing of—a tree? Or roots. Both pages had two words at the top: ‘IGNI’ on the first page, and on the second was ‘REVEALIO.’

  Revealio was the word Andrea used to activate the spell that let her see her own mana. She hadn’t used it in years because she didn’t need to anymore.

  A mage, after repetitive use of a spell, could learn to cast it without words. However, when a mage said specific words like IGNI or something else, it wasn’t just to visualize, although that was important. Saying such specific spell words created a certain reaction in a mage’s mana, allowing them to easily cast a spell.

  Andrea picked up the grimoire and looked more closely at both diagrams of the tree. Below both spell words, the black marks descended and sprouted multiple branches far and wide. Each branch had a word at its end, and the words on the branches would create other branches that would also have words, and so on and so on.

  Andrea believed these were more spell words. She wasn’t sure if she recognized them. There were far too many—more than she had ever seen during her time at the academy.

  “What is this? Is this some kind of… spell tree?”