Andrea traced her fingers along the diagrams of the downward trees, among many words. “If this really is what I think it is, then my luck is finally turning around,” Andrea said.

  Grimoires were recordings of how to perform spells. Andrea had read many before, but none were like the one she was holding in her hands. They had a lot of writings in them, explaining the history of magic, magic principles, and many other things.

  This book contained almost no writings in its pages, except for the few that appeared this morning. It also seemed to have a sort of will of its own or something similar.

  Andrea thought it was no coincidence that one of the pages mentioned an evolution spell and her sudden transformation. She found it a coincidence when two trees appeared on two different pages after she had performed two spells, and the two spell names just happened to be at the base of both trees.

  Somehow, Andrea didn’t know how, but whatever had happened the previous day in the attic had connected her to the grimoire.

  “What was that anyway? A sort of bonding ritual? Is that even a thing?” She didn’t know, but what she did know was that she had to experiment more with the grimoire.

  After so long, she had a glimmer of hope that she could become a good enough mage, and she wasn’t going to let that opportunity slip away.

  But not in her room. She looked around it. She had almost burned it down when she performed a basic spell. She wasn’t going to take any more chances. She looked through her drawers and wardrobe. Unfortunately, she couldn't find any clothes that she hadn’t outgrown because of her transformation.

  She could ask her parents for some money so she could buy new clothes at the mall, but that would take too long, and she feared her excitement for learning more about the grimoire would fade away.

  “AH, screw it!” She decided to sneak out of the house. No way her parents, especially her mum, would let her go outside looking like this, wearing undersized hoodies revealing her waist and short pants.

  When her parents were distracted with their activities, Andrea managed to sneak out of the house, going through the front door.

  As she walked through the street, she started thinking of where to safely practice magic with her newly acquired grimoire.

  “A park? No, there would be people there.” It had to be somewhere where she would have almost zero percent chance of human contact.

  “The woods.” That sounded perfect. She could get there in a short amount of time. Although—she would be performing fire spells. She could either practice fire spells at the academy where she could have no fear of being exposed or destroying anything, or she could be very, very careful and try not to start a forest fire.

  The latter option seemed favorable to her, so that’s what she decided to go for. She could go by a lake, but the nearest one was too far away.

  As she kept walking, something happened to her that had never happened before. She was catcalled. She first heard a whistle and a voice of young men giggling.

  “What’s cooking, good looking?” a voice called out. Andrea stopped in her tracks and turned to where the voice had come from. She found three boys, looking to be in their late teens or early twenties, all sitting on the steps of an apartment building.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  She turned left and right. She was the only one on the street. “Are you talking to me?” Andrea asked, pointing to herself.

  “Who else would we be talking to, baby?” one of the boys answered. They all wore baggy clothes and baseball caps backward.

  ‘What decade do these losers think it is?’ Andrea thought. Andrea had never been hit on before. Well, at least not for a long time, seeing as she always looked like a kid when she was indeed in her late teens.

  She always envied girls at the academy getting complimented by the boys for their looks. It was shallow, but she deeply craved it. And now when her wish finally came true, it just felt dirty and disgusting.

  She ignored the three boys and walked away. “I’m sure that wouldn’t have happened before today. Be careful what you wish for, I guess.”

  A thought appeared in Andrea’s head, one that made her blush. She was sure that those guys wouldn’t have hit on her before her transformation. Taller and better looking.

  When she returned to the academy, would Lucien finally take notice of her? She shook her head and slapped both her cheeks.

  “No! I’m done with fantasizing. He belongs to Caroline, and even if he didn’t, he wouldn’t want someone like me.”

  Andrea finally made it to the woods and chose an open space. Not too close to the trees.

  “Alright, this seems as good a place as any.” She looked all around her. No one was here. Perfect.

  She turned to the pages of the grimoire with the trees. Incantations were simple and yet complex.

  Igni was the main word for casting fire spells, but other spells could be chanted to modify it in many different ways. But not just any spell words could be said after main words like IGNI or REVEALIO.

  Specific words would need to be said in a specific order, or something unexpected would happen. The spell could be canceled or, worse, backfire and hurt the mage.

  Because of this massive problem, the academy only taught spell incantations in orders that they knew for a fact wouldn’t hurt their students. The students were free to experiment with the incantations, but with how many incantation words there were, it was certain that they would make a mistake that might cost their lives.

  So Andrea might have been scared to experiment with incantations, but she wasn’t. Because she had a hunch. Spell words had to be chanted in specific orders with a main spell word always at the beginning.

  Well, this spell tree, or whatever, might have just given her the right order to say the words.

  The spell tree spread out its worded branches, but they also interconnected with each other, giving Andrea an uncountable amount of combinations to choose from.

  She held her grimoire in one hand and held out her other hand upwards. She began to pant. She wasn’t scared before, but she was now. The theory of the spell tree giving her correct orders of incantations was just a hunch.

  She could be wrong, and if she was, she would most likely be in a world of hurt. “I can’t chicken out now,” Andrea steeled her resolve and said the first word.

  “IGNI,” she uttered the first word, and a reaction occurred on her palm. She regulated the mana that poured into it, and red flames appeared above it.

  When the main spell word was uttered, it glowed a bright golden color in the grimoire. “That’s interesting.” Andrea decided to utter another word, one below the main spell word.

  As she did, a second reaction started to take place with the flame above her palm. The second spell word also glowed. It seemed like the grimoire was guiding her, indicating what spell words had already been said.

  Andrea was about to say another spell word below the second spell word but stopped.

  One thing Andrea learned at the academy was that the more incantations it took to perform a spell, the more powerful it would be.

  “Maybe I should stop at two incantations for now. If I’m wrong and I really am saying these things out of order, I could really do some damage to the forest and myself.”

  She decided to let the spell alteration play out without saying another word. The flame started to shift rapidly. It looked like it was about to explode.

  “Oh crap! I was wrong.” Andrea closed her eyes and looked away, bracing herself for what was about to come.

  The flame continued to shift and flicker, but instead of exploding, it concentrated into a sphere and rolled in a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree motion. Andrea opened her eyes and noticed this. She let out a huge sigh of relief.

  “Well, I guess I was right after all.