Chara envisioned a pair of mana tendrils and made them cp. As a faint, otherworldly weight settled over her mind—the sign of a pleted spell struct—she pushed on it, infusing the spell with her mana.

  Cp~! Cp~! Cp~!

  Suddenly met with a round of appuse, the music spirit’s mana couldn’t help but swell pridefully, their swirling growing noticeably more cheerful.

  “Greetings, I am [Spirit Who Loves Musid Pying Flute], but you call me Music~!” she introduced herself in a silky, high-pitched voice.

  Chara’s swirling slowed as she parsed the words’ meaning.

  What kind of name is that? Or rather, isn’t that just your entire existence?

  She was momentarily stu how much meaning could be crammed into a single word using [Speak]. Making note of this observation for ter, she returhe greeting.

  “Hi, I’m um… [Spirit], but you call me Little Spirit,” she introduced herself with a bit of uainty, as she tried and failed to think of how to define herself. She sidered using her real name, but she was afraid that it might end up making her seem weird.

  Wow, so cute…!

  With a chuckle, Music approached Chara and spoke. “Little One, I tell that there is a great musi swirling inside of you. Have you sidered being a music essence spirit~?”

  Bee a music essence spirit?

  Puzzled, the little spirit’s mana rippled in fusion. But then, she thought about Curiosity.

  From the moment they first met, Chara had immediately dis that they were both different. For ohe greater spirit was clearly much rger than her, possessing far more mana. In addition, while both spirits were made up of the same unexpined iridest mana, Curiosity’s exuded the same gentle and refreshing characteristic of water element mana. And this was not to mention any of her other strange abilities, like the way she always seemed to be aware of iqued her curiosity.

  “How do I bee a music essence spirit?” Chara asked, with quite a bit of anticipation.

  “The same way you bee any other kind of spirit; by cultivating a [Bond]~!”

  Cultivating a what?

  Looking at the little spirit’s disanized and messy swirling, the music spirit giggled. “Oh my... Could it be… That you don’t know about [Bonds]~?”

  This question earned her a fierce gre from the now upset Chara, who was swirling as fast as a tornado, though it wasn’t very intimidating.

  How I not know what a ‘Bond’ is? I just don’t know what it mea!

  From what she could grasp, the word’s meaning seemed to describe some kind of uionship between herself and something else, though she wasn’t sure exactly what. heless, she had the distinct feeling that this e was magical in nature, and that it could be used to aplish various things.

  The little spirit’s musings were cut short by the gentle booping of an illusory mana tendril, which made soft whistling sounds each time it brushed against her.

  “What are you thinking so hard about? Don’t you know that if you have too many thoughts, you will turn into a b knowledge spirit~? If you have any questions, should you just ask this smart and reliable music spirit,” suggested Music,

  “Then, what are ‘Bonds’?” Chara asked, slipping away the mischievous wind tendril.

  “How do I put it… So, imagine I asked you to blow away one of these flowers,” the music spirit gestured using her freed mana tendril. “How would you go about doing it?”

  “I would… cast a spell?” Chara answered.

  “Naturally. I mean how would you cast it?” Music asked again.

  The little spirit rippled ptively as she took a moment to gather her thoughts. “First, I would envision the flower being blown away. , I would recite an intation that describes the blowing of wind. Finally, I would ihe spell struct with wind mana.”

  “Good,” Music hummed approvingly before ung into an expnation.

  “The purpose of casting is to get mana to express its potential in a way that leads to a particur oute. But well… as you might already be familiar with, mana is extremely silly and dumb! So much so, that it often struggles to follow even basistrus~! Despite this, how do you think casting mao overe this dilemma and sistently bring about the intended result?”

  How would I know? I only learned about castihan an ho…

  Notig the little spirit’s fused swirling, the music spirit attempted to guide her thinking.

  “So, imagihere is a ball on a slope. What do you think will happen if it’s just left there?”

  “It will roll down the slope?”

  “Exactly~! Now, imagine a chuck of ice left in a warm room. What do you think will happen to the ice if it’s just left there?”

  “It will melt.”

  “Precisely~! Then how about a pile of sand in a windy pce?”

  “It will get blown away.”

  “That’s right~! My point is, in each of these sarios, an object has been pced in a dition that naturally guarantees a certain clusion,” expihe music spirit.

  “Okay, but what does any of that have to do with casting?” Chara expressed her doubts.

  “I was getting there. Anyways, without going into too much detail; the purpose of the first two steps, envisioning and invocation, is to establish something called [text].

  “Now, the thing about [text], is that it is actually the circumstances in which things occur. This is extremely important, because it means that by establishing a strong enough [text], you make it so that the possibility you seek bees the most natural, iable clusion.

  “And as every spirit knows—mana is possibility~! Thus, just as the ball is destio roll down the slope, the mana p your spell will be naturally ined to ma its potential in lih that clusion,” cluded Music.

  So, kind of like the path of least resistance… Chara mused.

  “With is in mind, suppose you tried to use a spell simir to the one you described earlier. Except, rather than blowing away one of these crystal flowers, you tried to knock over that giant crystal tree. Do you think you could do it~?” Music asked in a teasing tone, clearly already knowing the answer.

  “…No,” Chara admitted.

  “Likely so, but it’s not because of the reason you think. Setting aside the issue of mana, if a spell doesn’t have a strong enough [text], then the [Spell struct] won’t ma in the first pce. After all, without [text], nothing happen,” Music stated in a matter-a-fact tone.

  “With all that said, what if I told you that there is a way around all of this?”

  “Is it… bonds?” Chara asked.

  maury