I managed to finish the rest of the thesis pretty quickly. Unfortunately, most of Mister Mourngrown’s interesting claims soon became incoherent ramblings. His love life did not improve even with his studies. Though I did figure out the date this was published. Going by the age of the typical Academy student, this man is likely in his forties right now. Perhaps I'll give him a pat on the back if I ever meet him.

There was only really one section of the thesis that stood out to me after completing the read. The paper proposed that there is a large amount of unexplored flexibility when leaving a residue of your mana signature outside of your body. The technique itself isn't a new thing, my father had left traces of his mana at one point in our battle to trick me, after all. Mister Mourngrown had discussed that purposely emoting certain ways while leaving mana signatures could change their properties, and even allow them to be manipulated.

In concept it's a little difficult to imagine the execution. If I were angry and left an emotionally charged mana signature somewhere, would that signature be “angry” too then? And what would its effect even be? This paper provides limited examples, and it doesn't even seem like the concept was fully experimented with.

Well, it shouldn't hurt to be that experiment then, right? What emotion to use…

Exhaustion. Yeah. Let's use that. Some sort of mix of sluggishness and frustration, with the feeling of wanting to do something significant, yet also nothing at all. I recall the time I stretched my mana around that one mountainous town, and start to extend it outwards from my hand. I don't want to mark any of the books or shelves here, so I'm just going to leave this signature floating in the air for now.

Alright, think of all those exhausting lives that butcher and bludgeon you, and focus that into a helpless sense of progression. I’m picturing all the times in my lives where I wanted at least a small break.

I feel my mana warping and eventually it breaks off my extension of its own accord. It seems the signature has become its own thing. …Oddly enough, its shape has formed into something resembling the collection of my body's mana channels, going by my mana sensing.

I've basically created a purely magical caricature of me. Though that caricature is in no way physical and is very, very stiff at the moment. To normal eyes, it's likely a vague, purple colored apparition that pulses with its own light.

Does it do anything though? What if I try and “emote” with it? Hmmm. Nope. Doesn't work. Mister Mourngrown, your claims have some basis, but how the heck can this thing be manipulated? Should I change the mana signature’s code? In the snowy forest, I had layered my mana signature to make it seem confusing and unidentifiable. What if I code this special signature to perform instructions?

It's an odd process, because I now have to reach out into the air and directly modify my emotionally charged signature after its broken off from my mana channels’ flow. To anyone who cannot see mana, I'm just fiddling my hands around in the air.

It takes longer than I wanted to, but eventually I find what I'm looking for. Through various tests of modifying that signature, I actually get this thing to move around. It's showcasing very sluggish movement and sometimes it seems to curl up in the fetal position.

So it exudes familiar traits of me later on in my lives, it seems. Hm. Exhaustion indeed.

That got me annoyed, and I ended up pre-coding another emotionally charged mana signature with that annoyance. This one seems to move erratically and kick the ground a lot. It can't physically do anything to the environment without my coding though.

I'm noticing how bad some of my own habits are with these things as I create more of them. It's making me a bit self conscious, so I've resolved to ignore that observation and sleep it off.

At this point I'm a bit fatigued, and with seven of these experiments hanging around the library now, I think I've done enough at the moment.

Mister Mourngrown, you had some worth after all. Maybe I'll update that pat on the back to a quick handshake. I'll name these things mana apparitions, because I'm sure they are at least slightly creepy, and you didn't have the foresight to name your discovery. That'll have to work for now.

I feel my stomach grumbling. Time for a snack. I nearly trip from all the books I have scattered around me, but I stumble my way to the door eventually. I'll take time to make sure the coast is clear. In typical sneaky fashion, I lean my head close to the door, and listen to the sounds outside. Now, I am in the basement of the house, so this would be pretty useless if I wasn't me, but some mana powered hearing will supplement that limitation plenty fine.

Let's see…

“How have we still not found her?!”

“Is she in the greenhouse? Did we check the shed there?”

“Oh! W-What about the kitchen, she might have been hungry!”

“The young lady can't have just disappeared like that right?”

“Is she even still at the estate?! She's feral right?! She's definitely feral!”

Ah. So all that muffled commotion I had heard earlier was in fact for me. I wonder how I should handle this situation. I want a snack and then some time to wash up, but it seems that any attempts at stealth will be squandered by the whole house looking for me. Is this library that abandoned? So much so that they won't even check here? Or perhaps they need the key that I now have in my possession. Both sides have a dilemma to deal with.

“Did we check downstairs yet? My daughter is smart, I have no doubts that she could find a way to hide down there.”

Hmmm. My father wants to fetch me it seems. My initial plan was just to loaf around here for the month stay and do mostly nothing, and that still is the plan. But I'm itching to move my body a little more, so I'll just take this early opportunity to go wild and then calm down afterwards.

With that resolution in mind, I'm ready to go. Let's play a game then. I'll tire out the team searching for me, let them know I'm still alive and then come back to reading within… 2 hours let's say. It'll be a game of cat and mouse… just with many, many cats. For this to work though, I'll need to take this outside. I will run face first into a wall if we do anything in here.

I prepare by coding my seven apparitions to move around the library in different patterns, and then I suppress my mana so low that I'm sure to be undetectable, especially amidst my magic buddies in here.

It's not long before the library door is roughly busted open. It seems they figured out the key was missing and had to break the doorknob.

“Winfred, there are traces of someone being here. Books are scattered and are all over the desks and floor.”

“Your Grace, no one has entered the library for months. I can be sure of it. The young lady is most certainly here. If we're lucky, she may be asleep.”

“...What is a girl like her doing here? And how did she get here by herself? Something’s off. There are multiple traces of her mana in here. Too many to seem normal. Search from the left side, I'll take the right.”

Ah, poor father, you may have covered the ground, but I'm slithering atop the library shelves. People seldom look up, and so it's almost always an advantage to find my way in a place up high. Have fun with my little buddies, you two.

I slip through the open doors to the library and slowly crawl up the stairs. Listening to the voices and footsteps of the house, there seems to be a few teams of servants searching for me. I can't hear my father, which means he's focused on the library. Success. So far.

Alright, I should be in the foyer right now, so that just gives me a straight shot to the outside. Time to start running. Directing mana to my legs, I sprint across the foyer and burst open the front doors of the estate. Let's play in the front yard first.

“W-Was that the young lady?!”

“Where did she come from?”

“We need to follow her, go! Go!!”

About ten people are following me at much slower speeds, all calling me various ways and pleading with me to calm down. I'm not going to attack them in any way, just dodge them. I'll consider this a nice warm up exercise to my eventual return to physical activity. Staying in bed for a week is no good thing as I am now. I don't want my body to get used to comfort.

A chilling breeze sweeps over the front yard. Ah, it's lightly snowing, guess I should use some mana to heat myself up as well. I test out a mana pulse too, and although there are some duds during the sensing, most of the front yard still remains natural and uncleansed. Nice.

The first servant, a man four times my size, attempts to go for a grab but I slide under his legs and give him a little tap on the back. You'd be dead now if you were a monster. The next two men are much the same, even with a coordinated pincer attack. One of them smells like tomatoes though, which stimulates my hunger. Instead of focusing on the maids who are panicking, I latch on to the tomato man from behind. Ah. I think that was instinctual. I guess I haven't eaten anything in days. My time in the wild must have stimulated my body in a way to where it still scavenges for food.

Well, now that I'm in this situation anyways, I can try and communicate with the man. Playing up my feral act, I sniff loudly near him and hold out my hand. Tomato please.

I can nearly feel the bewilderment radiating off of him. A clever maid steps in.

“Young lady, we have food in the kitchen for you if you calm down. But only if you calm down.”

Not many would negotiate with someone like me. You get bonus points. But that's still not going to work. I steal the tomato I've already identified from within the man's pocket and kick off his back.

I'll be honest, tomatoes are really hit or miss for me. I either find them really tasty or slimy and disgusting. I will judge this tomato right here and now. In front of everyone, I take a large bite. The crunch echoes out into the front yard.

Bleh. This tomato fails the test. But I'm not one to spit up my food. Those yeti-monkeys were far more abhorrent, so I swallow the bite with a shudder. I toss it back to the tomato man and give him a thumbs down. Bad tomato.

“Quick, write that down! The young lady dislikes tomatoes!”

Hey hey hey, what the heck are you recording about me? Am I a creature to be studied? And you've got that information wrong, miscellaneous maids.

Alright time to dodge some more. It seems like the tomato man and the other two men are trying to gently scoop me up and transport me back inside. The various maids are recording information about me in odd ways and are generally there just to panic, though the clever one does try and snatch me a few times as well. I did sense a maid leaving in the process, which means she's likely getting reinforcements. Said reinforcements might include my father, which means I would lose instantly.

Expecting my swift downfall, I decide to travel upwards. Using mana powered legs, I perform a great and weighty jump upwards and latch onto a balcony on the third floor.

“M-My lady! You mustn't do that, you will get hurt!”

“Jump down to my arms, my lady!”

“My lady!! You're very cool!”

Now the maids are giving me mixed signals? What is going on today? Whatever the case may be, I'm now in unreadable territory again. Jumping up here, I was able to use the fizzling out of my mana pulse to identify where the house started, but now that I'm actually standing on a part of the house once more, I should play things more safely.

Except I'm ignoring my own advice by climbing on to the roof instead. The high ground generally gives one an advantage, as I mentioned before, and most people aren't persistent enough to climb all the way up here.

“Where is Aella?!”

And cue the monstrous duke. I can feel his mana surging in rage. Or is it panic? Regardless, he's now outside.

“Your Grace, the young lady has been putting herself in danger and is climbing up on the roof.”

“She's what?!”

I can applaud the clever maid for being blunt and curt. Good qualities to have amidst panic. Though I think the way she phrased it only made the Duke more energized to come get me. Perhaps that was her intention.

But it won't work, I'll be jumping into the inner courtyard from here and dashing back into the kitchen for a quick snack. As soon as I have my snack in hand, I'll lock myself back in the basement library. I can figure out a way to misdirect everyone in the process, hopefully. Sending the Duke up on the roof will only buy me the time I need to find my way back to comfort.

It hasn't even been close to two hours like I planned, but I didn't expect the whole estate to participate in my game of hide and seek. Oh well.

I slide down the roof and land smoothly. Best be quick about this. I'm about to feel for the door behind me when I hear an unusually young voice stop me.

“Lady Aella, I'm here to retrieve you!”

Was there a servant this young at the Duke's estate? And the voice came from above? I instinctually jump backwards and end up slamming my back into the sharp corner of a statue. Ugh.

The young voice from above makes themselves known through their magic signature. It's… curly, almost wispy, and it feels light on my senses. Despite this, I can also feel a rumbling underneath its surface, as if there's a lot more to that wispiness than there initially seems.

This child definitely has some strong magic, and they approached me quickly from above, which means they have a clear understanding of how they can enhance their movement.

“Do you feel my mana signature, Lady Aella? I hope it isn't bothering you! My grandma says that you like to sense magic, how do you feel?"

What are they blabbering about? I only sense magic because I have to. I take a step and immediately hear the child shift the position of their feet.

“Lady Aella, as your soon-to-be maid, I should get to know as much about you as possible. That's what Grandma said too! I'll chase you if you run away!”

Then let's play tag, child.

I shoot off in the opposite direction, using my mana pulse technique to feel the limited grassy terrain in the courtyard. I quickly scale myself back onto the roof, though I make sure I'm not heading to my father's location at the front of the house. I'll run into the backyard gardens and, if I need to, hide myself in the forest beyond that.

“Ahhh!! Lady Aella don't go too far without me!”

Because I am running from something yet again, I decide to use the hair tendril technique I improvised against the griffin. It's nowhere near as complicated this time, since this girl is far less dangerous, but just using my hair to sense changes in her magic will serve well.

And funnily enough, it's wind magic yet again that my hair senses. So her mana signature was a “calm before the storm” type then? A preluding breeze to a hidden rumbling storm. I'd hate to see this girl angry as an adult.

The girl is using her magic quite well. Shooting magic from her hands and feet to propel herself upwards and in various angles. She's not directly attacking me but instead keeps getting ahead of me with wind bursts and halts right in my path. I keep having to awkwardly dodge this girl on the roof with out of place shimmying and quick cartwheels. We probably look like a circus performance.

“Lady Aella, it's really dangerous up here. Please relax, and I'll let you down with my wind magic.”

This girl keeps saying this as she's got me trapped in a looping circle of backing off motions. I head one way and she quickly adapts and slides around to meet me, meeting my gaze even though she likely knows that I cannot visually perceive her. The girl is adept and keen with her interruptions. It's a cyclical and tedious process that makes me feel like a confused rat stuck in a cage.

Alright, enough of this, I need to confirm something. I direct mana into my legs and approach the girl.

“Ah! Are you ready to return? I hear the chef is eager to prepare as big of a breakfast as you want! Actually, it might be more of a midday meal at this rate...”

I smile and tilt my head, loosening up my body and feeling the girl in front of me relax… before tensing up once again and launching off the roof in another big jump. The girl doesn't interrupt me and I hear her surprised yelp. It's as I thought. The girl is great at controlling her own mana, but has trouble sensing the flows of others. I'm sure she'll get better with practice in the future, but I bet the windy flow of her mana disrupts what otherwise should be an easy process. Her methodology of confronting me is entirely reactive and not at all preparatory. The Duke and most other magic users always have little cues to show them reacting to the changes in my mana. This girl has none.

“Lady Aella, you tricked me! You looked so nice when you smiled too!!”

Sorry, not sorry. The garden I launched to is much like the other outside amenities at this estate, and since I'm already used to this half-baked mana sensing that I can do in a place like this, I'm not finding much trouble weaving through the hedges on my way to the forest.

The young maid is trailing behind me, but from above. I couldn't sense her at first, but she solved that problem for me by shouting for me from the sky. I guess the girl opted to use more mana for a bird's eye view. Commendable sure, but something tells me she just didn't want to damage the plants with her wind magic.

If I remember correctly, there should be a hole near the back garden wall, and I'm making a fool of myself by trying to feel for it. Where was it, where was it?

Found it. I make sure to grab a gardening hoe as a substitute walking stick, and I proceed forward. My small and malnourished body slides through easily. Let's take this to the trees, young maid.

“Aella, do you even know where you are going?”

That voice! My father?! How did he get over here so fast?

“Luckily, Sebas knows minor teleportation magic. He had tagged you when you were recovering and didn't tell me until now, the bastard. I didn't even have to work hard to catch you.”

You say that, dear father, but evidence suggests that you forced the entire estate to look for me while I was simply in the basement reading books.

On another note, I've decided I dislike whoever this Sebas person is. What a cheater. I forget if he was anyone important in my previous lives, but that doesn't matter right now. This was a game of tag between me and the maid, and he had the gall to tag me days in advance. I've been “it” the entire time. I'll remember his name solely because I'll need to get him to untag me somehow. My father doesn't need quick teleportation access to my location like this. It's stifling.

“...Why are you giving me that look? Let this be a lesson, it's good to use what manpower you have to cover up your blind spots. Especially if you happen to-”

“Lady Aella wait please!”

The maid clumsily lands in front of me again.

“Haaaah… Do you know how much mana I've used trying to reach you? That smile of yours really threw me off!”

“What did you just say? Aella smiled at you?”

I can already tell where this is going to go. My father will get jealous because I smiled at a random girl before I smiled at him. There was never any intention behind it besides deception, though. Perhaps I should work my way back into the garden…

“She did Your Grace! On the rooftop, but then she started running away again right after!”

“Aella, why did you smile at her? What made you happy? I can give it to you as soon as you want.”

“...”

“...You're back to that look again?”

“Your Grace, if she really did smile, I think she was having fun playing with me! It was like tag!”

“Tag? Aella would you like to play tag with your fath-”

I'm already back in the garden, father.

“She left?!”

My most recent mana pulse tells me further escape is futile, unfortunately. There's about thirty people, tomato man included, in the garden now. There's ten more on the roof, and the terrible two I just escaped from are still speaking loudly behind me. Everyone's mobilized and ready at the choke point, and in such short notice too. I suppose that's the power of a Duke and his staff.

Ugh.

If I play this out any further, I'd need to start damaging things and people. There's no need for that now. I'll just sit over here and accept my defeat.

It takes a few minutes for the Duke to reach me and bring me back inside. The young maid, the clever maid, and the bastard cheater Sebas tag along as well.

I decide not to pay attention to what everyone is saying. I think the maids may have given me their names. The Duke also seems to have scolded me. I tune out the useless dialogue and spend my time attempting to give Sebas a glare, staring at him even though I can only sense his mana channels. Grr.

Once we get to the stairs the Duke tries to pick me up again. Did he not learn from last night? I channel my inner worm and I make sure to squirm.

“Aella, calm down please. We can eat some tasty food, and then I can take you back to the library. You like it there right?”

“Your Grace, shouldn't we… kind of… figure out how she got there in the first place?”

“No need to, Sebas. My daughter is smart and knows how to adapt to surprises. I don't doubt her ability to discover the library. She likely thinks it's similar to a cave.”

“...A cave, Your Grace?”

“She spent months alone in the wild. Caves are sturdy and reliable homes wherever you go, especially in lands like these. If Aella has the instinct to rest somewhere like that, then finding her in the library is no surprise.”

“But my father told me that the books have been misplaced everywhere, going by when he went there with you earlier. They’ve been moved off the shelves and all over the floor. There's even evidence she read some, even though she's... well... blind.”

“Sebas, do you doubt the intelligence of my daughter? Of a Sincavage? She is no idiot. If she wants to pretend to read, let her have fun.”

Father, I felt like you kind of had something there, but then spilled it all over the floor. How are you going to bring up the Sincavage name, only to say that I wanted to have fun pretending to read books? That makes me sound like a fool.

“And the scarily human mana signatures, Your Grace? I've never seen anything like that.”

“A child her age should want friends, so creating some of her own in the interim is more of a good sign, not a bad one.”

Dear father, should you really reveal your entirely inaccurate musings of my thought process to your staff? Just how far are you willing to go when it comes to rationalizing my selfish behavior in your brain? Just earlier in the library you said something was off about me. I am certainly not precious enough to have you do things like this.

Well, it's no big matter, the Duke can handle the bafflement of his employees on his own time. Someone quickly cleaned me with some convenient water magic, and now we've been seated in the dining room, just the Duke and I.

And I smell meat. This is definitely more than a snack, but I won't complain about a meal.

Ahhhh wait, I'm eating with the Duke. I've lived too many lives to know that this won't be simple. I'll hear useless things about future plans for me and table manners and probably even deeper questions on what I was doing in the library. 

I just wanted to enjoy some food. This is going to be a lot more tedious than I want it to be, isn't it?