After that lesson with Mary, I went back to my room while continuously casting that spell to increase my proficiency with it.
I was taking her advice in maintaining the spell for as long as I could to try and learn how to multitask my magic casting, which could allow me to do simultaneous casting of multiple magic spells too. It was really quite difficult to do and I kept losing my concentration after a while which kept breaking the [Skin Mimicry] spell.
For channelled spells like this, a normal mage would have to continuously chant to keep the magic in effect. The moment they stop or stumble over the words would cause the spell to also break apart.
They would have to make chanting this magic second nature to them so that they are able to do other things even while they chant. This would be sort of like learning and memorising the lyrics to a song to the point that you can sing them while doing other things without messing up any words.
I had asked Mary about the higher tier Somatomancy spells and how people would be able to maintain those forms while hiding the fact that they were casting the spell.
She then showed me her [Body Shift] where she transformed herself into her alternate persona as Lina. After the first chant, she did not need to chant anymore to maintain her form.
Mary explained that the spell [Skin Mimicry] works by directing a person’s mana to temporarily alter the shape of their body to work. The moment the flow of mana is cut off, the person’s skin will revert back to its original form.
But for spells like [Body Shift], it actually alters the body permanently through magic so it’s not really maintaining a form at all.
She cautioned me that in the event that I do learn such a spell, I should first prepare a picture of myself to remember how I looked like. Because if I were to forget how I looked, I would not be able to transform myself back again.
Apparently in history, there have been cases where Somatomancers forget how they originally looked and were unable to transform themselves back to their original appearance. Some then chose to live as new identities while others tried to recreate themselves from memory but always end up as imperfect recreations of themselves.
You might think the latter wouldn’t be that much of a problem considering they could erase their past physical imperfections to recreate themselves, but there would always be the feeling of something missing for them for some reason.
It may just be something as simple as the thickness of the brow being incorrect or the angle of the nose being a little off centre. They would know that there was something wrong when they’re looking in the mirror as they instinctively know the person looking back at them in the reflection wasn’t really them but someone else.
Faced with such a dichotomy, it’s small wonder that some Somatomancers lose their minds especially with their skill to split their minds.
I wouldn’t be surprised if some of them even develop split personality disorders from this.
As for me… I don’t need to chant but I do need to concentrate on maintaining the flow of mana through my body to keep the spell active.
I thought that my experience with spells like [Air Pocket] would make this easier to do, but then I quickly realised one benefit that chanting had over me.
You see, when I move my body, I have to move the mana alongside it as well. If I don’t, the spell would break before reforming itself again when I concentrate on the mana once more.
To illustrate this, if I do not direct the mana properly while turning my head, my face would switch back to my original face mid motion before transforming back to whoever I was copying.
It might not sound like much but the transformation sequence would make my face look like some jelly and it’s especially disconcerting and weird to see.
The first time Delmare saw that happen, she actually screamed and fell out of her chair.
Looking at a mirror, I could see why she would be that scared of the sight too.
The good thing was that thanks to [Machine Learning], I’m slowly getting used to it so it wasn’t as bad as the first few times.𝒐𝑣𝗅xt.𝑐𝑜𝐌
But I’m still limited in my movements where if I move too fast, the spell would definitely break though. I believe it might take me a while to get used to it enough where I am able to move normally without breaking the spell but at least I wasn’t in a rush to do so.
Of course, there’s the option of simply chanting the spell to maintain it and Mary had even taught me what it was too.
It was simply ‘Mirror my flesh to the one I desire, let my form shift to match their attire’. Really short and simple
But if I were to rely on chanting, I would not be able to learn how to do this perfectly without it since there’s a very obvious application I’m able to achieve with this.
Aside from the limitation of only being able to transform myself to copy another person’s I wouldn’t need to worry about forgetting how I looked like with this spell since the change isn’t permanent like the higher tier versions of this magic.
If I master this skill, I can already go around impersonating people without the drawback of needing to chant!
Not that I was planning to do that, mind you…
Besides, there’s one other person who really wanted me to master this skill.
“Woooowww!! You look just like me Aster!!” Lisa squealed, inspecting me closely as I used the magic to turn myself into her.
She then reached out a hand and started squeezing one of my boobs, “Oooh~ Even the softness is the same~”
Unfortunately, that broke my concentration and I reverted back to my original form.
“Lisa… Can you not?” I groaned, casting the spell again to transform myself back into her.
“Well, I can’t help it, Aster. Not to brag but I never noticed how sexy I look. Mmmm~ Just look at those buns~ I’d love to put my face in between them! Oh, but I do prefer yours more, Aster~ It’s just that this is so immoral that it’s turning me on~”
I refrained from pointing out that pretty much anything I do would turn her on so this was very likely just her excuse to have sex with me.
Unfortunately for her, that was one of the activities I’m unable to do without breaking the spell so her selfcest fantasies would have to be put on hold for now.
Odeta started waving her hand, “Oh! Do me next! Do me next, sister Aster!”
I complied and transformed myself into her.
At first I thought she just wanted to see me turn into her for the novelty of it but then Odeta suddenly moved forward and hugged my waist, almost causing me to lose control of the spell from how unexpected it was.
She then started rubbing her face on my, or rather her, abs.
The Amrap kept at it for a while before pulling back with a confused look on her face, “Mnnn… I don’t get it… It doesn’t feel that nice? Why does sister Aster like to rub my abs so much?”
Eh? Was that why she wanted me to transform into her? So that she could try to rub her abs herself?
I scratched my cheek, “Ummm… It’s just something I like to do…”
Odeta shrugged but didn’t say anything more.
Delmare then raised her hand, “Could you do me next, Aster?”
I sat down on my bed and cast the magic again, feeling my legs merge together to form into a fish tail.
“Wow! You did it! Hmm… What if you only copied my tail so your top half is still you?”
Oh right, this would be the way she would use this magic to move around if she manages to learn it, except the other way around of course.
I did as she asked and returned the upper half of my body back to my normal self so that only the tail half remained.
“Be… Beautiful…” Delmare gasped with her hands covering her mouth. “Aster… You’re… You’re so beautiful…”
“E… Eh? Umm… Tha… Thank you…” I stuttered, feeling rather shy at suddenly being praised like that.
Unfortunately that also broke my concentration with the magic so my legs returned back to normal as well.
I decided to take this chance to change myself into the last person in the room.
Casting the magic again, I transformed myself into Katsuki and my maid actually widened her eyes slightly in surprise.
“How do I look, Katsuki?” I asked.
She bowed her head, “As expected of Mistress, the spell is perfect.”
Before I could tell her that that wasn’t what I meant, I felt a sudden jolt of pleasure shot up my spine and the spell was quickly broken to return me back to my original form.
I turned back to see Lisa grasping at the air behind me as she pouted, “Awww… I only just started touching your tail… Could you do that again, Aster?”
Ahh… So that’s what it feels like for Katsuki’s tail to be touched…
That’s… Umm… Good to know? Actually, that doesn’t feel bad…
At least this spell was helping me understand them better~