That….was not what Elizabeth had expected to see.

  "Are you sure she is a [Magical Girl]?" Elizabeth turned to Jenna and pointed at Lily. "Because I don't see anything that says that."

  Lily for her part tilted her head to the side, was she really trying that hard to sell on the cute act? I mean, she was indeed cute, but Elizabeth had enough on her plate with two girls already, besides this one while broken, was not broken.

  "...Not a…Magical Girl," Lily answered and then pointed at where the blue status screen was hovering, "...why would I have….Magical Girl skills….A Sorcerer… doesn't need them."

  That….was actually a fair answer, it indeed made sense to not have [Magical Girl] skills if one wasn't a [Magical Girl], but that was not the only problem. The problem was more important than that.

  "The problem is not so much that, but…none of those skills sound like something a Magic Caster would use." Elizabeth said, the list…was more closer to what she would expect from a soldier, not even those of a [Hero].

  "But…am not a Magic Caster….am a Sorcerer." Lily said once more.

  Elizabeth was getting mighty annoyed at this Girl.

  "Breath, Elizabeth, breath…. don't make new enemies…you need all the help you can get…" Elizabeth said aloud, Jenna seemed to be enjoying this. Elizabeth would punish that Girl later.

  "...good….getting controlled by your own emotions is bad," Lily nodded sagely; Elizabeth really wanted to shoot a Railgun at the woman; she was actively restraining her Mana from weaving itself into the magnetic cannon. "...why would I need skills to use….mana?"

  That made Elizabeth stop flat.

  “...Because….to get….help from….the system?” Elizabeth answered, half confused, half sure.

  “....do you….use….the…skills?” Lily asked, pointing back at Elizabeth.

  Elizabeth shuddered as the silver-haired Girl's eyes shone with pale light. Elizabeth prepared herself to defend against a skill…but nothing came, no [Idea], no [Skill]...

  Actually, why was she guarding herself? She herself knew better than anyone that the Girl didn't have any infosec skills.

  “...it’s…a…waste of resources…to…use them…like….this.” Lily said making a plucking motion and pulling out….a case file?

  But that was not the main problem here, the problem was that Lily showed the case file to Elizabeth and the contents…Well…

  It was her skill section, the whole thing. With the data of the skills that had achieved the X mastery and no longer were advancing.

  "...How?" Elizabeth asked confused grabbing onto the case file, her Dragon Eyes shining in azure light as she examined the paper of this folder, it was made entirely up of Mana.

  "...Magic," Lily said smugly as she, once again, puffed out her almost inexisting chest proudly.

  "....you are no mage, you have no magic skills, no mana manipulation skills, no magic circle, mana engraving, rune making, rune carving, artifact or anything closely related to mana, prana, ether, aether, Ki, Chakra or even Od." Elizabeth said that as she cycled across all the variations, she was aware of Mana.

  Most of these came from the knowledge that Alexanders had left her behind, others came from her connection to The World, both Zaanam and Terra Nexus.

  Even so, Elizabeth came empty.

  "...not...mage...is...this one.....slow?" Lily asked turning to Jenna.

  Well, that was just rude, Elizabeth was not slow. This woman just plainly speaking nonsense. Or...was Elizabeth asking the wrong question? It could be...

  "Okay, let's leave whether you are using magic or not. What is a sorcerer? Isn't that just a subtype of Magical Girls? Like how Healers and Enchanters are merely a sub-specialization?" Elizabeth decided asking.

  "Eli-Eli, that is not fair. Not all Healers are [Magical Girls - Healers]." Rossie said from the side.

  ...Great, not Rossie was joining the nonsense! See what you did Lily Thompson - The Sniper!

  "....Finally asking...the....right questions..." Lily nodded her head smiling.

  The right question? But... surely there wasn't that much of a difference between the two...right?

  "...A...Mage is...someone who....studies....magic...and follows a...blueprint....to cast...a...spell....Then...what is...a...Magical Girl?" Lily answered first by describing something that Elizabeth already knew.

  "A Magical Girl is a woman, be it teenager, young adult or adult who with the use of magic transforms into a young visage, usually an appearance that looks between twelve to eighteen years." Elizabeth decided to start with the easy part: "They cast magic usually on the flamboyant side and spread happiness and love, fighting for what they think is justice."

  ...That was kind of a ridiculous description, wasn't it?

  "Also, most, if not all Magical Girls tend to have some degree of trauma or psychological problems in their life," Elizabeth added the most important bit, which was something that couldn't be helped since Mother had created the genre in Zaanam to help abused girls, so at the very base. Those who rose as true Magical Girls did it to prevent other people from ending like them.

  "...and....their magic?" Lily asked without letting Elizabeth dwell too much on that.

  Their Magic? Hadn't Elizabeth said it? No, wait, she only said that the magic was flamboyant...

  "It's normal magic," Elizabeth said, raising a finger and conjuring the magic circle for [Wind Bullet]. "We use either magic circle with the spell already engraved as this [Wind Bullet]."

  While tweaking the spell force, Elizabeth shot the spell against one of the walls, not doing any damage to it.

  "Or like Rossie and myself like we build it up like this," Elizabeth said pulling on the spell nodes directly and weaving them one after another, "[Wind Manipulation] + [Bolt] = [Wind Bullet]."

  And once more, tweeking the power Elizabeth threw the spell against the same wall.

  "My favorite method allows greater control and lets us personalize it to the situation, and in a world limited by the number of skill slots or spell slots, this grants me greater ease of use." Elizabeth shrugged; she was quite happy about her discovery of this method since it allowed her greater freedom compared to everyone else.

  "....But....why not just..." Lily Thompson said turning to look against that very same wall and blowing a little, she threw a wind bullet against the wall, "...there....same effect, why complicate it...you....also have...the qualifications....to be a....sorcerer..."

  ...What?

  "I... don't think my lungs are that strong?" Elizabeth said confused. "Are my lungs that strong?"

  And turned to Rossie, her personal sexy nurse, doctor, and general practitioner.

  "I don't think that was her lungs, no matter how many status points she has or how much her body has been developed, no one can pull in that much wind into their lungs without affecting the surrounding area," Rossie answered as her eyes shone with a pink hue, was she using her own infosec skill? "Besides, that was a [Wind Bullet], as far as the composition was, at least, Ren-Ren?"

  "The overall form, design and speed was exactly the same as Eli. But I didn't detect any Mana, but my mana detection skills are worse than both of you." Rena answered.

  No wait, Mana?

  Did Elizabeth detect Mana? No. She did not...But Rossie said that was impossible with a normal human lung...Could Elizabeth do it if she turned to her [Dragon Empress] shift?

  No, that would be closer to a Breath than a [Wind Bullet]...Then...sorcery?

  "Then what is a sorcerer?" Elizabeth decided to ask, she had already answered what a Mage and Magical Girl were after all.

  "...A sorcerer....is....Jenna?" Lily turned to Jenna, "...can you....please?"

  "...You need to know more people and get out more," Jenna said with a sigh as she raised her hand and a small blue blob of Mana materialized, "We can't continue doing this, this isn't healthy."

  "...your...sister also...has....her problems..." Lily said, extending her hand and plucking the mana blob; as soon as it touched her fingers, that thing's Mana disappeared from Elizabeth's senses, and the blob seemed to turn into a blue sphere of candy.

  "Well, yeah, but at least she is attempting to fix some of them!" Jenna said with a grimace, "Some of them..."

  Well, rude. Elizabeth was doing her best!

  But that was beside the point, as Elizabeth saw Lily pop that sphere into her mouth and swallow it. Wasn't...that dangerous?

  "Pseudo Incarnation - Social Butterfly," Lily said in...was that Idea?

  The actual one and not the one that they used on Zaanam?

  "Ah ah, test test...One, two, one, two..." Lily's voice sounded...more vibrant? Less monotone? Also, there were fewer empty spaces of silence.

  "Are you...okay?" Elizabeth decided to ask, Elizabeth knew how dense Jenna's Mana was, and if people had ended with mana poisoning from her Mana, she didn't want to imagine how it would be for someone who ingested Jenna's Mana.

  "I'm peachy, thank you for asking." Lily answered back, there was something different now though. "So! Sorcerers, well they aren't quite the same and the differences only become more obvious the more one earns powers like this."

  But Elizabeth wasn't quite sure what it was, it was something that she wasn't sure it would be easy to notice, more so since Elizabeth didn't really knew Lily Thompson that well.

  Jenna however was smirking at them, so perhaps it was more obvious than Elizabeth knew?

  "First of all, we do away with all the bullshit of magic circles, spell nodes, and whatnot." Lily said first, and to make an example she raised both her fingers, on the left was the same [Wind Bullet] spell she had done before, magic circle included and all, on the right...well, it was the same Wind Bullet she had spat before, "What's the difference?"

  That one was obvious, but to make sure Elizabeth activated her Dragon Eyes again to ensure she was not missing anything.

  "The left one has the exact same spell structure, matrix, and everything as I built before...and the right one was made using your skill, I guess, since I can't perceive anything besides a clump of wind..." Elizabeth said, and as she said those words, she noticed something.

  Elizabeth...did not have a way to manipulate wind directly, did she? She had a Gem of Fire and a Gem of Lightning, she could manipulate both elements with ease... But wind? What did she have to help with that?

  Perhaps...

  Gem of Space...

  Elizabeth focused in that sense that she had not quite used that much before, focusing on what she could perceive of the space around them, how everything moved...

  The spell on the left Elizabeth could perceive easily enough with her own Mana Manipulation, the skill was closer to second nature at this point, she could see the mana matrix pulling in the wind and condensing it in a single point, the wind fought to disperse but the iron vice of Mana managed to keep it in place.

  All of this Elizabeth could see without using such an esoteric sense, but that was beside the point, no. What she wanted was something else, namely...

  Elizabeth focused on the wind bullet on the right and honed her senses on that. There...was something interesting; at the core of the bullet, Elizabeth could see the wind pooling into the middle, as a whirlpool of wind kept everything contained, but...that was it?

  The wind was moving as if it was alive, Elizabeth had never seen anything like- No wait, she had, not with wind, not really. Didn't...

  Didn't her shadows behave like this sometimes? When Elizabeth wanted something and the shadows reacted to her will before she even sent Mana to fuel them?

  "...Are you...manipulating the elements directly without using anything?" Elizabeth asked turning to the silver-haired Girl.

  "Half right, half wrong." The Girl answered, "The correct answer is that I am imposing my Will against Reality, willing a wind bullet into existence."

  ...Wasn't...wasn't that magic?

  "That's magic, that is what Elizabeth's grandmother said that was true magic." Rossie said from the side. "To tell reality to bend over and fulfill our Wish."

  "That's...one very crass way to see it," Lily answered, "But close enough I guess. In a nutshell a Sorcerer is someone who does not follow your silly rules to cast spells, we ask the wind to turn into our wings so we can fly."

  And as if to make her statement clear Lily started floating a few centimeters in the air.

  "If we are cold we command the fire to warm us, if we are hot we summon the water to refresh us, if we need to rest and protection from the elements we ask the earth to build us a shelter..." Lily said and one by one spheres of the elements started floating around her, "And if we need something more exotic...We ask the essence of the world to answer to our call."

  And after the last element, a new blob was formed, one made of azure fire...then one made of golden fire, and afterward a last one made of obsidian color.

  "We don't study your laws of magics, your arithmancy or the stars, we don't pray to otherworldly entities or fake gods...We don't pull upon the veil between worlds to call the might of those who may be." Lily pointed to each of them one by one.

  The laws of magic that Elizabeth followed, both mathematical or the guidance from the stars that her Mother left her.

  The otherworldly entities that most [Holy] and [Divine] magic casters that Rossie followed.

  The Echoes that Jenna wielded.

  The reflection that fought beside Rena.

  "You surely benefit from those reflections pulled from the veil between worlds tho," Jenna said from the side pointing at Lily.

  "It was you who suggested this approach when explaining what a Sorcerer is," Lily said sticking her tongue out at Jenna.

  There was something on the taciturn Girl that wasn't before but Elizabeth wasn't quite sure what it was yet.

  "So...you make things happen using the power of belief?" Rossie asked from the side, "That sounds more like magic than anything, if anything it's closer to what Elizabeth's grandmother did."

  "And who is this famed grandmother anyway?" Lily said tilting her head to the side.

  "Stelliana Fortuna, The Witch of Lucky Encounters and Miracles," Rossie said with a slight smirk on her face.

  "...Never heard of her, but since she claims to be a Witch and not a sorceress then she must be either way below my level, or at my level." Lily shrugged at the namedrop.

  Elizabeth had expected a little more of a reaction to be honest.

  "Either way, at my level names have meaning. If your grandmother is on my level, then her name is important because she lives and fulfills the promise she made upon that name." Lily said, writing on the air with Mana. Elizabeth still couldn't perceive the Mana till it materialized on Lily's fingertip. "So she made a promise or is attempting to fulfill a promise by taking on the name of The Witch of Lucky Encounters and Miracles, one that binds her to quite the precarious name."

  "So then what makes that you Lily Thompson as [The Sniper]?" Elizabeth asked back, "And if you are indeed a Sorceress why does your status not reflect that?"

  "My name means that I'll never fail a shot I make," Lily answered pointing at her sniper rifle, "And I don't have those things because I don't need them."

  ...what?

  "Why would I need the System's assistance for something I can do on my own?" Lily pointed at Elizabeth and looked at her confused, "It is weirder for you to have them why do you have so many things there that you can do on your own?"

  What?

  "I mean, you can manipulate mana without the System's help; why would you waste a slot that you could use for something else like that?" Lily's words made Elizabeth's brain stop.

  She...indeed could manipulate Mana without the system's assistance; she had been doing that for quite some time; it was one of the reasons she suspected her Mana Manipulation no longer showed a level and only an X.

  But...she could do that?