I said the maid wouldn't get her turn.
That was a lie.
D: "Good day, everyone. It's D, beloved by all."
Mei: "You, who are hated by nearly the entire world, have no business saying that. Also, isn't my name weird? Why 'Mei'? Why 'Mei'?"
D: "Because you're Mei-nichi-sama, so it can't be helped."
Mei: "I have no idea what 'can't be helped' even means here."
D: "Let's put the little things aside. From here on, a new segment begins—'Ask D-Sensei!' A wonderful corner where yours truly will answer every conceivable question in the world, leading us all toward truth!"
Mei: "So in other words, an exposition dump episode."
D: "Can't you wrap it in a little more foil? I think that was too blunt."
Mei: "I don't have time to play along. Hurry up and finish so we can get back to work."
D: "My neighbor is a workaholic and I don't know what to do about it. Any advice?"
Mei: "Just let them work."
D: "*sniffle*"
Mei: "Please stop doing the crying face in an expressionless manner. It's just creepy."
D: "Okay, I'll stop."
Mei: "……"
D: "That hurts. Please don't punch me in silence."
D: "Anyway, let's get back on track. For the inaugural edition, we'll be discussing sorcery and magic."
Mei: "Surprisingly on-topic content."
D: "When I'm messing around, I go all out, but when I'm teaching someone, I'm actually pretty serious?"
Mei: "Oh, right—you did love rambling about things."
D: "It's not rambling. It's the truth of the world."
Mei: "Sure, sure. Well, that's great."
D: "My neighbor has a terrible personality and I don't know what to do about it. Any advice?"
Mei: "I think you should just keep worrying about it."
D: "*sniffle…*"
Mei: "You're persistent."
D: "But I don't think punching me to shut me up is the answer either."
Mei: "Sure, sure. That must've hurt, right? Let's do this properly so I don't have to hurt you again, okay~?"
D: "Fine. Let's do this properly."
Mei: "You should've done that from the start."
D: "First—what's the difference between sorcery and magic? Strictly speaking, they're both the same thing."
Mei: "How so?"
D: "Among sorcery, those that receive assistance from the System are called magic."
Mei: "In other words, magic is a subset of sorcery."
D: "Exactly. And it's not limited to magic—Skills and other powers are also largely based on sorcery. Think of it as a large framework called sorcery, with a smaller framework called magic nested inside it. Magic is sorcery that has been streamlined by the System to make it easier to handle. Where sorcery requires you to handle everything from one to ten entirely on your own, magic only requires one and ten to activate."
Mei: "Convenient."
D: "Very. Though since you can't use it without the System's benefits, it's only useful in limited situations."
Mei: "By the way, what are one and ten?"
D: "Selection and activation. Select the sorcery you want to use, then activate it. That's all."
Mei: "Pretty simple."
D: "In the case of sorcery, the basic steps are: selection, activation, perception, construction, connection, infusion, saturation, transformation, and casting. These nine are the fundamentals, and the remaining slot varies depending on the user. Activation is controlling your own magic power—the preparation stage. Perception is recognizing the groundwork needed to construct the sorcery. Construction is the most important step—building the foundation of the sorcery itself. Connection is linking together the sorcery foundations you've built. Once the sorcery circuit is complete, you infuse it with magic power. Then you fill it to capacity. That completes the casting preparations. From here, you can modify things based on the situation, but you can also cast as-is. This whole sequence appears in Chapter 103 of the main story. Thanks to Pinnacle of Sorcery, I went into extremely fine detail there, but actually, while the System's assistance is active, as long as you have Magic Power Perception, Magic Power Operation, and a Magic Skill, everything else is handled automatically based on your Skill Level to cast magic for you. Well, I suppose the fact that the protagonist understood the proper way to cast sorcery at this stage is why they were later able to learn magic through a method that no one inside the System would ever dream of—learning by watching."
Mei: "The remaining one of the ten basic types varies by school—memory, immobilization, duplication, and so on."
D: "Of the ten basic types, skilled sorcerers skip certain steps or run them simultaneously. The Spider performs the sequence from activation to connection almost as a single set, and has drastically shortened everything from infusion to casting as well. She herself attributes it to Pinnacle of Sorcery, and at first it certainly was—but now, after her deification, she's casting sorcery at speeds rivaling or exceeding the System's assistance using her own power alone. For a god, that's nothing to be surprised about, but for the Spider, who didn't even know the first thing about sorcery, it's extraordinary."
Mei: "That's because part of your soul was mixed in, isn't it?"
D: "About that—hardly any of my soul actually mixed in."
Mei: "Really?"
D: "Really. A small amount did mix in, yes, but the influence was minimal. The fact that the Spider's soul went from spider-level to human-level was significant, but beyond that, the only real change was a slight increase in Skill aptitude. The impact was nowhere near as enormous as she believes it was."
Mei: "So then, most of it was her own natural talent?"
D: "You could say that, and you could also say it wasn't."
Mei: "What kind of half-baked answer is that?"
D: "It's true that she had the aptitude for the Skill, but the reason she became such an abnormal existence is largely due to the influence of the Pride Skill."
Mei: "Oh, right—that one with the subtle effect of making you easier to level up, or something."
D: "If you only listen to the effect description, it seems inferior to the other Seven Deadly Sins-type Skills or Seven Virtues-type Skills, but in reality it's the most outrageous one of them all. That Skill essentially forces the upper limit of the soul higher."
Mei: "What does that mean? Normally, wouldn't something like that make the soul scream and potentially dissipate?"
D: "It would. Rapid growth produces distortions, so it wouldn't have been unusual for her to be devoured by the Pride Skill. And yet, the Spider followed along without a single distortion. Pride and her natural talent combined to produce an extraordinary leap forward."
Mei: "I knew it—your soul influenced her after all?"
D: "I won't say it didn't, but the effect was negligible. Anyway, we've gone off on a tangent, and we're almost out of time, so we'll wrap things up here. Look forward to the next installment."
Mei: "Then let's get back to work."
D: "*sniffle…*"