Sensing a skill's magic pattern wasn't difficult. Holding your breath and concentrating with sufficient focus and sensitivity was enough. The problem lay in drawing it.
First, it had to be drawn in a single stroke, without any breaks. The moment the line broke, the half-drawn Magic Rune would burn to ashes.
Second, lines that had already been drawn couldn't be retraced. In other words, the pen's tip couldn't double back, as that would destabilize that part of the Magic Rune.
Unlike when she had learned skills by studying Magic Runes in Moonlight Wetland, which had been like following a solution method to arrive at an answer, now she had to work out the method from an already completed answer.
Yu Xunge felt as though she were playing a one-stroke drawing game.
And the higher a skill's rank, the more complex its Magic Rune was.
She couldn't help thinking of the SS-rank [A Great Drunkenness] she had comprehended from White Bear back then. Its Magic Rune had been extremely simple, something she could sketch out mentally in the blink of an eye, like an exquisite piece of running cursive calligraphy.
Yet the Magic Rune for the S-rank [Naughty Kitchen] resembled a tangled ball of thread. Not only that, although it was clearly a jumble of a Magic Rune, whichever part she focused on revealed a mysterious, childlike beauty. Just like the skill's effect, the more outrageous it was, the more stunning it became.
Logically, she should have switched to a simpler skill. Yu Xunge wasn't so stubborn that she had to pit herself against this one.
In fact, after realizing that this Skill Magic Pattern was too difficult, she had tried switching once. But to her surprise, Yudun, not far away, had said without even looking up, "No switching."
Her voice