She'll go through some of the particulars if L seems still interested.

Very much so.

She'll hardly give away all their secrets, but this is an extremely good and meticulous introduction.

She is very pleased to receive one.

She'll start focusing in on the seals for the greenhouses once L has the basics down - "We don't know how your powers will interact with these, so we'd like to do some testing today then introduce you to the plants..."

Ah. This makes more sense of Mariko's order of operations.

She agrees with the reasoning of this plan.

What seals do the greenhouses have?

She describes them, in generalized then specific detail. There's a lot - the one that produces light sufficient for plant growth is a bit complicated, and there's ones to automate soil maintenance and watering...

Noting.

She's generally been able to sense the local power-working and thinks she will be able to avoid it with her own work, or avoid negative interactions, but it is certainly better to test.

Thorough is better than sorry, after all.

Indeed. What might be a useful test without excessive risk?

They have some seedlings that didn't show desired characteristics and aren't being continued. Experimenting on those would probably be best.

"Will you place seals, or is there some question about the plants themselves?"

"We haven't actually seen your magic doing this before - and inscribed techniques of this nature can have weird interactions with other techniques."

"Oh?

And what shall I be attempting?"

"Various ways of influencing seedlings. You know your magic - increased growth? Altered yields? Directly altered edible parts, so they're more or differently nutritious? Can you make poisonous plans edible, or edible plants poisonous?"

Yes, yes. It will take some extra work for the others, but yes. (Usefully this is close enough to several of her areas of interest that she has some knowledge of it.)

"Good. This way, then."

She follows.

The room's been set up with clearly laid out seals and inscribed techniques, and seedlings to practice on. Mariko identifies the different seals and what they do, and which seedling she'd like Lee to test which thing on.

To clarify, is the first test in relation to the plants only or the seals as well?

Controls, without any interference from the seals, first. But it's important to have an idea of what's going to be done in the future.

Hh-hm.

Growth is easiest and fastest of the set, and she can do it just fine at the moment, if she adjusts a little for the restraints. Reynans are nice about their prisons.

This plant can go ahead and grow some more.

Mariko appears to be taking fairly detailed notes, at least, though it's unclear how she's measuring things.

"I'll be able to produce a stronger effect when I've somewhat resolved my restriction," she notes.

Will Mariko notify her when this experiment is sufficiently concluded and they should transition to the next?

Yes.

Mariko is pretty thorough, though, so it isn't instant, but eventually they get through all the controls.