"Well yes but it's quantitative."

"… Meaning you won't have to do it as much?"

"Meaning as I get more powerful I'll eventually have enough magic to do even most powerful spells without sacrificing anything. Well, other than the standard ingredients. But eventually even those become optional."

"Right. But it'll take some time before the really heavy stuff requires no sacrifice."

"Yes, pretty much."

"And you've already said you're being careful with it."

"Yeah. Well, as careful as I can be—I do have to do some magic to develop it in the first place."

"Yeah. Which means addiction and stuff."

"...yyyyeah."

"So, be careful and maybe try to outsource whether you really need to use magic for something."

"But then I don't get to exercise my magic."

"… For the higher-powered stuff, at least? Keep a diary, make sure it's not getting super worrying, ask us before you go sacrificing anything large?"

"......fine."

"Does it not seem kinda worrying that you sound like you want to sacrifice large things without a sanity check?"

"...maybe a bit."

"Well, hopefully it'll stay slightly worrying? And you won't just get stuck into things, spend a weekend trying to do something and going 'oh I'll work just fine without my soul' and then it's gone."

"Yeah, let's not hope that happens. For what it's worth, though, that's the only spell I've seen that requires pieces of a soul as a sacrifice."

"Well that's good, at least?"

"There are some that require the whole soul..."

"… And you'd like not to become a soulless creature, right, so you're probably planning on staying away from those?"

"Of course. I don't think I use my soul for anything, but I'm not betting on that."

Nod. "It seems like a lot of people use their souls for lots of things, so."

"Yeah, not gonna fall for base neglect."

Theo gets out his phone. Reads for a moment. "– Yeah, seems like a wise choice."

He giggles.