Well, that certainly sets a tone.

"Not urgently that I can think of." Almost as an afterthought, "My name is Mochizuki Ayako, yours?"

"Matsumoto Tomonori. What tracks are you excited about?"

"I'm on spellwriting. Performance affinity. What about you?"

"I haven't committed to just one track yet. I don't see how you could if you don't know what you'll need, after. I've been working on artificing and alchemy especially, though of course I have five languages and I try to compose spells when I can."

Yep, he's one of those. Not that the greeting hadn't established that but it's nice to confirm; nobody says things like that unless they're trying very hard to sound impressive.

(Which, of course, implies that he isn't, very. People who have accomplishments in one field or another aren't that desperate to establish that they're good at everything.)

"Of course," she agrees magnanimously about the languages. "But it's a little like affinities, you know, if you're good at something there isn't much reason not to specialize." 

"It's a little like that," he says, a bit doubtfully. "If you're good at everything, though, you should specialize where your skills are needed. I don't know where I should focus, yet."

Wow, he is going hard on the good-at-everything line.

"That's true, if you really are that good at everything! Do you know what your affinity is?" 

"I'm good with divinations, especially the kind that detect the qualities and weaknesses of things. I think I could learn a lot more about mals and how they work, if I could just not die when I find one. My parents couldn't afford the test, but I figured out how to divine my affinity."

"Oh, cool. How did that work?" 

"I made up a spell for it. It's not that useful, though- it can only tell you your own affinity, I checked. I have better things- detecting mals, finding out if something has gone bad- I think it can't tell the difference between that and an enchanted object, but it tells you what the thing 'wants' to do. I can identify whether something is poisoned- that one you probably know."

There are a few spells like that in Classical Chinese and Japanese, although Tomonori doesn't know why; maybe there were lots of people trying to kill each other subtly. It seems overly complicated to him. He hates intrigue.

"You know," she says, "if you'd phrased it 'that one also tells you what an enchanted object is enchanted for,' it'd be a feature, not a bug. And it's a solid feature, if I were you I'd be making a point of it." 

"Oh. Okay. It can tell you something has gone bad and what it does, and it works on enchanted objects too. Do you want it?"

"Sure! What language is it in, and which ones do you have, I can trade you a spell of my own for it." 

"Mandarin. I have Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese, and English. Oh, and Classical Chinese."

"Alright then, how about one I wrote for sound amplification, it's in Japanese."

"Okay!"

Trading spells! Learning new spells!! Magic!!!

Tomonori will get through most of explaining the spell before he even considers that he should be focusing on spells to help fight mals. Oops. Maybe they're scared of loud noises.

Trading spells indeed!

She writes down his explanation and responds in kind with her own, and also some scribbled-down written instructions.

Spells are great. Tomonori could stare at this one for hours.

"Are there any Kyoto will need soon? I can focus on those first."

"Well, like you said, it's hard to know in advance what we'll need, but something I've been mulling over is whether one could modify a tripwire ward so it tells you what's coming, and not just that something is? It seems like it would go well with your affinity." 

"That would be good. I'll try."

He immediately starts thinking about how to do it, which rather thoroughly distracts him from saying goodbye as he walks away.