Magus Empress [Kikoto, Hannah]

While he still felt awkward and a little miffed at the last few minutes, her being open to teaching him suddenly caused him to jump up in excitement, a smile immediately coming to his face. Even if he didn't really entirely agree with what she had said, it didn't mean that they couldn't find some common ground.

"Really!? What can I get started on first, Miss Chiza?!"

The prospect of getting better and stronger made him excited. His smile grew wider, and he lightly hopped in place. From what he had heard and read about with her, he hoped that, one day, he'd be able to reach her levels of expertise, maybe even create his own school of Kido! But, even if not that, creating Kido of his own would be good enough, for a time.

Even as she stated the obvious, Kikoto rocked back and forth on his feet, listening intently. He had already done a good portion of that while he was in the Academy, and even now, he was still working on it. So, item one, check! Sort of, at least! It wasn't easy to memorize all the different incantations and names of the variety of spells that Shinigami had available to them, not to mention remembering their effects to be sure he picked the right one!

His attention quickly shifted to the piece of chalk that levitated and started writing on the board, while also paying keen attention to what she was saying. His expression of happiness quickly shifted to one of pensiveness. Incantations was where most of the power for his spells was coming from, but the bigger spells that he wanted to use, the longer and more complicated they became.

It was entirely possible for him to just not bother with them, but just because the option was there didn't mean it was a good idea. He knew how much it neutered the power of his spell if he abandoned the incantation portion. But, he knew there had to be a way for him to get around it without abandoning it entirely.

"Mm, it doesn't really bother me right now. The incantations get kinda long, but I'm thinkin' about somethin' that I might be able to do!"

Overall, his idea was still just a rough theory. He had no idea if it would actually work, or if it would even be effective. But, he figured, if there was Incantation Abandonment, there had to be ways to preserve the power of a spell while also cutting down the amount of time that someone would need to spend on reciting. He was a little worried to tell it when he didn't have anything beyond a rough idea.

"Well, it's just a thought, but, maybe you could try and trim out the unnecessary conjoining words in the incantation. Take out articles or filler words that make the sentence, and try to focus on words that would hold more meaning."

He walked over to the blackboard, picking up a piece of chalk and writing out the full incantation for Shakkaho.

"So, maybe you could take away 'ye lord,' and instead of 'the sea barrier surges,' it could be just 'surging sea'. It'd have to replace words with synonyms, or get the overall replacement close enough to cast the original spell."

As he spoke, he crossed out the corresponding characters that comprised the English words, writing the replacement underneath. It was probably something that would only be able to be developed once he had gotten better in Kido, learned and memorized the incantations of the spells, and had a better understanding of the spells themselves to perform such a thing.

But, the thought was there, and he hoped that it was at least somewhat feasible.

Philosophy in Kido was not something he had thought of when it came to his theory -- and, frankly, there was a reason for that. It didn't have a place in Kido, there was just a simple line of logic that he was following with this, and worrying about the philosophy of why the spell's incantation existed wasn't relevant.

"We don't need to be worrying about that, this isn't a philosophy class, either. It might be the reason that we can cast the spell in the first place, but if that were the case, then why would Incantation Abandonment exist at all? We can remove the entire section from the equation, so, why can't we remove pieces of it?"

He went back to the chalkboard, underlining the instances using "of," "the" and any other articles or function words. This wasn't a philosophical issue, it was entirely linguistic. At least, it was for him. He didn't feel like there was a purpose for the philosophical elements when it came down to the nitty gritty.

"Function words like 'of' don't have any firm meaning in language, it's just to create a sense of structure. But, if you switch some stuff around in the sentence, you can still retain that structure and the meaning that the other words have."

Like Kikoto had said -- for him, this was entirely a lexical and linguistic issue. Philosophy was only theory-crafting and contemplation. This was, for all intents and purpose, just speculation. Frankly, it was confusing, and that confusion only gave way to irritation. So, with an annoyed, frustrated groan, Kikoto shook his head, holding his temples.

"That comparison doesn't even make sense! We manifest the spells with energy, and the incantations give it additional power once you get skilled enough. There isn't any deeper meaning, the incantations just exist as, like...a secondary medium, outside of energy itself."

Kikoto held up a hand, summoning a red, flaming orb: Shakkaho. No name, no incantation, yet there it was. Frankly, he wasn't concerned with the power loss. The fact that it was there, without any of those additives, was proof enough -- to him, at least. With a frustrated sigh, he let the orb dissipate as he continued.

"If we can remove it from the equation, mix separate incantations together, and apparently someone could even speak the incantation after casting, why can't we modify the incantations itself? There's nothing that points to it not being possible."