I had quickly etched out a beginner problem in a separate area, one my brilliant mother in this life had taught me when I was first learning magic. I asked Vera if she could find anything wrong with it, and after looking at it carefully, she seemed to do so. I handed her the bone and told her to fix it.
She put the missing diacritical mark in the right place, scrawling two lines above an upside-down triangle, and I was sure of it now, that she wasn't stupid at all.
Maybe there was something going on in her head to prevent her from functioning normally on the outside, but her mind was good enough to solve formulaic magic. It's like discovering a child thought to be unable to answer two plus two aloud, yet easily able to do algebra in their head and put the solution down on paper.
Savant, I think, is the term for it.
"One more, okay?"
She nodded.
I began writing it out, but before I could finish she had already caught it.
Bloody hell… You're a wizard, Vera!
Well, whether that part is true has yet to be seen, but she has an amazing grasp already of formulaic magic.
"Okay, fix it." I said, "Don't worry about the rest of the formula, just fix the part that you feel is wrong."
It was a sort of trick question I wrote, using the wrong symbol entirely even though it looked correct by syntax. She rubbed out the appropriately wrong Rune and drew the right one where it should be.
"Vera, you might actually be the smartest goblin in the cave!" I said happily and picked her up, twirling her around a few times before putting her back down.
She was positively beaming.
"Hmm, want to try activating the formula to light up the topaz stone?"
She nodded enthusiastically.
"Let's see, how about we attune you first?"
She looked at me blankly.
"Oh, uh… attuning is like… I'll push my mana into you, and you do your best to remember what it feels like, then try and make that feeling happen on your own. Think you can try to do that?"
"Try."
"Okay, uh, here, come sit on my lap."
I sat down next to the power rune that I would need to touch to activate the magic circle. Vera was quick to sit on my lap, and just help herself to my seed-stick at the same time. This girl is a bit cheeky, but this is a reward phase right now, so I'm fine to give her some motivation.
"Put your hands up against mine." I told her and our hands were pressed patty-cake against each other.
"I'm going to send my mana through your hands. It will feel warm, maybe like soft mud. I want you to pay attention to how it feels and remember it clearly. Okay?"
She nodded.
"Here goes…"
I channeled my mana through my hands and into her body through them. For this exercise, her body's own mana pathways will need to be recognized by her mind. Most humanoid species have a similar mana pathway inside their bodies, with small deviations unique to them, like fingerprints or DNA.
After attuning for a solid minute, and this little minx wiggling her hips the whole time trying to distract me, I swear!, it was over.
"Did you catch the feeling?"
She nodded.
"Okay, now, put your fingers on the power rune, and imagine sending your mana through your arm and into your fingers, pushing it out into the rune with the intention of making the topaz gem at the end of the formula glow. A small glow. If you push too much mana into the rune, it could cause the topaz to explode."
She nodded again. I hope she understood. I hadn't fully explained how some runes acted as a capacitor. She put two fingers on the power rune and closed her eyes. Still grinding away on my cock the entire time. Slowly the runes began to glow in order, like watching a slow electrical current flowing, lighting up each carved symbol on the ground as her mana passed through, heading straight to the gem in the raised pillar and making it glow slightly.
Amazing.
"Light." She said proudly as she pointed at the gem.
"You're the best, Vera. You are a goblin magician."
"Want." She buried her face into my chest as she kept wiggling her hips.
"What do you want?"
She pushed my upper body down, causing me to lay flat on the ground.
"Husband." she answered and placed her hands on my chest as she grinded out her reward.
And it was hers to have. I added in a little thrusting of my own, but nothing intense, and she was making nice moaning noises as a small strand of drool escaped her mouth. I dumped another belly full of seed inside of her, causing her to growl excitedly before her body fell forward and settled peacefully on my body.
I held her warmly against my chest and stroked her head.
I waited a little while before asking her how she knew the runes in the formulas I made were wrong, and she sat up, taking both of my hands. One she put on her belly, and another she put on her head, and answered with a single word: "Know."
A good enough answer as any, mainly because she knew she knew. Not everyone can say that when it comes to magical formulas, especially about their construction. Even though I, who only has half a foot in the door to the intermediate level of formula magic, made a basic mistake. But this goblin had no problems at all understanding it, and even correcting it after seeing the magical runes only once.
"Vera. Can you do me a favor?"
She nodded.
"If you actually have to piss in the future, can you not do it on me? I was trying to make you feel good with my seed-stick at breakfast and sometimes that good feeling you get makes you think you have to piss. So, try to remember which is the good piss that won't come out, and make sure for the other one that we go to the shit-pit properly, okay?"
She nodded again, looking a bit ashamed.
"I won't bring it up again. I know you are a good girl."
She laid back down on my body, rubbing her cheek against my chest, and I just held her preciously for a while.
My thoughts were of Vera and the future now, but not in regards to magic.
They were instead hopeful thoughts, that if she was smart enough to grasp formulaic magic, that perhaps she might not have her life thrown into full chaos when it comes time to give birth to our daughter.