"It's good. But it's less interesting than spellcrafting."

"That's because spellcrafting is the best."

"It's interesting, though. Have you ever played Sudoku?"

"It's fun in the same way that Sudoku is fun. You figure out what to put where by comparing numerical values."

"But I don't like Sudoku and do like spellcrafting!"

"Spellcrafting is more complex and useful than Sudoku."

"Yes, yes. Default to the obvious explanation, will you."

"Well, I do actually like Sudoku, so I don't really have any non-obvious explanations."

"I only sort of get the appeal of puzzles. Like, the process seems among the pleasanter processes you could go through to get things, but the thing isn't worth having."

"In my case, it's similar to running laps. You don't do it because you want to get to the other end of the track and back, you do it because you want to be better at running when it's important."

"Do you think it's been valuable practice?"

"I suspect so. I've never spent enough time not doing any kind of puzzle to have trackable differences in improvement, but I do know that puzzles-in-general have gotten easier over time, not just ones I already have experience with."

"Cool."

"Also, I'd go insane if I didn't give my brain something challenging to do, and there's only so much schoolwork I can do."

"And schoolwork isn't usually challenging in a satisfying way. Standard 'enrichment' is just 'more of it'."

"Math and languages are sometimes alright."

"I actually don't like math much. I'm lucky there's no calculus in spellcraft."

"That...would be tricky, yes."

"I'd do it but you can bet I would complain!"

"I wouldn't dislike it on the level of performing the action, but I suspect I would be somewhat dismayed by how much longer it would take to complete a spell."

"It would be pretty hard for me to want fancy dragon powers more than I already do but I would find a way to manage if they let me skip calc."

"On a practical if not necessarily academic level...what ought we to do once we graduate high school, come to think of it? It's not like you can study thaumatology in college. If we were more certain there were no extant magic schools it would have to be education, wouldn't it..."