"Um... okay?"

Eefina sets the books down.

"I... can't think of why it might be a bad idea for me to learn Harmonic Convergence. A spell that shows the results of my actions and warns me away from actions that result in mortal danger sounds like pure benefit to me."

"Perhaps the ideal time lies later along your path, rather than immediately? I can't see your level, but you would need to be auspicious indeed to safely learn and cast this spell below level thirty in astral sorcery. Forty or fifty would be safer."

"Dangerous knowledge is more dangerous when incomplete. I would rather know in advance how much I need to learn than to only find out after the fact that a Skill was within my ability to acquire."

"...Ma'am, this is not really a responsible attitude, given the danger of miscasts or creating dhar."

"It seems to me like incomplete knowledge is more likely to lead to those things, not less. However," Eefina holds out a hand and generates a Curia bloom over her palm, tuned to nullify both dhar and azyr. "In my case at least the latter is not a concern."

He blinks. "That is relevant. Very well, I will seek omens now. We both go inside and I will cast. It should only take some thirty seconds to a minute."

Eefina goes along with this.

He casts, drawing up azyr from somewhere above them and nudging it around in mind-twisting and complex ways, muttering and chanting.

After a while, he says, "The portents are good for a variety of times in the medium future, one to five days from now. The portents are poor for anywhere in this city, but decent outside of it and good for a particular place somewhat south of here. I did not see the specific place, but I can look again for a small fee? I think I can permit you to buy the spellbook, given that information."

Eefina is curious how these portents work, but is more curious about, "Why would a spell be easier to learn outside the city? Or did you just mean safer. That would make more sense. And yes please, what can you tell me about this place to the south?"

"Omens are more about marking good or bad times or places than ease or difficulty. There is likely something else that makes that time and place particularly fortunate than it being easier or less dangerous to learn."

He gazes into the web of azyr again, then says, "The place that is particularly fortunate for this spell for you is an abandoned house two miles northwest of Port Kellan, a small fishing village in the lands of the Kellan family."

Eefina goes still.

Yes, that is a very valuable clue she just got.

"I see. Thank you."

"Useful information, I hope? Ah, don't mind me, I shouldn't pry. Let's go ring you up, hmm?"

Eefina nods firmly and goes to pay for her books.

They're a bit pricey, but not out of her ability to afford. Tret is waiting by the exit, rebuffing the thick strands of the astral wind that attempt to flow through him.

Few things are currently out of her ability to afford, and while the books put a noticeable dent in her account, it is a small dent.

"Can we drop these off at my dorm? Then we can shop for equipment and or miscellaneous cool stuff I haven't seen yet."

"As long as I don't have to go in there again... Astromancy, huh? I don't think I can properly imagine what that's even like. I could imagine throwing lightning around, but seeing the future?"

"We always see the future," Eefina says. "That's what it means to be a thinking being. Often we're wrong, because we are only just think-y enough, but that's why finding ways to cheat at it is so exciting."

"You mean... I know that if I walk forwards I'll be over there and to get home I have to turn? Or when I'm tracking something, how to find it? That's just... Thinking."

Eefina giggles.

"Exactly. Thinking is seeing the future. Our minds process information about our past, and our present, and produce predictions about the future. That's what our minds are for. Even animals do this, they're just limited to even simpler things and shorter time-scales than we are."

"It doesn't really feel that way. I don't see a course of events in my mind most of the time, I'm just doing and hoping for the best?" Tret shrugs. "You're the kind of person who has four different plans for everything, it feels like. I'm the kind of person who's already leapt into action when the baddie shows itself."

"Well, I can't deny that."

Onward to... where are they shopping next, again? She's following Tret's lead for this part.

"If you're going to be adventuring, you need two things. Protection, and backup options. And storage, but that just means a nice backpack most of the time unless you want to shell out for a bag of holding. Three things. Do you think you could get used to wearing armor? Maybe subtle armor made to look like that dress?"

"What is a bag of holding? And I'm not especially attached to the dress. I bet there're enchantments that can replicate its advanced properties too! Let's look at armor next, yeah."

"There are bags that are bigger on the inside than the outside. They're pretty expensive, even I don't have one, but B-rank adventurers and up consider them essential. We can walk around some to see what's on offer before I decide who to show you for armor. Heavy metal gives you toughness like nothing else, but I think you want to go for light or medium armor, especially if you're going to be an Astromancer."

There is a shopping district that appears to cater to adventurers. The advertisements are all about killing monsters and doing efficient dungeon runs. There's a staggering variety of weapons and armor on display - in everything from cloth and leather to metal, chainmail or platemail, simple and unadorned to glitzy, entirely mundane to objects laden down with a fairly ridiculous amount of magical energy. There's armor specialized for piercing, bludgeoning, for being so light you can barely feel it, for resistance to fire/acid/cold/psychic/lightning. There's armor that makes you supernaturally terrifying, or fade into irrelevance in the eyes of both dungeon monsters and people, until you attack. There's shields equipped with healing spells that auto-trigger when they detect you getting badly hurt. There's a few armor sets that let you fly, but these are all going for two or three platinum and up. There are even strange crystals or liquid metal that seems almost Cupil-ish. And more.

All this stuff is super neat.

"I want something in the middle-range, something with a balance of features," she decides after thinking it over. "I'm not specialized into one combat role, so my equipment shouldn't be either, I think? I want to be able to switch roles in the heat of the moment."