The door slams shut as Aiden rushes into his dorm room and flings it behind himself.  He had spent the whole day wondering how he’d get genetic material from a girl when he saw one throw out an unfinished slice of pizza.  He now holds that half-eaten slice as though it’s the Holy Grail as he dashes towards and half crashes into his desk.  He looks down at the open note book and reviews the most recent draft of a spell he created.

He assures himself of the process and puts the pizza into his mouth, but stops before biting down.  He sets a small plate from one of his drawers on the desk and then resumes his spell.  He bites down on the cold pizza on an area already bitten by the previous owner, sets it down, and then forms a hand seal by wrapping his left hand over the first two fingers of his right hand.  He then shifts to other hand seals such as clamped hands with interlocked fingers, hands open with spread fingers while the index and thumb are touching, and the left fist cupped within the right hand while the right thumb overlaps the left thumb.  “Inverse chromosomes from circumspect to susceptible by referenced ingestion.”

Aiden’s body glows with a blinding, neon blue, light which soon fades to reveal a slim, girl version, of himself.  Her shirt drapes over her body while her shorts barely cling to her hips.  Everything shifts around as she walks to her desk and looks down at the spell.  “This is horrible.  What the heck was I thinking?”

She crosses out various instructions while saying, “Making the body lean towards femininity through hand seals is a waste of time.  In Daoism, the left hand represents Yin and femininity is an aspect of that.”

She writes, Cupping the left hand over the right hand is symbolic of femininity over coming masculinity.  Combine Greek alchemy’s decomposition with fengsui to isolate the injected X chromosome.

“No, that’s also off.  As long as the DNA relates to becoming a girl, it’ll also be left undamaged.  This will do more than change a few of my parts, it’ll rewrite my entire biochemistry.”

She flips the page and continues, “How did I think chanting would be a good idea.  I’m ingesting foreign DNA.  I need my mouth for chewing.”  After a few more notes, she simplifies the spell with and exchanges it with a compatible, internal magic circle.  “And that should replicate the foreign DNA with a body wide illusion, fengsui will guide those strands into every cell of my body while another spell suppresses the original strands of those DNA sequences.  Eastern alchemy will then restructure my body accordingly with the guidance of fengsui.”

She flips the page to the instructions for cancelling the spell.  With a sigh and a shudder, she says, “Seriously, what was I thinking?  I’d die a horrible death where all my cells dissolve from the inside leaving me as a puddle of goop on the floor.”

Aiden comes up with two methods of returning back into being a man.  The first is clasping the right hand over the left and with an internal magic circle, release the illusion creating the foreign DNA.  The second involves clasping anti-magic metal between her hands.  The material will react by interrupting the magic circle and continue into the body where it will also release the magically bound foreign DNA.  The second method will save mana by removing the “illusionary DNA” without the need of a spell.  I knew I should have brought a sheet with me… I need to ask Kairi to send me some.

Editing the two spells takes her little more than an hour.  The entirety of it, she passes standing hunched over her desk.  Only once finished does she straighten her back and stretch her arms.  A relieved sigh escapes her as various bones pop.  Then, while rolling her neck, she notices her binder of synthesized spells.  “Those are going to need a look over…”

Editing the spells in the binder takes a few hours.  None of the spells require major editing, but minor tweaking let her improve the mana efficiency of some by a decimal.  I need to remember to retype these later. 

She even creates an annihilation spell that occurred to her years ago.  It was born from her frustration at not having mana, but is now nothing more than fun puzzle.  I name thee, M.A.D.

She is so immersed in her work that she unconsciously finishes the pizza she planned on saving for future experiments.

Aiden spends the next four days crafting spells she had rolling around her head, but had been unable to figure out until then.  She only stops working because she notices a strange smell in the air.  She looks around and spots cups of instant food piled in the sink.  Can’t be, I made sure to rinse them. 

She catches another whiff of the odor upon turning around.  With an inquisitive frown, she looks down, lifts her collar, and sniffs.  It’s me?

A quick glance in the mirror reveals that she is a mess.  While her expression teems with energy and adrenaline, a sense of ragged exhaustion seeps out from underneath.  Her cheeks are lined with smudges of food while her shirt is stained with different types of broth.  I did pretty much just gobbled whatever as fast as I could whenever I decided to eat.  Actually, did I eat today?  I think I did…

She then realizes that she’s wearing the same unfitting outfit from when she first transformed.  “No wonder I stink.  I only created this spell to see if one sex is better at magic than the other, but this body’s brain is amazing.”

Aiden opens a window to ventilate her room.  She then heads towards her field.  The academy grounds are oddly deserted, Actually, I’m the one who’s skipping…

“Whatever, it’s not like they actually expect much out of me.”

A sly grin then crosses her face.  Not to mention, I’m way too valuable for them to expel in the first place.

Aiden concludes her tests around midnight.  With a spell to illuminate her surroundings, she records her findings on a tablet.  She notes everything underneath her experiment logs.

Men don’t have any particular advantage when it comes to magic.  They are, however, able to utilize strengthening spells to greater effect due to naturally having higher physical capabilities.  If men have a strength level of 10 and women have a strength level of 9, a fivefold increase would yield strength levels of 50 and 45 respectively.  Magic based around strength would be affected accordingly.

Women, on the other hand, are better at preforming magic than men, but only at night and when it relates to outer space.  As long as it involves the stars, celestial bodies, or even a comet that’s just streaking by, a woman caster will consume less mana and conjure something much more potent. 

“Maybe I can turn this in next year as my third year graduation thesis?”

Aiden packs away her tablet and begins back for her room.  “Guess I’ll take a shower now…”

Realization strikes Aiden’s face as she stops and cups her chest.  Ten fingers press into a pair of soft, small bulges.  Bright red colors her face as she realizes she’s a girl.  I was so caught up with everything that I never noticed!

The few delusions of exploring her new body make her blush ever harder.  She shakes her head while saying, “No, no, no!  Forget it!  I’ll just turn back!”

She then freezes upon realizing what that would mean.  Girl me is way smarter than boy me!  No, no, it’s okay, I still have that pizza.  I can just cast this spell again later.