I don't recall any specific instances where it felt dragged out or too slow. Perhaps if you have a consistent type of "do you want al the details of just the highlgihts" approach to info / lore dumps that will reduce the friction for people who aren't big on reading walls of text ... or are playing for the 19th time.
One thing I do find confusing is the magic system. Right now it doesn't appear to matter that I'm an expert in XXX magic but only a novice in YYY. I've not had a choice about what magic to learn, or the opportunity to significantly train up magic XXX instead of magic YYY. If magic use for the rest of the game is the same as it has been up to now then maybe simplify the magic system to state you have learned XXX, which is a subfield of YYY?