Chapter 30
Virtual Library… Shelf? (Mind 5)
A short time later, Mary finds herself joining her second mind on a largely empty, flat metaphysical plane; in the distance, cleanly separated from where Mary is currently standing, she can see a spell circle hovering in the air with a “mind” rune in its centre, the physical representation of her second mind's existence.
From that circle, she can see loose strands of magic creating something reminiscent of a barrier between what was obviously a representation of Mary's mind and the one that she is currently standing in.
On her second mind's side of the barrier, she sees another spell circle floating above them; this one has her newly created “library” rune in its centre, and from that magic circle, the loose strands of energy flow towards where she is standing.
Coalescing into the entrance of a massive and recognisable building, stairs lead up to a large double door; covering the entrance and stairs is an overhang, held up by spaced Greek columns.
To Mary, who has the memories of Alexander, it looks like a classical, Greek-inspired library entrance.
The second mind and Mary share a surprised glance, having not expected a full building from their first primitive "library" rune.
Both Mary and her second mind climb the stairs and step through the automatically opening portal, and they both stop dead at what they see in the cupboard-sized room beyond.
Mary feels her eye twitching in exasperation as the two of them stand in a space that resembles a room; despite the entrance appearing to lead to a large, well-stocked library, they actually find themselves in a small and claustrophobic walk-in cupboard.
Mary, or rather the metaphysical representation of her, inhales a frustrated breath, immediately assaulted by the pungent smell of paper and ink.
Both Mary and her copy stand in the entrance to their library cupboard, an entrance that may very well be larger than the room beyond it. Both of them stare in resigned annoyance at the singular, empty bookshelf of the library that they had painstakingly created.
Off to one side is a small table surrounded by several chairs; waiting on the table's surface, they see some recognisable, Earth-constructed writing tools.
{We should have expected this to be honest.}
The second mind admits wearily.
Mary nods silently in response; in truth, they had expected the library to be small. Mary had, after all, used a minimal amount of mana to create their “library” rune. They had also expected the library constructed from that rune to be something that would be immediately replaced after they confirmed that the spell created what they were looking for.
But the spell creating only a single bookshelf exceeded their expectations—and not positively.
{Well, at least we know what increase the power does to this spell, right?}
The second mind continues, her voice clearly forcibly optimistic.
Mary throws an annoyed glare at the second mind, not appreciating the uncharacteristic, forced optimism, and then returns her eyes to the bookshelf, quickly scanning its length and the number of shelves before turning her weary gaze towards the table cluttered with writing implements.
‘By the looks of it, that shelf can still hold well over a hundred books on its own. But we obviously must create or write all the books ourselves.’
Mary notes it to her second mind.
The second mind hums in acknowledgement; they would need a way to quickly create the knowledge that the library would contain. In this case, the knowledge would take the form of books, but they would also need a way to access that information quickly; otherwise, their mental library would be far less useful than it could be.
Simply having books stored in their mind was only mildly helpful; Mary and her copy would have to create some sort of read/write tool. That would have to be one of their immediate priorities going forward.
{Our course is clear then, but first we must ensure we can transfer information between library instances.}
Mary nods in agreement; that was always going to be their top priority going into this.
‘After we’ve confirmed that we can update our library spell without losing everything, we can move on to quickly reading and writing into the library.’
Her second mind nods back; writing in the library would not only involve scanning external books but also creating her own knowledge within the library itself.
Ideally, this was the place where they would create and store their spell lore, which included the logic necessary for developing their hyper-efficient spell frameworks.
But then how malleable was this library spell? Could they create a computer interface to use some sort of word processor to increase the speed they could fill the shelves? Alternatively, would they need to physically write information for a virtual library?
{Most of the upgrades we need to make will have to involve adding runes to the spell; at least some of them will need to be earth-inspired.}
The second mind reminds Mary.
‘That is one way to do it.’
Mary responds with hesitant agreement.
‘But I think that Alexander’s bias is influencing us too much. Is there another, easier way than innovating using Earth knowledge?’
The second mind frowns in response, was there?
{Maybe? Could we use a telepathy-inspired rune to do some of the work instead?}
Mary stops as she hears her second mind's response.
Could they use a telepathy rune to do that? Or perhaps a general mind rune would work instead?
‘I think it would be easier than trying to build a virtual magical computer.’
Mary admits, not just to her second mind but also to herself.
The second mind smirks in response.
{You're probably right. We can do that later.}
Mary shakes her head in amusement before turning her attention outward.
They need to get moving.
Soon enough, Mary and her second mind return to their mental scape, the already existent library entrance joined by a second, seemingly identical one.
They share a glance, and the second mind gestures towards the second entrance.
{In case it escaped your notice, that’s the new one.}
Mary shot a glare at her second mind for her sarcasm and swiftly approached the new building.
They both enter the new library and find exactly what they had expected.
‘This worked out at least.’
Said Mary, waving her hand at the much-expanded library.
The second mind was immediately there, inspecting the much larger room. If the other library had been a small walk-in cupboard, then this was more like a small pantry.
They both look on in relief at the dozen, slightly larger book shelves now packed into their new library room.
{You took the “library” rune to the very edge without upgrading it to the next power tier. I agree with the decision, of course; the higher tier would need much more mana to run than this. But I can’t help but wonder how significant that leap in capacity would be?}
Mary nods at the question; it was something to investigate later, but for now it would just be wasting more of her precious time and energy. Overall, it was unlikely that an upgrade to the runes' power tier would add new capabilities to the spell.
When all was said and done, they hadn’t even used a single bookshelf yet, so upgrading further than this was unnecessary for now. Increasing the runes' power tier further would be unnecessary for months at a minimum, and that is if they ended up creating vast amounts of spell frameworks that clog up space; more likely, this library spell would last them for a few years before it needed further improvement.
‘We should check to make sure that books from the old library can be brought over to the new one.’
Ordered Mary.
The second mind nodded in agreement before adding.
{I’d like to drop the old library spell as soon as possible too. I can feel that my mind is slower than it was.}
Mary turned her surprised eyes to the physical representation of her second mind.
‘Your thoughts are slower? I handled two spells just fine.’
The second mind nodded firmly, affirming what she had stated.
{I’m a second mind created with a low-tier mind rune; it’s hardly surprising that my capacity for multitasking is less than the original's.}
The second mind stated dismissively.
{I do wonder if equalling the original would take a power five rune, and then from then on would I have higher throughput? But then I don’t think my thoughts are that slow; maybe a power of two would make me your equal for most things?}
‘You didn’t think to mention this?’
Mary asked accusingly, to which the second mind shrugged.
{It was obvious. The fact that you didn’t consider it, despite having the exact same information and an almost identical mind as mine, implies that the impact of our physical body on your cognition is even greater than we assumed. Not to the degree it should be, of course, but still very much existent.}
Mary grimaced painfully in response; things kept coming back to her currently infantile body and its limitations. In the end, Mary still had no idea how she was currently capable of conscious thought at all; when she thought about it properly, even her eyes worked far better than they should at this age.
{We’ve already thought of this. Investigating what the hell is going on with our body will have to take the backseat for the short term.}
The second mind stated firmly.
'You're right.’
Mary responded with reluctance; part of her was very concerned about what was happening with her body, while another part of her was clearly not being influenced in the same way.
‘Let’s check to make sure we can transfer information between the libraries. I don’t expect this will be difficult.’
After a few minutes, Mary had confirmed almost to her satisfaction that she could easily transfer books between the two instances of her library.
Upon reflection, it had been something of an absurd, even mildly scary, scene; both Mary and her second mind had sat down at the table of their first library iteration and instantly found all the supplies to create genuine books in front of them.
They had already seen the pen and other writing implements, of course; it was why they had sat down at the table at all. But the moment they sat down, large piles of paper and even seemingly genuine leather backing appeared on the table as well, all of which were accompanied by the tools to properly bind the paper and leather into authentic books.
The pair of them had discussed, for a short time, what information they would use as a test to see if it could really be traded between two versions of their library spell.
They had asked themselves if they should simply create some notes and get it over with. Or perhaps they should dedicate some more significant time and effort to recreating some of Alexander’s knowledge to ensure that they would never forget such important information.
They had naturally dismissed the possibility of starting with a copy of their mothers’ introduction to mana; after all, that copy was already available with Sylvia, and their next step would be to create a spell that could scan physical books, allowing them to make perfect copies for their mental library.
Ultimately, they decided to copy their first true spell framework to save time and move on.
The mathematical formula that they had used to transform a “fire” rune into a fireball was not, by Alexander’s standards, complex.
As such, it had not taken long; it was, after all, a simple spell, so in short order, they had inscribed onto the metaphysical paper that the library had provided a spell circle with their basic “fire” rune in the centre and the general formula to describe a sphere below it.
It was at this point that things took what, for them, was a strange turn; in truth, they had intended to write out the formula onto the paper created in one library and then take that paper immediately to the other library.
This would have demonstrated that the contents of one library could be transferred to the other.
But instead, both Mary and her second mind found themselves in a fugue state, almost seemingly controlled by the library spell, although upon further reflection they realised that something about the library spell had somehow given them the mentality of faux librarians.
As such, after completing the inscription of their spell framework, both of them went through the bizarre motion of binding a single sheaf of paper into a book.
It was, of course, a state that ended quickly; the moment the binding was finished, they not only found themselves fully back in control of their actions, but also the single sheaf of paper had transformed from what was essentially a magic pamphlet into something much greater.
It had transformed into a full magical tome; the library spell had taken a single sheaf of paper and somehow transformed into a book with hundreds of blank pages.
The words "Basic Fire Magic" are inscribed on the front.
Mary and her second mind had gritted their teeth and carried the surprisingly heavy book to their other library. After placing it on one of the shelves closest to the door, Mary's second mind had dismissed the older library iteration; both had watched the previously grand structure vanish instantly.
And yet the basic fire magic tome remained.