Chapter 31
Advanced Features (Mind 6)
In Mary's mind’s eye, in the internal metaphysical plane where not only her second mind but also the simulated magical library that the two Marys had created dwells, Mary and her virtual doppelganger stared in what an outside observer might regard as well-concealed relief, focused entirely on the brand-new basic fire magic tome that the pair of them had recently created.
Minutes before her second mind had dismissed the original library spell, they had experimentally shelved what would be their first magical grimoire, although calling it a grimoire might be giving it too much credit, as it was currently almost entirely empty, except for the very first page, which they had so recently penned.
They had stored the new grimoire away, on one of the several bookshelves that their newer, more powerful library spell had created for them.
In the physical world, Mary feels herself breathe an involuntary sigh of relief, thankful that she no longer has to worry about accidentally erasing any of the information that she mentally stored away using a potentially fragile spell framework.
Nor did she have to worry about losing or forgetting the knowledge that she acquired going forward, regardless of whether it was a spell or some other form of writing that she had created.
It had been a reasonable concern, Mary thought; after all, she had used resources created by a simulated library whose source, after being dispelled, no longer existed – not only the paper that she had written on but also the ink that she had written with and even the leather binder that she had used to bind the sheet of paper, an action that had magically turned a flimsy sheet of paper masquerading as a proper book into a true tome of magic – albeit one that was large and empty at the moment.
All the resources she used were things that the spell gave her without Mary or her second mind asking for them, and normally, they and anything made from them should have vanished once the original library spell was taken away.
{So, we now know that we can transfer stored information from one library instance to another if we need to.}
Mary's second mind remarked to her.
“It’s true; that is a relief.”
Mary responded to her second minds’ remark with agreement.
{Of course, we will have to worry about the time and physical effort required to move large numbers of books during library migrations eventually, but we can leave that for later, after we have enough books to warrant looking into it. Or at least, after we have some time to spare and no immediate priorities to worry about.}
Mary frowned at the critique; she hadn’t started to even consider the effort of moving more than a single book, so why was the second mind mentioning it at all?
The second mind sends a feeling of exasperation towards Mary in response to the half-formed question, and it is quickly joined by a look of disdain in the metaphysical plane where the two currently exist.
{We, or rather this was the case for Alexander, and as we have inherited his memories, that means us as well, are the sort of people who thinks about issues before we must confront them.}
The second mind explained with annoyance.
{The fact that I thought of it first, despite my slower thinking speed compared to you, means that your biology really is significantly affecting your thoughts. Perhaps even more so than we had previously thought.}
Mary feels a physical twitch at the reminder of the changes to her body and mind, even as her attention remains inward.
‘Right, of course.’
Mary defensively agrees with the doppelganger's assessment, somewhat embarrassed at once again being called out for falling behind what is ultimately a copy of herself.
‘I would have worried about the time that a data migration took soon enough, maybe even before it became a problem we had to confront. Now I must instead worry about what being an infant is doing to my mind… so thanks for that too.’
{A part of me is always worrying about how much of our thoughts are being impacted by not just your being an infant but also the changes made to us, body and soul, by the world's magic.}
‘Can we move on to something, anything at all, other than how much our mind must have changed since our rebirth?!’
Mary mentally shouted at her second mind, her voice quickly turning from frustrated to pleading.
{Well, now that we’ve created what can only be described as a wholly inferior version of Wikipedia, except, of course, this particular variant is based within a single person instead of being on a globally accessible network, and it was created with what is barely understood magic instead of being based on the well-understood principles of electricity and physical hardware.}
Mary’s doppelganger begins.
{And we have had the great fortune to confirm that we can update the version of our magical library to the next library iteration, at least once we get around to creating such a thing. Of course, we have also been less than fortunate to confirm that such a data migration will take a considerable amount of effort on our part, especially once we have a significant enough number of books to warrant such an upgrade.}
{And due to our recent mind control incident that the library spell kindly subjected us to, we have even successfully confirmed that the magic library spell is perfectly capable of assisting us if we try to add knowledge to it.}
Mary wouldn’t have personally referred to it as mind control, not only because that term is remarkably sensitive due to Alexander's experiences and the fate of her new mother, Elizabeth.
To her, it had felt more like a guidance system, as if the librarian had been guiding her hand. For Mary, it had absolutely not been traumatic, nor did it seem malicious.
{Although, when I had quickly checked what the spell had apparently deemed to call a basic fire magic book, what I found was that the book only has the information that we had inscribed into it and nothing else, so that change, while useful to a degree, is also totally cosmetic... at least that is the case for now.}
When it was said like that, Mary couldn’t help but wonder if the library could be upgraded to be at least somewhat self-regulating and maintaining; such a thing would probably be capable of helping with migrating to newer libraries too.
Perhaps they could create a guiding faux intelligence, a sort of virtual librarian, that could catalogue the contents and do other important duties.
{Naturally, there is also the fact that magic will apparently go the extra kilometre without any input from the spellcaster; that is something that we might want to investigate more thoroughly later, as clearly there are still many things that we do not know about the nature of mana in general and spell work in particular.}
Mary feels both of her faces, the physical one that she is mostly ignoring and the virtual one that is her current focus, twist into twin expressions of exasperation as the second mind continues to list what they have achieved, in great detail, instead of moving on to what they should prioritise next.
The doppelganger, seeing the look of exasperation on her creator's face, switches her focus away from her important and thorough analysis of what had recently occurred and instead moves on to what the pair of them should be doing next.
{It’s your decision, of course, but I think we should move on to creating some advanced features for the library spell. Right at this moment I can think of two that we need to prioritise.}
Her virtual clone opens with an almost apologetic statement.
{For starters, we obviously want to create some way to scan external books, or perhaps even external objects, and bring them into our mental world. This will not only allow us to keep copies of our mother’s magic grimoires on hand without having to rely wholly on Sylvia retrieving them.}
Mary nods in agreement at the explanation; the ability to create a genuine library without having to pen the books herself was probably the second most important feature that their virtual library could have, with the first, of course, being the ability to transfer information from one instance to another.
{Another advantage of scanning books and bringing them here is that they will not be subject to transcription errors on our part. It is a fact that, due to the library being within our souls, any books we store here cannot be lost or stolen, which is very unlike the books in the physical world? Those books, and the location that they are stored, are under tremendous risk every time Sylvia brings one to us.}
‘That’s true, if any of the palace men find out about our mother’s library, then they will either steal or destroy it, no questions asked.’
Mary interjected in agreement.
{Right. We still don’t know much about Midgard’s politics, but we will face strong opposition from our alleged family, the Church, and at least one local mage guild. Furthermore, we know that some, if not all, of these parties will be against us learning magic at all.}
The virtual clone of Mary finishes her grim reminder of the reality outside of their metaphysical plane.
{Another benefit of being able to scan external objects, not just books, and then bring them here, is that there is far more in our new world that could be useful to have immediate and constant access to.}
Mary raises her eyebrows in surprise and asks.
‘I suppose you have some ideas on what sort of non-book objects we should bring here then?’
{Well, if we can do a full scan of ourselves, then it opens many possibilities for us. A full scan of the body of Mary Midgard, or even Sylvia, would provide us a much better idea of the particulars of magical biology. It goes without saying that the greater the fidelity of the scan, the better it is for us.}
Mary physically blinks as she considers that possibility.
‘I’ve been negatively affected by my infantile body since I woke in this world, finding out what’s going on with my body, and even registering the changes over the course of several years could be incredibly useful.’
She remarked, quickly warming to the idea.
{Understanding our biology will assist us in any biological or fleshcrafting magic we create; we shouldn’t abandon Alexander's dream simply due to the name change and the complete absence of necessary infrastructure. From where I’m standing, there’s no reason to think that we couldn’t match, or even exceed, what Earth could do in gene clinics. That’s how flexible magic has shown itself to be thus far.}
‘We need every advantage that we can get.’
Mary answers with almost frantic agreement, for once truly delighted at the direction that their conversation is going.
‘Alexander might have never been a beneficiary of any of the so-called super-soldier projects, but we know that they existed.’
Mary stated firmly, recalling some of Alexander’s memories concerning some of Earth's more recent wars.
‘And of course, while he was only in his first year of university, he did interact for years with the doctor while getting his own gene treatments.’
{Which brings us handily to the second advanced feature we should consider creating for our library.}
Her second mind interjects sardonically.
{We also need a way to copy Alexander’s memories into the library for later use. Not only so that we won’t forget his knowledge, which is a very real concern considering Alexander’s mind was manipulated by Leslie and our soul has had part of his identity erased from it.}
Mary grimaces at the dual reminder of the horror that she had experienced leading up to Alexander’s death and the arguably even more violating moment when she had been named just after being born. The naming, in particular, had completely erased her previous gender identity, which Alexander had considered to be beyond doubt, and it even distorted her internal monologue to the point where she could no longer use masculine pronouns when thinking of herself.
{But because Alexander had, by this world’s standards, a truly massive amount of knowledge and information.}
The second mind continues, ignoring her own internal turmoil at the reminder.
{He had information about the physical world from his days in school, a high level of knowledge regarding physics and chemistry, much of which is likely the same even in the face of magic.}
That, Mary thought, was perhaps even understating how much Alexander knew, relative to the world that they had found themselves in. The extreme improvement to educational standards had been relatively recent; even with how strange the time ratio seems to be between the worlds, few, if any, otherworlders would have been able to benefit in the way that Alexander had.
And Alexander had been fortunate enough to get successive scholarships for what should have been costly educational plans; often those classes had used experimental tools which had only been fully rolled out years later.
{And of course, as we had just discussed, Alexander had relatively extensive knowledge about biological manipulation and augmentation. Not only did he learn things at school, but he also spent much of his time talking to professional doctors, regularly visiting the gene clinic, studying extensively ahead of his classes, and reading science and news articles that were relevant to his chosen career. He went out of his way to get his hands on them.}
Mary nodded in agreement; Alexander had been almost obsessive as he strove to excel in the field of his choice.
‘Naturally, I agree that we need a way to pull Alexander’s memories. Considering Earth seems to be much more advanced than this world, even the things that he had half forgotten, or barely paid attention to, could be useful to us.’