Alright, thank you everyone who submitted comments and suggestions a few chapters back when I posted the contents of Aerien's spell and asked for suggestions on how it could be improved given the world rules. The comments of Nirrada in particular were quite inspirational and gave me an entirely new direction to take Aerien's spell, and the results of that will be seen this chapter.

 

---

Aerien’s POV

 

Today was going to be the day for my second big planning session to figure out what direction I was going to go with this spell. If Gaerien and the boys can’t find any major objection with the spell as I had it, I would immediately go to inscribing it. I had this planned out well before the queen gave me the go ahead to literally kick Sagel out of the room at any time without reason, so I had done a large bit of planning on how to have an excuse to send him out of the room. Since it involved Logim’s help, it seemed it would be a real shame to cancel the plan now just because I didn’t need it anymore, so Sagel was out with Logim gathering iron so he could teach me how Gnome steel is made.

 

Logim and I had done a lot of bonding over the past week. During our conversations, I had come to the realization that I had been pretty cooped up so far. Since arriving here, I had only gone between this room, the training room, and the upper branches while never going anywhere else. This whole thing with showing me how to make Gnome steel was to be a way to get me out of here. I had not told him I was trying to ditch my familiar, but this plan turned out working really well for me since I could tell Sagel to guard him while he was out.

 

One way or another though, with Sagel out I was suddenly able to make phenomenal progress on the development of my spell. In fact, Rolwen wound up coming up with an idea that completely turned my previous approach to the spell on it’s head, all but making me effectively scrap the previous version. I was incredibly glad I decided to wait on inscribing this spell, I would have regretted it for the entire rest of my life if I had implemented my spell without this groundbreaking idea as a part of it.

 

It all started with Rolwen’s off-hand comment to Levin about me likely having some computer programing skills, and that being the reason for the structure of this spell. So, of course, I had to correct him.

 

“Actually, I don’t really know a whole lot about computer programing.” I told him. “I had some friends who were into that stuff, so that’s why I might have used some similar terminology, but ultimately what I was trying to do is imitate the human endocrine system with this design. The first and third chakras act like a primary and secondary control mechanism, kinda like the hypothalamus and the pituitary. Then, the seventh acts like the thyroid, providing energy to the system. The rest provide or transport resources to enable the spell to work properly, especially with the modification to the second chakra to manage the spatial transport stuff.”

 

“I see.” Rolwen said. “Well, there was a lot of talk about bio computers or computers that imitated human biology in various ways, I didn’t quite realize that the endocrine system functioned that much like a computer program already. Well, that would explain why you didn’t provide for any kind of coder tricks in the system though.”

 

“Coder tricks? Like what?” I asked.

 

“Well, like maybe a recursive function could be used to improve the targeting portion of the spell. It would allow for the selection of only friendly or enemy units, and a recursive function with a good stopping function could make certain the amount of power you use is precisely the amount needed to obtain the intended result.” Rolwen explained. I was definitely intrigued by what he was saying.

 

“So, how does this recursive function sorta thing work if I wanted to make that a part of this then?” I asked him.

 

“Well, it’s actually pretty simple. It is a function that just repeats the same exact action over and over again, except at computer processing speed. For instance, say you have a pile of beads, and you want to pick out all the red ones. The recursive function would look something like ‘look at bead. Is bead red? If yes, keep. If no, discard.’ And then, it repeats that function for every individual bead in the entire pile. That’s how a recursive search would work. For getting exactly the right amount of power, it would work by adding a precise measured amount of power to the spell. Then, it would ask if this amount of power achieves the desired result. If yes, stop. If no, repeat the function.”

 

“So, it just repeats the same action…” I said, pondering over the idea.

 

“Well, not quite, it moves on to the next item on the list and has a check. So, it’s actually really useful. It doesn’t just repeat the same thing again and again uselessly.” Rolwen argued defensively.

 

“No, no! I got that!” I assured him. “It’s just that I’d never really thought of something so simple, but this simple idea is actually insanely powerful! Actually, it sorta gives me a different idea. Do you think maybe this recursive thing could be used to maintain something?”

 

“Something like what?” Rolwen asked.

 

“Like a spell crystal inside my spirit.”

 

“I have no idea. I’ve not learned anything with this magic stuff!” He argued.

 

“Alright, Gaerien! Do you think it would work?” I turned to my sister.

 

“Ahh?” She just stared at me strangely. It turned out being Levin who jumped in to speak what she was probably thinking.

 

“I don’t think either one of us were even able to follow a thing that you two were just talking about.” He said.

 

I let out a sigh. “Ok, so, here’s what the problem has been. I can’t make spell crystals because they degrade as soon as I stop supplying them with energy, and that means I need to be paying constant attention to doing that and as soon as I look away I lose the spell crystal. I was thinking maybe if I use this recursion thing then it would be able to supply constant energy without me needing to divert my attention at all.”

 

“Ahh… mabbe?” Gaerien responded with a little bit of a babble.

 

“That’s… not exactly how recursion works though.” Rolwen said. “It’s not constant, it’s repetitive. If you wanted to use recursion for something like that, it would be something like a command to check if the crystals are in an unhealthy state. If no, do nothing. If yes, supply energy and restore them. You could also make it without a stop function and just have the function constantly supply energy, but that could have unintended consequences and get out of hand.”

 

“So, constantly restoring the spell crystals?” I mused, and then a smile began to form on my face. “Kinda like constantly restoring cells… Ok! I think I know how to do this now! But… wait, if I’m already going with a cellular model… Gaerien, can multiple spell crystals work together in order to enable a single spell? Like, a large number of small crystals for a single larger more powerful spell?”

 

“Ahh…” She just grunted again, but this time she reached out her hand toward me, her signal that she wanted to go telepathic with our conversation because she didn’t trust her mouth to be able to relay the information effectively.

 

‘But how about if there was another spell just constantly making more and more of these small spell crystals, an infinite supply of them?’ I asked ‘If I did not have to cultivate any of it with my own effort and the crystals were just building up on their own.’

Gaerien turned toward me, her eyes seemed to be practically bulging out of her head. ‘What!? That’s crazy!!! But… Ok, with YOUR infinite energy cultivation, I guess it could work, but it kinda sounds like it could be a bad idea. Is there any way to stop them from growing everywhere? Well, I guess if they got too close to the void part it would still destroy them, but…’

 

“Hey!” Rolwen cut in. “What are you two talking about! Fill us in!”

 

“Hey, that’s kinda rude!” I turned around and scolded him.

 

“Well, I just wanted to re-emphasis something before you went too far with your discussion with her. You weren’t talking about some kinda crazy repeat function to make infinite spell crystals or something, were you?” Rolwen said with a guess that was exactly on the mark.

 

“Uhh… yeah, kinda.” I admitted.

 

Rolwen just groaned and put a hand on his head. “I thought so. That’s a REALLY bad idea. You gotta have some kinda stop function if you are going to use recursion. That’s the most important part. It just gets completely out of hand if you don’t have a stop function.”

 

“Well, yeah.” I responded with something of an of-course tone. “I’m planning on making something like a spell-crystal equivalent of cells. Don’t wanna have them become the equivalent of cancer cells.”

 

“So, you actually want to do this?” Rolwen asked. “Use a recursive function for your spell system?”

 

“Yeah, I’m absolutely sold on this one now.” I answered. “This way, I only need the start to be a permanent inscription on my spirit. The rest can just be done in a less permanent way. That way, I don’t even have to worry about getting it exactly right the first time. In fact, if we’re going to be doing something like this, this IS the only viable method I can see.”

 

“Ok, well… I’d better help you write it up this time. There’s a lot that can go wrong if you mess this sort of thing up.”

 

-

 

Writing up the spell was actually pretty simple. I was a little confused by something he said about going with something called an iteration instead of recursion, but I suppose it really doesn't matter. It sounded similar enough. Our program has only 2 parts needed to operate, a trigger and a function. There is also an important third part needed to actually make it manageable. The third part is not needed for it to start, but it is absolutely vital to keep things from going catastrophically wrong once it does start.

 

The third part is what Rolwen was calling the stopping function, or rather, the "kill command" as we'd taken to calling it.. It is possible for any function of this sort to become completely out of hand if left to continue on it’s own forever, so it can be said that the stop function is the most important part of the formula.

 

The wild thing is, with a little help, I actually have exactly what’s needed to set up all 3 parts of this spell with only a single inscription on my spirit.

 

“So, you’re saying all I have to do is create the smallest spell crystal I possibly can?” Gaerien asks.

 

““Yes, I need you to help provide us with the base material to write the spells on. Otherwise, it will slip away before we can complete our spells.”” I explained to her, and then turned to my child side as I realized she was speaking in unison with me.

 

“Hey, what’s going on here?” I asked. “I thought your whole thing was that you wanted to be more independent from me now, that’s why I made this spell for you.”

 

“No,” she said, “I was just a little upset, it’s true, we’re just two parts of the same person.”

 

Oh jeeze. “Ahh! Don’t be going all fickle on me now kid! You really were pretty upset before, what’s up with you now?”

 

“Nothing!” She argues back. “It’s just… when mommy got taken away by Dryad, I just felt more like we were the same person all of a sudden, and now the feeling really isn’t going away. So… you can have the spell too now if you want. You’re the one who made it!”

 

What’s this now? I didn’t understand at all. All I could do was groan and grab my head with both hands.

 

“Maybe it’s because your desires are resonating now.” Gaerien suggests.

 

““What do you mean?”” Both of us ask at the same time.

 

“I mean, when did the kid start rebelling and saying she was a different person all of a sudden?” She asked, causing me to stop and think for a little bit.

 

“”When all of that stuff with (Eirlathion’s/Daddy’s) trial case was going on.”” Wait, I think her words just differed from mine that time, and on a pretty important note.

 

“And what did each one of you want while that was going on?” Gaerien continued on to ask.

 

“Well,” I answered first, “I wanted to save Eirlathion and also ensure our future. That meant I had to dance to that queen’s tune for the entire blasted trial.”

 

“I just wanted to go back home!” My child side said. “I hated all of it! I wanted to still be living back with Dryad and everybody! But, then Dryad did that!”

 

“And what did you think of Dryad at that time?” Gaerien turned and asked me.

 

“Well, I could see that Dryad was probably going to be a threat going by all I heard about them. By the sounds of it, they had been given a lot of power as well as knowledge of several things from Earth. Both of those are things that could be easily abused, and their actions so far showed they were not using their powers judiciously enough for me to feel comfortable.

 

“So, you see how your desires and opinions were not lining up back then?” Gaerine asked. “Now the kid sees how bad Dryad is, and all the complicated stupid royal court nonsense squabbling is over. The two of you are on the same page again now, and that’s affecting how closely aligned the two of you are spiritually. You were correct before, you really are two parts of the same person. But, they are two different parts that can disagree with and rebel against each other at times.

 

“”That’s (interesting/cool!)”” The two of us spoke at once again.

“So, the more the two of us get along, the more we become the same person?”

“So, if we get along with each other better, we start to feel like the same person again!?”

 

“Ok, I think she’s becoming too enthusiastic now.” I commented. “We’re getting out of sync.” I gave a little chuckle at this, after which my child side became mechanically straight and rigid in her back with a fake serious face that almost made me burst out laughing. She cracked a smile at the same time, and then the two of us started respectively giggling and chuckling in unison.

 

“Alright you two!” Gaerien interrupted us. “I didn’t come here in order to watch the two of you lollygag about, how about we start with this? So, are we going to do both or just the kid?”

 

“Well,” I said, sufficiently chastised by Gaerien. “I think it would ultimately be a good idea to just put it on the kid’s spirit body. If what you say is right, we very well might have a repeat of this last episode where we will disagree again. Last time, it was made plenty clear she resented me for being essentially the same but better of everything she could do. She really does need something that’s uniquely for her in order for us to get along better the next time things start to break down.”

 

“No! No! It’s Ok! I won’t get mad again!” My kid side protested. “I know you were right now! And the spell will be stronger if it’s you who can cast it!”

 

“Maybe, but I think I ought to be fine without it.” I told her. “I’ll tell you what though, I will think about it if we run into a situation that calls for me needing to get more capable in a hurry. Until then, I think it might just be more important for the two of us to become more balanced. That’s going to be especially important if we are supposed to sync with each other or whatever.”

 

“Alright then, one more question!” Gaerien butted in again. “How small do you want the crystals exactly?”

 

“Dust if you can manage it.” I told her. “It should be smaller than a grain of sand if possible. It would have a crystalline structure on a microscopic scale. The ideal would be that it’s so fine not even air could get through, but I know that’s a bit of a tall order.”

 

“And HOW exactly am I supposed to supply enough energy to a bunch of crystals THAT small without them being swept away by your spirit!?” Gaerien demanded.

 

“That’s actually the point.” I told her. “Don’t supply it with any energy. The only part of the spell being inscribed is a part telling the Heaven’s Chakra to supply any spell formation within the chakra system with energy. That will be what keeps them energized. I will be inscribing the kill command on those crystals you generate, and we actually WANT any crystal that doesn’t take the kill command to be flushed away.”

 

“You and Rolwen came up with all of this?” Gaerien asks. “You know? For two people who have no real experience with magic, you certainly can think of some pretty effective ways to deal with it.”

 

“Well, Rolwen was a coder, in a way you could say that’s just magic with computers. The rules for computers are way more picky than magic, so it’s only a matter of course he could come up with something like this.” I informed her.

 

“Hmm… is that so?” Gaerien said. “Earth humans just keep surprising me. Well then, how about we get started?” 

---

 

(This space left empty due to commenter deleting their own 1st comment that got the discussion chain started.)

 

---

Yeah, there was an interesting little back-and-forth between Asekhan and me discussing whether or not this sudden change in direction for the spell was too derailing and whether it made Aerien WAY too OP. Basically, it ended with me explaining, as I did at the top here, that this new direction was the result of the comments section discussion which I'd tried to implement as smoothly as possible and that being OP is fine if you "work some other angles" (Asekhan's words in response, not mine,) in order to create the conflict and tension in the story. He agreed and made the quote I just relayed in the last sentence, then deleted his first comment which rendered me unable to present the whole conversation as a logical progression.

 

Oh well, it's probably better this way. There were some long comments in that discussion, probably best not to bog down the end-chapter section with another novel. So, it's all fine, and I likely would have done a summary anyway even if he had left the comment up. I just found it amusing that he deleted the 1st comment and wanted to rib him a little.

 

(Seriously though Asekhan, you are appreciated. It's great to always get feedback, opinions, and reactions in the comments over on the subscriber end.)