"It's true that light elements are hard to get on Earth, but I never said I was using a light element clone technique!" Surprisingly, Cyrae suddenly covered her mouth and laughed softly, dropping another bombshell. "This isn't the magic you're thinking of. It's a low-level light puppet! The magic consumption is totally different!"
"Light puppet? No way!" Even Cyra was shocked by this unexpected twist. Light puppet magic was actually quite simple for her.
"But what's the point of doing this?" To me, it seemed a bit like taking off your pants to fart.
Light puppets use less magic and can be controlled remotely with mental power if used properly. But that requires full concentration and isn't flexible or comfortable. Unless it's a special situation, using a light puppet to go out while staying inside to control it remotely is basically just wasting time and magic! Light elements are already so scarce on Earth - I couldn't see any benefit or need to do this.
"Because my real body's light puppet can move on its own without control. And since it uses less magic, I can have more than one clone existing at the same time!" Seeing that we indeed raised this question, Cyrae couldn't help looking smug as she revealed more details. "Let me put it this way - this consciousness is a branch separated from the main body's consciousness! Except for occasionally needing to go back to sync information and replenish elements, I can move around completely independently without any limits. So you can treat me as a separate consciousness!"
"Impossible, absolutely impossible!" I was totally confused. Did this mean the light puppet Cyrae summoned wasn't an ordinary one? Never mind that the solidity and duration of a light puppet can be adjusted by using more light elements - that's barely acceptable. But what's this about separating consciousness? I've never heard of magic like that!
"I have all the memories and personality of Cyrae from before the separation. But after separating, because this light puppet body started having completely different experiences from the main body, I'm both Cyrae and not Cyrae. You might as well call me by my clone name - Cylaren!"
By now, Cyra and I were dizzy from all these shocks, totally unable to figure out what was going on. Cylaren seemed to have expected this reaction, so she didn't mind and just kept explaining.
"After syncing today, I've heard about your descriptions of your world. You probably know that light elements have the hidden ability to communicate with spirits and souls, right? Actually, for the past thousand years, Lady Elara has been privately researching a high-level mental magic that can transfer consciousness and even transfer souls. The inspiration came from the Angel Descent Formation. Accurately speaking, this should be a specialized research area of one of the Angel Descent Formation's built-in functions."
The Angel Descent Formation again? This part I could finally relate to! From what we saw of Elara's attitude in our world, she did show great interest in the Angel Descent Formation. She even got Reed involved, although Reed's research on formations didn't seem to have much to do with spirits and souls.
"So did it succeed in the end?" Cyra couldn't help interrupting. From the looks of things, it should have succeeded.
"Unfortunately, she failed," Cylaren shook her head. "Although she didn't fully figure out how the Angel Descent Formation's principles work to transfer souls and consciousness, Elara didn't come away empty-handed after a thousand years of research. She accidentally developed a half-finished product that can separate part of her consciousness through a spiritual connection - that is, the 'Spiritual Convergence' magic - and extend it into the Spiritual Network. As for the actual use of this half-finished product, it's not that great. At most, it allows some multitasking during remote conversations, so you don't have to keep switching between reality and the Spiritual Network."
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"Yeah! I have to keep switching back and forth now. It feels so dangerous! When I'm in a spiritual conversation, it feels like I'm lost in thought. I can't notice anything happening in the real world - my subconscious just ignores it all." Hearing this, I slapped my thigh in agreement. When I often have spiritual communications with Edenmere, I always have to find a safe place first. It's super inconvenient. "So Elara had already researched this high-tech stuff! Why didn't she make it public earlier?"
"Maybe because this magic didn't seem very useful to her! And she didn't really think it was a successful magic - just a failed product! Moreover, compared to the Elara in your world, the two Elaras might not think exactly the same!" Cylaren answered with a wry smile. Having part of Elara's memories, she undoubtedly had a lot to say on this. There's a good chance that the Elara in our world might think the same way.
"But what does that have to do with you possessing a light puppet now?" Seemingly unhappy with my digression, Cyra quickly brought the conversation back on track. It was clear she was very interested in this magic.
"Of course it's related. Lady Elara thought it was useless mainly because she had many affairs of the angel race to deal with every day. Combined with the psychology of failure, she really didn't have the energy to spare for related application research. But after my main body crossed back to Earth, she had a lot of free time over these decades, and most of the related knowledge was preserved." Cylaren turned to her with a smile and explained soothingly.
"So you're saying Cyrae inherited Elara's final research and completed the consciousness transfer magic?" This time I finally understood, suddenly realizing. Not bad for a perfect combination of Earth thinking and thousand-year-old knowledge. A magic creation problem that even Elara couldn't solve was solved by Cyrae, her successor who had only lived for a hundred years.
"In some ways, you could say that! But it's not perfect - it hasn't reached the initial goal of unconditional, complete consciousness transfer." Cylaren pondered for a while before nodding and adding, "Considering that part of the consciousness can be uploaded to the spiritual network and downloaded back to the main body when the magic ends, my main body spent decades finding a way to download the consciousness stored in the spiritual network to another self. And that other self is of course what you see now - me!"
In other words, this consciousness transfer magic can only transfer between oneself and the light puppet one creates. And because the consciousness transfer is incomplete, it accidentally achieved the effect of creating a clone.
Although creating a spiritual network through the "Spiritual Convergence" magic usually requires an angel with eight wings or more, Cyrae's situation is very special, so it shouldn't be too difficult to use it even at the six-winged level.
"Damn! Isn't this clone method super simple, cheap, and useful? Hurry up and teach me!" This time Cyra finally stopped doubting and instantly changed her attitude, becoming friendly and chasing after the other party to learn the magic. She put her arm around Cylaren's shoulder as if they really were the same person. "We're so close! Cyrae is me, you are Cyrae, so you are me, I am you, so of course what's yours is mine too!"
"Can you even learn it? I spent decades researching this, you know. You're still learning intermediate magic all crooked. Why don't I give it a try instead?" I couldn't help but snort, advising her to give up.
After all, a clone that can move on its own and has an independent consciousness is just too cool. And because it comes from an extension of the spiritual connection magic, it can be remotely controlled and recalled anywhere light elements exist. Moreover, since half of it is part of your own consciousness, you don't have to deal with the various drawbacks of spiritual connection magic when actually operating it!
"Actually, the threshold for this magic isn't too high. A six-winged level can easily use it. I don't mind telling you the method and tricks, but the problem is that separating consciousness requires a very high understanding of light elements. My main body inherited most of Elara's memories, so this wasn't a big problem. But due to the scarcity of light elements on Earth and the limits of consciousness, she can create at most two clones at the same time. For newbies like you, it's quite troublesome!" Sure enough, there's no free lunch. Although Cylaren generously sent the magic-related information to our phones, I knew it was hopeless after reading it.
My understanding of light elements is above average, I guess. Those few limited high-level magics I use quite smoothly. But once it comes to the realm of spirit and soul, I haven't learned any of the highest-level related magic.
"I heard that! The Lord told me this magic is very useful. If even Cyrae can use it, I'm sure I can learn it too!" But Cyra obviously wouldn't give up so easily. She stared at the long string of text on her phone, desperately trying to memorize it, as if simply memorizing it would allow her to really learn it.