Stepping into his room with that black mental cloud hanging over him. Sam decided to leave the studying alone for until after he got the rest of his nightly duties squared away with. Luckily, he had to foresight to begin curating both of his more function specific playlists while working on the overall one, so he left his phone to play on the bathroom sink while he stepped into the shower for some calming warmth. In his haste, he forgot to bring his toothbrush and toothpaste with him, so he had to step out and grab them. He could have just finished his shower and brushed separately, but since no one warned of him not to over-consume water, he saw no reason to let go of this one particular vice of his.
Once outside, he donned on his bathrobe, turned off the music and sat in the chair for his second meditation of the day. Surprisingly, he found his focus easily controlled and directed at his breathing—despite the state of his mind prior to the meditation—with no mental picture of Taken struggling to preserve the dying earth passed through it. He felt markedly better after the meditation was over. And before he could use that as a reason for further worry, he quickly dressed before turning his attention towards the books laid on his desk.
Back in his university days, all those hundred and some years ago, he would have never entertained the prospect of studying so late in the day. It wasn’t just a matter of laziness, although sloth did play a large part in his decision-making process, but also the fact that he was never able to keep focus long enough to make the late effort worthwhile. And what’s worse, knowing that he was also going to study later in the evening, made his studying during the day much less effective.
This isn’t to say that he never finished a paper shortly before the midnight deadline struck. Or that he never made a last ditch effort at memorizing a course’s three-year-old (and hopefully still relevant) summary. But all those late night efforts were done only as a last resort. Never once did he plan to be studying when he should have instead been winding down before sleep. Even his ideal version of himself wasn’t so studious as to dedicate time for the activity so late after the sun’s departure.
All of this meant, as ridiculous as that sounded, that this was his first real test for what will be required of him in the days ahead. He not only had to break a habit, or more correctly, compensate for the complete lack of one. But he also had to go against his very own worldview for what his life should look like. Gone was the classic laborist slogan of ‘eight, eight and eight.’ If duty demanded it, there will be no leisure to be had for Sam Anders. And if magic allowed it, sleep would be cut in a most utilitarian fashion. No, from now on, Sam Anders was to dedicate his whole being, body and soul, heart and mind, to whatever was required of him in order to be able to fulfill his AI assigned role. And if reading why the first war in recorded elven history came about because of dietary differences was what was required of him, then so be it.
Side note here, he really didn’t appreciate the textbook making the jump straight to the Bass Wars while leaving further inspection of early elven civilization to the chapters ahead. Sure, the war provided a simple overview of the most dominate political factions, demographic differences, and geographical considerations for the region, which, at the time, held the greatest concentration of elven life by an enormous margin. But he didn’t agree with the authors’ argument for choosing to analyze the historical and cultural developments separately. It was plain to see that their intent was to paint a holistic picture of what pre-unification elven society looked liked. Probably in an effort to water down the course’s difficulty and match up with the erroneous view that most Terrans held about the homogeneity of elven culture.
At least, that’s what the message which Yvessa sent him read. Sam was nowhere near able to make that assessment with just a couple dozen pages of the book under his belt. And while he still held his opinion at bay, with the major exception that he very much disagreed with the author’s decision to separate anthropology into its own later chapters, Yvessa’s words did make some sense to him based on what he read so far. The textbook read too similar to the methodology he was familiar with from nation-based history books, rather than the worldwide history books that this was supposed to be like.
But whatever the case may be, he made good progress. Perhaps it was the duty laid upon him, pushing him forward. Or maybe it was the threat that said duty represented—so dire that even a complete hedonist would be forced into action—which kept pricking his mind whenever it sought to waver. Maybe it was his new chemically optimal body, and the magic coursing through his mind that made sitting down and focusing so much easier than before. But, if it was up to him, he would have laid the wreath at the feet of a completely different reason. For while all the others did provide an explanation for why he was able to keep going, they didn’t explain why he was having a good time. No, the reason for that was that the material pretty much combined the two most favorite topics for Sam to read about. It was a (hopefully unbiased as possible) retelling of past geopolitical events, so it was history in its most bombastic sense. But it also had magic and elves, so it was fantasy.
All in all, the textbook served a perfect foray with which to embark upon his scholastic journey in New Point Academy. And a perfect follow-up to his actual first foray: patterns study. Now, he could go to sleep with the comfort of knowing that he wasn’t a total idiot and that hopefully there were students who had just as much trouble as he did with patterns, but were also completely hopeless in the historical courses. Yes, there was nothing like comparing yourself to someone you saw as lesser in order to make one feel good about one’s self.
“Looks like you’re making good progress.”
“Jesus Christ!” Sam jumped in his seat, his knee awkwardly banging against the table. “Fuck!” He caressed his wounded appendage. “Give us a warning next time, will you? You scared the hell out of me.”
“Our apologies. But there is currently no other way for us to communicate with you except in this single manner,” said the robotic voice of Web-Web in his mind.
“Yeah, figured as much.” Sam sighed and pushed the chair away from the table, leaning back and stretching his legs. “So what’s up? Any more exposition bombs for you to drop on me?”
“We do not know what that means. Our objective in tethering ourselves to you is to aid you in integrating to magic in the most efficient way in order to build up your strength so that it could match your future role.”
“Sure… But why are you here now?”
“We were under the impression that our assistance was required. Do you mean to say that you have no need for dialogue with us?”
“Hell no! I mean to say that I already tried asking for you yesterday, and since you didn’t answer then, and didn’t contact me today up till now, I’m left wondering what the hell is the logic behind the timing of our ‘dialogues?’”
“There is currently no constant underlying mechanism. If it was up to us, we would not have made further contact after our first interaction for a longer period of time. But, seeing as you’ve proven yourself to be prone to self-doubt, and unwilling to wait until a more efficient time in which to ask us your questions, some of which we believe have no bearing on the chances for your success, we have decided to regular contact would be unfortunately required.”
“Wow… careful with that passive aggressiveness there, buddy. You almost made me feel bad for asking questions of the mysterious being who decided to kidnap me a hundred years into the future. What the hell do you mean, unnecessary questions?”
“That is not what we said. We spoke of questions that—”
“I’m know what you said! Contrary to appearances, I’m not completely socially inept. I was just paraphrasing.”
A pause. “Understood. We would endeavor to familiarize ourself with the many aspects of conversing with other beings at an accelerated pace. It is not you who is socially inept but us, as we had not considered mastery in such an endeavor necessary prior to our first interaction with you.”
“Well if there’s one ‘aspect’ you don’t need to worry about it’s passive-aggressiveness. You’d be putting an old grandma to shame.”
“That is unfortunate since we have made no effort and possessed no intention of expressing ourself in what we believe to be the meaning of the term you have just used.”
“Clearly. Never mind that. Go back to your assertion of my questions being useless. Care to make an example? Just so I’ll know with what not to waste your time.”
“Very well. But it is not just questions and our efforts in answering them which are robbing us of precious time. This whole conversation, up to and including this point, is, in our opinion, unnecessary in order for you to fulfill your objective of saving the Web.”
“Would go a hell of a lot faster if you just gave me a straight answer. What questions are unnecessary?”
A short pause. “If we have made offense, we apologize. Such was—”
“You haven’t. I just want to know the answer.”
“Very well. First of all, this question we are currently answering you is not relevant, in our opinion of course. Another example is the question with which you started with when you asked us the logic behind our timing of our conversations with you.”
“Which you still haven’t answered, by the way.”
A pause. “We haven’t? Do you wish as to further elaborate on the subject? Or should be keep listing examples?”
“Jesus,” Sam muttered while rubbing his forehead. “It’s like I’m talking to a… never mind. Just give me another example so I’ll know how to comment on your assertion and then we’ll go back to the matter of your schedule.” He kept thinking of Web-Web like they were a smart, functional, and socially experienced sapient being. But the evidence pointing to the contrary kept piling up, as indicated by the fact that the AI didn’t even raise a single objection to the stupid name he had given them. He had to change his method of speaking to Web-Web, otherwise their time was truly going to be wasted.
“Very well. Another example is in you seeking knowledge that should be readily available to you in the coming years. Such as your requests of us to teach you magic from our previous conversation.”
“Ah ah, sure.” Sam had to bite his tongue to keep his naturally occurring sarcastic remark from being spilled forth. Treat them like a kid, Sam, like a kid. A kid with a really good vocabulary. But on the bright side, one without emotions or the ability to overwork their vocal chords. “Putting that aside for now. I happen to believe that knowing the logic which stands behind your decision to speak to me today and not, for example, yesterday does have an effect on my ability to fulfill my… role. If, in the unimaginable event that I want the answer to some question, say how to become a Ruler, but there will be no one nearby who is able to provide me with the information I require, don’t you think knowing how to contact you would prove very important at that time?”
“Indeed. Which is why we advise minimizing our contact when there is no critical information that you require from us.”
Sam grit his teeth. “Two problems. One, without asking you, I have no way of determining what information is critical and what isn’t. Also, something that you might not consider critical, such as the very subject of our current discussion, I might consider quite crucial. Secondly, you still haven’t made clear the logic behind your initiating of conversation, and thus even in the case that we both agree that I should reach out to you, I might not be able to do so due to your circumstances forbidding it.”
If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
“If we limit ourself to minimal contact, such a scenario would not happen.”
“Why not?! Hu… Alright… Look, I’ll try to make what I’m asking very clear. First, why did you not contact me yesterday, and only today? Two, why did you only make contact with me now, matter of fact, why do you always wait until night? Is it your own choice or is the choice imposed upon you? Three, what is the barrier preventing you from keeping a constant contact with me? You mentioned your energy in the past. Is it a pool of energy like the core? Does it regenerate, and if it does, when?”
“Very well. Your line of inquiry is clearer to us now. In answer to your first: our logic was that in order to minimize energy spent on making contact, we would limit our conversations to once every couple of days. Two days ago, we have reached out to you in order to calm your still troubled mental state. And today we have reached out to you in order to appraise you of your progress as you have requested of us. We also recognize the fact that you still possess questions for which we have yet to provide an answer and we have sought to address some of them in the time remaining in today’s interaction. The answer to your second point is simple: we chose this time of day and location in order to minimize the possibility of other people overhearing you. As for your third line of inquiry… we advise you to relinquish its pursuit for now. A complete and satisfactory answer would involve breadths of knowledge and experience to which you are not yet privy to.”
Sam snorted. “I might not know how electricity works, but I sure as hell understand the concept of a battery. Now try again. Do you have your own pool of energy from which you withdraw the power to contact me, or do you draw it from me?”
“Neither… Perhaps both. It is hard to put it in terms you would understand.”
“The energy you used today. Where did it come from?”
“If we had to assign it to one of the two categories you proposed, it would be the first one. But that is a great oversimplification, and it is not at all very accurate—”
“Never mind that. You have a certain amount of energy in storage that doesn’t depend on me, is that correct?”
“Not completely.”
“How come?”
“Your body, everyone’s body, naturally releases magical energy into… the world.”
“And instead of the world getting to enjoy my carbon emissions, you siphon them to yourself, to your abstract source of energy?”
“In a way.”
“And how does the amount of magic you’re getting from me compare to the amount you already have?”
“It is minuscule…”
“Yeah it is, but I was talking about—shit, sorry, forget about that. Will it grow as I get stronger? Higher level, higher magical pollution?”
“Indeed.”
“And isn’t there a way for you to get more energy out of me? Or maybe from someone else? Through me?”
“No!” the voice in his head hadn’t changed its volume or pitch, but still Sam could feel the difference between the current “scream” he heard and Web-Web’s usual monotone tone. “That is to say, it would be most unwise even were it possible.”
Sam decided not the push the AI any further on this line of inquiry and turned his mind towards the trying to understand the math that guided their logic. “So, I think I got it, but correct me if I say anything that’s wrong. Scratch that, only if it’s something conceptually wrong. Let’s try and assign a value to the amount of energy available to you. Say you have a hundred units of energy in your figurative bank, OK? You get from me some tiny amount every day, which is minuscule for now that we’ll call X. I have two questions then, in the future, say when I’m level 10, how much would X equal? And today, how much energy did you spend in order to contact me and will it always cost that same amount?”
“Your first question is impossible to answer. But a rough estimation… Would probably set the variable as a hundredth of a unit out of the hundred you arbitrarily assigned.” Sam grimaced, but held his tongue. That wasn’t so bad, necessarily. “For your second question… it is impossible to provide you with an accurate answer but we estimate that we had to use around two percent of our magical reserve in order to contact you today with another two allocated in order to maintain the contact for maximizing its purpose. And no, the amount it costs us to contact you is unfortunately not constant, but we can say no more about that at this time.”
“Great… that’s just… great. And here I am wasting what’s tantamount to more than a year of my future self because I can’t think of anything else but how fucked this makes me.” He channeled out his frustration out through his head and onto the top of the chair.
“Fear not. We have, or more correctly, the full version of ourselves, already calculated for such an occasion. About twenty-five percent of the energy available to us as of merging with you was allocated for miscellaneous use. That figure doesn’t include our first contact with you, which had a preset purpose, and which, despite unforeseen difficulties, was completed even then. Thus, despite our more frequent than planned interactions, we are still operating within safe parameters.”
“Great…” Sam exhaled and slumped down in the chair. He could almost feel the beginning of a panic attack happening, although judging by how the tightness in his chest was already slipping away, his magic addled body and/or brain were going to come up on top this time. “So I’m guessing that this means that we should cut this meeting short then no? Save us much as we can if there’s nothing that you don’t have to talk to me about.”
“No yet. We have allocated two percent in order to maintain this conversation. ‘Cutting it short’ would prove ineffective in the long run considering we still haven’t addressed the reason for our meeting today and our developing belief that you would require contact of a more frequent nature.”
“That’s great. I always wanted a robo-therapist. Still, I would ask of you to make more stringent use of your energy pool from now on. You’re the only one that knows when your presence is truly required. Me? I’m just a crybaby. I was just going to use you as a crutch to tell me if I’m working myself hard enough. That’s not a very prudent use of your time. I should just work as hard as I can, as long as I can.”
“It is true that allocating everything at your disposal to your training would be the ideal circumstance. But we have already held the opinion, which as only strengthened as a result of our interactions with you, that mortal beings cannot continuously perform to the limits of their capabilities. Therefore, we are going to reserve the position of judge regarding your performance that you have allocated to us.
“And on this note, we must inform you that you have no reason to feel the worry that you’ve exhibited in the last two days. So far, you have acted above the minimum we have designed. Furthermore, we have also come to the conclusion that it is highly unlikely that in our initial assessments for you, we did not take the quality of education you would receive here into account. So that, despite not possessing an accurate understanding of your importance, the teaching individuals at this academy will both be able to provide you with sufficient training, while at the same time appraising you themselves of whether you are putting in the correct amount of effort.”
“OK then, you’re the boss. I’m leaving the decision whether to contact me at your hands. I mean… you got I meant, right?” Sam asked.
“Yes.”
“Good... Damn. It just goes to show you how mentally dried I am that I can’t even come up with a joke about that. Almost didn’t recognize anything was wrong with what I said.”
“We still haven’t addressed the reason for today’s conversation.
“Right… which is?”
“First. You wished to speak to us yesterday after your combat training.”
“Oh. Oh, right, yeah! They’re teaching me to fight we a spear and not with a sword. Don’t know why I particularly want a sword. Actually, yes I do—doesn’t matter. Is training with a spear the right choice for me?”
“It is not the wrong choice for you. We do not hold any opinion as to which weapon you should be trained in, or for that matter, which form of combat you are to employ, only which you should not. That leads us to believe that as long as you are not making a wrong choice in this aspect, all other choices are of equal utility in the long run. Thus, and after judging the arguments you were given to why you should train with a spear to be accurate enough, we see no reason to advise against it.”
“So I really won’t end up a weaker version of myself in the long run because I fight with a spear and not a sword?”
“No.”
Sam snapped his fingers with a happy, relaxed grin on his face. “That’s good. One less thing to worry about. It was a legitimate reason to worry, right? Actually—”
“No.”
“don’t answer that… So I’m good with the spear choice then. Is everything else good as well? I’m up to spec? How am I with learning about magic? I’m really shit at patterns so far.”
“We have no concerns in the area.”
“Performed up to snuff, then? Didn’t spend too much time talking with Felix and Yvessa then? Or when doing other things that’s not studying?”
“We have no concerns about your conduct.”
“You’re going to.” Sam laughed. “Shit, why did I have to say that? Now I feel bad. Whatever, how close are we on time? Anything else I should know about? Maybe something I forgot to ask?”
“Only you can determine that. Our next planned interactions are still far away.”
Sam clapped his hands. “So I’m free to go? Or more like, are you free to go? Don’t want you to overdraft or have to put in more quarters, you know?”
“We do not. If you do indeed have nothing more pressing that you wish to convey to us than we are satisfied with terminating contact at this point.” The AI stopped speaking right after, which made Sam think that conversation time was over and provided a legitimate reason for why he got scared by the same thing twice in one night. “However,” Web-Web continued out of nowhere, “we believe that it is highly likely, almost a certain guarantee, that you will wake up tomorrow able to sense magic. And as such, we wish to argue against you of the advice you have received on the matter—”
“So my head is in danger of blowing up?”
“It is not. Just as the individual Maurice has told you, there is no danger of an adverse reaction after a Taken’s Awakening. The points of difference between you and other Taken, such as our rebuilding of you body without a core, will not affect this in the slightest. We were speaking of the advice you were given to keep your eyes closed at all times. You would be best served by doing the opposite. Trying to keep your eyes open for as long as you can. Based on past observations, you would probably not be able to do it for so long, but whatever you mange will be of great help to you in the long run.”
Sam gulped. “Yeah sure. I’ll try to hold on for us long as I can. Wait, what do you mean you were the one behind me being remade without a core? That was on purpose?”
“Of course. It was cheaper to let your core form by itself than to complete the process ourselves like we do for all other Taken.”
“That’s insane! I almost died.”
“We are quite aware of what transpired. Which is why we have scheduled you to be returned the day after the military unit guarding the portals received its new medic. We have judged that the chances of the previous healer stationed there being able to help you as only ninety-eight percent. It was an unfortunate but necessary delay. We could not take that risk.”
“Otherwise you would have slotted me back before the school year began?”
“Probably.”
“Then why not just send me a couple of years—No, forget I asked that. We don’t have time for that. Anything else you wanted me to know besides that I’m gonna wake up tomorrow with magic in my veins?”
“The magic was already within you. You would just be able to sense it tomorrow.”
“I get it. So the only thing I need to do in order to understand why everyone keeps telling me that magic is intuitive is to go to sleep? That’s usually a tall order for me, but lately I’ve been having no trouble with the task for some reason. Of course, up until now, there wasn’t a reason for me to be particularly excited about the next day or particularly anxious about falling asleep. What happens if I can’t fall asleep?”
“You would not be able to sense magic. Sleep is required for your mind to complete the process of Awakening.”
“Yep… I knew that that’s what you were going to say and yet I asked anyway. Real good job telling me about tomorrow then. What are the chances I’m going to have trouble falling asleep now?”
“Very low. We have spent considerable effort making sure all your hormones are properly balanced when we rebuilt you. Goodnight.”
“Yeah, good night.” Sam sighed and waited anxiously to see whether the AI would pop up once again. He wasn’t going to let himself get got three times in a row. Luckily, it seemed that this time Web-Web was gone for good. At least until their rapidly developing social brain decided that Sam needed the comfort of their visits. Hopefully next time we could spend less time walking in circles and not waste so much of their energy. Why am I talking like it’s not my fault? It’s completely my fault. The guy’s a literal five days old robot.
“What time is it?” Sam groaned while turning over his phone. It was not quite his bedtime. Still plenty of time to cram some more elven knowledge into his own still developing (for more years) brain. But on the other hand… he was tired. And considering it might take him extra long today to fall asleep, some prudence might be found in going to bed early. But would that mean taking it easy on himself? Shouldn’t he make use of as much of the day as he possibly could? In the end, he figured that he might as well finish the chapter he was reading (after making sure that it’s not too many pages to its ending).
Once all was said and done, he settled down in his bed, closed his eyes and willed sleep to come. And what do you know? It turned out that balanced melatonin output wasn’t the only thing required for a person to fall asleep easily. Turns out the waking mind has ideas of its own and if it had something it wanted to focus about, it kept you up. And so, Sam’s thoughts kept drifting from the long ass day he just had, to the day ahead and, more importantly, to how the hell was he going to manage to fall asleep. His last thought before succumbing to the Sandman’s allure was that it was really annoying how easy it was for him to fall asleep nowadays.