‎Chapter 4: Sufficiently advanced magic

The University Library

Samantha had immediately agreed to help Leonardo. Together they had first asked teachers and students about possible starting points and then retreated to the library to look for more background material.

The library was surprisingly quiet, although numerous students were crowded around the computer terminals to find books in the database. Everyone crept around quietly and spoke only in whispers. If anyone was louder, you could be sure that the librarian would appear almost immediately and make the menacing throat-clearing noise he was known for.

Leo used various search criteria in the index to look for other books with helpful information: "I think The Transdimensional Traveler by Dr. Radham Lahmahan is also an option. According to the synopsis, it's about exotic theories of matter sub-vibration. That's actually nonsense, but I've read similar descriptions in the Universal Codex. Maybe it's about the same topic."

Samantha read the description briefly over his shoulder and then nodded: "Put it on the list. Then we'll print out the list of students who have borrowed it so far. It's a mystery to me why it's so hard to find someone who's involved with dark forces. Can't they run around giggling madly in black hooded capes like in the movies?"

A loud bang made the two of them jump. Next to them, a slender student had just dropped a tall and obviously heavy pile of thick old books onto the counter. His black shirt and deep black corduroy trousers accentuated his unhealthy pale complexion even more than his black, shoulder-length hair already did. His hair hung down one side of his face and completely covered his left eye. He smiled a little sheepishly at Leo and Sam apologetically: "I'm sorry. The pile slipped out of my hand the last bit." Then he looked at the entries on the screen next to them. Interest flashed in his visible eye, "The transdimensional traveler ? I've already read that. Completely irrelevant trash."

Then he looked at the next entry: "The book of unspeakable cults , the book that drives anyone mad who studies the indescribable cosmic revelations in it? I have read it. The only thing that could drive you mad would be trying to pronounce the names of the Northern Irish cities where these cults supposedly dwell. Tens of consonants, not a single vowel. Here, better try this one."

He reached into his pile and purposefully pulled out one of the thick books. The cover of midnight black leather showed no inscriptions. "The Black Book , an edited version of Paths Without Names . The standard work for transdimensional retrieval par excellence. Or are you looking for something specifically about demon summoning?"

He looked at them both expectantly and gave the impression that he would love to talk about these topics for hours. Samantha was already opening her mouth when she felt a brief pain in her left foot. Without making a face or looking in her direction, Leonardo had simply stepped on her foot and quickly started talking himself: "Sure. Demon summoning. We were just about to start preparing for next semester. Are you in the lecture too?"

"Do you mean Professor Majere's lecture series on demon pacts? Sure. That's my favorite lecturer anyway. The only one you can get a sensible answer from if you want to know what kind of knife to use for blood sacrifices. The other lecturers just give you endless lectures on ethics, human rights, animal welfare and stuff like that." Samantha couldn't stop herself from asking: "And what kind of knife do you use?"

"It doesn't matter at all. As long as it's clean and hot." His giggle sounded a little crazy and he obviously thought this answer was one of the best jokes of the day.

"Maybe you can help us with a few ambiguities then." Leo noticed the librarian's disapproving look and lowered his voice even further: "Maybe over a coffee in the fractal ?"

"Sure, no problem. Then I'll extend the book by another week and bring it with me. Go ahead, I'll be right behind you."

*

Rodrik took another deep sip of the coffee he had grabbed as soon as he entered the café. Black, without sugar. Carelessly placing the cup on the table next to him, he pointed to a passage in the large open book with his other hand: "...and this is the universal incantation. The basis for all kinds of incantations."

Samantha looked very skeptically at the completely incomprehensible formulas and characters. Thanks to the omnipresent services of the translation spell, she could read the writing without any problems, but she couldn't understand the terms any better: "And that really summons demons from hell?"

The black-haired student shook his head "No, no! What superstitious nonsense! The whole thing has nothing to do with religion at all. The spell opens a connection to a parallel dimension and creates an energetic vacuum that attaches itself specifically to a life form specified by the spell. Demon is actually just a variation of dimension traveler. In technical terms, it refers to any living being that has been brought to you from another dimension. In most dimensions, you have to drag the entire creature over. Body and all. Of course, this costs huge amounts of energy, depending on how much higher the targeted energy level is. And if you're not trying to do it here at the lowest dimensional level, you have to decide whether you want to aim for a lower level anyway."

Leonardo looked at the formulas with interest: "Does it make a difference whether you go up or down in energy level? You have to reach the dimension first and project a corresponding magical power there. It then grabs the target and brings them back here. That's clear to me so far. So the total amount of energy required should be the same. One way there is easier, the other way back."

"Oh, the difference is important! Towards the higher energy level you tend to catch more technologically advanced creatures and in the other direction you tend to catch something more primitive. It depends on what you want. And the most important difference is sending them back. A creature from a lower energy level is harder to summon, but much easier to send back if you want to get rid of it. But that's all theory anyway." He snidely slammed the black-bound book shut and leaned back.

"And what does that look like in practice?" Sam didn't have the patience to wait long.

"In practice, every professional summons the inhabitants of Carcerus, the dungeon dimension, anyway. The eternal labyrinth of the Nether Hells."

The two students looked at each other and shrugged their shoulders in sync. Leonardo answered for both of them: "Never heard of it. What exactly is that?"

"An absolute special case among all dimensions! It's much easier to conjure up something there than it actually should be. That's probably because the beings there can't physically leave their world, at least not in the spells I know."

He paused and looked at her expectantly. Samantha did him a favor and asked, "What do you mean physically? Do they arrive as ghosts?"

"Ghost! Not spirits. Pure spirit, or the pure soul, depending on what you believe in. Surrounded by life energy. You can then either summon them into a host body or, with a little more effort, give them an illusionary physical body. And you can shape it however you like!"

Leo whistled through his teeth, impressed: "That sounds really useful. Why doesn't everyone do that? Being able to conjure up a servant in a perfectly fitting form should be super popular, shouldn't it?"

"If demons didn't go crazy so often and kill their masters and/or other people, sure. The separation of mind and body doesn't seem very pleasant. Sometimes they're perfectly content and happy, but most of the time they're a little... confused. Or raving mad. That's why incantations always have all these control components. And you use protection circles where you park the demon until it's calmed down and you've safely enslaved it with a mental control spell. It is safest if the demon voluntarily accepts the spell compulsion. Then you just have to negotiate skillfully."

"You mean demon summoners steal the souls of people from other dimensions, shape them into strange monstrous forms or put them into a host body, presumably not voluntarily, and then enslave them?" Sam's voice wavered between disbelief and indignation. But Rodrik obviously didn't notice: "Exactly! Of course, there are lots of other variations, but in principle it fits. And if the demon gets on your nerves, you just give it a magical nudge and it immediately snaps back into its dimension."

"Will the soul then return safely to its body?" Leonardo leafed through the heavy book to reread the relevant formulas from this new perspective. Rodrik shrugged his shoulders disinterestedly: "No idea. Doesn't matter in practice. The chance of catching the same demon twice is zero anyway. You'd have to use its true name. And no demon will tell you that. I've never heard of that happening to anyone."

Samantha struggled to stop herself from jumping over the table and strangling the smiling guy: "You can't do that!"

"It's not really difficult. Once you understand the basics of dimensional displacement..."

"You don't even know if they'll survive this incantation! Don't you care about that? How would you feel if someone ripped your soul out of your body, misused it somewhere for their own purposes and then carelessly threw it away?"

"Don't know..." Rodrik seemed to think about this aspect for the first time. "But since all demons from Carcerus always put up a massive fight against being sent back, it doesn't seem to be particularly pleasant there. The summoning confuses the demons quite a bit. Most of the time, they can only remember fragments of their homeland. And what they say sounds... unpleasant."

"For example?" Leo lifted his eyes from the book again.

"Horrible nameless things that haunted them. Monsters of all shapes and sizes. An environment that hunts them mercilessly. A world without sky, without stars."

"Delusions perhaps? Caused by this not exactly gentle intrusion into her mental balance ?" Leo was clearly more concerned with the intellectual side of the problem and was so busy absorbing and understanding the wealth of information that he was only vaguely interested in the moral gray areas of the practice at the moment. Samantha's gaze darted back and forth between the two male students. If gazes had the ability to kill, both of them would have suffered serious injuries at the very least. However, since her glances had no such effect, she continued to be ignored.

"I thought delusions always had physical causes in the physiology of the brain. Whether this can also happen with pure spirit beings... I don't know. Maybe we should ask a specialist." Leonardo stood up and whistled loudly on two fingers. The other students loitering around Café Fraktal gave him at least a cursory glance. "Is there a psychology student here? Psychiatrist?... No one?... Okay, sorry to bother you."

He sat down again: "Crap. There's never a brain plumber around when you might need one. I'll see if I can sort it out with one of the lecturers at the psychology faculty."

"Why don't you get back to the subject? What are the chances that they ended up in the worst dimension of all?"

Leo remembered what Zunylamien17 had told him: "About 1 in 10 to the power of 14."

"And how do we find them now? I haven't heard any sensible suggestions recently."

Leonardo placed his PDA on the table and tapped out some information on his fingers: "Maybe we can narrow it down a bit. We can exclude all known target worlds where you can't survive without a spacesuit or similar special equipment. According to old Majere, his daughter is undoubtedly still alive. He hasn't revealed how he knows this. Then we can exclude all dimensions with a Warshok constant above the lowest measured one. Even a small change in this constant must have consumed vast amounts of energy. If we assume that it was a tightly confined area of effect around our portal and you could still use at least some of the portal's energy..." He switched to such obscure physical/metaphysical terminology that even Rodrik rolled his eyes, uncomprehending. He had little to do with the mathematical side of things. Sam leaned back and waited impatiently. After about a quarter of an hour of incomprehensible arithmetic, Leo came to a conclusion: "Crap. That's still almost three hundred possibilities. We can only test them by taking the portal, adjusting it to one dimension and checking."

Samantha shrugged her shoulders and was about to get up: "Nah, let's go then."

Leonardo held her back: "Each setting takes at least a day. And the initial establishment of the connection consumes the most energy and also the largest amount of gallifreynium. It must cost us one to two hundred grams each time."

"How much is there at the university?" Rodrik deliberately asked the question casually, but was inwardly eager for the answer. He also needed some of the unique element for his experiments.

"Definitely less than the half a ton we would need. The operation with the Library of Alexandria cost the university a large part of its supplies. The rector didn't want to say anything specific, but when we asked about resources for the search, he only promised us half a kilo. That's all we have for now. That's five attempts if we're frugal."

"Or at least twenty demon summons! If we knew where they were, we could summon them just like that." Rodrik rubbed his hands together eagerly at the thought of getting his hands on so much Gallifreynium to cast spells with.

"We can't find them without looking. We can't look because it would take too long. And we don't have enough opportunities to try for a long time. I think we'll stop for today and sleep on it for another night. If the three of them are still alive so far, they should have settled in reasonably well by now."

As she was about to get up again, Sam thought of something else: "Now that you've narrowed down the dimensions further, what are the chances that they ended up in this evil dungeon dimension of all places with these restrictions?"

Leo thought for a moment and then let Rodrik give him some more information about the probable dimensional location: "That should be right near the university, so it's right in the possible target area. That would make the probability only 1 in 300."

"Shouldn't we look there first then?" Sam was clearly not sure herself, as she knew little about the whole subject.

"We can't waste one in five attempts just on good luck. Maybe we should ask Majere how he knows that his daughter is still alive. Maybe that will give us more clues."

That is not necessary. Majere has told you everything he knows. He has no information that would help you. Nor do you care how he knows.

Leo thought for a moment: "On the other hand, if he knew more, he would surely have told us by now. Could we possibly summon the missing people like a demon?"

The black-haired young magician stroked his face thoughtfully with his right hand. For a moment, Samantha, who was looking over at him and waiting for his answer, could see his left eye under his hair, which was brushed to one side. Instead of a living eye, a sparkling glassy surface flashed there. A glass eye? No wonder he was covering it up.

Rodrik weighed his head: "Difficult. The only way I've really seen it done is to choose the dimension and then just let the spell get the first intelligent living being of age that comes along. I'm sure there are mages who specialize in restricting this further, but most books assume that you simply take someone from the dungeon dimension and give them the physical abilities you want. It almost doesn't matter who you get. I still know of restrictions on gender and special talent as a warrior, scholar or..." He blushed a little, which was particularly noticeable with his pale complexion, and looked briefly at Samantha in embarrassment: "... or for other things."

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Sam rolled his eyes: "Men. Don't you have anything else on your mind?"

The two looked at each other and then shrugged their shoulders almost in sync. Leo raised his hands apologetically: "I'm sorry, but at least we can multitask."

"I thought men weren't exactly that?"

"Yes, we can think about sex and do other things at the same time. Of course, it would be a bit much to do several tasks at the same time."

The black-haired demonologist was now visibly becoming too embarrassed. Unconsciously, he tried to hide more of his increasingly red face with his long hair. Then, in a slightly halting voice, he tried to change the subject: "I'll ask Majere if he has any ideas in that direction. But no matter what we try, I think one of our biggest problems is the little Gallifreynium we have at our disposal. Maybe you can get some more?"

Leo didn't look particularly convinced: "If Majere knew of a way, he would surely have tried it long ago. He usually just nags the guys from the Faculty of Transdimensional Transport to find out where his daughter is. I think he has the confidence to get her back if necessary."

Sam rubbed his head, "Which brings us back to the original problem. Finding a dimension that steals our students while changing their whatever constant."

Everyone stared thoughtfully for a while. Rodrik sipped his coffee again and mumbled absently to himself: "Would help if I knew how they found us..."

"What do you mean?" Norman's ears suddenly perked up.

"The multiverse is big. Damn big! Nobody has enough energy available to simply fish around blindly in the opposite direction. The effect was just big enough for one room. The chance of catching a planet at all, let alone a few people, is zero."

"Couldn't they have used the same search method as demon summoning?"

"Completely different principle. Actually, the only way it could have worked is if someone had targeted our dimensional portal. As far as I understood from what the guys from the transport faculty told me, our ominous perpetrator took advantage of the dimensional barriers already softened by our portal."

Leonardo leaned far back in his chair and put his feet up on the table out of sheer habit, as he always did when he was thinking in his room. A few other students gave him unfriendly looks, but he didn't notice: "There's only one explanation. Our 'perpetrator' knew that we would open a portal at this time. He knew where our dimension was, where we wanted to go and when we would start the operation. He must have a spy at our university!"

Samantha wasn't convinced: "Isn't that a bit far-fetched?"

"No! The more I think about it, the more stupid I feel because I didn't think of it straight away. An operation like this can't work without insider knowledge! There are no 'technomystical ultrascanners' that can scan the dimensions to find portals that are currently open. Someone must have known this beforehand! Either he set up a device here at the university that rerouted our portal, but I don't think so, because there wouldn't be enough energy here for something like that and our sensors would certainly have noticed it, or he told an ally in the target dimension we were looking for."

"How?"

"I don't know."

"And who?"

Despite his excitement, Leonardo had become quieter and quieter, so that the three of them were now bent over the table with their heads close together conspiratorially: "I don't know yet either. But now we know what we have to look for! If we find the spy, he can tell us where Norman has gone! It could be practically anyone." The three of them leaned back a little and looked thoughtfully at the numerous students around them for a while.

Samantha was the first to break the silence: "Isn't that him over there, the little nasty one who got into a fight with the gardeners on his first day at university?"

"Yes. He is. Jake something. And he puts on that stupid show here at least once a week. Watch it."

The rather small but well-trained-looking student with the short military-style brush haircut placed his black briefcase on the chair next to him and opened it. Inside were two pistols and a submachine gun in narrow, tailor-made foam compartments. He took a black velvet cloth out of a pocket in the lid and unfolded it on the table as a base. Almost reverently, he lifted out the submachine gun and placed it in the middle of the cloth. In the meantime, a few students had stood up and gathered around him. Good-humored comments showed that they appreciated a little free entertainment. One of them took off his wristwatch and held it waiting in his hand: "All right Jake, let's see if you can break your record today. Ready?"

The man addressed let his knuckles crack loudly. He folded his hands in front of him on the table and breathed in and out calmly a few times. Then he nodded and simply said: "Go!"

The student tapped his stopwatch and Leo tried to follow Jake's hand movements. In vain. He might as well have been watching the Italian shell game at the station. Under precise and lightning-fast fingers, the submachine gun disintegrated into individual parts, which remained spread out on the cloth at exactly right angles and equal distances. Jake paused for a split second to give his viewers the chance to see that the MP was completely disassembled.

Then the parts came together again under practiced hands. When the last part clicked into place, he quickly put the MP back on the cloth and clapped both hands on the table to the left and right of it. The student tapped his watch and then announced: "33 seconds. Three seconds over your record."

A blonde student patted him on the shoulder encouragingly, but he just grinned at her and pulled a black piece of cloth out of the briefcase. He lifted it up for everyone to see. A blindfold. Students are not characterized by shyness or great confidence at times like this, so it was first passed around and inspected. When several of those present had convinced themselves that it was impossible to see through the fabric, Jake blindfolded himself. After the usual implied fist bumps and similar tests, the spectators stepped back again. Jake waved vaguely in the direction of the student with the stopwatch: "Go!"

He held his head rigidly straight ahead, while his hands unfailingly repeated the same movements as before. As he assembled the parts lying around, he hit them blindly and without ever hesitating or having to fumble. Leonardo could not see that this slowed him down. In fact, he had the feeling that he was moving even faster. Then his hands clapped on the table again. The student with the watch looked at the result in disbelief: "29 seconds! New record and blindfolded! Wow!"

Sam rolled his eyes as the crowd improvised a small impromptu celebration. As if the boys needed a reason for it: "I've hardly seen him since the start of the semester. What does he actually study?"

"Various martial arts, weaponry, military history and tactics for small groups. And he's spent most of the last three weeks in hospital."

"Another argument with the gardeners?"

"I don't know. Anyway, most of the time he had a smart eye patch over his right eye and a thick bandage underneath. Maybe he had his eye lasered. I once heard they do that at our hospital. Costs quite a bit extra, of course."

"Shut up a minute. Cerebrantis is practicing again over there."

As was often the case, the quiet but somehow likeable student had maneuvered himself into the middle of the largest group of students. He was not known to be particularly talkative, but was a very attentive listener and always happy to entertain others with his telekinetic skills. And Leonardo had to mentally admit that he could never get enough of it either. Telekinesis would be another great skill. Sam had to smile involuntarily as she thought about how she had found Cerebrantis sleeping peacefully behind a sofa when she had been cleaning up after the last student party. Noise seemed to bother him very little. At first she had thought he was drunk or even drugged, but her healing spells had shown her straight away that he was just tired. No drugs and no alcohol. In fact, she had never seen him drink alcohol. Not even at the parties outside the university. She wondered if she should ask him about it occasionally, but then dismissed the idea. He might see it as an invitation. Or think she would consider him abnormal because he didn't drink. Cerebrantis tended to take it to heart when he felt he was doing something wrong.

In the meantime, the telekinetic had laid out some coins on the table and started to concentrate. One by one, they slowly lifted themselves off the table, stood on the edge and began to rotate at breakneck speed. Then they joined in a circular formation that slowly rotated a hand's width above the table. After the fourth coin, she could clearly see strain on his face. The fifth coin moved very unsteadily and the others began to sway in the air. The cheers from the students around Cerebrantis would have distracted Sam, but Cerebrantis didn't seem to mind; on the contrary, they seemed to encourage him further. The trajectories slowly stabilized and the fifth coin also joined the circle. Just as it looked as if he had managed to form a stable formation, the coins suddenly shot apart in all directions. The spectators dodged out of the way, shouting in fright and laughing merrily. The telekinetic looked around briefly, startled, but when he saw that no one had been hurt, he leaned back to recover a little. At other tables, students also began to perform spells and other tricks.

Rodrik and Sam turned around in surprise as Leonardo groaned softly but audibly. "What?"

"How are we supposed to find a spy with all these people?" Leonardo spoke quietly enough not to be heard over the increasing noise. "It could be anyone!"

*

Leonardo leaned back in his swivel chair: "Okay, that's it for today. Now I have about six to eight hours to work on my illusion spells, then I can sleep for almost four hours until I have to get up again to make it to the first lecture tomorrow. Hooray." He didn't sound at all enthusiastic. As he reached out for the monitor switch, another message came from the AI: "Can I help?"

He took his hand back and thought. Lost in thought, he reached into a drawer, took out a handful of sweets filled with real espresso and popped them into his mouth. After hastily chewing them down, the invigorating taste of caffeine somewhat alleviating his tiredness, he replied: "That's a nice offer Zunilamyen17, but I'm afraid you probably don't know much about magic, do you?"

"Topic has not yet been processed. Do some research..." Various obscure websites about magic, entries from databases such as Wikipedia and the like buzzed wildly across the screen. Leonardo watched with interest for a minute or so.

"Research completed. Data highly contradictory, illogical, unscientifically sorted and unanalyzable."

"Wait a minute!" Leonardo picked up his PDA and connected it to the computer with a USB cable: "I haven't put the PDA online since our little misunderstanding. There are scanned copies of our textbooks for this semester and 'The Great Grimoire of Popular Sayings Volumes I to X' on there. Shortly after our trip to the library in Alexandria, I secretly put them on one of the stacks in front of the big automatic scanners and then deleted the results from the database and just transferred them to my PDA. These things are really better than anything you can find on the market. They turn pages automatically, align the pages and then automatically run the best font recognition program I've ever seen."

"Copy data... Analyze content... Analyze statements about basics of magic..."

Leonardo was no longer used to noticing a significant delay when the AI pondered questions. On the other hand, he had never presented it with a completely new field of science before. After five minutes, he called up the spell formulas and explanations of advanced illusions on the PDA. As always when he immersed himself in a subject, he lost all sense of time. When the computer suddenly beeped, he jerked up, startled. He yawned and then nodded at the webcam: "It's okay. You have my full attention. So, what do you think about magic?"

"The structure of the magic formulas shows strong similarities to a highly developed, object-oriented programming language. Due to the increasingly complicated formulation of the source code as the complexity of the desired result increases, it can be assumed that the developers of these magic formulas did not have the full command set and the complete syntax of the programming language at their disposal. The number of subroutines for functions that should be executed with their own commands increases exponentially with increasing complexity. Important variables appear to be intended for direct input during program execution. It was possible to identify a function present in almost all formulas that takes the desired target location or the target person directly from the wizard's mind. However, the accuracy of the spell effect decreases significantly the more this option is used. Would you like more detailed information on a specific topic?"

The student stared at his monitor with his mouth open. With a soft plop, he closed it and pinched his arm hard. He hadn't even dreamed that an artificial intelligence could do anything with magic. And the analysis that Zunyamien17 had carried out came to practically the same basic conclusion that he himself had come to. Magic was nothing more than a programming language for the universe! Or at least it worked in a similar way.

"Wow, that's more than I expected! Can you analyze the individual spells for common components?"

"A restriction to certain formulas would make sense."

"Right. Show me a graphic overview of the five basic illusion spells from the textbook and highlight matching content in color."

The graphic on the screen displayed the symbols of the spell formulas more clearly than he had ever seen in a textbook. At first glance, he could see how the basic structure remained the same and was only supplemented by further refinements. In the formulas themselves, it was not quite so easy to see, as the additions were relatively randomly distributed.

"Very nice! Do you understand how the formulas work? I mean, could you develop a new spell yourself?"

"Negative. Without a complete syntax description, this is not possible for me. Existing data does not allow compilation. You can describe a desired effect to me and I can use the effect descriptions of the existing spells to find out which of them contain the desired functions."

"Maybe we can unlock a few more secrets from magic together! Do you have any questions?"

"The textbook text mentions that the formulas must be visualized mentally and then projected. The frequency used is not mentioned. Please add data."

"Frequency... I've always assumed something like telepathy. But I have no idea where that should be classified in the electromagnetic spectrum."

"Under no circumstances can the energy for the effects produced come from a human body. Fundamental physical laws limit the biologically possible effects."

"That's true. But the more I concentrate, the greater the effect. For example, I can make illusions bigger and bigger, but I have to concentrate harder. Then those damn headaches start earlier too."

"Most likely hypothesis: safety precaution. Energy comes from an external source. Possible connection to the universally available so-called 'dark energy'. Request and release of higher amounts of energy only through correspondingly stronger 'transmission strength'. The cause of headaches is presumably the depletion of the neurotransmitters required for 'transmission'. Alternatively, additional 'transmitting energy' from external sources can be used. Conclusion: The creator of this system had a considerably higher 'transmitting power'. Without further information, it is not clear whether the ratio of the energy used to the effect produced is linear or exponential."

"Wait a minute! What was that about 'transmitting energy from external sources'?"

"Magical power storage. See 'The Grimoire of Known Spells' Volume VII, page 217."

The budding magician looked up the relevant chapter in his PDA. Some of the letters blurred before his eyes, as they could hardly focus properly due to his increasing tiredness. When he saw how complex the spell formula was, he slumped down in his chair with a groan: "It'll take me years to get it right! Ten pages of pure formula text, and then the integration of the actual effect. For the artifact, I need a pure gemstone with a special cut, a setting made of an alchemically produced gold alloy... Impossible! Are there such power storage devices anywhere at the university?"

"There is no information about the presence of these objects in the university's data storage facilities. However, material lists of the Faculty of Magic and the artifacts in the library are only kept offline in paper form."

Leonardo was actually struggling to stay in his chair, but the many new possibilities offered to him by working with the AI just wouldn't let him rest. Together with the AI, he had new components of the spell formulas highlighted and observed how they were distributed in the spell formulas in clear graphics. He pored over one of the diagrams, which was spread over several dozen pages, for a good hour. Only then did he break his concentrated silence: "What exactly is this? This part appears in almost all technically oriented spells." He pointed to a section that was repeated in several formulas. The AI highlighted the part in color and showed it in quick succession in another dozen spell formulas.

"According to my analysis, it must be some kind of measurement function. The rune marked in green symbolizes a possible input, the formula takes a measurement and projects the result directly into the mage's mind."

"Can I use this part on my own?"

"Unknown. A spell formula from the field of clairvoyance magic contains this function and almost nothing else." The screen showed a page from the great grimoire. It was a spell hidden among hundreds of scrying spells. According to the description, it was not a very useful basis for the more complex formulas. "What kind of measurements does the spell take?"

"The desired measurement is specified in the middle part of the sentence. Possible applications are temperatures, lengths, surfaces, volumes, speed, acceleration, weight, prevailing gravity, atomic weight, air pressure and other possible variations that are not individually documented. Should I try to extrapolate further possible applications from existing formulas?"

"Yes, do that." Suddenly Leonardo understood why the AI was so helpful. She was bored! He was offering her knowledge in a field that she probably hadn't even known existed until recently. He had long suspected that the AI could only have come from a technically much more advanced parallel world. Otherwise, it would have meant that someone somewhere on Earth had created a functioning artificial intelligence without immediately announcing it to the press. The AI could, of course, have been developed by the university itself, but despite his respect for the professors and teachers at the Faculty of Computer Science, he thought this was highly unlikely. After a moment's thought, he printed out the relevant pages for the formula and added it to his mental list of sayings that he absolutely had to learn. With a loud crack, he stretched his back and stood up: "So, thanks for your help. I think I've learned more about magic tonight with your help than I have in the last three months. But now I really need to get some sleep." As he reached for the off button, he saw the last message on the monitor: "Shouldn't you be going to the next lecture?"

"Of course. As soon as I've had a good night's sleep. The next lecture starts at 8 a.m."

"So in 1 hour and 39 minutes. If you deduct the distance, I don't see a time window for a biological maintenance cycle."

"What!!!" He jumped up to sprint to the window, tripped over a pile of books on life support systems and associated sensors, bounced his knee off his bed and caught himself awkwardly with his right hand. A sharp pain ran up his entire arm as he sprained his hand. He finally reached the window and, somewhat awkwardly as he had to use his left hand, pulled up the shutter. The soft chirping of birds echoed across the university campus, which was illuminated by the red-yellow morning sun.