I walked out of the alley, finding myself once again in the bright, beloved-by-all Diagon Alley. It was crowded, unfortunately, as these people's attention was constantly drawn to me. Imagine a person's reaction when they see a child with a strange glowing sword behind his back that doesn't even look fake. That's approximately what was clogging my empathy at the moment.
This reaction escalated especially when people saw that I was making my way to Knockturn Alley. And, it seems, they were torn between attempting to stop me and the desire to see how it would all end, considering the sword on my back.
Approaching the entrance to Knockturn, I met no resistance, so I immediately passed through the barely visible archway.
The sky seemed to darken, the street became gloomier, and the amount of trash in the corners increased. The alleyways were teeming with life, and not just human. I am even stronger than a werewolf at the moment. Heh-heh-heh.
Actually, I didn't come here for nothing. I don't want to trust the Goblins, so I want to offer a cube of pure gold to old man Borgin. He'll probably be able to pay for it.
And if I show him osmium and tell him how much it actually costs... Ooh... He'd piss himself.
But as soon as I walked past another alleyway... Dark hands pulled me inside. Raising my head, I looked at two people of completely bandit-like appearance. Examining their unkempt faces, half-asleep insane eyes, and stupid smiles, I immediately understood who they were. Two specimens of the species "Gopus Vulgaris" or, in common parlance — "Common Gopnik" (Thug). Their characteristics immediately came to mind: this species is distinguished by strong aggression towards other people, so one should stay away from them. If they have trapped you, you should give them what they ask for, or eliminate them.
I, of course, stuck to the second option. They didn't even have time to state their demands before tentacles pierced both their necks, releasing a bright jet of blood. A grimace of pain was reflected on their faces, and hands under worn robes tried to reach me. It's a pity it didn't help them. In the next moment, these two were in my domain. Just for experiments. I'll develop magic and try to engrave some runes on their cells, turning them into a living artifact. I am generally very interested in the whole topic of rune magic and its full use.
I walked out of the darkened alley and with light movements wiped off particles of dust and drops of blood that still somehow managed to get onto my robe. Ignoring the abruptly paling faces of the wizards surrounding me, I continued my way, and within half a minute reached the shop I needed. Although, I don't even know what to call it.
The darkened sign "Borgin and Burkes" was the first thing that caught the eye when you walked past this place. It was made of wood and had absolutely no bright elements. Just text made from the same wood.
Entering through the wooden door with glass, I saw many shelves with goods, between which one could walk and choose something endlessly. There was a pleasant semi-darkness here.
At the main desk — as I call it, the cashier's desk — there was no one. I am a patient entity, so I did what practically no one did. I just sat on the nearest stool and began to wait, not even turning my head in search of anything interesting. There is nothing like that for me here.
A few minutes later, an old man jumped out of the back door with an incredibly heavy and serious gaze that dug into me like a snake into a fresh victim. I didn't flinch — god was scarier.
I got up from the stool and walked up to the desk, keeping my eyes on Borgin's wrinkled face. Such a staring contest lasted for ten seconds until he finally said something.
"How can I be of service?" his eyes narrowed and continued to look at me with great suspicion. Yes, yes, I am a very scary child. It's not every day you see a small fry come into your shop and look at you not just like shit, but like... Nothing.
"Interested in precious metals? I, you see, need money," I lowered my gaze and began to theatrically examine my palm.
"Will you be able to buy a couple of metal cubes from me?" I asked, looking up again and staring into Borgin's rough face. The staring contest continued.
"Depends on the metal," the man said, not taking his eyes off me. An ordinary child under such a gaze would have run away long ago, but I am not ordinary, and not a child either. None of the intimidation methods work on me.
"You won't regret it," I replied and smiled in such a way that part of my face simply tore. Borgin took a couple of steps back, not expecting such actions from me. I just continued to smile.
Raising my hand, I snapped my fingers, and a cube of pure gold, about five by five by five centimeters in size, immediately appeared in it. The smile never left my face, literally.
Borgin dared not approach closer, still looking at my small figure from a distance of several meters. Apparently, only now did he notice the burning sword behind my back, which reached all the way to the floor (that's how long this bastard sword was). The man's eye twitched at this. He swore quietly and whispered something like: "I didn't need monsters on top of everything else." But he still managed to calm his emotions.
Coughing, he gestured for me to put the cube on the table and step back a few meters from it. Evidently, my torn face scared him. I'll have to deal with this problem too. Although... The complete reconstruction will do everything for me.
Placing the cube and stepping away from the table, I began to wait.
Third Person POV
Borgin approached the table and frowned, his face expressing true bewilderment. In his eyes was written: "This child looked too threatening, but does he seriously think that by giving me a transfigured cube of gold, I will give him something in return?"
He did not voice these thoughts. Pulling his wand from the holster on his forearm, he used a non-verbal "Accio". A small artifact flew out from under the counter, remotely resembling a compass, with three different hands that glowed slightly with different colors. Red, Green, and Blue. It was a simple artifact for identifying metals, including whether they were transfigured or not.
He pointed the artifact at the golden cube.
The red hand, which usually vibrated at the sight of transfigured matter, was silent at the moment. It didn't move. Just zero signs of instability.
The green hand indicated the purity of the metal on which the artifact was used. Here it was completely opposite to the red hand — absolute maximum. This means that the golden cube was truly pure gold. No impurities, dirt. This is the purest thing Borgin has seen in his already quite long life. He would bet that this cube was purer than the goblins' gold bars.
The blue hand, which determined if there were any enchantments, showed zero. Not a single movement.
"This... this is not transfiguration," thought Borgin and put away the artifact, frowning his wrinkled brows. His face expressed true bewilderment. He seemed to scold himself in his thoughts for believing in the impossible.
"And it is absolutely pure..."
Without further thought, he took a small metal steelyard (scales, in common parlance) out of his robe pocket. Pulling the cube with a simple non-verbal wandless Leviosa and placing it on these scales, he swallowed, and his eyes widened.
"Almost two inches on all sides... Such a cube weighs... More than eight and a half pounds. And here it is practically nine... As if this gold... Was compressed?" he thought, looking at the scales.
"Incredible density..."
He raised his gaze to Ai, still standing calmly a little distance from the counter, and measured him with an appraising look. Ai followed his every move.
There were no more fears or suspicions in Borgin's mind. Although this child looked like a freak, one could work with him, which was what he intended to do. All doubts were replaced by sharp greed mixed with reverence.
"What price will you choose... Boy? And how many such 'cubes' can you offer me?" the man asked, allowing a small smile to crawl onto his face. To others, it would look as if a grown man was trying to parody a monster's smile.
"I can offer you as many as until you run out of money," Ai explained easily, finally removing the scary, almost bloody smile from his face. The torn cheeks began to regenerate with a hiss, and a couple of seconds later they were as good as new, and Ai was no different from an ordinary six-year-old child.
"As many as needed..." whispered Borgin, looking away from the child in front of him. His mind raced at great speed, imagining what could be done with such capital, and how to multiply the value of these cubes... Buy a few portkeys, and sell them in different places until the market updates... M-m-m.
"So how much are these Cubes?" Borgin finally asked, returning the gaze of his now focused eyes to Ai, still standing in the distance.
"A thousand galleons apiece. No more, no less," the Void Walker answered calmly, walking back to the counter. It's inconvenient to communicate when the distance between interlocutors is as much as several meters.
Hearing the price, Borgin seemed to light up. This is much cheaper than he expected. He thought that this boy was still stupid, selling full-fledged Cubes of pure gold at such a low price... But then he remembered how this same boy created one of these in his hand without even squeezing out a drop of sweat.
"Fifteen pieces! I'm buying fifteen pieces!" the man exclaimed, barely restraining his patience. He would give everything to buy these Cubes, and then sell them at a price ten times the amount spent on the purchase.
"Take your time. Deduct the necessary amount from these fifteen thousand galleons, for I want to buy all the different books on runes in this store. And also books on Occlumency and Legilimency," said the terminator undercover. Borgin didn't think for a second, immediately running to the back of the store and starting to rustle various things. Constant "Accio!" could be heard from there.
A couple of minutes later, the man returned and put a huge stack of books on the table, as well as two books separately. Ai was satisfied.
Running his hand over the table, he created the missing fourteen cubes on it, ordering the Solver to reconstruct matter.
As soon as Borgin saw such an amount of gold, he almost burst into tears, but still managed to restrain himself, returning calmness and a business style to his body. Without further words, a small bag was added to the stack of books.
"This bag has extension charms. There are the remaining thirteen thousand galleons, three sickles, and two knuts. You wouldn't accept a check, considering you decided to sell gold to me, and not to the goblins." The store owner was so filled with respect that he began to address his small visitor formally (English cannot convey difference between formal and informal speech in that kind of dialogs.), which was a rare sight.
"Thank you for the cooperation," Ai said and with one wave of his hand sent the books and the bag to his domain, having previously made sure that there was no plasma there. Well, suddenly an Inferno happened there again by accident? Need to know.
Smiling at Borgin, whose eyes widened in shock, the Void Walker snapped his fingers and disappeared, leaving behind only a small distortion of space.
Ai's POV
I appeared, oddly enough, in London, and not in Diagon Alley. The reason for this is simple: I don't know how to get into the "Leaky Cauldron" from inside the Alley, so I have to use such crutches, bypassing everything from the other side. And I didn't bother to find out the passage, because... I'm too proud for that, I admit honestly.
Walking out of the alley and bypassing the building, I entered the shabby door of the "Leaky Cauldron" again. I was met again by surprisingly clean air, dirty floors, drunken mugs all around, and generally an atmosphere of general unsanitary conditions. But that wasn't what interested me at the moment.
Walking up to the bar counter, I looked at Tom, the permanent bartender, who was wiping a glass with some rag in a cliché manner. Tom looked back at me.
Without saying a word, I put a few galleons on the counter and pointed a finger at the ceiling. I wanted to rent a room here to: a) Train; b) Get at least some kind of place of residence. They won't kick me out, since money solves everything in this world. If something cannot be solved with money, one should bring even more money.
Tom glanced at the few gold coins on his table, sighed, put down the glass, and came out from behind the counter, waving his hand for me to follow him.
When we went up the wooden stairs, we were met by a room full of doors. Turning around, Tom pointed to one of the doors and it, as if by magic (ironic, isn't it), opened. The man threw me the key to my room with his other hand and galloped back to the first floor, apparently to serve the homele... clients.
Sending the key with a red tag into the domain, I entered my room, locking it from the inside using the built-in lock. But that wasn't enough for me. Activating the Solver, I applied the command /lock/ and literally attached this door to space. Now nothing can move it...
This can be compared to the work of the phys-gun from Garry's Mod.
Making sure that the door wouldn't want to turn into a singularity and blow up half of London in the near future, I walked over to a small table. On it lay a piece of paper with, as I understood, Protean Charms. One could order breakfast, or house elves to clean the room. I wasn't planning on using this.
Drawing the curtains and plunging the room into total darkness, I sat on the bed, which creaked pitifully. My eye twitched.
Taking out a book on Occlumency, I began a high-speed absorption of information, literally imprinting every letter in my memory. Good enough. The book was read in less than a minute...
They will last me much less time than I calculated (I didn't calculate). But this is also essentially a kind of activity, so I'll quickly read the books and finally go experiment with magic. Again considering the clone's words that I am a mage, it wasn't hard for me to understand that there is still some amount of magic in me.
Squib? For runes, even magic in a drop of water will be a bottomless ocean.
Full-fledged mage? Even simpler, I'll be able to divide my attention into several projects simultaneously, running simulations of each of them.
In both cases, there are solid pluses, plus I can develop from a squib into a mage if the first option turns out to be true. No minuses visible. (Won't make a battery.)
I started a reading session which ended half an hour later. There's nothing even to describe here, I turned the pages so fast that one could cool off with them in a hot summer. Now I was just lying on the bed staring at the ceiling. Suffering from success. Created a quantum chip — rejoiced, but not for long. Got bored quickly. And now I'm suffering from my own power...
I'm only forty-six years old! What the hell kind of depression?! Development — that is the key to divinity, which I crave so much!
The mood quickly changed from all-consuming sadness to insane motivation for development. I jumped up from the bed and jerked into the domain, immediately sitting in a meditation pose. I decided to get straight to business, no wands, concentrators. Only pure magic, if it is available to me, of course.
But first... Occlumency. To stop thinking was the easiest thing I ever did in my life. Next, I had to find in my inner "Self" a certain passage, a path that would lead me directly into the subconscious. With my computing power, this won't be much of a problem.
And I sat. Sat, sat, and sat, passing through every particle of my consciousness.
It was as if I dived into water. Billions of simultaneous processes that I kept from decay, rune chains spinning on the surface of my brain, the explosion of the Copper-9 core, suffering, the smell of oil, the elation from creating the first superconductor. All this rushed through me while I swam in the ocean of my own consciousness. Not for nothing did I say that I "dived".
After a long minute of viewing memories, the surface calmed down, became much smoother, intrusive thoughts disappeared, as did the painful memories of life on a dead planet.
Five minutes later, only silence remained, interrupted by the "ticking" of my quantum chip.
Fifteen minutes later, I seemed to fall somewhere. To the next layer, where the last 24 hours of life were stored. The bright light of the photon beam, the sensation of disintegration into atoms, the meeting with Vetull, the first victims in this world. I didn't even pay much attention to it, just noted it and went further traveling through my mind.
Thirty minutes later, I found myself on the next layer, where literally everything I could ever experience was stored. And this became my first stop. This layer could simply be called "Archive". Decades of adventures on Copper-9, memories of a past life that I don't even want to think about... And so on. I need to sort all this out.
A moment, and a huge library with books and scraps of paper flying everywhere turned into a huge file system, where there were not only text files but also images with videos.
Each file had its own thread leading to the core of this file system — the place where I am heading, the deepest place of my mind. But I need to pave a way there.
Waving my hands, I grasped all the files with my computing power and began to sort all this.
Many thousands of AI models were sent to specialized folders to be used later when I regain power.
Memories went to a completely different section of the file system. For them, I created a single folder that will hold the entire weight of my brain.
In this folder, videos, images, files were sorted by date, time, and content. Specialized folders were defined for them, for every vivid event in my life.
Ordinary memories, routine, were in a neighboring folder. I divided them only by time.
Two folders: Events and Common.
I put a password on this entire system, several shields, including shields with spikes, as well as a notification system if someone tries to get into my memories. My work here was finished, and thinking became easier.
Sliding through streams of new memories, straight into the core of my nature, I was met by a gray wall. It pulsed, rippled in waves. I didn't break through it, no. I touched it with my hand and this black veil parted like liquid. Letting me into an unknown world.
Subconscious.
An hour and a half since the start of my meditation. It was worth it. For the first time in forty-six years, I heard my own breathing. Felt the summer breeze, which brought no heat, but on the contrary — cooled. Here I felt truly happy.
I stood on a cliff. A high cliff that went down for several kilometers; the ground below was not visible. Looking up, one could see a gigantic landscape of mountains, dimly lit by a miniature star resembling the sun. At the foot of the mountains, one could see a wide river that split into several smaller ones as it went forward.
I looked into the sky. It was darkness, no stars, nor anything reminding of space. Although, still... No, there was something. As soon as I turned my head slightly to the right, I saw something that made me rub my eyes. I didn't expect such a twist of the subconscious.
Right above my location hung... Planet Earth, but unusual. Planet is an extremely generalizing word for what it actually was. Yes, it was Earth, but only after Cyn had walked over it... Yes, debris.
Although it's not all that bad here, the scale itself is still staggering. And despite all this, the planet is divided into three huge islands, from each of which I feel a foreign power... It's too early for me to deal with this.
A moment, and I was already in reality. Rising from the floor and brushing myself off after a long meditation, I examined my room. After the subconscious, it looked extremely dull; it seemed that something was missing. But I couldn't understand what...
(Checkpoint! The author will remember this moment.)
In the end, I just waved my hand at this matter and began to create. Clapping my hands, I activated the Solver. As soon as the three arrows appeared in my field of vision, I immediately waved my hand towards the bed. It jumped up like possessed and a moment later turned into something beautiful. Cheap wood was replaced by expensive oak, the linen became silk, and the costliness of the bed itself increased a thousandfold. But sleeping will be pleasant.
And I wanted to do this with all the items in the room, including... The room itself. The parquet needs to be changed, the ceilings whitewashed, or even replaced with some metal, other wallpapers hung on the walls... Lots to do.
Nodding to my reasoning, I continued the creativity of a god of matter: with another wave of my hand, I turned the door to the toilet into the same lacquered work of art as the bed. Antediluvian metal handles and latches were replaced by a brand new gold lock with an osmium latch. The material also became expensive oak.
Next came the periphery. Bedside tables, magical lamps and chandeliers, mirrors... Everything changed to my tune. It became either magnificently expensive — made of pure gold, or magnificently beautiful — wood with bone ornaments, which I created on the same bedside tables. Each piece of furniture had fragments of pure gold that didn't catch the eye initially and resembled only very high-quality polished bronze.
I replaced the boring chandelier with pieces of glass with a chandelier from the banquet hall at Elliott Manor, only a smaller version, of course. The droplets of glass on this chandelier turned into droplets of real precious metals.
I restored the parquet by lightly stomping my foot. A wave went out from me, and all the dirt, dust, and useless items disappeared. The parquet itself also became oak, in the style of the rest of the room. In the center of the room, I spread a silk carpet as the cherry on top. The walls and ceiling were restored along with the parquet.
Although I am not an aristocrat, I am still used to living in such an environment of fierce expensiveness. After all, the Elliott family was the richest in the universe; even they could afford such luxury as I was doing now. Gold in the three thousands greatly depreciated; for a dollar, one could buy ten kilos and not break a sweat. Diamonds and other jewels began to be grown or synthesized. Only wood had a much higher price. If selling the Manor, its price would depend not on the area, but on how much wood was used in it during construction. And that is a lot of money. At least in the thirty-first century.
Well, since the base is ready... I can finally start working with magic... This will take a really long time... Runes definitely won't work the first time, mark my words. Therefore, it is desirable to wait for the full reconstruction of the body, and only then deal with everything planned. Which is what I intended to do.
For the next three weeks, I did nothing but walk around Diagon Alley and Knockturn Alley, slowly driving mages crazy, who had seen my pale mug with gradually whitening hair and blackening sclera of eyes not for the first time. Passing Aurors looked at my small persona for a long time, trying to recognize in me a representative of fanged creatures, vampires, but couldn't find evidence.
Walking in Knockturn, I encrypted myself too much. I created holographic projectors and just made myself invisible, and with the help of the Cube turned off absolutely all signals emanating from me so that they wouldn't find me even with infrared crap.
There I already reached old man Borgin, who received me with open arms, buying a new batch of cubes. Apparently, he resold them, since at each of our meetings he bought exactly fifteen cubes of the original size, dumping a waterfall of money on me. I didn't mind.
The more my body was rebuilt, the more my appearance changed. The sclera turned black, the hair on the contrary — turned white; with every day I looked more and more like my old drone body. Only the height didn't match — I was still a little shit half the height of a fire hydrant.
A strange little shit, to be honest. During my last visit to Borgin, I bought a vintage smoking pipe from him, which I immediately decided to use. You can't imagine how good and pleasant it was. Inhaling sweet smoke with my literally immortal lungs... Keeping it inside, letting it brew, then letting it out, creating cool rings... Apparently, smoking will become my habit. And I'll upgrade the pipe later.
After this, the Aurors began to look askance at my great persona even more. Nonsense! A six-year-old boy with a strange appearance, weapons, and a smoking pipe! And he's not trying to run into trouble yet! Incredible!
Besides the Aurors, some purebloods also stared at me, unable to understand where such a colorful me crawled out from. It's too early for them to know such things.
Magic development all this time didn't stand still either. I actively trained in inscribing and activating the simplest runes, which were supposed to burn up from the magic passing through them. At first it worked... It didn't work. Either the runes didn't activate, or I'm an idiot who forgot how to conduct magic through my body... Or the rune activated not by my desire, but by the desire of the world. I haven't figured out the local type of magic yet, but one can build assumptions.
So far it remotely resembles Rudazov, but there is no definite proof yet. Or I fucked away all my intellect and can't find this very proof. Maybe it's true, I don't know. In the future I will definitely find out, but not now.
And at the end of these three weeks of my strange existence, finally the very hour came when the body reconstruction would be completed fully. I will finally be able to use my full power! My native fifty tons! Decision making in mere femtoseconds! Rune improvements! It's just grea!..
Darkness.
۞⦰۞
I jumped up from the cold ground and looked around. I was again in that same forest where I talked to my clone. Ancient trees still swayed from a light wind, the night sky shone with stars, and generally the atmosphere here was... Magnificent. You can't say otherwise.
Of course, I'm not very happy that I lost consciousness right during an internal monologue, but at least I avoided the worst. I could have lost consciousness not in the rented room, but right on the street. That would have been unpleasant, considering how long I lie unconscious.
Looking around, I saw the clone sitting on an old stump of a tree he apparently knocked down, also looking at the stars. Seems he also imbued himself with the atmosphere of this forest, since he looked so peaceful.
"Congratulations on the first entry into the subconscious," he said, not distracted from watching the night landscape of this amazing world. I narrowed my eyes and looked at him with suspicion.
"Strange time you chose to come out of the shadows, Clone," I said indifferently, sitting on the grass and also looking into the sky.
"I hear notes of mockery in your voice. You clearly know something, and are just laughing at my ignorance," I expressed, lowering my head and looking at my business schizophrenia again. My accusations didn't pass him by.
"You're right. I'm laughing because that moment wasn't your first time in your own subconscious," he chuckled and also lowered his head, looking at me with a mocking and slightly tired gaze. I prepared for the worst.
"This forest is also your subconscious. You didn't guess it, although it was incredibly easy," he said, and I blinked. It can't be that I couldn't reach such a simple truth! The Clone pointed a finger into the sky.
"What do you see there?" I followed the finger and looked closely.
"I see space, stars, treetops, a flying island with a small sun... Fuck," I walked up to the Clone and wanted to slap him. Even swung, but he caught my hand without problems and threw my surprisingly light body away from him, rising from the stump at the same time.
"Did you understand now?" he asked, checking if I really understood what he meant or not. I'm not that stupid...
"Yes, I understood, I understood..." I answered, rising from the ground, rubbing my arm. A rather unpleasant experience, being thrown several meters by the arm. Although something similar happened before.
"Go bang yourself against a wall. It's all fun, of course, that all this time I was actually in my subconscious, but it doesn't decrease the number of questions." I spread my arms to the sides and looked at the brazenly grinning Clone with a dissatisfied face. Did a nasty thing, joy to the heart?
"Why the hell am I on this piece of a planet, instead of my cozy cliff?!" I walked up to the entity and began to shake him by the shoulders, screaming this question into his face. After the sensations in my subconscious, I no longer wanted to return anywhere except that place.
"Such is my desire. I just shove you here every time you lose your consciousness." He pushed me away and brushed off his shoulders, as if trying to remove dirt from them. My eye twitched.
"Why the hell is it your?!..."
I didn't even have time to finish my question before I found myself in the rented room of the "Leaky Cauldron". Bitch, secretive creature.
"I'll find the answers to all questions myself, got it?! If you don't want to talk to me like that! Oh, you know? I'll find another way. Let's see how much 'better' than me you are!" I screamed in my mind. Then for the next five minutes, I swore in all languages known to me, constantly insulting the clone in my head in every way, hoping that he would, at a minimum, get upset.
Finishing the tirade, I jumped up from the floor with incredible agility and stretched. The old-new body felt fucking amazing. Haven't felt such lightness, strength, and most importantly, speed of thought for a long time. I can, like in the good old days, put all my calculations on constant simulations to create magnificent and ideal rune constructs, which I will bind to these very nanomachines that the body consists of.
Returning back to the floor, I took out a small piece of paper and with the help of nanites depicted a small rune circle on it... From one rune. A moment later it flared up. Magnificent.
Taking another piece of paper, I poured a small pile of nanites on it and depicted that construct of three runes. Uruz-Ehwaz-Mannaz.
No, I didn't expect it to work like that. That would be just stupid. This is a so-called "sketch", which I will then transfer to the nanorobots.
Many rune experts would look at what I'm doing, shake their heads, and throw an Avada so I wouldn't suffer. So what? What normal mage fucking draws runes on ordinary paper?! Yes, not parchment, but ordinary paper.
In principle, I don't give a shit what to use, as long as it works. And the fact that this piece of paper will decompose five minutes after activation shouldn't worry me. This time is enough for me to check.
Adding magic to the sheet, which I learned during these weeks of meditation, I didn't waste time ordering the nanorobots on this sheet to distribute and try to tear it apart. In the blink of an eye, the sheet was already covered with a silver film that shimmered from its own movement. It looked like iron dust on a strong magnet, only times smaller.
A minute passed, two, and the piece of paper still retained its shape, despite the fact that two forces were acting on it now, going in opposite directions. Fifty tons of tensile force, which the piece of paper calmly withstood. The nanorobots couldn't output more.
After the aforementioned five minutes passed, the piece of paper finally gave in and fell apart into pieces, which quickly melted in the air. It didn't withstand the magical flow, or at least didn't withstand this endless cycle of magic that I poured into it.
The experiment can be called successful.
Looking at the ceiling, I thought for a whole second. If I could do this... Then...
"Static dome," I mumbled and created three identical discs in my hands. As the experiment showed, even a small supply of magic into weak materials can decompose them into components, completely destroying the original meaning of the magical construct or rune system. But if you take a material of sufficient strength and supply the same amount of magic, it will serve not just for centuries — for millennia. Not to miscalculate, I chose my second preferred metal — Osmium (Wolfram is first).
"This one will handle it..." I said, stroking the smooth surface of the osmium disc (which weighed about eighty kilograms).
Placing all three discs on the floor, I sent several nanorobots to them and displayed the three runes I needed to create the dome. That very dome through which nothing can be seen, nothing can be done, and accordingly, nothing can be understood.
On the first disc was Algiz. As soon as a particle of magic hit it, microscopic rune paths lit up with a light blue light. The first activation was successful.
On the second disc was Isa. As soon as the last nanorobot left the disc, the room was illuminated by a bright silver light, which immediately lost intensity as soon as the rune settled in its place.
The third — Inverted Raidho, activated last and was the dimmest of the three runes, having a gray color. But it was far from last in importance in this whole system.
Picking up the disc with Algiz, I once again looked at the ceiling and tossed this heavy puck. It rose to the ceiling level and fixed there with the help of the good old /lock/ command.
Isa went to the far wall of the room, near the window. Placing it near the windowsill so it wouldn't look like an eyesore, I also attached the disc using /lock/. Had to cover it with a velvet curtain.
Raidho went to the door. Without ceremony, I just mounted this piece of metal into the door so it wouldn't stand out much.
With a final wave of my hand, I activated this strange other scheme (which, as I see, worked via Bluetooth). There was no explosion, no bright light. Just silence penetrating my entire being. Already feeling myself, I understood that everything worked. Now no one will find this room, not even Tom... Heh, I don't need to pay him anymore in that case.
Even if a nuclear war starts outside, I will understand it only when fire burns my room.
Now I am definitely sure of my safety and can return to creating improvements for nanorobots. Well, creating... Actually, I already passed the creation stage, since the rune scheme worked, which means it can be used.
Walking to the center of the room and sitting on the carpet, I ordered the Cube and the Solver to start engraving the rune chains "Uruz-Ehwaz-Mannaz" on each of my nanorobots for their further activation and use.
This is not a quick business, even though I process more than a trillion nanobots per second. I have far from trillions here; just the number of zeros makes my head spin, and if said aloud... Oh-boy-oh-boy.
According to my internal calculations, a complete remake of all nanorobots will take about three hours of constant sitting on my ass in a meditation pose, so as not to break concentration, so to speak. And I can't really get distracted.
What's the use of these computational nanorobots if they still force me to concentrate?! It's not fair! I'm gonna cry! Waaaa! But seriously, the inability to send my main consciousness far away, and transfer everything else to the control of AI or additional streams of consciousness — raises questions, some of which I can't even formulate.
And so I sat, for three whole hours. Fifteen minutes later, my consciousness floated away somewhere, and the rune engraving continued automatically, without interruption.
I found myself in the past world, amidst snow, corpses, not only human but also robotic. In front of me, a huge black tower created from the bodies of dead drones pierced the sky, while exactly above it flew one of the satellites of this planet, resembling Saturn — Copper-10.
At that moment, something clicked in my head. I began to absorb all the information I could get from this small vision. I was concerned by the fact that part of this information went somewhere, but definitely not to me. Only a few minutes later did this information return in the form of a pile of data forming a folder named Project "Spire of Ascension". I didn't even have time to do anything before the folder disappeared, and I woke up from this strange dream. I found myself in my room again, with the rune engraving already finished.
In that case, rune modifications can continue!
[At that moment, the Void Walker Larva didn't even remember the folder that ended up in his mind.]