Year 9 Day 102

As it turns out, insects are pretty dumb. I've tried spiders, beetles, a single mantis I happened upon, flies, and eventually relented to something that made a bit more retrospective sense. Social insects actually show rudimentary capability of learning, in this case a bee that I had decided to catch while walking in the meadows. At least, social insects, if this bee is anything to go by, are much more intelligent than any other insect I've managed to transfer a soul into a doll.

Almost immediately the bee had managed to figure out that crawling was a behavior that could make it move around. It had tried to stay in place for a long while, jittering its body around, perhaps trying to fly. But after minutes of attempts, it relented and began to try to figure out something else that make it move. So it began to crawl, and it has been doing nothing but that for the past couple of hours.

It would react to my presence. At first it would crawl away, and then it would touch me with its face and its arms. But other than that, it did nothing. A great resounding success for a baseline insect I could use for further research, the amount of learning this thing exhibits is beyond what I've been use to all these years.

I've split my attention to two main projects. The first was attempting to create a spirit interface that could mimic learning ability and intelligence, something that almost felt impossible for the first year of study. I've made working prototypes already, although all of them take up too much space and aren't all that beneficial. But progress is progress. The second project is the one I was seeing right in front of me. This one was a major success.

The problem with creating an artificial intelligence is two main things, it's not figuring out what intelligence is precisely. The soul, in its mysteries, isn't something I'm trying to figure out. The problem is finding the particular method of learning innate within the structure of an insect and expanding it until it could think closer like a person, and the other was investing the time and energy into feeding the growth of the soul. And just like how Alfred had reached a massive bottleneck in his research, of which he is ever slowly progressing through, I had my own.

But the real issue was that I couldn't artificially support the growth of a soul. So I had to create an entirely separate, new soul for the purpose I wanted, and the easiest and most cost efficient method of doing so was directly enchant the physical material of the doll, by etching within it external enchantments. But that cost too much energy, and it'd make a bee that was still pretty dumb into a bee that was slightly less pretty dumb, at the cost of increased mana usage by twofold.

Whatever. For now I'll try to objectively figure out how to measure the things intelligence, and for that I might have to do some reading. Someone, somewhere, must've wondered these same thoughts as mine. Tomorrow I'll go on a premature trip to the city and consult with Coinnle. She's taken a keen interest on my research and would surely help me.

Year 13

"What's she doing?"

"Drawing. It's something she saw me doing and decided to join in on. She does that for most of the day, otherwise she'll be cleaning things up for me. She's not very good at either, as you can see."

Ainnir, the little bee that I had transferred the soul of, was using both of her hands to scribble on a pieces of paper. I'm not sure she knew what she was doing, and outside of drawing lines and the occasional hexagon, she drew nothing but scribbles. I knew she had some sort of aesthetic sense, she'd interact with me when I tried to draw with her on the same paper. If I drew a lot of hexagons, she would help and draw some more with me. It was very cute.

I was with Coinnle, in a library with her, and was in the middle of discussing with her my research and the progress I've made throughout the years. The concept of trying to understand intelligence and how it relates to the soul had been successful, to an extent. There was a lot of information about the daily behavior, mana structure, and physical structure of animals throughout the library, and there was various cultivators and magicians who've spent many decades trying to figure out and answer personal questions that they had related to how life functions.

But on the topic of how intelligence works, how to measure it, and methods of measurement? Surprisingly few. It did exist, but it wasn't enough for my work. But it served as a good baseline.

Right now, what I know for certain, is that Ainnir is pretty smart in comparison to insects and many larger animals. But compared to humans? She was incredibly dumb, barely being able to think beyond the level of a one year old. And the amount of mana required to sustain her level of intelligence was stupidly high, over twice the amount of mana the average human outputs is needed to sustain her throughout the day, all in order to hold less intellect than even a one year old. It was clear that as things are now my research on raising the intellect of bees would be a work that would require decades of research and development to see any real fruit of.

"Hmmm." Coinnle hummed and grabbed the paper that Ainnir was sitting on and gently dragged it over to her. Ainnir was used to this action before and had learned it wasn't a threat, so she stopped drawing so that the charcoal she was holding wouldn't destroy her hard earned art, and waited until Coinnle stopped moving the paper. Once she did, she began to draw again. Coinnle picked up another piece of charcoal and started to draw figures on the paper as well.

Ainnir noticed this immediately and looked at Coinnle directly in the face. It was one thing I was surprised at, she knew how to distinguish between the various faces of different people, and knew who owned the hands of whoever was doing something. Another thing she had, over the years, learned how to do was walk. So she got up and walked over to where Coinnle was drawing, and then sat back down and watched what she was doing. Coinnle wasn't drawing anything impressive, flowers that looked like they would decorate a page was what she drew. But Ainnir kept looking, something she was good at.

"What're you trying to do?" I asked.

"Dunno, just playing with her. Does she know her own name?"

"Yeah. Although she'll stop responding to you if you say it too much. She knows some other things like paper, pencil, and clean. But otherwise she doesn't understand any language."

"That's pretty impressive for a bee."

I nodded, continuing to read my book "On the Attainment of Lordship and Other Immortal Steps." Coinnle had suggested it to me, a book written by her father roughly a year back. There was some information related to the topic of increasing soul density, or increasing general mass, and how the soul relates to bodily functions and general sensory and mental improvements. The only parts of the book that made sense was chapter 14: The development of souls, and chapter 17: The modules of the soul, and only because I had focused much of my research on the topic.

If we could take both the chapters as a good reference point for the ability of Lord Bréanainn then he is without doubt a genius. Every sentence of his feels like I'm learning something new, and every paragraph felt as if he was answering questions that had plagued me for more than a decade in less than seconds. The density of the information and the amount of information he could share was mind boggingly great. However, through reading it I can only affirm the idea that trying to attain what I wanted out of Ainnir was an incredibly difficult, but not impossible, task.

I can say for certain that Alfred would die before he could see the completion of his lifelong passion if he were to go through my method. Perhaps even I wouldn't be able to see a fully adequate conclusion to my own research, but I could certainly get close.

Coinnle and I were within the castle library, a privilege normally afforded to the court researches and the close kin and family of the Lord. I had gone here for the yearly discussion on my research and development with Coinnle, who'd asked me to explain to her my every step and thought process. She would occasionally offer to me an insight of her own, or make a certain enchantment more efficient overall, but the most important contribution she provided to me were basic ideas of what could, or couldn't, work. I valued her for that, and our relationship had revolved around this for a while now.

I had lost interest in most things that weren't related to research, Alfred, or Coinnle. And Alfred rarely left his room nowadays, his mood growing sourer by the day. Nothing I did cheered him up, and he'd never tell me what the problem was either, and he didn't tell anyone else. I worried for him.I held Coinnle close to my heart, so I didn't mind interacting with her for days when I could've been spending those developing some other enchantments. I had a lot of those, and Ainnir requires a massive amount of work in making her more efficient.

Year 15

Alfred had been stuck inside his room for a month now. Literally he hasn't left it, and as a cultivator he could do that without having to do anything else. This was odd, usually he'd at least go outside for a walk, or to eat with me occasionally, or check up on what I was doing and collecting. But now, all he did was rest his head on the table and do nothing. He'd breath, and and blink, and would answer me if I ask anything. But he didn't have any motivation do anything else.

I didn't know what was the problem, he'd say he's fine when I asked, and wouldn't offer me anything else if I continued to prod. Today, I was sitting in the desk that had many years ago been mine, and still is. It tore me up inside to see him like this, so without energy. But superficial encouragement won't work on Alfred, I needed to find a way to solve whatever problem he was facing. And to do that, I needed information.

"Alfred? Do you need anything from me?"

Alfred didn't respond.

"If there's anything I could do you need only ask. I'll be here for you, rely on me."

Alfred didn't respond.

"How is the development of the soul going?"

A loud bang shook me from my sympathy, fear of Alfred's anger welling up in my bosom and forcing a yelp out of me. Alfred straightened himself out of his chair and looked my way, his face showing a complex set of both despair and anger. Why did he bang the table? He knows I can't handle when he makes loud noises or moves too fast. He continued to stare, within the next moment the anger faded and he slumped into his chair.

"Terrible. I've failed, and all my progress had been taken from me within an instant. This isn't the first time I've failed, but I've never experienced a blow back of a literal decade's worth of time. I've spent too much mana on it for everything to be lost in a blink of an eye. I'm sorry for scaring you, Eithne."

"I-It's alright. Mind sharing what happened?" I grabbed my tail and began to play with it. I thought this was a habit I had broken years ago, but apparently not.

"I failed to transfer the soul from my body, as you know the new soul is placed near my own, and to the doll. Within an instant it was lost to the aether, and I will never see it again. I had thought that since you were so easily capable of doing it, then I would be even without practice. I was dumb, stupid, a moron. I'm not sure I should even bother to try again, I don't want to go through another decade of doing absolutely nothing but work on something so fallible. Let me wallow in my despair for a bit, Eithne. I'll go back to what I usually do."

"You're giving up?"

"That's a strong word, but I think so, yes. The progress you've been making with Ainnir makes me green with envy, so I'd like to help you with her, if I could. Perhaps our positions could change, I your assistant and you the master?" Alfred chuckled slightly, his eyes looking down and staring at his hands. He shook his head and closed his eyes.

"I don't think you'll live long enough to see any true fruits of my research, Alfred. I've not done much more than transfer a bee's soul into a puppet, and I've barely helped her in her complete mental inability." I ignored his joke. Even if I had more skill in one area than him it didn't mean I had surpassed him in every way, I was still a child compared to him. Even when I'm nearing thirty.

Alfred opened his eyes in surprise and turned to me. "Why not?" His voice echoed some sort of desperation, something I don't think I would've picked up on if it weren't for my familiarity over this man. "How can you be sure of that?"

"I've been at this for a decade already, and from the progress I've made so far, which is barely anything, it's going to take a long while for anything humanlike to be born."

A sudden idea struck me with the force of a hammer to my skull. Born? How are children's souls made anyway? It takes a mother only nine months to develop a child within her, why did it take Alfred ten years to create his own? No, he only created half of one, I know that for sure. He wanted to test out his theories first, and then commit himself to the actual crafting of a complete soul. No, still. Why are humans and other animals so developed?

"Unexpected discoveries could short-"

"Let's make a soul." I cut off Alfred unintentionally, having gone too deep into thinking for me to notice that Alfed hadn't stopped speaking. Alfred furrowed his brows slightly at my comment, irritation seeping through his face.

"I already said I'll stop that line of research."

"No, I mean, let's make one the natural one. Let's make a baby, Alfred."

I've never experienced a more pregnant awkwardness in my life. Alfred had first shown a surprised expression, then anger, then confusion, then realization, and finally arriving at unfiltered horror. I couldn't imagine what he was feeling, but I could feel what I was. A fire I hadn't felt in years had been rekindled, a tiny spark that I had tried my best to snuff out. Whether this was romantic love, I didn't know. I just knew that I wanted to help Alfred get better, to cheer him up some how. And this was a good way, I think.

I also knew it was a morally questionable proposal.

"Eithne, do you understand what you're suggesting here?"

"Yes. I think."

"We're talking about a child. Ignoring the fact that you'd suggested me to impregnate you, what sort of mockery of life are you trying to play here?"

"What's so different about this than me committing mass murder against insects? Other than the loss of a catamarán, or human, life, that is."

"That's precisely the issue, no, it's worse. You could be subjecting our child to unimaginable torture. What if something goes wrong? No, I don't think you've thought this through enough. Did you think it up just now?"

"I may have. I think it's a good idea, if you want a human like intelligence, then have an actual human's soul be used for that intelligence. What's the problem with my idea?" Of course, I knew the problems. I'd be subjecting a child to potential danger, and removing any possibility of normalcy the child could've attained. And if it goes wrong, then a stillborn, or an abortion. But this was the best bet for Alfred to see what he had wanted for so long for.

"Everything. Eithne, this is the most disturbing thing you've told me so far."

"Alfred, I don't think you've got much choice here. You can take the moral high ground if you want, but none of what I've been doing could be called truly acceptable, playing with the souls of any creature is an act that is nearly inexcusable. And yet you've been trying to make one yourself, and you've been funding my progress. We don't have to immediately jump towards you plowing me and me transferring the soul towards a doll, I wouldn't want that. We've still got plenty of years together, let's figure this out together."

"Eithne..." I know Alfred shared, to a large extent, a common mindset as I do. He knew the merits of what I had just suggested, and even I couldn't fully believe the words I had just spouted. This was the best chance for Alfred, and the best chance for this entire project, one we could both see the conclusion of.

"We'll need to test this out with other less human animals first. Then we can work our way up to our child. Any other objections you may could still perfectly be applied to what you've already attempted to do, and so far I could safely say that my method would be surer to work. How about it?"

"I have major reservations about this. The first, and foremost, would be the fact that I would have to, uh, impregnate you. The others you've already outlined." Alfred looked away from my gaze, a blush forming on his face. This is the first time I've seen him do that in fifteen years of knowing him. But still, he had a point in his worry. The entire thing required me to have sex with Alfred, something I didn't mind doing.

From a purely rational perspective, the suggestion I gave made enough sense to try it out, if you were a bit mentally unhinged like I was, and Alfred tried to pretend not to be. From an emotional perspective, this is the stupidest idea I've thought up yet. But, it's also the only way I could convince Alfred to have a child with me. Due to this fact, I'd prefer if Alfred agreed.

"Let's consider this for a little while longer. For now, please cheer up. You've not gone on a walk in a month, probably longer. It's good to take some fresh air every once in a while, you know."

Alfred intentionally coughed and made a slight nod. This is good progress already.