I'd gotten a bit carried away with giving Sefira communication abilities.
So now I was devising a formula to let Sefira produce sound.
"The audio isn't stabilizing..."
"But we can hear the voice and understand the meaning, so isn't that good enough?"
Helkov suggested I compromise, though I remained unsatisfied.
"Ooooooh..."
"...It's a voice I wouldn't want to hear at night, though."
Ikto indirectly pointed out how eerie it was as Sefira tried to adjust her vocalization.
Indeed, invisible yet vocal, and unstable to boot—it sounded like groaning.
A truly horror-esque phenomenon.
"Hmm, plus if she's making noise, she can't glow to show her location anymore either. Is this the limit of Sefira's capacity?"
"Objection... g-g-g-gi..."
"Scary, scary, scary. Sefira, you don't have to force sounds for everything you want to say."
A voice like teeth grinding intensely sounded right nearby.
*(Requesting objection. Physical capacity does not exist, and there are no issues with spell execution in magical operation.)*
But if she can't do it, that's a problem, right?
According to Sefira's self-report, it wasn't a spell she couldn't handle, and the magic itself was fine.
"So the problem is the formula I assembled? Something's interfering with simultaneous operation. Should I separate voice and speech after all?"
Humans produce sound with their throats and words with their tongues and oral cavities.
Though she has no body, if Sefira similarly clarified the division of roles, she might be able to output more stably.
As I was experimenting through trial and error, Ikto, who was watching over me, began conversing with a colleague behind me.
"Lord Wearrel, do you understand what he is doing now? I haven't the faintest idea."
"I don't even know what Sefira is in the first place, so there's no way I would understand."
"Hey, hey, if you don't get it, we've got no chance."
As adults, they probably wanted to help if I was doing something dangerous. But since they didn't know what I was doing, they couldn't intervene.
"I'm not specialized in this to begin with. Well, I understand the magical aspects? He's adjusting wind intensity through spell formulas. Creating sound through that. Making it appear to be there by shining light. Yes, I only understand because Lady Asha explained the principles of sight and hearing to me."
Wearrel covered his face with both hands at the fact that I had explained it to him in the first place.
"I graduated from the academy with excellent grades, was considered a promising talent among the young generation, built a career taking up teaching positions at the academy, and was invited to the Count's household... I was also the only one told that His Majesty is actually of exalted blood."
Oops, we'd been acquainted since birth, yet this was news to me now.
It seemed Wearrel had known my father was the Emperor or someone of similarly high rank and stayed by my side.
Proof of how promising a talent he was, to be valued by Count Niftas.
"Sorry about that."
"There is nothing Lady Asha needs to apologize for. Through this treatment, I no longer harbor even the slightest expectation toward Count Niftas."
Wearrel removed his hands from his face and spoke decisively.
He had been valued by the Count's household, but ultimately my father's lineage was meant to remain secret, so it would never see the light of day anyway.
"Many who seek stable income through noble employment and a stepping stone to the next job, yes?"
Ikto, himself a noble, smoothly explained the circumstances of adults.
"But then isn't it a loss for you to stay by my side?"
I can't even help with job placement.
Then Helkov made a bold smile, obvious even through his bear-like face.
"Being employed directly by the Emperor himself carries far more prestige than working for some noble. Your Highness need not worry—this guy will manage on his own. Besides, he was jumping for joy finding grimoires in the Imperial Library that he'd never seen before."
"Wha—!? When did you see that!"
Wearrel panicked.
So he really had been jumping for joy.
Ikto, understanding that I'd already heard about it, cleared his throat once and regained his composure.
"So, what is Prince Asha doing now?"
"Huh? Since simultaneous operation wasn't working, I decided to have them work separately to achieve stability. For that, I'm dividing Sefira into smaller parts."
At my explanation, the retainers froze.
"Is Sefira... increasing?"
Helkov asked somewhat fearfully, but I wouldn't do something so reckless.
"Not increasing, but restructuring what had grown large and crude into finer settings?"
Previously, Sefira was a presence that fit inside a flask I could hold in one hand as a child.
Now she probably had the capacity to overflow from even the largest flask.
It seemed Sefira had no limit to her capacity, but was growing larger as an existence.
If she was amazing even when small, if I subdivided and restructured those elements, she should be able to speak.
If she could emit light simultaneously, that would be a great success.
"The problem is that when performing different actions simultaneously, processing for adjustments and corrections overlap..."
The mysterious intelligent entity didn't work well like computers or smartphones.
In my previous life, computers had evolved from very simple structures to being able to process incredible numbers of digits.
*(Sefira, do you understand a method of processing using only two numbers: zero and one?)*
*(Requesting details.)*
I briefly explained the binary system.
This represents digits using only zero and one—where one, two, three, four, five in decimal becomes one, ten, eleven, one hundred, one hundred one in binary.
The advantage is that it only requires two processes representing on and off, one or zero.
It might be easy for Sefira to understand, given her overly simple nature.
*(If there's still capacity, binary might be suitable since processing speed remains fast even with many digits?)*
*(Applying.)*
Oh, adoption?
Thus, as a result of my proposal and Sefira's own repeated thinking and improvements:
"I did it!"
It took several days of adjustments.
Previously I'd imagined her as one spherical orb, but since that had grown larger, I made specialized orbs of the same scale as the original sphere for each function.
I connected them with spell formulas.
"From Sefira to Sephirot."
Floating beside me was a fist-sized sphere of light.
"Nice to meet you. I am a being that should be called Sefira and Sephirot, Sefira-Sephirot, but please call me as you like. I remain myself."
Each time she spoke, she flickered, her voice sampled from my own.
However, it was a remarkably calm, adult-like voice.
"What's amazing about this Sephirot is that while before she could only convey text, now she can visualize illustrations drawn in books."
At my signal, light projected from the sphere of light, displaying patterns on a white cloth hung from the shelf like a projector.
What I could only hear before—now I could enjoy every book I'd secretly read to my heart's content.
"Hey, Ikto, Wearrel. I'm completely useless at elemental magic, but is there magic like what His Highness does?"
To Helkov's question, Ikto answered lightly.
"There are ways to show illusions with fire or water magic, but I don't think I could do it."
"Impossible. How much magical power consumption would it take just to draw that picture? And so stably? Impossible. Absolutely impossible. The light projection, the shaping, the stabilization—I can't keep up."
But Wearrel, understanding the difficulty of the fine adjustments made by Sephirot with her monstrous processing capacity, became increasingly flustered as he spoke rapidly.
"Hmm, I was surprised I had more aptitude for Sephirot than I thought. With this, could I do optical camouflage? Then I could move around without worrying about being seen."
*(Requesting details.)*
Even with a voice, as always.
Sefira-Sephirot briefly requested of me.
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