Chapter 76 Genius

"The church has priests across the kingdom. We have people who can sense certain types of magic, people who can investigate strange events, and people who can provide information to the kingdom. If Draken wanted to secretly establish something as dangerous as a teleportation marker, the church would be one of the biggest problems they would face."

"So destroying the church wasn't just an objective to weaken the strength of the kingdom, but also to guarantee their next objective" Kat replied.

"That's right, I don't know how they overcame some of the problems, but maybe creating it also created new problems, but you should remember all of these are down to speculation, it might not be the case" Dina repeated again.

"So there's no way to confirm?" Aiden asked.

"No, we have to..." Dina stopped as all of her clones walked towards the three of them, in one of their hands was a book and they handed the book to Dina as she stood up to take it.

On the cover of the book read 'Memory Allocation'

Dina stared at the title for a second before quickly opening the book, she hadn't read the book till now, and allocation wasn't really what they were looking for, but since her clone brought the book, she assumed the clone had read through a bit and decided it was worth looking at.

Dina stretched her hands, and in an instant her clones turned back into mana returning to their point of creating which was Dina, her eyes remained closed and then a smile formed on her face.

"I think we have something here" Dina spoke.

She sat down on the floor placing the book in front of her and turning the pages quickly.

Her eyes moved from one line to another as she read through the explanation occasionally stopping to read a sentence. Kat and Aiden stood behind her watching in silence.

Dina's expression changed different times as she continued reading. At first she looked curious. Then she became serious. After that a small smile appeared on her face once again.

"This is it " she finally said.

Aidens eyes narrowed. "It can help her?"

"I don't know yet, but it's worth considering" Dina continued reading. "This spell is much closer to what we're looking for than anything else we've found tonight." She turned the book around so Aiden and Kat could see it.

"Memory Allocation is a spell designed to add information into someones mind. It doesn't create memories from nothing. The caster has to provide the memory or information then the spell transfers it into the targets mind. Attaches it to the persons existing memories."

"Why would anyone need a spell like that?" Kat asked.

"For training, education and magical research." Dina pointed at a section of the book.

"Imagine a mage spending ten years studying a subject. With this spell they could transfer some of that knowledge to another person instead of forcing them to spend ten years learning everything from the beginning. And no, it doesn't mean the person suddenly becomes an expert. The memories still need to be understood by the brain and there are limits to how much information can be added at once."

Aiden looked at the book. "The Queen already has too many memories, so we should be looking for a way to remove them, unless?" Aiden locked eyes with Dina.

"Exactly." Dina spoke and became quiet again.

She stared at the spell diagram for a time then began comparing it with another page, since the spell had two spell diagrams instead of one.

"The problem is that this spell was designed to add memories. Her problem is the opposite. Her mind is already overflowing with memories, so we need to change that" Dina mouthed as she stood up pulling blank sheets of paper towards herself.

Her pen moved across the page as she copied the original magic circle. Then she started changing parts of it. She crossed out one symbol replaced it with another and wrote notes beside the circle.

Kat watched her for a moment before a smile formed on her face, this was exactly the reason Dina has access to the library, forbidden knowledge isn't necessary evil.

Dina was older than Katarina, she was already the caretaker of the library and head of magical research when Katarina was appointed Head of the academy, but as both of them spent more time together, Katarina became fascinated with the way her brain worked.

Kat was a genius in her own right, but that only applied to mana capacity, spell control, and battle IQ. When it comes down to spell creation, spell modification, and understanding of magic, Kat was nowhere near Dina.

When Kat gave her access to the library, even Dina couldn't believe it, the first time she went in, she spent a full week underground, so much that Kat was the one bringing her meals since she was going to starve herself having nothing but water.

With Dina around, Kat was able to perfect new spells, and modify existing spells to create more powerful results, effectively making her even more powerful.

"You're already making changes to the spell?" Aiden asked.

"I need to understand how it works first" Dina replied.

"You've been reading it for than five minutes." Aiden added, he was genuinely surprised, after looking at the spell, she had already began making modifications while he had no idea what any of the symbols even meant.

"That's five minutes longer than I had it before, and one of my clones roughly went through the book, so I have a general idea of what I'm doing"

Aiden nodded in amazement, while Kat smiled.

Dina continued working, and after a while she began to speak.

"The important part is the connection between the spell and the targets memories. Memory Allocation creates a pathway that identifies the information being transferred and then pushes that information into a part of the mind. If I reverse the direction of that pathway..."

Dina stopped writing and backed away a little, "If I reverse the direction..."

Her eyes widened as she shook her head.

Kat leaned closer. "Is something wrong?"

Dina quickly grabbed another sheet, placing it next to the first one.

"The spell doesn't actually care whether the information is going into the mind or coming out of it. The original creator simply designed it for one purpose. If I change the flow of mana and reverse the memory pathway it should be possible to pull memories out instead of putting them in."

Kats expression changed. "You mean you can remove memories?"

"Not exactly remove them like they're being erased from a piece of paper." Dina shook her head. "It's more complicated. We'd have to identify the memories separate them from the person's important memories and then pull them out without damaging the memories connected to them."

"Can you do that with the Queen?" Aiden asked.

Dina didn't answer immediately, instead she looked back at the book. "Maybe."

That single word was enough to make both Aiden and Kat focus on her.

"Since her problem isn't simply that she has unwanted memories. Her mind is overloaded with memories of her life. If those memories are pushing into her mind continuously then we need to reduce the load. This spell might allow us to do that but there's problems"

"What problems?" Kat said.

"You can solve them right?" Aiden asked.

Dina shook her head. "It's not that simple."

"What's wrong?"

"Mana and location of the spell"

Dina pointed at the circle she had drawn.

"Memory magic is already expensive because you're dealing with the mind... Removing memories requires much more mana than adding them. When you're adding memories you're creating a pathway and pushing information inside"

Dina continued, "When you're removing them the spell has to find the memory isolate it, effectively separating it from everything connected to it and then pull it out. If you make a mistake you could remove something that was never supposed to be removed, or mess up with the brain in a way that render all the effort useless"

Aiden looked at the spell, "How much mana is required?"

Dina gave him a look before replying, "A lot"

"How big?" Aiden asked again.

"A ridiculous amount, even Kat alone can't provide that much, and it's too risky for two people to be involved in the process" Dina replied again.

Aiden didn't speak again, instead he simply stared at her waiting for her to speak.

Dina sighed. "I don't know the amount yet. It depends on how much of her memories we're removing and how deeply they're connected to the Queens mind.. If the memories are as deeply connected, the spell could require even more mana"

Kat looked at Aiden, and back at Dina, "You know how to give a rough estimate on mana, just give one"

"Your Holiness, you're not really planning to learn a forbidden spell right? I know it's to save the Queen, but isn't that against..."

Aiden cut her off before she could finish, "I'll learn the spell."