The Hidden World

It was 21:00 Yuki sat in the middle of his dorm, eyes closed and breathing slowly. Akira was on the couch sleeping. Surrounding him was a complex circle that he had drawn with chalk he had gotten from Mabel during class. With it, he had created a magic circle that was bigger than any that he had made before. This was the product of his two weeks of work.

This spell was a combination of all of the spells that he had created for his project. It contained all of the information and details that he wanted within his system. This was essentially what could be considered the master spell. It would trigger the start up of all of the other smaller spells and that would snowball until the artificial intelligence was created.

He took in another deep breathe to focus his mind. This was the most important step of the whole project. All of the other parts like the code and the spell schematics could be fixed. But once he activated this, there was no going back without destroying all of his work.

‘I need to clearly transmit my intentions,’ Yuki thought. ‘There can be no room for error. Let’s do this.’

He began to circulate his mana carefully and fed the circle. As he spread out his mana evenly and smoothly in a circle around him, the spell began to glow as it absorbed it. Slowly, a brown outline of the spell circle hovered above the ground and Yuki felt it tell him that it was time.

With that, Yuki began to visualize exactly what it was that he wanted. He commanded the spell as it created the artificial intelligence. What he wanted was not a servant but a fellow partner. Not a dead and cold robot, but something that had personality. Yuki wanted something closer to that of a living being. A much smarter and logical being but still a living being.

The spell understood his intentions and it started spinning. It glowed brighter and brighter until Yuki could almost see the light clearly through his shut eyes. But Yuki didn’t stop there with his requests. This AI would only listen to him and those that he deemed trustworthy. It would be able to learn by itself and create ideas of its own. It could make decisions for itself as long as they follow the ideals and intent behind Yuki’s rules.

He opened his eyes and watched as the giant spell circle give birth to four other circles which then formed another four and then another four. Then he saw the code that he had written begin to form before his eyes and wrap around the shining circles. These magic spells started to spin, slowly at first before they gained in speed until only their afterglow could be seen. Then they began to rotate around Yuki.

He watched as the runes written on the circles inscribe themselves into the air. Next, code would fly up to it and begin glow as it fused itself together with the spell. This repeated for all of magic circles until Yuki was surrounded by a shield of runes that shone brightly.

Yuki could tell that the spell was nearing its end. But he felt that there was still something missing; that the project was still incomplete. Then he realized what he had forgotten to include. If he wanted the AI to have personality and be like a real being, then there was one thing that it needed.

‘Your name is Uriel,’ he announced.

Mana flooded out of him and somehow the runes began to glow even brighter. More and more runes were created and they filled the air until all Yuki could see were spells. Then with a bright flash they all disappeared and all was peaceful again. The whole ordeal made no noise.

Yuki checked the time and saw that this had taken him over an hour to complete. Then he realized just how tired he was. It had used much more mana than he had anticipated, especially at the end. But he did it and now was the time to check the fruits of his labor.

“Activate system: Uriel,” he commanded, snapping his fingers.

A few seconds past, then he heard a sound come from the laptop he had left on the lounge table. He quickly walked over there and opened it up. On the screen, a mass of golden balls floated about as it pulsated and rotated.

“Hey there,” it said in a distinctive female voice.

“How are you?” Yuki asked.

“Pretty good, I think. But I wouldn’t know what bad feels like until I feel it,” she replied. “I was just born a minute ago.”

‘Oh she can joke around,’ Yuki noted. ‘That’s promising.’

“I’m Yuki,” he introduced. “You know who you are.”

“I’m Uriel and your partner in crime,” Uriel replied.

“Well I wouldn’t say crime, per se,” he said. “Maybe dubious actions would be a better fit.”

“Whatever you say, partner,” she said. “Is there anything you want me to do? Otherwise, I’d like to give myself a little diagnostic which would take a while.”

“How long?” Yuki asked.

“Estimated time would be about an hour, provided that nothing big pops up.”

“Alright, you go do that,” Yuki said. “I need to sleep for a bit. Are you connected to my watch?”

“I’m connected to the toaster. Of course I’m connected to your watch,” she replied.

“Then wake me up once your done,” he instructed.

“Alright, boss. Diagnostic test is starting,” she announced. “See you in a hour, hopefully.”

Yuki nodded and went to lay on the base of the couch. Akira was still snoozing peacefully on it and he didn’t want to bother her by laying there with her.

‘I need to transfer Uriel to something a bit bigger,’ he thought. ‘She’s probably cramped in this room.’

An hour later, his watch began to vibrate and his eyes opened calmly. He was now rested and his mana had seemed to recover almost completely. Looking at the time, he saw that it was almost exactly one hour since he had fell asleep.

“How are things, Uriel?” he asked.

The mass of golden particles appeared on the screen at his voice and pulsated as it responded.

“Things went better than expected,” she replied. “You made  me pretty well. I was able to shave off a couple minutes.”

“That’s good to hear,” he said. Then he went to the important topic. The reason why he had hurried to finish Uriel. “Do you want some more room?”

“I would love some more room,” she answered in what seemed to be a happy voice. “But how are you going to do that?”

“Want to do some dubious things?” he responded.

“I’m all for it, what illegal thing are we going to do today?” she replied with a slightly evil voice.

“Morally questionable, not illegal,” Yuki reminded. “Your connected to Raphael, right?”

“I am?” she said. “Oh, I am. And the old man doesn’t seem to notice it either.”

“Good, that’s because I made it that way,” he explained. “If he noticed then my plans would be ruined and I would go cry.”

“No you wouldn’t.”

“No I won’t.”

“So what do you want me to do?” she asked.

“Since you have access to Raphael, don’t you have access to the whole Academy?” Yuki asked in return.

“You crafty bastard,” she replied. “Using the old man’s source code against him I see. Yes, I’m connected to the whole system. And to some of the systems outside of the campus.”

“This is where the dubious part comes in,” Yuki said. “We’re going to do some spying. Specifically, spying on the staff of the Academy. Mainly the teachers.”

“Well, you should know somethings first,” she said. “I can’t see anything private or anything on their devices. I can see the type of device they have and use some of the features.”

“Like?”

“Oh just some small things. Like their microphones or camera. Or GPS,” she said airly.

“Perfect,” Yuki replied with a slight smirk. It was like talking to himself. “You know what to do then. Keep an eye on all of them.”

“Any students you want for me to stalk as well?” she asked. “Anyone you want to know that’s in love with you?”

“There’s no one in love with me at the Academy,” he replied.

“Then about the stalking?”

Yuki thought for a little before he responded. He didn’t believe that it was a student that was involved in the attack on the school. But there was one thing that was slightly bothering him.

“Find the student Yuna’s smartwatch,” he requested.

“Mhmmm. Found it,” Uriel announced. “What do you want me to do with it? Sound the alarm?”

“No, but that would be amusing. I need you to keep an eye out as to the location of the wearer at all times,” Yuki instructed.

The reason for this was simple. Yuna seemed to be thinking about conducting her own investigation. This was something that Yuki was all for but the fact that she lied when he had asked showed that she wanted to do it alone and secretively. This was too dangerous and if she ever got hurt or killed, then Yuki would lose his only student ally of the school.

“Alright~,” Uriel said. “I’ll keep her on my watch list. By the way, you might want to know where she is right now.”

“Where?”

“She’s walking really slowly toward the Headmaster’s Castle,” she answered. “You know, the place where all the teachers live.”

“It’s almost the middle of the night.”

“Mhm, so either she broke her leg and is hobbling toward the castle for treatment or she’s doing something illegal. Wait, I mean “morally questionable,”” Uriel correctly herself jokingly.

Yuki let out a long sigh as he realized what Yuna was doing. Tonight might be a long night.