Despite being a city of skilled craftsmen and a commerce center, the city of Colophon barely grew in the past three hundred years, which was quite surprising. Was it perhaps because of me? Since I was turned into the monster, the city might have gained a bad reputation because of that. But that was three hundred years ago, and over generations, people tend to forget. And even if there was some kind of legend about half-woman half-spider going on in these parts, it would most likely attract more people, rather than persuade them to stay away because of the human fascination with anything strange.
Or if people were so superstitious and afraid of some "gods'" wrath, they would have abandoned the place and never returned. Unless of course, it was convenient from a commercial perspective. In such a case, they would have to start over in the city of Colophon, after the initial fear of a possible monster present, watered down, which would take time.
Moreover looking over the city from a distance, it seems that almost nothing has changed. I was still able to recognize most of the vistas the small city offered back in my days as a human. And not even the street layout changed all that much, which I would have expected, as new houses were built over the centuries.
Overall, the city looked almost stuck in time, and I would have thought so if I could not clearly see the uncountable colorful dots of people scurrying all over the busy city like little ants. However, it was probably me, who was a modern person in my two previous lives, and therefore used to the fact that cities were rebuilt at a rapid pace, during the 20th and 21st centuries. That must have been why, seeing a city almost not changing in hundreds of years was so foreign to my modern sensibilities. Adding the fact, that island of Lesbos was uninhabited when I first arrived there and had a bustling city when I left, it was clear that there existed population expansion, people were just more economic, reusing already existing things. Which of course might have caused less interest in innovations and factoring more reliability and ease of repair.
Alas, I had more important matters to think about, than the seeming stagnation of ancient Greece. My current goal was to find, where exactly was my soul located, in order, to be able to access it, in a manner similar to that of the computation orb of my previous life, to be able to test, whether it was possible to use it as a computation orb replacement. From what Persephone explained, so far, it sounded quite similar, even if more advanced.
"Miss Persephone, would you be willing to tell me where exactly is my soul located? I was theorizing that perhaps, knowing its location could help me access the magic," I explained without telling the full truth, as it was not needed at the moment and telling it might make a bad impression.
The Olympian's eyes twinkled for a bit when she turned towards me. Once again she did remind me of a certain crazy scientist, from my previous life. Truthfully, the resemblance was quite uncanny. But given that she and Schugel were the only scientists I knew personally, I could not discount a possibility that all scientists were at certain levels of crazy. Although that could not be possibly the case, otherwise humanity would not be able to peacefully advance to its modern form, I remembered from my first life.
"I can certainly help you, Miss Arachne! Please let me look at you, from up close! I-In order to find the minute differences, in the structure of the soul," said the dread queen.
"Of course," I answered her request.
"In that case, excuse me," she said as she approached.
While I kind of expected her to tell me outright, while pointing at a specific point on my body, given she was able to tell there were the souls of my dead troops, floating around, she needed to look up from close. But clearly, there was a difference between a regular human soul and whatever I was now. Quite frankly, I was prepared even for physical contact, should it be necessary to find the exact location of my soul.
Persephone stared at me for quite a while, very intensely. Nearly to the point of it being uncomfortable, but there was no need to feel conscious about my body, given that Persephone was a professional. So, there was nothing strange about the whole situation, as it was much like a full body exam, a doctor would give to their patient.
"What are the results?" I asked, after what was probably more than an hour, of Persephone staring at me.
It was easy to say that there were probably some complications, during the process of discovery, since Persephone always kept returning her sight to the same spot and examining me from there in different directions every time.
"Apologies, Miss Arachne, but the results are inconclusive. It is quite difficult to pinpoint the exact place of your soul, due to the method that was used to uplift you. The best I can tell is that your soul mostly copies the shape of your body," she said disappointedly.
Given that Persephone was not very helpful in this case, which was no surprise since she as a born Olympian was fundamentally different in this core aspect, my sight turned towards Medusa. She, after all, was in the exact same predicament as I was, being turned into a monster, or accidentally uplifted, as Persephone said. Moreover, she was a natural-born genius who somehow figured out how to use Olympian magic on the first try, even if she needed a slightly more human-based explanation for the magical formulae.
"Medusa, might you know, where your soul is located? It could help me, find my own," I asked my acquaintance.
"Here," she said, grabbing empty air, just beneath her neck, where the torso started.
In the exact same spot, where a pendant might be placed, the exact same place where a computation orb would be located on the standard imperial aerail mage uniform, of my second life.
Now, this certainly left me confused, because it was a very familiar spot. So much so in fact, that I suspected this could not be a mere coincidence. But still, whether this was an enemy action or just a nature of magic, remained to be seen. Since it was now very likely that Being X was not involved in this third life of mine, I refused to be paranoid and lose sleep over him. However, being healthily cautious could never prove to be a bad idea.
Ultimately, my preparedness would be determined by the result of the experiment of using my souls as a computation orb alternative. The hypothesis was, that it could be, in fact, used as a replacement, given the information provided about the nature of my modified soul, being that it was able to compute different components of formulae.
I started the tests the very same evening, after Medusa went to sleep, joined by Persephone and Orthrus, who did not require sleep, but came to enjoy it. Grabbing the empty space, where a computation orb would be, I formulated imperial shield formulae, since it was intended for this kind of casting, where a computation orb was involved and results were immediate. Immediately disappointing.
While I could confirm by visuals, that the shield formulae progressed further than when I calculated everything just by using my brain power, nearing its completion, it still failed to manifest the desired effect. I also felt an immense drain on my magic, something I had not experienced for centuries, since most of the formulae, I used nowadays, were highly optimized to minimize magic usage.
But I was still not at the point of being a complete failure. My second hypothesis, a backup if you will, was using the Olympian version of the shield spell. It had many more formulaic components, than its imperial counterpart, but it was specifically designed to work for Olympians, which I now apparently also was.
The downside of this kind of magic casting though, was the fact that it took a longer preparation time, thanks to its numerous components. But it was a downside I was willing to accept if it allowed me to cast more various spells than my current repertoire.
Alas, holding my expectations high, after already getting disappointed once, would be highly unreasonable. What was not unreasonable, was a logical approach to the problem, given that the problem was mathematical, it must have a solution.
Testing the Olympian shield formulae went much better. It did form almost as expected and magic consumption was much lower than the imperial variant, most likely because the spell did not fail.
There was something I did notice about it though. Something, I was lucky, or perhaps unlucky, to encounter in my previous life and that was the synchronization problem. Since each component was calculated separately and each had a slightly different time complexity, their results were finished at different times. Should the difference be too much, the formula would fail. Meaning, that for other spells, I would have to either somehow account for the time difference or change the component in such a way, it was computed closer to the rest of the specific formulae component. This of course would result in longer casting times.
Overall, the testing was a great success. I could feel a smile creeping on my face.
"Too bad, Being X!" I said out of habit.
But it was true, was it not? No matter the scope of his involvement in my third life, he was not able to keep me down forever. Because with Olympian kind of magic, now becoming a real possibility to me, I would be able to transform into the human form.
This made me wonder though, what would Sappho tell to my human legs? Would she be disappointed, since she seemed to be so obsessed with those spiderly spindly limbs, of mine? Or would she be just as intrigued? Either way, she was dead, her soul being slowly processed in the Underworld to be reincarnated once again. Although, Persephone did say, that the process could take some time for it to be completed. So there was perhaps still time for me to meet Sappho once again, but to do that I would have to accept the job position and be bold to ask for a hiring bonus. Moreover, this was potentially disregarding Sappho's retirement. Alas, I too was a selfish woman. And of course, there was Medusa, who still had to yet fully recover. And having a potentially mentally unwell coworker did prove to be deadly at the very end of my first life. Therefore, I could not force my acquaintance to accept a job under such conditions.
Still, it would be for the best, if Medusa's state improved faster rather than slower. But that was not something I could do anything about, since I was no expert, and sadly, neither was Persephone. All there was to do for me, was to prevent any further damage from the more unreasonable Olympians while assisting Medusa whether she needed to.
"Arachne?" said Medusa, with an uncertain voice.
Something must have woken up my close acquaintance, be it a nightmare of strange noises I might have made. But as I heard no scream, I could assume, that it was mostly me who woke her up. Although asking would not hurt, to confirm whether my assistance was needed.
"Did I wake you up? If so, then I do apologize," I said, offering the apology beforehand.
"No," she answered, itching towards my person.
Witch of course meant that she was requesting physical contact. It was a small price to pay, in order not to worsen her condition, luckily her hair snakes seemed to be asleep, so there was no risk, of them playing a prank on me, while their mother needed emotional support. Apparently sticking around Orthrus all day, was not enough for her.
"Do you require any other assistance?" I asked as soon as she clung to my left arm.
Since I was already accommodating her seemingly childish behavior, I wanted to know, if there was anything else that could improve her mood and thus could send her sooner back to sleep, since I still intended to practice the magic. My only answer was that of a shaking head. And from previous instances of similar behavior, I could conclude that Medusa would soon go back to sleep. This of course would leave me with many hours before dawn to strengthen my new magic knowledge.
And after Medusa left, practice I did. After all, I had to, since I needed to show my potential for improvement to my potential colleague, Persephone. This way, I should increase my value as a human resource. Or was it a personnel resource? It could not be a godly resource, I refused to acknowledge, beings who called themselves gods, to be actual gods, since there were none. Not even Persephone called herself god, but rather Olympian, therefore it could be reasonable to assume that calling it Olympian resources would be the most accurate thing.
Therefore, to increase my value as an Olympian resource, I worked hard to improve the stability of the spell, since I could tell that my way of casting still had some shortcomings. While my ultimate goal was to be able to use the Olympian kind of magic properly, I would still be able to sell my knowledge to Persephone, who seems to be highly interested in its.
She did it! She absolutely did it! She managed to examine Miss Arachne from up close. Very up close. Skin to skin, almost! How grateful she was, that she had no need to breathe, except for when she needed to talk, because otherwise, she might have collapsed of how stunned and ecstatic she was.
No, she was not being weird. No, absolutely not. Definitely not! After all, Miss Arachne asked for it herself, didn't she? Well technically there was no reason she had to get so close to Miss Arachne, but... But how could she not use such an opportunity? It would be unprofessional of her, not to examine the subject of her research, from all possible angles. Admittedly, she spent perhaps a bit too much of her allotted time, observing Miss Arachne's arms. But as a professional researcher, she was certain there must have been something special about Miss Arachne's arms, her research's instincts were telling her so.
She was definitely going to dream about those tonight. Oh, how great it was to sleep, she did not realize until she started to imitate Miss Arachne and Medusa, in order to understand them. And of course, the hallucinations, or rather dreams as they were called by humans, were so vivid and sometimes unreal. Especially that one-time dream about herself and Miss Arachne hand in hand, running through the endless fields of flowers, until the next moment Miss Arachne was sitting under the tree waving at her to join her in the shade. How could the scenery change so swiftly? Unless Miss Arachne in the dream did some heavy magical alteration of the flora, along with spot-precise teleportation on the top of it, then it was impossible.
Overall she could not wait to experience whatever was in store for her tonight.