Zoemie woke up the next day feeling slightly anxious. She opened her eyes and forced herself out of bed, trying to remember what she had to do. Expin computers to the old man, and my training sessions. She needed to keep up with those.

  She shook her head, and teleported to the kitchen. The old man was currently in his quarters and Xajymzia in her b, so things were quiet for now. After eating breakfast and finishing her routine, Zoemie decided to go for her bath earlier than usual, cutting short her typical gaming session.

  She didn't want to keep the old man waiting too long, after all. Zoemie wasn't too worried at how things would go, but a part of her was still on edge. Still, things have gone well so far, so... Zoemie closed her eyes. She hoped it would stay that way.

  After dressing up, Zoemie teleported to the meeting room, and stretched herself on the chair while waiting, but it didn't take long. The old man knocked on the door, before entering the room. Zoemie opened her eyes, and looked at him. Showtime.

  Yuulvan smiled as the Warden turned her head towards him. "Hi there, old man.", she started. "So. Computers. Well, technically what I gave you a game console, but it's simir enough to a computer that expining computers will work better.", she said, surprisingly animated.

  "So. What is a computer ?", she started. "Well, my dad liked to expin it as essentially a very powerful calcutor with data entry and storage abilities, coupled with graph... the ability to show a lot of things." With that, she swiped her arm on the side and conjured a ft piece of metal.

  "This is a computer, then ?", Yuulvan inquired, the word feeling strange on his tongue, but he got most of the concepts involved. Magic helped, however.

  "Yeah, a ptop to be more exact. There's a few variants, but for the expnation this will do. Also note this is a ptop, but not my ptop. That one's for me alone.", the Warden expined, Yuulvan nodding as the Warden moved the chair closer to him, and opened the device.

  He raised an eyebrow as the ptop showed to have two parts. One of them was the bck mirror-like element, although it was rger, and the other was a smattering of squares with a slight depression and two elements underneath. "I recognize this upper section.", he said, raising an eyebrow.

  "That upper part is the screen. It's the part of the computer that shows things, the graphics dispy. The lower part is the keyboard and keypad. It's for data entry and generally doing things with it." I take it this screen can dispy paintings, as well. It probably wouldn't look as good as the real ones, however.

  "There's also the inner part, with the motherboard and shit, but I don't know it well enough to expin which part does what. That's my dad's domain.", the Warden continued. "But I know enough about how computers work in general."

  His magic told him it was not a very good use of his time right now to investigate that inner part in detail. Which made sense since this device probably worked like nothing else he ever saw or used. Maybe in the future. The Warden pressed a button, and the machine started with a small musical effect as the screen started to dispy.

  "A computer needs an operating system to work. The console has its own, but it can only afford to do it because it's a much more specialized device.", the Warden expined. "There's several options – I think it's Baywind, MkDosh, and Tux ? Going into detail about those is not too relevant right now. Mostly, there's a few softwares that can only run on one of those. I've primarily used Baywind because games don't really work as well on the other two.", she continued.

  As I expected, the Warden gets a lot more animate when the subject is something she knows and care about. It really reminded him of that hexer, despite the fact he was confident they were unreted. "I take it a computer can do calcutions ?", Yuulvan inquired, instead.

  "Yup. Like, let me boot up the calcutor...", the Warden expined, before quickly entering rge numbers and executing a multiplication that would have taken Yuulvan a fair bit of time. "That said, if lots of math is what you want to do, what you need is a spreadsheet. Thankfully, there should be one... here.", the Warden said as she maneuvered through the computer, Yuulvan observing her as she did so.

  "So. Most computers come packing office software suites that can do a variety of things. This is the one my dad always used. F.O.S.S forever ? Is what he liked to say ? Somethin' like that... Anyhow. The spreadsheet is one of them, and can be used to enter data and automate calcutions.", she expined, Yuulvan focused. "It's an... excel-lent piece of software."

  "Different... softwares do different things ?", Yuulvan asked.

  "Depends, but generally, yeah. It's best to understand it as a software type. Like, there's software types and then there's the softwares themselves. A spreadsheet processor's a spreadsheet processor even if the name isn't the same, since they're the same type of software.", the Warden said, Yuulvan nodding.

  "A thing to note : your computer can run several software at the same time, but having too many or too intensive at the same time can make it slow down.", she continued. "Games are pretty intensive, by example, but for now lemme show you... this one."

  "This is a word processor. It enters text, and allows you to do various things like copypaste, alongside saving a text and opening it ter. It's much more practical than paper for storing lots of words, and less taxing on the wrists too.", the Warden said as they typed something. The letters were unfamiliar to him, but he somehow knew she had written "See ! Isn't it handy ?", on the computer screen. Which it kind of is.

  It was, if nothing else, lighter than paper. The... identical ? Yuulvan wasn't sure how to describe it, for he cked a concept of standardization, but he had the hunch the always-samely-shaped letters were useful since it made things consistently legible between writers.

  "The big strength of the spreadsheet, meanwhile, is rge-scale numerical data processing and general organization. Say you have your weekly profits and want to calcute your monthly average.", the Warden said as they entered numbers.

  "Simply type in the formu in one cell and drag it down, ", the Warden said, "and poof ! You got your calcutions done in a second." This made Yuulvan genuinely pause. There were a lot of people who would love to have this software. He could definitely see people giving everything they owned for something as incredibly versatile as this, and he was neither a noble nor a merchant.

  "How many types of mathematical operations can these do ?", Yuulvan asked. Even if it couldn't do that many variants, the direct uses were already impressive. And there might well be less obvious uses for it, such as organizing data.

  "A lot. And if it doesn't do it in one step, you can always break it down into several steps.", the Warden answered. Makes sense. That spreadsheet functionality is... very useful. Maybe I can find a way to create an artifact that does the same thing.

  "Can you make your own software ?", he asked, the word still feeling foreign in his mouth. "And is there a... toughware or simir ?", he continued, smiling slightly as his own joke.

  "There's hardware, and that refers to the computer itself. As for making software... you can, it's called coding, but it's a right pain in the ass. That said, a thing my dad said to me a few times is that you're almost never the first person to try something with computers. So before doing it yourself it's always worth looking whether someone else did it first... but you can't really do it here."

  "The games on the gaming dev... console are also pieces of software, then ?", he asked, to which the Warden nodded. "I see... Is there more software you can show me ?", he asked. The Warden thought about it for a short bit before unching another software.

  "This one is for drawing.", she expined, before dragging the mouse and creating a line on the white rectangle. There was something about the line's nature, of being made of small squares, that he had seen earlier on one of the game pictures.

  "This white rectangle... it is composed of smaller squares ?", he asked, and the Warden nodded at him.

  "We call 'em pixels. They're what's the screen made of.", she answered. "This ptop's a 15-incher, so it's 1920 pixels horizontally and 1080 vertically, if I remember. Bigger screens offer more pixels and thus better resolution."

  "Hmm... I see.", Yuulvan answered. "So that expins the look of this game's picture.", he continued as he showed the Warden the console, who nodded.

  "Yeah, that's pixel art. It's more often associated with older games, because, well..." The Warden crossed their arms, thinking for a moment. "So, a thing to be aware of is that computers gained a lot of power really, really fast. Like, the first game in the modern sense, Gonp, is like... 50 years old, maybe a little more."

  He blinked. Only fifty years ? "The first computers were room-sized monstrosities and are like 80-90 years old ? Your average modern handheld calcutor is the size of two palms and blows those out of the water, being a thousand times faster, being able to handle much bigger numbers and having a ton of options to make it automate certain operations.", the Warden expined.

  "Pixel art was originally for really weaksauce hardware compared to a modern gaming console, but it remained in vogue in certain types of games due to being expressive and easy to make.", the Warden expined. "Normally, I would talk about Internet now... but, well, I don't have it here. So, anything else comes to your mind ?"

  Yuulvan blinked. "Not right now, but may I keep the computer ?", he asked. He could definitely think of a few uses for it, and if nothing else it could be handy if he needed to get on some merchant's good side in the future.

  "Sure, why not ?", the Warden answered. "Ain't like I'll need it. I already have mine. Just don't go around telling where you got it". This did not surprise Yuulvan.

  "Thank you, then. I shall take my leave for the time being. I have much to think about.", Yuulvan said, and he certainly did. This will take some time for me to learn how to use. He probably wouldn't do that right now. That could definitely wait while he was on the road.

  Xajymzia looked at the new area she had created under her b, from a monitoring room within her b. This was the area she had set aside to reduce the cost of conjuring 2-7-4's body parts. As it was an Apocalypse, however, she needed to do a bit of work.

  Conjuring the monster's body part was basically the same as summoning the creature itself as far as the cost reduction went, so she needed to conjure the kind of area 2-7-4 would live in.

  And the problem was that Apocalypses weren't normal monsters with clearly-known home areas. The fact she didn't know what kind of creature 2-7-4 had been originally really didn't help much. Operate from top-down approach, Xajymzia decided.

  Essentially, Xajymzia's idea was simple trial-and-error : turn the area into a basic biome type and conjure a part until she had figured out which biome gave what level of reduction, and then work from there.

  After rotating through the various biomes, she quickly figured it out. Fields, pins, forest. Probably will need a temperate, green oak-savanna base with a nuclear power pnt ruin. That st element would be a costly upfront investment, but she would bear it with grace.

  It would be a highly fruitful endeavor in the long term, so it was worthwhile paying early for it. It was a calcuted risk, not a shot in the dark, and that made Xajymzia more willing to take the chance than she otherwise would have been.

  Besides, it wouldn't prevent her from feeding or caring for Zoemie, and that what was mattered the most. She had prepared options in case of emergency, anyway, and Yuulvan not only could care for himself, but he was a minimal expense either way, especially in the long term.

  Xajymzia refocused and kept adding features to the pin area, confirming the reduction in cost for each one. She would hit her target earlier than she calcuted. self.recalcute(). It was a positive development.

  She still needed to investigate how to get energy out of the parts, and potentially optimize them further. She would need a lot of raw magical power to get her objectives done, so it was worth looking into. Earth nuclear pnts were already impressively powerful to begin with, but for someone like Xajymzia with access to magical options, the efficiency loss on each step was a problem.

  Therefore, Xajymzia's pn was a lot simpler : extract the heat from the reaction and directly turn it into dungeon-useable energy with some magical energy absorbers. Nothing she couldn't handle with her current suite of knowledge.

  She conjured the appropriate equipment and teleported the hunk of 2-7-4 flesh in it, smiling as the absorption started. Rate of consumption higher than anticipated. This was good to be aware of, but ultimately not a crippling issue.

  Once the hunk had been completely drained, she dismissed it, and smiled as she calcuted the total energy gain. Already higher than energy input. Not by much, however, but that was fine since she had plenty of room to optimize further. Dismissal energy recovery appears important.

  Instead, Xajymzia, satisfied with her progress, decided to focus on something else. She still needed to make a lot of progress on how to access Earth, and the closest thing she had to a starting point was Zoemie's letters she sent and the curses she casted, the ones to her father and her friend. Xajymzia focused a spell.

  Her objective was simple : to see if she could duplicate an item from Earth. And it ideally had to be associated with either of those people, as they were the only ones she could even hope to access. She didn't even know whether Earth people even had magical signatures.

  She didn't know anyone else from Zoemie's homeworld, nor could she access that information for the most part, so she had to use what she had to begin with. Then she could branch out with new knowledge.

  A confluence of magic beyond understanding formed and coalesced within Xajymzia's hands. She looked at it deeply and took its character, her inhumanly precise and accurate eyes seeking to understand as much of it as she could. Seeing if she could gain anything to reduce the portal's energy requirements.

  And after a moment, and getting a few useful insights, something appeared within her hands. It was a duplicate of a small, white, rectangur item, within a pstic case. A cord was attached to it, and a name was written on it.Kelvin.

  Xajymzia comitted this information to memory. She would need to duplicate more items to get a more complete picture of how the spell worked. As she pondered what to do next, however, a knock on the door interrupted her. She stored the item somewhere else in the b while Yuulvan entered the boratory.

  "Am I bothering you ?", he asked, but Xajymzia shook her head. "I would like to use your facilities to work on an anti-radiation shield and decontamination spells.", he expined, and Xajymzia nodded at him.

  "Certainly.", she answered. "Maybe I can even help you." It could work out to Zoemie's benefit, and potentially even her people's as well. She saw no reason to refuse, and she could always return to her more private research ter.

  Yuulvan considered as he returned to the area that Xajymzia used for her research on 2-7-4. It was time to start working on the decontamination spell and anti-radiation shield. Originally, he wanted to do this on the road, but he had three realizations that made him change approaches.

  Firstly, there was the problem of safety. He couldn't really test his spells anywhere else other than this dungeon without putting himself into danger. And he would much rather mitigate and control the risk if he could do something about it.

  The second part was that he could conjure pieces of 2-7-4 easily here, and not while on the road. Keeping them in storage or simir was, meanwhile, incredibly likely to end poorly in some fashion.

  The third reason was information control. So far, Yuulvan and the two inhabitants of this dungeon were the only ones who knew the true nature of 2-7-4's curse. And it was not his first time being in a simir situation.

  The risk of bad-faith actors using the knowledge to cause damage was still an issue. So, what Yuulvan liked to do was study the countermeasures in secret and spread them far and wide before revealing the knowledge behind, in order to stymie those attempts to use it for nefarious ends.

  In fact, if someone from outside was to ask him right now about the details of 2-7-4's curse, he would turn them down. Not out of any sense of personal offense, in fact he would've likely enjoyed expining it, but simply because of the risk. Therefore, he would focus on making those countermeasures now to manage that risk.

  It was not his first time doing this kind of work, although this time it was of an admittedly completely different nature to the forbidden magics and other magical destruction tools he had had to handle in the past. The one thing he couldn't do right now was radiation cure spells for afflicted people... but that shouldn't be too hard.

  There always were foolish, reckless youths to get themselves badly irradiated by going into contaminated areas as a test of courage, after all, and, while Yuulvan didn't like that fact, he could work it to his advantage.

  Yuulvan shook his head, and refocused. He was not any random mage, and he was confident as he hunkered down on the control area above the two rooms. He had more than five centuries of experience designing spells under his belt, and as he sensed Xajymzia coming up behind him, he wouldn't work on this alone either. Two heads are better than one.

  So they worked, for a few hours. Xajymzia's understanding of magic was very different than his, most likely due to her nature. She had a perspective he appreciated. "This part of the spellweave seems to get damaged by the radiation.", she said as Yuulvan put down the water bottle he had been drinking from.

  "Hmm...", Yuulvan thought out loud. Some shield spells can afford to not st forever... but this isn't one of them. "It might be worth to try some older weaves for this area. Most of those were outcompeted for various reason, but several have better stability. They may be the superior choice in this case.", he said.

  She nodded at him, and they kept working into the evening.