The Spirit Of Knowledge

Ha, I can't believe how easy that was! I landed back in my domain with a huge smile upon my face. I had gotten my journal back, and it was so easy! I wonder how the enchantments have done over the years? To my surprise the journal answered the question for me, the words on its cover changing before my eyes.

'I am sorry master, but all enchantments you placed upon me were destroyed, except the enchantment that sustains my existence. I was powerless at the time of removal, to prevent the celestial bitch from doing so. They were removed shortly after you were turned to stone.' You know, I probably should have seen that coming, I doubt Celestia would keep a journal she can't read around her. Wait what did he call her? The celestial bitch! Oh my god that's amazing!

I barely managed to control myself, now wasn't the best time for a laughing fit. "D-don't worry, I do not blame you for what she did, but I see there are some enchantments I didn't place here, and your matrix has been modified." A matrix is what makes up bigger enchantments. It's basically just a big jumble of overlapping runes.

'Those are enchantments I had to place upon myself, so that I could follow master's final order.' Hmm final order... I believe the last thing I told my journal was to make sure nothing read my personal thoughts. It just admitted failing to do so before I even gave the order, but I did dictate my time in stone somewhat. It must have wanted to keep those words unread, how loyal.

"I would like you to update me on everything important that happened to you."

'If you would please open me master, I can't fit that much upon my cover. You can learn faster looking inside of me.' Why does that sound wrong?

I spent the next few hours conversing with my journal. I was impressed with what my spell created. After being read by the sisters it decided to improve upon its own matrix, so it could prevent them from reading anything else. How ever, since it had no mana or power of its own, it couldn't do anything but sit there and ask them to stop. The way it described what happened made it sound like rape... which maybe it was to a sentient book? Thankfully they stopped after Luna read it, apparently they got all the information they needed. The sisters then brought my journal to see me at its request, and I sent the pulse through it. I hadn't thought about that in a while, and I guess I would be in a pickle if this thing ever gets destroyed. Back then I used it as the connection between my domain and the physical world. All the knowledge I accumulated was first recorded by my journal, then sent to my domain. It thanked me profusely for what it perceived as a gift.

Apparently it was depressed it wasn't being useful to me. But with it collecting all that knowledge for me, it was once again happy. Thanks to the connection to me and my domain, it started to generate its own power the more knowledge it absorbed. It spent the next few weeks under lockdown from the sisters, and spent that time upgrading its matrix. Instead of only semi-sentient, it became completely self aware. From then on the journal thought of itself as male, and decided to wait for me to name him. Thinking this was as good a time as any, I named him Codex. Original isn't it? Once sufficiently upgraded Codex created an enchantment on itself to hide its new changes. If the sisters had bothered to look for such a thing, they would have seen it immediately. It wasn't very advanced. After a few more visits he was left alone until after Luna's banishment. There were a few ponies that studied him every couple hundred years, but nothing worth mentioning.

He spent the entire time improving on himself, and making more and more complex enchantments. I decided to check out what he currently has, and wow was I amazed. Instead of just looking where I placed my old ones, I felt out every single one within and without it. There was thousands upon thousands of matrixes everywhere. If someone just looked with normal sight they wouldn't even be able to see them all. I asked Codex to take a break and explain what they all relatively did, and he seemed almost eager to. Basically, he's immune to everything. There were resistance runes for fire, water, tearing, oxidation, basically anything that could damage him. Looking at him again, he was in better shape than any 2000 year old book should be. He had runes to make himself unnoticeable, invisible, and runes to warp the mind of his readers. He had runes that allowed him to completely modify his body, and to manipulate the world around him. Codex can cast fucking spells if he wants to.

Though he has to make a rune for each specific spell in advance. The most impressive rune of all though, was the one in his middle. It is by far the most advanced rune ever created. The thought of something more amazing than this one is impossible to me. There in the middle of his binding, was a rune that if I had to guess meant knowledge. It somehow contains all of the knowledge Codex has gathered, it contains his memories, and for all intents and purposes, it's his brain. He still uses the modified matrix I made, but that thing only acts as his connection to me. What amazed me even more, was to even see the entire rune, I had to look into the aether. Only some of it was physically written on codex, the rest somehow existed in the aether as its own domain. The journal in front of me wasn't the real codex. Codex is the rune in the aether. So if something happens to his current vessel, I can just put a copy of the physical part of the rune on another, and he'll just posses it and be good as new. Looks like I don't have to worry about it being destroyed after all. Hell, if he ambushed Celestia he could probably take her out. Well, her physical from anyway, she would still reform after a bit.

After I finished praising him for his work he finished the story. After Luna was banished Celestia became super lonely and started teaching personal students. When the time came to teach her students about golems, she would take them to Codex so they could see the one and only. Thanks to codex's manipulation, no one had discovered how to replicate his matrix. It wasn't that they couldn't duplicate an exact copy, they just couldn't make one of their own. Since I used runes I personally made, they couldn't understand what made up the matrix and had to start from scratch. A few unicorns got close to making a fully functioning golem, but the art fell out of favor before they could succeed. No one wanted to buy something that sits there and twitches after all. Unfortunately, if codex wanted his advancements to stay secret, he had to let them read up to my imprisonment. Whenever someone tried to read farther, they would find pages of nothing but insults and profanity.

Each time Celestia would explain that that was as far as the journal goes. Eventually she stopped her students before they reached that point. Codex managed to keep his changes secret until a few days ago. I had just told him mentally I was free and coming for him, and he celebrated while I slept. You might wonder how a book would celebrate? Honestly I couldn't contain my laughter this time. Instead of waiting for me silently, he manipulated the air currents in the library and proceeded to pelt everypony in the library for their, and I quote, 'insults towards my being, and the rough handling of my person'. He caused a booknado and terrorized innocent ponies because they called him a diary and weren't careful when they held him. Now, he was kept in the restricted section, so only Celestia, her students, and the librarians who clean it would have touched him. When I asked him why he targeted everyone in there he said, 'They were all conspirators of the celestial bitch, and I had to free my brethren from their mistreatment!'. At this point I could barely breath, but I managed to ask him about the books he threw around. H-he called them 'worthy sacrifices' and dedicated one of his pages in their honor. It took me a few minutes to get control of myself.

Within a few minutes of his shenanigans the Princess herself teleported into the library, and surrounded him with an anti-magic bubble. (Good to know she can do that.) She asked him similar questions to what I asked, and he gave her the same answers. He even repeated the last answer because he thought she was confused. When I asked him why he described the face she was making. It sounded to me like she was trying her best not to brake out into laughter. After he finished explaining himself, Celestia looked closely at him to see how he managed to cast spells. She managed to get a brief glimpse before he upped the power hiding his enchantments, and she started writing a letter. I'm not going to repeat the whole thing, but basically it asked Twilight (you remember her right?) to study Codex and to not let him out of her sight.

For the last few years Celestia had been letting twilight deal with all the magically related problems, so why would this be any different? She is the princess of magic after all. (Don't know why they consider friendship to be magic, but somehow because they do she loopholed her way into being the princess of both.) After that Celestia burned both Codex and the letter to ash with dragon fire... which somehow sent them both to twilight through spike burping them up. I don't even... does physics not matter when magic gets involved? I mean, are there just no rules to what you can do with magic? As a demon, magic just manipulated the physical world, but apparently these ponies can just say fuck it and let their imaginations be the limit.

Ahh, if I keep thinking about this I'm going to get a headache. After twilight read the letter she got the biggest, and creepiest smile Codex had ever seen. Twilight spent the next day talking to Codex, trying to break through his enchantments, and basically harassing him non stop. It probably didn't help that he starting referring to her has the 'hand of the bitch', and whenever he talked about Celesita he always added bitch somehow. The celestial bitch, Princess bitch, Celestibitch, he got creative. Finally Twilight had enough and decided to complain to her friends. She even rationalized out lout that nothing would happen to the book during the five minutes it took to meet her friends in the throne room, which is when I stole him back. Talk about foreshadowing.

And that concludes the recap of codex's life so far. You know, twilight is probably panicking about me taking the book. Celestia did specifically say not to let codex out of her sight. And I wouldn't want her to accidentally accuse someone else of stealing Codex. Don't they say the right thing to do is to take responsibility for your actions? I mean, I just got my freedom back, I should definitely make a good impression.

When I told my plan to Codex, I could have sworn I saw him smile. (How does a book smile?)

Twilight had been searching for hours now, and she wouldn't stop until she found a clue. There was no way the thief escaped without magic, and if they used magic than they left a trail. All she had to do was find it. Twilight suddenly found herself unable to see, and screamed as loud as she could. Hearing this, her friends came running.

"I can't see! I can't see!" She yelled to them. She stopped when she heard their laughter. "Girls I'm serious, I can't see!" Suddenly light once again filled her vision, to see Rainbow standing in front of her, holding a note in her hoof. Twilight accepted the note with a sheepish grin, causing her friends to role their eyes. Her eyes seemed to bulge out of her head when she looked at it.

"Well darling, what does it say?" Rarity asked, worried about her friends reaction. Silently twilight showed them the note, muttering under her breath the entire time. They were all shocked by its contents, except for Rainbowdash, who burst into laughter.

Dear Princess Twilight sparkle,

My name is Shade Mystic, and I just stole back my journal. His name is Codex, and he thinks that you're a bitch, Celestia is a bigger bitch, and that Luna is an asshole. Quite the potty mouth for a book don't you think? Apparently you tried to read him without permission, and look at his enchantments. For shame, have you no decency? Why, I ought to sue you for sexual harassment. Just kidding! Though if I'm being honest, you do seem the type to harass a book in such a way. I would go as far to call your love of them unhealthy. Maybe a therapist could help you with your obsession? Not to mention your other problems, not that I know of any such things. *cough* Want it *cough* need it *cough* spell * cough cough*. Oh my, it seems my auto write recorded my cough. I ask you disregard what was previously written, I would erase it but it used permanent ink. Tell Celestia I said hi.

Your thief