JAN 10 Saturday.

It's the dawn of a new day and I'm spending it like always, breakfast and a trip through the void. Once we're done I walk over to my workroom and start breeding plants again.

I've been breeding two things for the most part, my crossbreed vine and the special Moon Glow. The new vine has been progressing well but it needs a lot of work, it's now more stable and its glow has improved a little.

The special Moon Glow that has glowing leaves has been going better, its leaves have gotten brighter and its flowers are the brightest I have now.

Today I want to try to breed this new vine with the special Moon Glow. I don't really expect much to happen as both plants are very different, I try breeding them several times but I don't even get a viable seed from them. After many attempts, I stop and start thinking about a different way to go about this.

I breed them again while trying to force my will on the plants, I use a lot more magic than normal into it trying to bypass this roadblock, and after a while, a few seeds grow. That single attempt took almost half my magic for four seeds, so I took them and started planting them.

They also take more magic to grow than other seeds, and sadly none of them grow well. I was able to force the plants to breed successfully, but all the resulting plants were not very good. One lost almost all of its glow, another was barely able to live, and all of them were failures.

It seems that while I can force the plants to breed the resulting seeds are still random. I decompose all the useless plants and the two starting plants. Using this method would take far too much magic, so I'll just shelve this for a while. I move onto my next piece of work.

I've thought about a few things that could help other ponies and came up with something very small but useful. Let me ask, how much time do you think different sales ponies spend counting bits? On a pony-by-pony basis probably not much, but add that all together and it adds up.

So I want to make something very simple, a bit counter. I start with the spell, which should only need a few things. Bits are a controlled currency and have a standard weight and size, I want the spell to weigh and count bits. I could try to weigh a bit, but why do that when I could just find the information?

Seems it's time for a quick trip to the library. I just take my saddlebags and leave Entropy at home, It's a quick walk to get there and after looking for a while I find two books. It's not information that's hard to find and after making a few notes and double-checking it I get up to leave.

As I'm walking out I see a pony I haven't seen in a few months. Shining Armor was at a clerk's desk checking out a book, and he saw me. I also have to check out two books so I need to go to that desk. :Well, fuck: Honestly after this many run-ins with him I'm not that panicked anymore.

I just try to act like nothing is out of place and walk over with my books. Shining is a good guard from what I remember, and him being in Celestia's guard despite his age proves that. So I'm going to handle this the same way an uncle of mine would.

I've mentioned this uncle before, he was in the military for nearly three decades. And I never really knew what he did because he never talked about it. That man didn't get disrespected, why? Because he was the type of guy to take shit from NO ONE.

I spent a decent amount of time around him, and I think it's time to drag out some of what I learned while watching him. Shining the first to speak as the clerk checks his book. "Hey Shade. It's been a long time, how have you been?" I can tell that something is off about him but ignore it.

I smile at him. "Ya, it's been a while. I've been just fine, you?" I'm better than him at keeping my mask. I've had to stare down Celestia several times, I can bluff my way past a young guard. I also let my guard down a little as my bracelet didn't react after several seconds.

He gives a small smile back. "I've been doing well." I can see him warring with himself for several moments before he speaks again. "Hey, do you mind if I ask about som- ."

He doesn't get to finish as I cut him off. "Not here," I say in a tone I've learned from my uncle. It's dry, blunt, and no-nonsense. He just stares quietly at me as I check out both of my books and start walking towards the doors. "Do you have anything you need to do for a while?"

I relax my tone somewhat while asking this. "No, not for a while. Why?" He asks this while putting on a bracelet of his own.

"You have questions and I don't want to answer them where I work. So do you want to take a trip to the park?" He's silent for several moments after I ask this, he moves his bracelet again before nodding.

"Ok, lead the way." He says this in a more relaxed way than before. I make a mental note of that but start walking with him to the park. On the way I stopped at a cart and got us both a treat, I got some type of sweet bun, and he got a plain donut. When we do reach the park we find a bench to sit at.

It's much like the first time we met. It's also at this point where I start questioning whether it's even a good idea to talk to him about anything. But having his trust could help in a few ways as knowing somepony high ranking in the guard could prove very useful.

And to be blunt I need more competent ponies I can trust. I rather not dive head-first into the main cast, but a few ponies like Shining could prove vital. I turned to him after several seconds of silence, "Well we both know you saw me that day, so what do you want to know?"

I leave my question open-ended to give me room. He stares at me for a few more seconds before answering. "What am I allowed to know?" I smile at him. Shining works as a guard in the palace, so it's not much of a surprise that he'd ask this.

"Well, I can safely say that it doesn't involve anypony getting hurt or being in trouble of any kind and that I have a biweekly meeting with the princess." He just stares at me for a moment before sighing.

"Getting a straight answer out of you isn't going to be easy is it?" He says this with a tired look.

"Nope, talking to me will get you little. Also, you seem rather defeated, mind if I ask why?" He did drop his mask rather fast.

He just gives me the same tired look for a moment. "I'm where I am in the guard both for experience and for them to teach me more. Two of my trainers have been riding me hard recently." He cuts off there abruptly.

"I won't ask why, but I will give you my sympathy, I train with an older guard trainer myself so I know the pain of a hard trainer." This is honest, Stone never goes easy on me and always expects better. Not that I mind.

He looks at me a little surprised before getting this odd look on his face. "What's the name of the pony training you? If you don't mind me asking." He adds that second part as an afterthought a moment later.

"Stone Mace." I only get his name out before his face shifts to one of full shock.

"How did you pull that off? So many guards request him as a private trainer but he rejects almost all of them, even I got rejected." He says with a baffled tone.

And I'm equally confused for a moment. But it does make some sense, Stone has been a very good trainer to me this entire time, and I can see other ponies wanting that. It's also nice to know I met Stone's high standards. "I ran into him by accident, he offered and I accepted."

I keep my answer short, and he realizes he's not getting more from me, "Of course, how else? Well, what can you tell me?"

"I like tea." He gives me a deadpan look while I smile back at him. "I work for the princess in a certain capacity, I won't say more than that but I can guess you'll see me at the palace more. I also ask that you don't tell others about any of this." This whole time I've wanted to answer him enough to satisfy his curiosity.

If he thinks he knows the answers he won't go looking. He now knows I work for the princess and for many ponies that's enough. His face shifts again to something more upbeat. "I'm a guard and legally we can't say anything about our work in the palace or anything related to that work, to unrelated parties. I can only talk about this with you because you were involved."

I didn't know that, but it is useful. "Not that I would even if I could, this isn't my business, it's just another thing I can't talk about." I see a bit of myself in those words, I guess we both have things we can't talk about to those we care for. I take the last bite of my bun and finish eating it.

"If it makes you feel any better you are not alone in that. Well, it's been nice talking but I do need to get home." I stand up from the bench.

He nods. "Well, thanks for answering what you could, even if you decided to be vague about it. Have a good day Shade." He's gained a little smile.

"Thanks for the talk, it was nice, also say sorry again to your dam for me." I walk away before he can ask what I mean. He doesn't come after me and just watches me leave while shaking his head a little and muttering something about crazy colts. I get a good distance before chuckling over the whole event.

He seemed more relaxed after our conversation, I hope I can talk to him more. Maybe while at the palace? Maybe.

Overall I think that went well, I thoroughly confused him while also answering him. It helps that he legally can't talk about this, I make a note to look up those laws later. I walk back home and enter my apartment later than I planned. After feeding Entropy I head into my workroom.

This information wasn't hard to find. I feel like this just gives others information to try and counterfeit some bits, but I also think that they would probably have a few ways to check if a bit is fake or not. But that's not relevant to me, this whole project is just to help merchants and their customers trade faster.

I continue my work on the new spell. I use a bit's weight and size as a base with a tiny amount of wiggle room on both sides, as most bits are probably a tiny bit different from each other. This spell should be very simple to use, enchant it into a flat stable object and activate it, with something to give it magic.

Then the spell will scan above itself and count all bits it can find before giving an output. The scanning part of this spell will take the most magic. But the scan will be for one thing specific so it's less complex than my other scanning spells. I work well into the night working on the specific parts of the spell.

When I stop I have a decent amount of the spell complete, it still needs a lot of work but I should be able to finish it before me and Celestia meet again. I leave my workroom and make myself some food while feeding Entropy some snacks. After a quick shower, I just head to bed.

I climb into my bed and get comfortable as Entropy merges into my shadow. "You want to sleep in there?"

"Good." I guess so then, I snuggle into my blankets before drifting off to sleep.

Author's Note

Thanks for reading. :]