As the dozens of blue glowing vines continued to pull books and turn pages, Adam was lounging on Twilight's couch.
It was a nice couch, and unsurprisingly enchanted like everything else in this tree/house/library/lab.
His eye glanced at the closest window, the other still scanning pages. Daylight was coming, but a new charge was still hours away.
Not only were these books much larger than expected, but he was taking the time to scan the magic detected on their bodies as well. Not every book had the same set of preservation, expansion, and self repair as the others.
Many were written by... hoof? Well, without a printing press anyway. If one tracked it, you could tell when they were created by the types of spells used to preserve the finished product. Roughly.
Right now, he wasn't bothering to actually process the contents. This was a straight 'Convert: Memory to Data' operation going on. 'Research' would be used with more depth later to actually try and understand stuff.
Twilight's owl showed up a few hours ago, but 'Owlowiscious' had calmed down after Adam explained what was going on. As a 'Normal' animal of this world, the owl could understand the common language easily enough but was unable to speak 'pony' or whatever this thing was called.
So... hours of scanning.
The idea that Twilight could actually memorize all this and MORE without powers helping was astounding really. And what few pages he was able to process while scanning implied that magic NOT powered by raw emotion and desire needed a massive amount of mental calculation.
Magic had an opinion of what it wanted to do. With enough emotion or practice, anypony could cast a spell reliably. But if you wanted to do so with an arbitrary spell, and to cast it without mind numbing terror or bliss or hope or whatever, you needed to take the time to fill in all the variables by hoof, as it were.
Example, a spell to shoot lightning. If one trained for years, it could be done on a whim. If it was a desperate situation or if magic itself wanted to attack, it only needed a strong will. And if you just wanted to cast it once for no real reason, you needed to be a goddess of mathematics and memorization, while focusing on fairly complicated frameworks for magic to detect, be convinced to accept parameters, and forced to actually follow through.
Thus if Twilight wanted to cast lightning, it took a lot of calculation, an accurate understanding of one's surroundings, a well of power or a channel of energy to tap into, and a will of steel.
In return for 10 times the work, it returned 100 times the control. She could do stuff with magic that no one had heard of before, more than simply having the right cutie mark as a power up.
On the other hand, or hoof, her analytical mind was bordering on the level of a savant. It was likely the reason she had such issues doing things that required emotions and handling dynamic situations. In fact, attempting to mitigate her flaws in those areas was likely the reason Princess Celestia sent her to this town to 'make friends' in the first place.
He drifted back to the books passing by, before moving on to less boring activities as the scanning continued.
Mai was now over by the Apple farms. That birthday party was ongoing as well, although most of the town had moved INSIDE of Mai after it got dark.
Apparently the purified magic Mai generated was acting like a mild caffeine rush, as none of the guests were acting as tired as they should.
And she as a building was now best friends with Pinkie Pie, as the hyperactive pony was making all kinds of 'suggestions' that had Mai changing more and more of her internal rooms to be more 'festive'.
As such, now there was a cake room. A hollow fake cake filled with plants that looked like more cakes with a table that held Pinkie's latest culinary creation.
It even had a cake themed cooking area for making more cake.
Are these ponies even vegetarians? They seem to live on sugar alone! And they treat apple cider like beer basically.
He watched the wandering ponies moving through and around Mai's various hallways, play rooms, and event areas. It was like a ant farm, without the gross stuff. Like ants.
Adam blinked, seeing some 'rest areas' very... occupied. Alright yeah, that was a bit gross. Not the act itself, but the mess being made due to it. And the 'toys'.
Mia was making sure no kids wandered over to those halls, which was a good idea. Also, homosexuality was either considered no big deal here or apple cider really loosened those social bindings. And a WHOLE list of kinky stuff was also fairly accepted. Or at least, secretly supported.
...And he had invited the Princess of the Night to one such party.
Was this sort of activity normal at a Pinkie Party? Or just ones that happen in a large, shifting house stuffed with pure magic?
Cause HE had been both loopy and a bit sexually charged just from eating that raw magic to begin with.
Yeah, this was probably the magic.
Not that any of the ponies seemed to be complaining. Good dismount.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Twilight awoke late. Her mind was emphatic about that, already giving a dozen lists of things she had planned to do today, didn't do yesterday, had planned over the last few months that were delayed by over 12 hours, and so forth.
With practice ease, she pushed the mental reminders (basic hypnosis, barely a spell), and proceeded to get ready for the day.
And then the memories hit.
Embarrassment flooded her brain, forcing each moment of her slow nuzzling a massive being with a voice of seduction through a crowded town into her mind. It was only nuzzling, right? He had been soft, she hadn't done anything too... improper?
The response from one of her self monitoring spells (Meant to help her remember recent study subjects) made relief wash over her. Who knew her lazy method of keeping track of read books would help assure her that she hadn't been humping a stranger while high on magic? And Spike said that having four ongoing spells so similar was too redundant!
Magic was life, and life liked making more life. Thankfully her years of experience prevented her from going full drunk lust monster, despite handling more power at one time than she had in literally months.
Regretfully, it hadn't stopped her from frolicking emotionally through those dulcet tones.
Blame the magic overdose. Period.
She went through her routine until she started downstairs towards the kitchen. Her living room was filled with blue tentacles. Warm, pulsing vines. Memories of being held gently by said limbs into soft moss brought a blush forward again.
Huh. Hadn't run into THAT fetish before. Just... great.
Repress.
Walking downstairs fully she noticed Owlowiscious watching over her guest, Spike idling in the kitchen. Adam, on the other hoof, was sprawled on her favorite reading couch, his overly complicated wooden body relaxed as books were being pulled, scanned with one glowing eye, then returned to the shelving.
In the correct order, thankfully.
The rate he was moving was as astounding as was his stillness. Bright blue, glowing vines... rapidly shifting, twisting, and manipulating dozens of objects while his black wooden form with blue moss barely shifted.
Then everything slowed to a stop and she found to bright blue gems focused on her, a lazy smile on his face. "Good morning, Miss Sparkle. I hope you slept well?"
She found herself grateful for the first time about all those high society classes she had been forced to take, allowing her to control her expression even if she could feel lingering embarrassment on her face. "Good morning, Adam. Please, just call me Twilight."
She moved through the mess, vines shifting away from her steps. No reason to bring up sleep, last night, or ANYTHING related to that right now. "Were you able to find what you were looking for?"
Adam snorted, odd to hear from a wolf. "Haven't begun to look yet, this is just me scanning and memorizing all the documentation you have out for purview. I have an ability that will allow me to begin REAL research once I have the information to work with."
As she settled into the near chair, silently congratulating herself for not stuttering, she turned to the one subject most comforting and safe. Research. "You can remember all this even with such a short glance?"
He began moving the vines again, but much slower and keeping the movement from hitting her. "I am not originally a magical creature, Twilight. I have a series of abilities that use a combination of soul manipulation and dimensional shenanigans to gain new powers."
Adam continued, the books moving at ever increasing speeds. "One of my earliest abilities was one that allowed scanning for information, which would easily enough scan a library this size if the books in here were less magical."
He paused, moving a book about theoretical baking forwards. "But things like this, a book made from magic and bread. The scan needs to not only be far more detailed, but things like the smell of certain words and the texture of a baked paragraph, those things need storing as well."
The queue of literature resumed. "That combined with how many of these books are compressed to hold more pages than expected... it has drastically slowed my scanning abilities. And those scans, thanks to another ability, are being stored away inside me for future reference."
Her eyes were so wide. "I. Am. So. Jealous."
He grinned at her. "Based on how impressive I am finding your skills, I'm sure you could do similar."
She shook her head, mane thankfully staying out of her face thanks to the cantrip to have magic act like a headband. "Tried that. Thought storing all memories permanently so I couldn't forget anything... and I accidentally made the spell recursive. Started storing memories of storing memories of storing memories..." She flushed. "Princess Celestia had to fix me. I had stored so much information that I was unable to think straight. She banned me from trying again for another six years or so. Banned all memory manipulation spells, in fact."
Twilight sighed as she shuffled on her chair. "It was the right thing to do, especially as I was still growing as a pony at the time. The mind needs time to settle if one is to grow up safely."
Adam snorted. "I, on contrast, had no choice! Woke up damaged and dying. First act to fix it smashed my powers and mind and soul into a mess. Its mostly fixed now, but my healing ability routinely modifies my mind to help protect me and help me grow."
He shifted, another book passing between the two. "Now I have a couple of mental constructs, Squishy the oldest. Squishy keeps me on track, and if I do something like you did with your spells she will help fix things up. Hopefully will help me if someone takes over by body or mind too."
Twilight blinked. "Is... is that a big concern?"
He sighed, a rich rumble in the room. "In your realm? Not normally. In mine? We had to design political procedures to handle it. And the stronger you get, the more likely SOMEONE will try and make you useful to them, even if they end up using leverage beyond power based control. Kidnapping, brainwashing, assault, so on."
Adam watched the books dancing through the room. "A big part of me visiting is due to my desire to grow stronger at a faster rate. Hopefully by the time I get what I need here, I will know how to return there with the power I need and without time having passed. Or at least, minimizing how much time passes until my return."
Twilight blinked, then thought. A few mental checks brought up some results. "What I know about time manipulation is pretty restricted to outsiders."
He nodded. "Asked Princess Luna about it, we will see how it goes. Worse comes to worse, Squishy thinks there is a another reality nearby that I can get what I need from. I'm mostly just hoping to save time and return sooner by getting it all out of the way while in THIS world."
Their conversation continued, with less and less focus on what Adam was researching and more about arbitrary information about differences between the two Realms. Spike quietly cleaned up the tea Twilight forgot to drink, and ended up providing snacks they forgot to eat.
It was a good morning over all.