The Spirit of Contradiction (Programagic, Book 1.3)

By Anton Eine

Welcome to an alternative world of wonder, where magic and technology are inseparably entwined. A place where sorcerer programmers code spells and weave them into items and artefacts to imbue them with special and specific properties.

Magister Sajar Randhar is a seasoned expert in the field of magic security and one of his world's leading technical gurus. He is the first and only person ever to have succeeded in creating an artificial spirit. However, when designing his wonderful, strong-willed creation, it never occurred to him that he might be unleashing an extremely dangerous form of magic, capable of destroying himself and his entire world.

The Spirit of Contradiction is a new story from the techno-fantasy world of Programagic and a new intricate case main characters have to solve.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Anton Eine
• Release date: Jun 12, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215259429

Anton Eine

Anton Eine is a modern sci-fi and techno-fantasy author from Kyiv, Ukraine.An author of a scandalous rock saga 'I, Jesus, Rock Star', the techno-fantasy series "Programagic", the sci-fi short stories collection "Human Kind" and the superhero series "Maze City Stories".He has also published a non-fiction book "The Thin Blue-Yellow Line Between Love and Hate", his personal diary sharing stories of other people in the middle of the war in Ukraine.After building his successful career in marketing, he unbound his creativity and dove into writing fantastic fiction books to actualize numerous ideas he had in his mind for years.Anton is passionate about food (and some drinks of course!), photography, animals (especially wild cats), and rock music. He likes embedding his hobbies into the fantastic canvas of his writings and sharing that passion with his readers.Defying limits and boundaries, his books usually step out of the box of traditional genres, crossing the edges of conventional storytelling and blurring the borders of common thinking.

Book preview

PROGRAMAGIC

1.3 - The Spirit of Contradiction

Anton Eine

Translated by Simon Geoghegan

Copyright 2022 Anton Eine

Published by www.antoneine.com

Attention! This story is a prequel and a sequel to the Programagic book 1 (which includes a short novella Behind the Fire Wall and a full-length novel Beyond the Speed Limit). This story does not contain hard spoilers and can be read as the first or separate. But you would enjoy it even more if read the Programagic book 1 first.

https://antoneine.com/series/programagic-1

Table of Contents

1.3 – The Spirit of Contradiction

Author's Afterword

Other books by Anton Eine

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PROGRAMAGIC, Book 1.3

The Spirit of Contradiction

Sometimes I feel that I'm completely clueless when it comes to programagic and that everything I touch turns out wrong. Time and time again, I make the sort of mistakes that can result in unpredictable and dangerous consequences.

You’d be within your rights to ask, what's so difficult? Magical energy is shepherded into formulas and algorithms that are written in program code, determining how the magic will work to give specific artifacts their desired properties. Then this magi-software is woven into these objects, and they acquire magical properties, making our everyday lives easier.

Yes, there are rules, laws and magical programming languages. I've known them all for a long time. There are some limitations, especially in elemental magic. The same overriding rule that water washes away and destroys all magic. So far, so good. Nothing too complicated.

But I have become ever more convinced that the deeper I delve into this science, the less logical and clear it seems to me. Occasionally, some decisions end up being absurd and ridiculous. And this makes me mad.

Just like Saj with his self-satisfied condescension when he slips into his unpleasant nerdy mentor mode,

Spirit, darling, don't worry, you'll be fine. Things are going in the right direction. You need to be patient.

Honestly, I could throttle him. But that’s not possible! I am, after all, immaterial and intangible. He probably created me this way deliberately so that I wouldn’t be able to do him a permanent mischief. Seriously, this old man is a modern software genius and one of the best magical security experts in the world, but he can be as unpredictable and unpleasant as a goblin’s bottom burp.

For orc’s sake! I’ve even picked up his pathetic habit of swearing using fictional fairy tale figures from their folklore. And this makes me even madder!

It might seem to you that he and I don't get along, but this couldn't be further from the truth. I love Sajar. And he loves me, in as far as a human capable of such complex feelings in general. It's just that things are a bit… confused between us, which, on the whole, is logical, given the difference in our ages, because he is well over one hundred and seventy. And not only was I born a little over a year ago, but I'm also an artificial spirit. The first and only one of my kind in the world, as far as Saj and I are aware.

In creating me, he succeeded where entire governments and major corporations have failed, but he still keeps my existence a secret. And I totally agree with this