Inexperience

Looking in front of him, at the man who looked exactly like himself, 'Max' couldn't help but instinctually stretch out his hand towards him.

"Who are you? And why do you look like me?" asked 'Max' as he stared at the other man.

For an unknown reason, as he said this, 'Max' felt somewhat weird, as if he had done this before.

'That can't be true, I don't remember anything that was remotely like this,' thought Max as he suddenly moved towards the impostor, causing himself to notice something.

'My body has changed,' thought 'Max' as he felt his much weaker strength, but quite unexpectedly, 'Max' did not need to spend any time to adapt to his new body.

In only a fraction of a moment, before the impostor could react, 'Max' had arrived in front of him, and had punctured his eye.

Before 'Max' could continue and do any more damage to the impostor, who still hadn't reacted, both of them froze in place.

'As I expected, although erased and copied the memories, the instinct and subconscious mind still carried over,' thought Beatrice as she knocked out both Max and Garry, who currently had both Max's body and memories.

But although he had all of these advantages, Garry was still sadly only a bad copy of Max, who couldn't compare to the original in the slightest.

"If I want to continue making progress on this experiment, I need to find a way to manipulate instinct and the subconscious mind, not only the memories themselves," mumbled Beatrice as she walked out of the room, the two men floating behind her.

But as Beatrice had spent an entire day creating the copy of Max, at this moment she only had four more days left in the Lyon Kingdom, making her doubt her ability to complete this project before she left the Kingdom.

As Beatrice walked through the hallways of the old estate, she kept thinking of ways to try to somehow achieve this goal of hers whilst staying here, as Garry and Max were, by now, important experimental subjects, that Beatrice had spent a lot of effort fine-tuning.

Sadly though, Beatrice, on her own, could definitely not achieve such a thing, and by now, Beatrice herself was aware of this.

Suddenly, Beatrice's eyes lit up.

"That could be a good idea," mumbled Beatrice as she stretched her hand into her robe and took out a leather notebook.

Staring at the notebook, Beatrice faintly frowned for a few moments before nodding, having annihilated all of her hesitation.

...

Looking at the small figure of her teacher, who was sitting on the last page of the notebook, with a cold look on her face, Beatrice felt some sweat fall down her forehead.

"What do you want?" asked Selena as she looked at her disciple, as well as her surroundings, especially at the two men lying down on two nearby tables.

As she looked at the two, the cold expression on Selena's face transformed into a rather weird one.

"I wanted to ask you for your experience on some things regarding the subconscious mind," said Beatrice, causing Selena to slightly nod.

"Well, this is a rather weird coincidence," mumbled Selena as she shook her head, feeling quite surprised that Beatrice had begun going down specifically this topic.

A few moments later, Selena let out of a final sigh before beginning to speak.

...

Staring at her tiny teacher, who was currently standing on a chair, next to Garry and Max, frowning, Beatrice took in a deep breath.

A few moments later, Selena faintly nodded.

"Frankly, that's an excellent attempt for someone who has nearly no idea of what they are doing, but sadly, even I won't be able to do anything to these guy after what you have done to them," said Selena whilst pointing at Garry, who was in Max's original body.

After taking in a deep breath and staring at the confused Beatrice, Selena began elaborating.

"First of all, although you seem to have practised partial memory wipes well enough, this is the first time you attempted a full memory wipe, am I right?" asked Selena.

"That's true," said Beatrice, causing Selena to nod.

"Because of this, you were far too rough in your technique, and caused some damage to their souls, this is especially visible on this normal human, although it's also present on this Grand Knight, to a lesser degree."

"Although at first, the damage was light, and could perhaps heal on its own over time, you must have memory wiped these guys at least five times in a single day, most likely to conduct experiments on them, this caused the damage to become worse and worse."

"Secondly, trying to clone people using the souls of other people is a dead end, and will cause all sorts of trouble, if you want to create a real clone, I have created a much more suitable method, which is actually the thing I was meant to teach you once you became experienced enough, that method is the way I was created," said Selena as she shook her head.

Hearing her teacher say that her line of thinking would lead to a dead end, Beatrice felt a little bit awkward, but as she heard the second part of her sentence, her eyes lit up.

"Don't even think about it, although I underestimated your talent regarding the soul, you are not prepared to use my method," said Selena, causing Beatrice to nod.

"Based on my current progress, how far away from reaching that level am I?" asked Beatrice, causing Selena to fall into thought.

"Although that technique is quite advanced, It shouldn't be too complicated in its base form, you could begin attempting it after you become an official mage," said Selena as she jumped from the chair and onto the notebook which sat on a nearby desk.

Before Beatrice could do anything, Selena had jumped into the notebook, leaving Beatrice alone.

After a few moments of thought, Beatrice closed the notebook before placing it into her robe once again.

"I have a lot of work to do," mumbled Beatrice as she looked at the two men, now that this experiment was unsuccessful, Beatrice had to go begin the next one.