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She smiles and clicks a few more times with her mouse.

"You know that magic is all about will, Huknock. When we learn to use more powerful magic, we're not really using more magic—we're just getting better at asking for what we want. But even so, there's a limit to how much a person can ask for, how much our minds can comprehend asking for. And there's a question of doubt as well. No matter how sure you are of your own skill, people are always going to have that little doubting voice in their head that says: 'Can I really do this?' And for most people, that voice is always going to hold them back just a little bit."

She clicks once more, and you see that she's opened up a new window on one of the monitors. It's another page of code, but this one only has a few lines on it. Squinting a little, you see that the file seems to be named "Spell_Test_1."

"When you think about it, though, will isn't something that's exclusive to humans," your grandma goes on as she meets your eyes once again. "Will is simply the desire, the drive, if you like, to do something. Animals have it—even plants, you could say, have a will, even if it's not a conscious one. Not to say that it's comparable to a human's will, or anything like that, but they do grow and feed and try to reproduce—it's all hard coded into their genetics, but it's still life; it's still a will of sorts. They follow a certain drive, is what I mean. And if you think about it—you could say the same about a computer as well."

She gives you a significant look.

Then, leaving you no time at all to work out what that means, she says:

"I'd like you to think of an object. It can be anything at all, but it will work best if you have a very clear idea of it in your mind. Like something you've seen before—or something that means a lot to you. If the image you have of it is strong enough, then the computer can reproduce it almost exactly. The image, I mean, not the object itself. Perhaps it could in theory, but for now just conjuring the image of something will be a lot simpler as a demonstration—so think carefully of something you remember very well. Hopefully, the computer will be able to conjure it for us."

You think for a moment—and then, a little hesitantly, you tell her: