"Now that I have been exposed to the concept, industrialization is also on the list."

"List?"

"Of things to do when I rule the world. Well, things to do in general, rule the world is number two on the list because it gives leverage on the others. Number one is to become immortal and unkillable because almost everything else on the list is really dangerous."

"Heh. Good luck," she says cheerfully.

"...You know, that should really be number two, maybe number one but I think immortality is the easier project... I guess ruling the world is number three now. I really should get a familiar for note-taking purposes."

"A familiar?"

"Small animal, bonded to my soul, gets almost personlike intelligence, follows me around and does what I want? Like a really loyal personal aide who also happens to be a snake or something. Occasionally useful for magic things."

"If you want one for note-taking I assume the snake part isn't literal."

"Mental notes, rather, supposedly they have really good memories. And there's probably a spell that lets them write, which I have not bothered to look into, not having one."

"Oh, huh."

Yawn. "Eugh, who knew sitting still could be so exhausting. I should probably talk to Kanimir before I turn in tonight though, technically I don't think it's been said if my offer of hospitality extends past last night. And ask if he has books on magic I could borrow now that I can read English. And for less endorsed reasons."

"Less endorsed reasons?"

"Uhm. He's very pretty. You're all very pretty, probably has to do with having heard of hygiene and nutrition ever, but he is unreasonably so. I imagine it's a magic vampire thing."

"Oh. No idea. I've met his sister, though, and she's pretty too. And also a vampire. Not magic, but if it's magic he could've done for her."

"Apparently politicians do better if they're attractive, so if there's easy magic to become prettier it would be very useful in taking over my world. Which sounds like a very convenient reason to ask him why he's so pretty and so maybe shouldn't really be trusted."

"Being pretty is an advantage but not a huge one on the scale of taking over the world, I bet."

"It can help with first steps, I imagine. Getting the first country or two and leveraging those into the world. And my world is less connected than yours, it is plausible that I could semi-legitimately wind up in charge of many countries before anyone caught on and I had to switch to conquest and mind control."

"...I advise going heavy on the conquest and light on the mind control."

"Are you concerned I will have trouble maintaining it or do you think it is better for ten thousand to die in a war than for twenty to lose their wills?"

"...I think it's more a matter of misunderstanding what you meant when you said mind control."

"Oh, I wouldn't try to do an entire populace. That would be horrible. Also a logistical nightmare. But mostly horrible."

"I don't know enough about magic to have any idea what the logistics would be like but the horrible part was apparent."

"I would have to do each person more-or-less individually and refresh it personally every couple of weeks. And I actually just can't, I wouldn't have the energy for all of them. Maybe it's doable over a wide area with some big elaborate ritual, but that wouldn't be total mind control, probably just inspiring loyalty and community-mindedness and cooperation."

"Seems like it would have knock-on effects."

"It might. And patching those with more mind control would probably not be a great plan. And eventually I'd want to transition to a mind-control-free society, so it would need to be gracefully removable. If I ever did it I'd do it much more carefully than 'Oh I think these traits would be good in a population.' "