She can keep trying, it really doesn't go nor does it distract her.

… Really doesn't go? She can tell if something goes or not?

She can tell she's not getting distracted, so perhaps it did work but if it didn't it failed to work silently.

"So it might have gone or it might just not work," she says, shrugging. "Maybe let's hope for world peace tomorrow."

"Somehow I doubt it," says Theo. "Unless someone stages a coup with mind control, which– okay, maybe they could."

"...that sounds like it would not bring peace somehow."

"… Might bring an end to fighting if they mind-controlled everyone?"

"Let's hope that doesn't happen."

"It is probably quite unlikely. But it might not be absolutely unlikely if they were in fact scheduled to do it tomorrow anyway." He shrugs. "Maybe you should try doing things like making some medical breakthroughs more likely to occur, if you can just do 'more likely' instead of 'have it happen'."

"I haven't actually tried that yet!"

"Yeah that sounds like a good idea, too."

"Anything in particular? Cancer cures, malaria cures, degenerative disease cures, I don't know what there even is for me to try to increase in likelihood? – I guess I could go for 'all medical breakthroughs'."

"Go for each of them separately, it's probably easier."

"I was expecting it to be easier to be more general, since they're likelier to happen anyway – I guess if I'm just blanket increasing the chance, though, it's more to cover." Shrug. "Cancer first, or malaria…?"

"Hmm you do have a point, though, the probability that at least one of them happens is higher than that any specific one... Well I dunno, does order matter?"

"Order I try them in? Or order of the results occurring?"

"Former."

"I don't think it'll matter if I can't do any of them? But it might turn out that when I can't do something I'm still doing something, just not – immediately visible things, when it comes to floating pens." Shrug. "And if I can do them then I should probably get around to doing them, trying the general one first because a wider variety of breakthroughs is probably better? If I have a stamina thing?"

"If you have a stamina thing then it probably doesn't matter if you go for the wider option or the few option first, since either way you'll find out if it's too large or not?"

"No, I mean – like, if I have a mana thing. Which I might, might not. If I do the broader thing and that uses up some charge for today or whatever, that's maybe better than doing any individual thing? I'm not sure – it all relies too much on how it works, I think."

"True. General thing sounds like it should go first, then. But, uh, honestly in any case these are big enough projects that they're likely not gonna be affected on the scale of days."

"Right, but it might mean the breakthrough is more likely to lead to a proper tool or medicine, or it might just speed it up a few percent," she shrugs.

She tries it: increasing the chance of a useful medical breakthrough of some kind in the relatively near future.

Doesn't feel like anything.

"Either can't do it or it worked," she reports.

"Maybe try malaria next?"