Elias waited until evening before he finally allowed himself to breathe properly.
His shadows lingered like a flock of nervous birds — still a little too cold, still a little too sharp after the Ever-Winter incident. He could feel their unease. A reaction to the imbalance inside them.
He knelt on the stone floor.
A single candle flickered before him.
"…We need to test this," he murmured.
The shadows trembled.
"I won't do anything reckless," he added.
A lie.
He summoned a thread of darkness, thin and steady, like a ribbon of ink drawn through still water. It rose, coiling gently.
He brought it close to the candle flame.
The flame leaned toward the shadow — not like heat bending air, but like curiosity bending toward its opposite.
Elias held his breath.
The shadow touched the flame—
And the flame disappeared.
Not extinguished.
Not smothered.
Absorbed.
The candle gave a faint gasp of smoke.
The shadow-thread pulsed once.
Elias felt a flicker inside himself, brief and bright, as if a spark of someone else's memory darted across his thoughts:
how fire curls
how heat breathes
how flame consumes
how it combusts with freedom
The tiniest understanding of fire entered him.
Not warmth.
Not heat.
Just knowledge.
"…Huh," Elias whispered.
He held up the shadow-thread.
It remained completely black.
Completely cold.
Ever-Frost inside him had smothered the fire's warmth instantly — not destroyed the flame, but stripped it into essence.
Knowledge without heat.
Fire reduced to its truth.
Elias felt a shudder of realization.
Winter's influence had changed how his shadows consumed magic.
Ice entered without resistance.
Fire entered without burning.
Everything became cool.
A new idea struck him suddenly. Hard.
If shadows could swallow frost…
If shadows could swallow flame…
What else could they consume?
He reached beneath his bed—
pulled out his small rune slate—
and drew a simple spatial fold sigil.
Every student learned the basics.
Most failed.
He'd failed before too.
But now…
He let a ribbon of shadow slide over the sigil.
Just a touch.
Just enough to taste the shape of the glyph.
His shadow shivered.
And then—
The room around him deepened.
Not expanded.
Not stretched.
Not warped.
Just… deepened.
Stone that was close felt farther.
Air felt wider.
Corners felt darker.
Only by a hand's width, but unmistakable.
Elias's heart slammed against his ribs.
He pressed his palm flat to the floor.
"…I understand."
Shadows didn't warp space.
They ate distance.
Not literally.
Not physically.
But conceptually.
Shadows made a room feel deeper, narrower, wider — depending on how one shaped them.
They could swallow the idea of distance the same way they swallowed flame.
He whispered:
"Not mana.
Not space magic.
Just… truth."
His truth.
Whatever it was becoming.
He leaned back against his bed, breath trembling not from fear this time, but from sudden dizzying possibility.
I can expand my room using shadow folds.
Not like mages do.
My way.
No mana signatures.
No Ward-triggering distortions.
Just shadow geometry.
A language he wasn't supposed to know.
A language no human had mastered
And then—
Something else happened.
The shadow-thread in his fingers pulsed once more.
Not frost-cold.
Not fire-bright.
Something in-between.
Elias froze.
That hadn't been the flame.
Or the Ever-Winter flake.
That was… him.
His own truth nudging outward, stirring like a waking animal.
A reminder.
A promise.
A direction.
Something whispered inside him:
deepen
He inhaled sharply.
"No," he whispered. "Not yet."
The shadows settled reluctantly.
He extinguished the remaining candles and lay back on his bed, staring into the dark.
He whispered:
"…Fire for balance.
Space for depth."
The shadows rustled like a pleased sigh.
And then, quietly:
"…You're learning."
He didn't know whether it came from himself—
from his shadows—
or from memory echoing from something ancient he had swallowed—
But Elias didn't sleep for a long time.
Not from fear this time.
From anticipation.
———————————————————————
At the morning, Aster inspected the practice field the way a surgeon inspects a patient before deciding where to cut.
Elias stood in the center, hands clasped behind his back, shadows coiled neatly at his feet like obedient pets.
"Show me," Aster commanded.
Elias extended a thread of shadow and pressed the tip into a dagger-like shape.
It wavered.
Trembled.
Pulled too tightly against itself.
He forced more tension—
—and it snapped apart with a soft whip-crack of displaced dark.
Aster raised a brow behind the mask.
"As I suspected," she said.
Elias frowned. "I can make them hold shape. I've done it before."
"Yes," Aster said dryly. "By brute force. Which is impressive. And stupid. And unsustainable."
Elias waited, silently demanding elaboration through sheer eye contact.
Aster stepped closer.
"Elias… shadows are not tangible. They do not exist as physical matter. You are forcing them to behave like something they are not."
"But it works," Elias argued.
"It works," she agreed, "the same way picking up a boulder works if you shout loud enough. It is inefficient, risky, and will tear something important if done repeatedly."
She tapped her gloved fingers against his wrist, right where a mage's mana circuits would run.
"You are acting as though you have a core, channels, pathways — a system. You don't. So you're replacing mana structure with raw will. That is why your control is astonishing."
She paused.
"And why it is also dangerous."
Elias's jaw tightened. "So what would help?"
Aster drew a sigil in the air — a small, harmless demonstration symbolizing mana infusion.
"With mana," she said, "you could tell your shadows to harden or soften, stretch or compress, sharpen or melt. Mana gives structure. Mana gives rules."
"Without mana," she continued, "you are trying to sculpt mist with your bare hands."
Which, Elias realized grimly, meant that when he eventually formed a core…
His precision would be terrifying.
Aster continued:
Aster folded her arms behind her back. Her voice stayed neutral — too neutral.
"You are thinking about form," she said. "About holding a shape without physical substance."
Elias didn't answer.
Aster continued, tone clipped but instructional:
"Shadow can imitate solidity. It can suggest weight. It can behave as if tangible when your will is absolute."
She turned sharply toward him.
"But you will not attempt to detach them."
Elias exhaled. "I didn't—"
"You did," she cut in. "Or you will. Or you are already considering when the consequences would be 'worth it.'"
Her mask tilted.
Elias swallowed.
"But," Aster added, voice softening into that dangerous instructional murmur she used only for things she shouldn't be teaching,
"You can learn structure.
You can learn tension.
You can learn what it feels like when a shape wants to hold."
She stepped closer, lowering her voice:
"You are not learning tangibility, Elias.
You are learning discipline."
A beat.
"And discipline looks the same, whether one uses it to fold cloth, bind shadow…
or avoid catastrophic mistakes."
She turned away — end of discussion.
"But remember this," she added without looking back.
"Shadow obeys your truth. If you force it to act like a blade before you are ready, it will cut the wrong thing."
She lifted a hand.
"—you must learn the theory."
Elias folded his arms. "And how do I make them tangible without mana?"
Aster hesitated.
Just briefly.
"You can't," she said. "Not truly. Not yet. But you can learn how tangibility feels. How magic flows through a shape. How form is maintained."
Elias frowned. "How?"
Aster gestured toward the training yard where a miserable merchant was being handed a wooden practice staff and a very frightened expression.
"By teaching someone with no magical aptitude how to hide you," she said. "By observing how normal people move. How they defend. How they hold tools. How weight works."
Elias blinked.
"…You want me to study Rellin."
"No," Aster corrected. "I want you to watch him struggle. There is no better demonstration of why magic exists than watching a mortal attempt to fight without it."
Rellin saw them approaching and visibly paled.
"Oh no," he whispered. "Not training. Anything but training."
Aster clapped her hands once.
"Begin."
Rellin held the practice staff like it was a venomous snake someone had carved poorly out of wood.
"How do I look?" he asked shakily.
"Terrified," Elias answered.
"Good," Rellin said. "Means I'm still sane."
Aster walked a slow circle around them, hands clasped behind her back.
"Merchant Rellin," she said, "your job is simple: survive."
Rellin gaped. "That is NOT simple."
"It is for most organisms," Aster said.
She pointed at a wooden dummy in the center of the yard.
"You will learn three things today:
How to stand without dying.
How to hold something without dropping it.
How to scream in a way that attracts help instead of predators."
Rellin looked at Elias desperately.
"Is she joking?"
"No," Elias said. "She never jokes."
Aster added calmly: "When I joke, you will feel dread in your spine just before you laugh."
"That's… horrifying," Rellin muttered.
"Thank you," Aster said. Then she tapped Rellin's ankles with her staff.
"Wider."
He widened them.
"Not that wide. You look like you're birthing a horse."
Elias coughed to hide a laugh.
Rellin shot him a betrayed look.
Aster tapped again. "Less wide."
Rellin adjusted.
"Good," Aster said. "Now you look slightly less like prey."
"That's the nicest thing anyone's said to me today," Rellin said weakly.
"Grip it firmly," Aster instructed.
Rellin squeezed the staff with white knuckles.
"Not like you're wringing its neck," Aster said. "Loosen."
He loosened.
"Not that loose," she snapped as the staff slipped and clattered to the ground.
Elias retrieved it and handed it back.
Rellin sighed. "I miss carrots. Carrots don't try to kill me."
Elias murmured, "Some might."
Rellin glared at him
Aster gestured for Rellin to inhale.
He did.
"Now scream."
Rellin opened his mouth.
Aster stopped him with a raised hand.
"No," she said. "Do not sound like a goat being mugged. A proper scream comes from the diaphragm."
Rellin stared. "I… I don't think I have one anymore."
Elias covered his face with his hand "Guts Rellin, your missing guts" he said amused
Rellin looked at him sheepishly
After thirty minutes, Rellin was sweating, shaking, and leaning heavily on the staff like an old man after a war.
Aster nodded approvingly.
"You are hopeless," she said.
Rellin blinked. "T-that's it?"
"Yes. But hopelessness is excellent cover. Perfectly inconspicuous. No one suspects a threat from someone who cannot walk in a straight line without tripping on their own fate."
Rellin fell to his knees. "Please stop helping me."
Aster ignored him and turned to Elias.
"Watch closely," she said. "Your shadows have learned shape. Now you must learn weight."
Elias tilted his head. "Weight?"
"Yes," she said. "A tangible shadow must understand how a normal object behaves before it can mimic it. Until then, you are sculpting illusions."
She gestured at Rellin staggering around, staff wobbling dangerously.
"That," Aster said, "is the physical behavior of a real weapon in incompetent hands. Study it. Understand where it strains, where it drags, how it shifts. Then your shadows will learn to imitate mass."
Elias nodded slowly.
"…So Rellin is a training tool."
"Yes," Aster said.
Rellin looked up, horrified. "I WHAT?!"
Aster patted his shoulder.
"You are doing very well."
Elias smiled — just barely.
The shadows at his ankles swirled with curiosity.
For the first time that day,
he felt like he was learning, this was no doubt weird but so was he so why not.
After they let poor and exhausted Rellin to return to rest
Aster led Elias into one of the lesser-known training vaults, a narrow stone room lined with sigils that hummed like distant bees. The air here was thick with old magic — not active, but present, like dust suspended in winter light.
Elias paused just inside the doorway.
"What is this place?"
"A diagnostic chamber," Aster said. "Used for studying resonance echoes — the way magic reacts to materials, emotions, or ideas."
She moved to the center of the room, each step perfectly measured.
"Sit."
Elias obeyed.
His shadows slipped out around him, quieter now, coiled like dark threads waiting for instruction.
Aster drew a chalk circle around him — slow, deliberate strokes that hissed faintly against the stone.
"This is not spellwork," she warned. "This is measurement. Observation."
Elias nodded.
Aster straightened.
"Your shadows have absorbed something that belongs to Winter. And you cannot allow a single aspect to dominate them."
She lifted a hand.
"Shadows reflect truth. And truth deepens when it encounters more than one perspective."
She opened a small case.
Inside were objects, each wrapped in linen:
A coal ember, long since dead but still warm in the arcane sense
A glass shard containing frozen lightning
A piece of volcanic ash
A feather that shimmered faintly with residual heat
A smooth pebble that echoed spatial distortion
A vial of still water from a silence-spring
Aster knelt, unwrapping the dead ember first.
"This," she said, "is what mortals call fire."
He blinked. "It's cold."
"All fire becomes cold eventually. But its concept remains."
She placed it gently inside the chalk circle.
"Your shadows will not absorb its heat. They cannot. But they can absorb the idea of it."
Elias let his shadows drift toward the ember.
Aster barked, "Slowly."
He paused.
"Concepts are volatile," she said. "Ideas are more dangerous than elements. Winter's flake was a pure truth. This is a weakened truth. Your shadows must not try to devour it."
Elias nodded, letting the shadows extend just enough to brush the ember.
A faint ripple passed through them.
Heat did not enter.
But something did.
Aster's voice softened.
"Memory. Motion. Defiance. Rebellion against stillness. These are the foundations of fire."
The shadows shivered — as if understanding that truth.
Aster replaced the ember and lifted the glass shard of lightning.
"Next. Storm."
Elias hesitated. "Won't it—"
"It won't electrocute you," she said. "The storm is gone. Only the echo remains."
He extended his shadows again.
This time the ripple was sharper — a crackle through his awareness.
His breath hitched.
Aster smiled under her mask.
"Good. Lightning teaches sharpness. Precision. The moment before movement."
She moved through the objects methodically:
The volcanic ash —
"Teaches pressure. Endurance. Quiet power."
The shimmering feather —
"Teaches gentleness with edge. Heat without destruction."
The spatial pebble —
Elias gasped quietly when his shadows touched it.
They seemed to sink a fraction deeper, like a drop of ink falling into deeper ink.
Aster noticed.
"That," she said, "is depth. Not power. Depth."
The shadows trembled — almost in delight.
"And this last one," Aster said, lifting the vial of still water, "is silence."
Elias raised his brows. "Silence is… a concept?"
"Everything is a concept if you perceive it properly."
She unstoppered the vial and let a single drop fall into the chalk circle.
The shadows reached for it eagerly.
Aster snapped her fingers.
"Gentle."
The shadows slowed, touching the drop like a reverent bow.
The silence that bloomed was not empty.
It was absolute.
Not the silence of absence.
The silence of focus.
Aster watched Elias carefully.
"Do you feel it?"
He nodded. "Everything… softened."
"Yes. Silence teaches restraint. You need that more than anything."
The shadows folded neatly around him — darker, but steadier.
More layered.
More themselves.
Aster erased the chalk with a swipe of her hand.
"This is what you must do, Elias. Slowly. Carefully. Quietly."
He swallowed.
"…Collect concepts?"
"No," Aster corrected.
"Understand them."
She paused.
"And let your shadows become something no single force can claim."
He looked down.
The shadows pulsed — warm, cold, sharp, deep, silent.
Balanced.
For now.
Aster clasped her hands behind her back.
"Good. We will continue this work before you are ever permitted to seek true Ever-Fire."
She turned toward the door.
"And Elias—"
He looked up.
Her voice lowered.
"There is a book, written by someone whose name you yourself are not strong enough to know as of now. He wrote about knowledge, and I believe he was right. Would you like me to transcribe the relevant parts so you can read it? I won't let you even read the words he wrote in case it influences you in any way, but believe you would gain by knowing"
She said slowly,cautiously like fearing that even mentioning this being might bring him here
"Yes, if you believe it to be of help" Elias replied cautiously
———————————————————————
Later when Elias returned to his room after the concept-mapping session with Aster.
He expected exhaustion.
He expected mental fog.
What he did not expect was for his room to feel… different.
Not colder.
Not warmer.
Just deeper.
The shadows gathered around him the moment he stepped inside, swirling in patterns that had never existed before. Not chaotic. Not fractured.
Intentional.
Alive in a new way.
Elias sat on the floor and extended his hand.
A thread of shadow rose.
Smooth.
Sharp.
Perfectly obedient.
He shaped it into a tiny square of fabric — a pattern he had repeated so often his muscles no longer questioned it.
But this time…
It held.
He pinched the corner.
Tangible.
Firm.
Stable enough to fold.
He held it up to the faint light.
"…But why?"
Shadow wasn't matter.
Shadow wasn't illusion.
Shadow wasn't mana.
Shadow was truth.
His truth.
He set the cloth on his palm and studied the way it pulsed faintly, as though echoing his heartbeat.
Aster's voice drifted back to him:
"Shadows are not an element. They are a reflection of what is."
Elias narrowed his eyes.
Reflection of what is.
He pressed a fingertip into the cloth again — no collapse, no dissolving. Instead, it yielded like leather, then returned to shape.
The realization crept in slowly.
"…It isn't shadow that's tangible."
The shadows rippled, listening.
"It's the truth inside the shape."
He shaped another cloth — a slightly larger one. It held as well.
Another.
Held.
A twist. A braid. A knot.
Each time, the result was the same: the cloth didn't exist because he created matter. It existed because his shadows had learned the concept of form.
Form from the concept of Fire: stability through opposition.
Form from the concept of Storm: precision and boundary.
Form from the volcanic ash: endurance.
Form from the silence-water: stillness.
Form from Winter: integrity and cohesion.
He whispered:
"You're stitching concepts into shapes."
The shadows pulsed as if pleased.
"And because truth doesn't require mana…"
He set the cloth down, marveling.
"…I don't either."
For the first time, Elias felt something close to pride.
Or perhaps awe.
His shadows were learning faster than he was.
And that meant he was ready for the next step.
He walked to the far wall.
The same wall he had pressed his hand against weeks ago, when all he could feel was dormant runes and resistance.
Now?
He felt depth.
A faint echo, like a door half-opened in a dark house.
He knelt and placed both palms against the stone.
"Again," he murmured to himself. "Slowly. No brute force."
The shadows gathered at his wrists, pooling around his hands.
He let them seep into the cracks between stones — not pushing, not pulling, only listening.
A soft vibration stirred beneath the surface.
Not a sound.
A sensation.
Like the wall was acknowledging him.
The spatial pebble's resonance flickered in his memory.
"Depth is not distance," Aster had said. "It is potential."
He exhaled and allowed that idea to settle.
Shadows extended further, gently, probing—not forcing anything open, but mapping it, the way he had mapped fire, silence, storm.
More vibration.
More acknowledgment.
A thin line of frost shimmered across the wall — not cold enough to freeze, just marking where his shadow had traced.
The shadows shifted again, and this time—
—space folded.
Just a little.
A pulse.
A ripple like a breath drawn inward.
Elias's heart jumped.
He pressed forward.
Not harder.
Just more truthfully.
"I know you can move," he whispered. "You've always been waiting. You were built for it."
The room responded.
This time, the ripple was stronger — silent, but powerful enough to make the lantern flicker.
The shadows surged, then stilled, then surged again—
—like waves finding the right rhythm.
Then—
click.
Not a sound.
A sensation.
Space loosened.
And the wall… shifted.
Not outward.
Not inward.
It simply wasn't where it used to be.
The air expanded around him.
Elias gasped lightly.
His room was—
—larger.
Not dramatically. Perhaps a handspan. Maybe two.
But undeniably larger.
He laughed—quiet, breathless.
"So it works."
The shadows rippled proudly, curling around his ankles like excited animals.
"Alright," he breathed. "Let's keep going."
He pressed his palms to the wall again.
Roll of shadow.
Press of concept.
Guided intention.
Truth reshaped.
Minutes passed.
Then an hour.
By the time he stepped back, the room had grown by nearly a meter.
A perfect meter.
Clean.
Even.
Stable.
No collapse.
No distortion.
No spatial tearing.
Aster would still kill him if she knew, but—
He ran his fingertips along the newly-shifted wall.
"…Worth it."
The shadows hummed in quiet agreement.
And for the first time, Elias felt a tremor of something that scared him and thrilled him in equal measure:
With enough concepts…
He could make his shadows do anything.
And if he mastered this—
Not even Winter would be able to shape him.
He would shape himself.
———————————————————————
Aster did not bother to knock anymore.
When she needed something, she simply appeared—like a sharp thought given legs. The door-rune flared, the wards parted for her authority, and she stepped inside.
"Elias, we need to—"
She stopped.
She did not move. She was holding a scroll, possibly the transcript she mentioned earlier.
Aster froze so abruptly the shadows recoiled from her boots.
Her head turned—slowly—toward the far wall.
The wall Elias had expanded.
The wall that should not have been able to expand without mana, without spatial discipline, without anything the Academy recognized as possible.
Aster stared at it.
Then at Elias.
Then at the wall again.
Elias cleared his throat. "I can expla—"
Aster raised one finger.
Silence.
The kind that made low-ranking archivists flee entire hallways.
She walked to the wall and pressed her gloved hand to the stone.
Waited.
Studied.
Evaluated.
The stone didn't react, because the stone hadn't changed.
Space had.
Aster inhaled once, sharply.
"…Elias."
"Yes, Prime-Three?"
"Did you," she said very carefully, "enlarge your room?"
Elias considered lying.
He did not.
"…Yes."
Aster slowly removed her hand from the wall.
"So," she murmured, "to summarize: a trainee with no mana, no core, no sanctioned instruction, and no access to spatial tomes… has altered fixed architectural space in a secure compound."
She turned her head in a series of tiny, jerky movements that suggested something was snapping in her restraint.
"Using. Shadows."
Elias nodded.
Aster spoke without looking away from the wall:
"I would like to scream now."
Elias blinked. "…What?"
"I won't," she added quickly, "because that would startle the junior archivists. But internally, Elias? Internally, I am screaming loud enough to shatter glass."
She finally turned toward him.
"How," she asked flatly, "did you do it?"
Elias opened his mouth.
Then closed it.
Then shrugged helplessly.
"I… listened to the wall. And then folded the space."
Aster stared at him.
"…Listened."
"Yes."
"And folded."
"Yes."
Aster placed both hands on her mask as if preventing it from flying off her face.
"You listened to SPATIAL DIMENSIONS and FOLDED REALITY with INSTINCT."
"That makes it sound more dramatic than it was."
Aster made a sound that closely resembled a dying kettle.
Then—
She exhaled.
Long.
Slow.
Controlled.
" you were supposed to learn spatial magic to expand your room, that or make connections to a person having such talents so they will do it for you.. you were definitely not, suppose, to think that laws of magic are mere suggestions, or guidelines than actual rules that govern our reality and relationship with it!" She almost growled, then calmly if not bit exasperatedly continued
"Elias," she said, "for the love of every treaty this kingdom has ever signed—do not expand anything else without telling me."
"Understood."
"Good," she said, rubbing her temples. "Because the next time you do something theoretically impossible, a Councillor will have an aneurysm."
She paused.
"…And I will not clean it up."
She gave him the scroll" read this and please stay out of trouble for five minutes"
———————————————————————
When Aster finally left—muttering to herself about spatial integrity reports, architectural violations, and "young men who fold rooms like origami"
—Elias sat cross-legged on the floor, and opened the scroll, it read like conversation between student and a master:
Student:
Master, you often speak of knowledge as though it were poison. Is it not the calling of every scholar to seek understanding?
E:
It is. And it is also the calling of every moth to find the flame. Tell me, which of them survives?
Student:
You compare knowing to death.
E:
Not death — transformation. There are few things more foolish, or more dangerous, than a young mind desperate to know what it is not yet built to bear. Everything worth knowing carries weight — some light, some heavy, and some so vast they collapse the self beneath them.
The lucky ones shatter quickly. The unlucky ones endure — and endurance is where true ruin begins.
Student:
I thought wisdom was what remained after we endured.
E:
Wisdom is merely the name we give to the fragments that survive our collapse.
Elias pondered the conversation on the parchment, it wasn't hard to see what Aster not so subtly tried to imply
"do not try to know more than you can handle" although he agreed he still felt he wasn't that out of his depth, not yet. Besides it was his ability, his way and his truth.
So he put the script aside to ponder later or ask Aster about it, and went back to thinking his shadows
It didn't take long for him to sink deep in his
The next realization hit him like the first time he shaped cloth:
If my shadows can hold form, what determines permanence?
He summoned a small ribbon of shadow-fabric.
It formed instantly.
Smooth.
Cool.
Stable.
He whispered "What makes you stay?"
The fabric pulsed faintly.
Not answering.
But seemingly listening.
He set it on the floor.
Time to test some of those laws of magic
He stood.
Walked three steps away.
The shadow-cloth quivered.
Then dissolved.
Elias frowned.
"…Distance?"
The shadows curled apologetically around his ankles.
He tried again—this time maintaining a faint tether, a thread of intent.
The cloth stayed intact.
Three steps.
Five.
Ten.
Twenty.
Finally, on step thirty, it unraveled like mist.
Hypothesis:Shadow constructs require emotional tethering to maintain form.
The closer and more attentive he was, the longer they remained.
Interesting.
He would need a neutral party.
So he dragged Rellin into his room after morning drills.
"Elias," Rellin groaned, "if something tries to eat me in here—"
"It won't."
"That's what I thought about the trees too but here we are" he crumbled
Elias handed him a tiny square of shadow-fabric.
Rellin held it.
"Feels like… cold leather? But thinner."
"Does it dissolve?"
"No."
Elias walked to the far side of the room.
The cloth trembled—but did not break.
Rellin blinked. "Uh… it's fine."
Elias walked farther.
The cloth held.
Finally, Rellin said:
"…Is this supposed to be happening?"
Elias's brows furrowed.
"No."
Second hypothesis:Shadow constructs anchored to someone else's perception remain stable longer than those anchored to his alone.
Rellin: "Am I doing magic?!"
Elias: "No. You are… witnessing it."
Rellin puffed up. "Oh. Good. I'd hate to be talented."
Elias stared in deep thought "could it be so simple, he believes it to be fabric so it is?" He thought in wonder.
Elias retrieved:
A candle flame
A sliver of volcanic ash
A vial of low-grade mana solution from the supply stores
The shadows trembled at the sight of the ash.
He absorbed a sliver of flame first.
A faint warmth ran along his palm—quickly swallowed by the cold of Ever-Winter already woven into his shadows.
The shadow-cloth flickered but stayed intact.
Result: Flame concept absorbed. No change in stability.
He tried ash.
A slow pulse ran through the shadow fabric—hardening it slightly.
"Interesting…"
Finally, mana solution.
He dipped a fingertip into the liquid and touched the cloth.
The cloth stiffened, darkened—
—then dissolved.
Elias's breath hitched.
"…Mana disrupts it."
Rellin jumped back. "Mana destroys your shadow… things?"
"No," Elias murmured, mind racing.
"It shows me the limit."
Third hypothesis:Shadow constructs cannot withstand direct mana because they are conceptual, not magical.
To make them truly permanent, he needs a binding agent—
something that bridges concept and substance.
Fire?
Maybe.
Stone?
Maybe.
Emotion?
Possibly.
But mana alone was rejection.
He whispered to the fabric remnants:
"…I will figure you out."
The shadows pulsed.
Confident.
Supportive.
Hungry.
Aster returned just as Elias was recording his results.
She glanced at the shadow remnants.
Then at the burn mark on the floor.
Then at Rellin hiding behind a chair.
She closed the door very gently.
Then said:
"…Elias."
"Yes, Prime-Three?"
"I was gone for twenty minutes."
"Yes."
"And in that time you have:
conducted experimentation,
discovered new metaphysics,
threatened the stability of three academic fields,
and possibly reinvented textile production."
"…I think so."
Aster inhaled through her nose.
"Elias, I need you to stop innovating faster than I can panic."
He blinked. "…Is that physically possible?"
"Which one?" she asked dryly. "You making up things nobody should, or me panicking more when I'm already panicking?"
Elias blinked " um, I feel it's in my best interest to pretend this conversation isn't happening"
Aster nodded sagely "Wise choice "
Elias held the shadow-cloth between his fingers.
The weave shimmered faintly—cold, but not unstable.
He handed it to Rellin.
"Try tearing it."
Rellin tugged.
The cloth didn't budge.
"Is this—shadow? Actual shadow?"
"Yes."
"And it isn't falling apart."
"No."
Rellin narrowed his eyes.
"…Is it going to explode?"
"No."
"Is anything you make going to explode?"
"Statistically? Eventually." Elias nodded seriously
Rellin groaned.
He continued calmly:
"I shaped this cloth with the concept of durability.
That purpose is fixed.
You don't need to believe in it for it to hold."
Rellin tugged again experimentally.
Still solid.
"…Then what does belief do?"
Elias tapped the cloth.
"It strengthens the function."
Rellin frowned. "Explain."
"If you believe this protects you from cold, it will protect you better.
If you believe it muffles sound, it will muffle sound more.
If you believe it disguises you…"
Rellin slowly pulled the hood up.
"…I vanish?"
"No," Elias said gently. "You look like a man desperately trying to vanish."
Rellin dropped the hood.
"So why doesn't it fall apart in my hands?"
Elias answered without hesitation:
"Because I believe it should exist."
The cloth pulsed—softly. Agreeing.
Rellin stared at it, then at Elias.
"…So you're the enchantment."
Elias shrugged. "In a way."
Rellin shook his head.
"If you ever decide to sell these, people will worship you."
"I would prefer they didn't." Aster said dryly with the edge of horror in her voice.
Rellin looked a bit ill at the thought too.