I wake up sore, but I am happy with my progress. I wish we could stay longer. I can only imagine how powerful I would grow with several months with Krell. After Krell and I eat another cold breakfast with tea he takes me down another corridor to a teleportation circle. I warn him that the servants of the God of Fire are watching for me to use a portal or teleport, but he says I should not worry, we are shielded. They can’t track a teleport if the space it traverses is shielded. The teleport takes us to a large natural cave that extends as far as I can see.

“You have ignored Darkness Shaping except for dimensional shaping and even that you have foolishly ignored.” Krell stated with his facial tentacles twisting in a way that seemed to imply disproval.

“Well dimensional shaping just increases my inventory space while I maintain it. The cost drains me enough that I don’t see using it in combat, since I would have to stop using it to fight. That would cause me to drop random items from my inventory.”

“With your current intelligence I thought you would be smarter, but maybe its inexperience. When you enter a dungeon do you know that in many cases the first room is a safe room to let the party member gather and regroup?”

“Yes, I know that.”

“So, if you use a high level of dimensional shaping you would expand your inventory to take more items into the dungeon and drop them off in the safe room for use in the dungeon. Also, you could gather items in the dungeon and drop them in the safe room until you are ready to leave and then place them in your inventory temporarily until you exit the dungeon.”

“Oh.”

“Ha, a very succinct summary.”

I am sure he is laughing at me as he continues. “Now ignore that for the moment. We are going to focus on learning what darkness is and having you shape it. Darkness is not just the absence of light. You have created a Dark Flame spell., which is a mixture of Fire and Darkness. I am sure that was an interesting learning experience, but forget all about it. We are going to focus purely on darkness. What do you think darkness is?”

“I would have said the absence of light, but based on what you have said that’s the wrong answer. I guess it is the darkness element, like the air or fire element.”

“That is not a bad guess. Darkness is the infusion of darkness aspect mana. The six elements can occur in nature, but for the purposes of magic they have no meaning without mana. Some will argue that spells can be used to create an element without it being infuse with elemental mana and that is true, but those spells all use raw mana to generate an effect, which generates natural energy in the form of an element.”

“I am not sure I follow that. Can you give me an example?”

“Sure, there a spell Light Lance that generates a condensed beam of light and heat. The spell itself uses mana, but the resulting lance is purely natural light and heat. It would pierce a shield designed to just stop magic and is very useful for that reason.”

“Ok, thanks.”

“Now, I am going to put out my light and we are going to sit here and I am going to start to manipulate dark infused mana. I want you to try to sense what I am doing. Don’t let yourself slip into using Air Sense. It would be easy to do. You must focus on the darkness. Now take a seat. I will also be channeling some of the mana through you, so you can feel it with your whole body. You can resist this only by using darkness if you can figure out how, otherwise you will have to endure the debuffs you will suffer.”

I take a seat and shortly after that Krell puts out the glowing ball of light floating by his shoulder. I can feel air movements around me, but I resist using Air Sense. I feel something icy hit me in the chest and I see I now have a 20% reduced movement rate from Shearing Darkness hitting me. I am not sure how many times I was hit by Shearing Darkness, but I haven’t been able to sense anything until the next time I am hit. When I am hit, I have been preparing myself by infusing mana into my body. When the spell hits, I try to infuse my mana into the spell. It takes two more hits before I can match my mana to the same favor of the spell for lack of a better term.

I try to infuse my body with the same type of mana now, which still inflicts me with the same debuff, but when the spell hits me it bounces off. I hear Krell laugh. “That is one way to learn how to use dark mana.”

I now try to extend the mana outside my body were it rapidly thins out and disperses. I focus on making it more compact and extend it as tendrils, until the next spell hits. It bounces, but rips through the thin tendrils I have created. Something good comes from it though. When the tendrils are severed, they hold together for a few seconds and I realize I can sense them and feel them disperse into the air. I try to repeat this just waiting for another spell to hit. After another hit, I get the hang of it and make a tendril that I sever on my own. Next, I start forming balls of darkness and throwing them. They dissipate quickly, but some hit barriers and other spell formations of darkness around me.

I begin to sense the spell formation around me as I try to make different shapes out of darkness mana and throw them away of myself. I try to maintain a connection with them as they get further away. I finally get to the point I sense one of the Shearing Darkness spells heading toward me and I generate a large ball of darkness, which it collides with, shattering both spells. I feel a wave of dizziness and something wet on my lip. I use my tongue to get the coppery taste of blood. Looks like I gave myself a noise bleed.

Krell tells me to take a break and regenerate my mana. After my mana pool is full again Krell starts firing condensed balls of darkness at me, but I can dodge these and I am getting better at sensing them, especially since it really hurts when they hit me. Krell has me try to create shapes made from darkness to deflect and absorb the balls he is throwing at me. I am only partially successful by the time he calls a halt and summons a dim light, so we can eat lunch. Krell never seems to be uncomfortable with eating in silence. I can’t think of anything to ask him that doesn’t sound contrived.

After we eat, he extinguishes the light and continues to throw balls of darkness at me, but they are moving faster now and hit harder. That motivates me to get better at generating a shield. Unlike the Air Shield layers don’t work. The layers just merge together. I try several different things and while I can make a shield thick enough to absorb the balls of darkness it is consuming a lot more mana that the air shield does. After struggling for a while Krell yells. “Why do you think it should remain static? Move.”

I try to get the darkness that makes up the shield to move. I try making rings on the surface, but they just thin out in the center. I finally hit on bands rotating around my body and that works great. Once the flow is going it is easy to maintain and I can tell it’s much more mana efficient.

Krell changes strategies and starts firing blobs of dark mana that stick and smear across my shield slowing its rotation. I must push more mana into the shield to keep it spinning. It takes me several tries, but I figure out that if I surge mana into the shield, I can blow off the outer layer and maintain the shield, while shedding the dark mana blobs. I must repeat doing that until I run out of mana and Krell has me rest.

I try to figure out a new approach while resting. The blobs stick to any dark mana they encounter. Any dark mana I hit them with either gets absorbed making it bigger or it blows through it only removing a part of the blob. I have an idea, which may work. This time when the blobs approach, I start shedding a layer of shield, which propels a thin sheet of mana at the blob, which wraps it. As soon as it is covered it contracts and dissipates, which is much better than I expected. I continue to shed layers to wrap the blobs of darkness. Not all of them cleanly enfold the blobs of darkness, but I am getting better at it.

On our next break Krell says he is going to switch to using a combination of Light and Dark magic on my shield. Assuming I can handle that he is going to start using fire as well. I find myself thinking Krell and Captain Varus would get along great with each other, which elicits a small laugh. Krell stares at me with his tentacles oddly still. I hope my laughing didn’t piss him off. After I finish regenerating, he starts sending tentacles at me, but this time I try forming thin tendrils of dark mana that whip around my shield. When a blob hits one I sever the tentacle, which sends the tentacle slashing through Krell’s dark magic, breaking it apart. This approach is much better for me. I don’t have to focus as much and can spend more time watching for approaching spells.

Shortly after I succeed with my new shield my shield is hit by a compact ball of darkness. When the tendril rips the ball open it explodes with light and erodes my shield and severs over half of my tendrils. I quickly change my shield back to a more compact spinning mass. The next ball that hit explodes when it hits my shield and nearly punches a hole. I can feel three more balls approaching, so I try something I haven’t done since I started forming the shield. I gather a ball of darkness in my hand, which is a slow process while maintaining my shield. Another ball hits before I have my own ball ready, which I throw at Krell’s ball of darkness. When they hit, they both explode, but well short of my shield. Krell begins to send the spells faster and I manage to take out about every other one, which gives me enough breathing room to maintain my shield.

We spend the remainder of the evening with Krell sending more and faster ball of darkness incased light. He never does switch to using fire. I am not sure if he just said that to throw me off or not. As we are heading back to my room, I take a moment to look at the notifications I have flashing.

You have learned the skill Dark Sense, 100 XP awarded, Basic 1.

You have learned the spell Dark Shield, 100 XP awarded, Basic 1.

You have learned the spell Sphere of Darkness, 100 XP awarded, Basic 1.

You have reached Novice rank in the Skill Dark Sense. 200 XP awarded.

You have reached Novice rank in the Spell Dark Shield. 200 XP awarded.

You have reached Novice rank in the Spell Sphere of Darkness. 200 XP awarded.

You have reached Beginner rank in the Skill Dark Sense. 400 XP awarded.

You have reached Beginner rank in the Spell Dark Shield. 400 XP awarded.

You have reached Beginner rank in the Spell Sphere of Darkness. 400 XP awarded.

Very nice. This is some very quick advancement. I wait until we get back to the room, so I can shower and get ready for bed. I ask Krell if I can see Nora and he says maybe tomorrow. She is in the middle of training. Sitting on the edge of my bed I look at the descriptions of the new skill and spells.

Skill: Dark Sense, Beginner Level 5 (23% progress to next level)

This skill allows the user to sense Dark Mana within one foot per skill level. This skill also allows the user to sense their surroundings while in darkness within five feet per skill tier.

Dark Shield, Level 3, Beginner Level 3 (57% progress to next level)

This spell creates a shield of dark mana to protect the caster. The shield will absorb thirty points of damage plus ten points per skill Tier level.

Range: Self

Duration: 1 hour plus 1 hour per skill Tier past Basic

Cost: 25 mana

Sphere of Darkness, Level 3, Beginner Level 1 (11% progress to next level)

This spell creates a sphere of compress dark mana that can be hurled by the caster at any target in line of sight. The sphere will cause thirty points of damage plus ten points per skill Tier level.

Range: 10 feet per skill Tier

Duration: Instantaneous

Cost: 30 mana

These should all serve me well once I leave the Capital. Training with Krell has been worth it. I lay back on my bed and it doesn’t take long before I am soundly asleep.