“I asked Carrigan if I could join you in your cart for the next few days, I hope you don’t mind.” One of the former prisoners said as he climbed in the back. He was an elf, though his skin was slightly gray. I had initially assumed that it was from being a prisoner, but maybe it was his race?

“Sure.” I said with a shrug. “Name’s Sean. If you’re uncomfortable with that, you can call me by my clan name, O’Carrol.” I added the last bit after remembering Elendria’s issue.

“Wyrran Norie. Please, for now just Norie.” He nodded, settling down as we got started. “I was most impressed with that bit of mana armor you created, though I was wondering why you haven’t laced it with bits of elemental mana?”

“Lack of options right now.” I said with a shrug. “I’m working on establishing my base level spells, I was rather lucky to have the proper spells against vampires.”

“I see. I know you have talked to others, and that you are looking for teachers for elements. If you would have me, I would offer my services. As a Twilight Elf, I have command of both light and dark magics.”

I thought it over for a second. On the one hand, gaining a teacher for these would be an incredible boost. Yet, from what Elendria said, elves tended to use a more emotional approach to magic instead of my knowledge based approach. “I don’t think trying will hurt, though I do have to warn you that I am going for more of a knowledge based approach rather than linking an element to emotions.” In the end, it was the only real choice I had.

“I see. I have taught humans before, so don’t worry. I am more than prepared to help you in that way. Have you unlocked either?”

“I have photomancy, but not anything related to darkness.” I answered.

“That’s a fine start then. Before we begin, we should unlock the shadow element. So, what do you know of darkness?” He asked, looking interested.

“That’s the thing. Shadow is only the absence of light. It isn’t an element.” I said, shaking my head.

“A common misconception.” He replied. “Tell me, if shadow were merely an absence of light, should I be able to do this?” Holding up a palm, he summoned a sphere of darkness. It shifted and swayed, surface rippling as we bounced along the road. “Surely the sunlight would have destroyed such a thing, yes?”

I couldn’t believe it. There was a blob of shadow sitting right in the light! “Well, that certainly proves my initial premise wrong.” I said with a chuckle. “So. What can you teach me of this darkness element? How close is it to light?”

“Perhaps we should compare the two?” He retorted, lifting a brow in my direction. “I’m most interested in seeing how you want to go about this.”

“Hmm. Well, let’s try a few things then. Elendria, could you help out for a second?” I asked.

“Of course master, what do you need?” She asked, immediately sitting up.

“Ever heard of a prism?”

“Yes.”

“Excellent! Can you make me a triangular prism of the clearest ice you can?”

“I shall try my best. How long do you need it to be?”

“Six inches or so should be enough.” I replied, and watched her shift to a cross-legged position and start concentrating. The air between her hands started dropping in temperature, mist coiling around her fingers as it spread. Ever so slowly, a bit of ice formed and spread. She started with an end triangle, then simply extended the ice to finish the prism. I was surprised that it took nearly ten minutes, but when she handed it to me I was shocked. The only way I could tell it was ice and not glass was the temperature.

“This is absolutely perfect Elendria, thank you.” I said, turning away from her blush. “Norie, I’m afraid I don’t have any low level light magics, could you use your skills to run the experiments for us?”

“I have no problem with that, hopefully my skills are up to the task.” He replied with a smile.

“I’ve no doubt the will be.” I agreed swiftly. He never did say how powerful he was, but it did sound like he was a tier two species. “First, something I already know what will happen. If you could, send a small ray of light into that prism, and we shall watch the other side.” As expected, the light deflected slightly and split into multiple colors.

“Ok, just for observation, the deflection is slightly to the left, with red being least deflected.” I muttered. “Alright Norie, if you would switch to a beam of darkness.” He did, though even he seemed slightly taken aback by the result.

“Wow.” It was incredible. Instead of a rainbow, we had a continuum of shadow. Grey was closest to the middle, while something that could give vanta black a run for its money was on the far right, and the entire spectrum was shifted the opposite way of light.

“I must admit, I didn’t expect that.” Norie gasped. “What does it tell you?”

“Well, first it refracted in the opposite direction. That’s sparking a few ideas in my head right now, especially for targeting, but that’s not all. It looks like darkness has its own spectrum, just like light does. Since grey refracted least, it must be the equivalent of red. Lower in energy and longer wavelength. Well, that’s first experiment done, let’s do number 2. Elendria, I’m going to borrow your skills again if you don’t mind. I need two pieces of ice, and make them opaque if you can. I don’t want anything to get through them.”

“Of course master.” She said. This process was a lot easier, and once she was done I took a spare cloth out from my ring and placed it over each one.

“Just in case.” I said, pulling the cloth tight. I then slid the blocks so that they were close together, and placed a cloth screen a few inches away. “Alright Norie, start with a ray of light through the opening, then switch it to a ray of darkness.”

It was hard to tell with the light colored backdrop, but the wave diffraction pattern was barely visible. It was far more pronounced on the darkness. “What does this mean?” Norie asked, confused by my experiments.

“I’ll explain in one moment. If you would, could you do one last experiment for me? In one hand, use 5 mana to summon a light sphere. In the other hand, do the same with darkness. Then combine them.” With a sigh, he complied. As soon as the orbs touched, they disappeared in a flash.

“HA!” I shouted with a clap. “Exactly as I expected!”

“Care to explain to the rest of us?”

“Sure. It seems that here, darkness is the antiparticle to light.”

“I’ve no idea what an antiparticle is.” Norie said, and even Elendria was sitting forward to listen.

“Hmmm. Where I’m from, we know of particles that are so incredibly small, there is almost no way to view them with your eyes. No matter how great you can magnify them. These particles are charged, either positive or negative. Their opposite, or antiparticle, has everything exactly the same except the opposite charge. When they combine, they are converted to energy and destroyed. That’s what that flash of light was, an annihilation reaction!”

“That still doesn’t explain it.”

“I’m sorry. The big lesson is that here, darkness is the antiparticle to light. So that means that it has all the properties of light, except will behave in the opposite under certain conditions. One of which, is refraction through a prism. You noticed that they split in opposite directions, right?”

“Yes.” Norie nodded. “So, I guess prisms are one of your conditions for opposite charge?”

“Exactly! This also means that almost everything I know about light can be applied to darkness as well.” In my excitement, I almost let slip to Norie that I was from another world. I bit my tongue, worried that I had revealed too much, but hopefully I could pull it off as some obscure kingdom in a foreign land.

“Earlier, you had mentioned targeting implications. What did you mean by that?”

“Well, have you ever tried spear fishing?” I asked, getting a nod from both elves. “Excellent. You both know then that in order to strike the fish, you aim lower than what your eyes tell you, correct?”

“Of course.” They both nodded.

“Ever shot that fish with a light spell?” They both shook their heads no. “Ah, well. If you were launching a light spell, you would have to aim at the actual fish, since the water will bend the light. Since our eyes actually see the light coming off the fish, the path of light is easy to use. If you wanted to use a darkness spell, you would have to aim much lower. I would think it would take you doubling the distance that you would normally use when aiming your spear.”

“I’m, not sure I follow your logic.” Norie said.

“I know, refraction angles are confusing. Let’s try it like this. Pretend the spear to the fish is the actual path it would take.” I used mana hologram to create my lines. “This is the path the light takes.” I said, making a dashed line moving up from the fish to the waterline, before bending it down toward the eyes of the fisherman. “You see a false fish on the surface of the water there, which is why you need to aim lower to strike.” I said, getting confused nods from the two elves. “Darkness gets refracted the opposite direction, but the same amount. So if the path of light moves the false fish above the sphere, then the path of darkness would move-.” I trailed off, and watched the light of realization click in Norie’s eyes.

“It would be below the spear. We need to test this!” He shouted, excited. “Though, there’s too much light out. Tonight, we test this!” He cried.

“I assume you have darkvision?” I chuckled.

“Yessss!” He hissed. “This. This could explain so much! Why our fishermen have so much trouble initially when they try and fish above ground!”

“Well, if we already have real world examples, I do believe that this will hold up. And since light is made of a particle that is called photons, I do believe I’ll name their dark counterpart the umbron.” Holding a sphere of mana in my hand, I had to make sure that it didn’t go the way of light. Umbrons. If photons were an electric and magnetic field in one direction, umbrons would be the opposite direction. They refract opposite of what photons do, but obey the particle and wave setup. Everything else about the two was identical, as expected of antiparticles. Opening my eyes, I smiled as I saw a blob of darkness sitting there.

“Beautiful.” I whispered. “So, what low level spells do we need to be working on?” I asked as I turned to see a look of shock on Norie’s face.

“You did it. It worked, you did it!” He started chuckling. “Oh, I didn’t believe it when Carrigan said, but you truly do pick things up incredibly quickly. Alright, give me a moment. While I think of where to go, feel free to play around.”

“Sure thing.” I said, taking the time to switch my secondary class from Aeromancer to Photomancer. I hadn’t gotten the Shadowmancer class, though I think it had to do with not having cast a master level spell. Photomancer probably counted since light was such an important part of the solar sphere spell. Hmm, first I fired off several spells just to get the elemental bonuses. Dark missile, light missile, and elemental imbue got me two of my five required spells for each class in novice. Then I got to thinking. What would happen to an object if I coated it in the grey end of the shadow spectrum? I pulled a small cup from my inventory, and coated it in the shadow, but accidentally got it too dark. A bit of concentration and the shadows shifted.

“What are you trying to do master?” Elendria asked.

“Not really sure. If shadow magic can negate a bit of light, could I make this sort of fade out of vision? It would work a lot better if I had some mind magic to give a bit of a ‘You don’t see me’ vibe.”

“That sounds a lot like Fade.” She said. “Though I don’t know if rogue types can use mind magic.”

“That’s what I was thinking. If nothing else, make it look bland enough that your vision just sort of skips over it.” And it was slightly working. The colors seemed dull, but then again the cup was brown clay. Maybe I needed something brighter? “Elendria, do you have a bit of brightly colored cloth I can practice on?” I asked, not having found anything practical in my ring. Sure, that godawful tent could have worked, but it was a bit large for the back of a loaded cart.

“Sorry master, I don’t.” She said, hanging her head.

“No worries.” I said, absentmindedly rubbing her knee. “Don’t feel bad about it, ok?”

“Sure.” She said, cracking a bit of a smile.

“I might have something you could use.” Norie said, pulling a small square of cloth from a pouch on his waist. “Try it on this.” The square was covered in an elaborate red and gold pattern, and was absolutely beautiful. It brought memories of sitting around a campfire, telling stories and relaxing with friends.

“If you’re sure.” I said, concentrating on the effect I wanted. Suddenly, the vibrant colors dulled. Instead of a bright campfire, it looked like autumn leaves after they had fallen to the ground. I flinched as I looked at the spell description.

New spell acquired!

Overlook (1/5)

Shadow novice

Cause an object to lose its luster. Those who fail to see through the disguise will think it a rank lower than normal (uncommon becomes common). Certain items may be overlooked entirely.

“Oh wow, dropping item values by one rarity if you don’t recognize it’s under a spell?” I gasped as I read the description.

“That’s a pretty impressive effect.” Norie said. “Do you know how you are going to improve it?”

“Oh, yes I do actually.” I said. “If I add select strands from a darker end of the spectrum like this.” I muttered, concentrating. Super thin strands of blackness curled through the paint, making it look fractured in certain spots. One corner even started looking frayed from the concentration of strands. That boosted me straight into an apprentice spell, but no matter what I did from there it refused to budge from level 1 of 10.

“Damn. I guess the next step is to see if I can dampen the aura of a magic item.” I muttered.

“For low level items, this is an incredible spell! Can you teach me how you did it?” Norie exclaimed.

“Seems simple enough. Start with the gray end of the dark spectrum, that’ll mute the colors. After that, use darker strands to simulate wear and tear.”

“Thank you! While I work on that, I have some spells you might want to try your hand at. An easy novice light spell is signal. Simply send up a brightly colored orb. You already have an improvement to candlelight, though the simple light only version might be more mana efficient. Flash is a great way to blind enemies. I’m sure you could get those and their improvements by the end of the day.”

I nodded. I could probably do them right away, but I wanted to wait. Those might startle the rest of the caravan, and I wanted to at least give everyone a warning before trying them. Instead, I tried the light version of Overlook. Instead of making things duller, I made the colors pop. Subtle strands of silver in the flames of Norie’s fabric, along with occasional glittering colors spread throughout made it look much more expensive than the original.

By the time I had perfected Eyecatcher, we had started camping for the night. “Hey Bribis, I need your permission for something.” I said as I sauntered up to him and Carrigan at the campfire.

“Oh?” He asked, interested.

“Yeah. I’m working on learning light and shadow magic at the same time, and one of the spells is signal. I don’t want to do anything that will bring unwanted attention to the camp, got any ideas?”

“I know the spell, and I’m glad you thought to be cautious. As long as the distance traveled by the light is sufficient, you should get the spell. Send it shooting toward the edge of the grass, that should be more than enough. If you can modulate the colors, you can gain novice mastery.”

“Thanks. I should be back in a few.” I said, walking away. I noticed Gareth shadowing me, and stopped to let him catch up. “Guard duty?”

“Yep. I won’t interfere.”

“No worries, you’re fine.” I said. “I am going to learn Flash though, so when I tell you cover your eyes.”

Less than half an hour later I had everything maxed out. Directed flash was easy to upgrade to, and would be much better than the novice version. At least allies behind me wouldn’t be blinded. Shrieking signal was a nice upgrade, combining air magic with the light magic. Since I already had the color modulation, that gave me an apprentice spell that was almost completed. Probably needed an intensity boost, I would check it in the morning.

“Let’s head back for dinner Gareth.” I said with a yawn. “I’ll work on my shadows tomorrow. They are probably better to train in the day when they should be weakest.

That night I went to bed with just a bit more mana than normal, having completed the novice photomancer level. I also thought on the differences between here and home. Could physics be so different that there was an extra particle? I mean, photons are their own antiparticle back home. But that couldn’t be right, as I could summon shadow during the day. Maybe creating them from mana added a distinct charge to it? That could be why the shadow mana didn’t annihilate in the sunlight, but did when it hit light magic. Putting aside thoughts of magic for a bit, I used mana sculpting to give me a view of my family. “Goodnight my princess. Daddy’s trying his best to get back to you.” I whispered, before drifting off.