POV: Johan
When we got back, I wasted no time in returning to the library. Spending half of an entire day slacking off was not something I am comfortable doing, and sadly, that means another late night practice session.
…was I not going to do that in the first place though?
I let out a dry huff. Of course I was, I do it every day.
With tired yet practiced steps, I navigated through the labyrinthian manor to my favorite place in either of my lives. The Nemetz Library.
Swoosh~
The doors were perfectly oiled, though that was to be expected as 1) I use them every day, and 2) they're so deep in the house that the oil freezing is a non-issue.
Within the doors was a heaven for knowledge seekers. Four floors filled to the brim with perfectly organized, sometimes ancient and sometimes new books. I read bloody fast, but even if I manage to live to the natural end of my life (which here is roughly 200 years for magically gifted humans), I might never get to everything.
This is a problem I'm incredibly grateful to have.
With haste I climbed the stairs to the third floor and weaved through the towering bookshelves to my favorite nook. I was expecting to see my pile of unread and currently reading books there, left for me by the librarians on my request…
I was not expecting to see my teacher.
"!!!"
I looked down and instantly began weaving a spell circle.
Construct the spell housing[1]. Two circles, one for control, one for maintenance.
Initialize the control circle. This only needs a short spell encoding[2] of just three instructions[3]. {TAKE-2.D}-{HOLD-2.D}-{FUEL-C} (Take 2star Darkness, Hold 2star Darkness, Fuel Control-type). Now connect to maintenance circle.
The circle instantly connected and began filling its reserves with the mana pulled through my mana circuits, altered with my elemental darkness affinity. As this was happening, I was actively writing the necessary instructions on the control circle for [Shade Split].
[Shade Split] uses 10 instructions, 4 of which encode the actual control system used to control the shadow, 3 allow the shadow to split/be controlled, 2 are used to control the shape, with the remaining one allowing me to sense its position and the shadows around it.
The entire process had taken only 2.5 seconds. Not my fastest, but I was hardly prepared for my teacher to have already surrounded me with dozens of [Shade Split] instances.
Shit, there's literally no way for me to escape this! Think, think, how the hell can I create enough time–
"Why don't you try another?" she said.
I had no time to analyze, I just acted. In record time (1.6 seconds), I initialized another instance of [Shade Split], this time on a medium I had only practiced on a few times.
Ambient shadows[4].
The shadow aspect of elemental darkness is an extremely complex and mystical thing. While much of it can be used in a similar way to how normal shadows work, many applications of it are not like that.
For example, a spell like [Shadow Bind], one I only know about in theory, manifests shadows physically to bind something (called "Solid Shadow"). Oftentimes, this is the most common way a darkness mage will restrict movement, as they take less finesse and are slightly stronger in their restriction than the other method of binding.
Said method has to do with shadows when they are in their more natural state. Using darkness magic, it is possible to affect the object (or organism) the shadow originates from just by manipulating it with elemental shadows. Shade is what shadows that can interact with other shadows are called, while shadelock is when you've been restricted by your shadow.
My teacher is about to use both on me.
With subtle movements in my fingers, I control the shadows to shoot out in the opposite direction to me. Hopefully, if I use the second shadow to defend against shade attacks, I'll be able to escape. So long as none of the shade attacks reach my original shadow, I can avoid my teacher's restriction on that front.
If that were it, things would be far easier to deal with. Instead, I have to pump my legs as fast as possible while barely escaping the pursuing 6 shadows following me.
What my teacher is doing is something I can't even attempt at my current level: spell combination. Even though I haven't seen exactly what spells she combined, I'm sure that these shadows controlled by [Shade Split] have the capability of turning into instances of [Shadow Bind]. They might even have some modified instructions that allow them to be controlled as a group, or that track movement, mana, I don't know.
What I do know is that she is holding back heavily.
With the number of ambient shadows in this dimly lit library, she'd easily be able to take them all over and send innumerable tendrils of solid shadow and shade at my shadow and physical body before I even had the chance to react.
Thus is the power of the greatest shadow mage alive: Olivia Umbra.
When I learned she would be my magic teacher, I made sure to read as much as possible about her, and what I found was quite simply unbelievable.
To start, Lady Umbra gained the majority of her renown from her participation in the "40 Year War". This war occurred even before my parents were born, but its aftershocks still affect the world as we know it.
In it she, a commoner who only attended a lackluster academy in a backwater part of the empire, rose to one of the highest positions in the mage corps: Arcanus Major. At any one time, there are only 100 of these individuals in the entirety of the Doisneau Empire's military.
And out of all of the high-ranking positions, this is one that gets an extreme amount of frontline action. Her escapades are too innumerable, wordy, or straight up classified to think about in this situation, but they're there. And they're real.
After the war ended, she was personally granted the last name Umbra by the late Emperor himself (in tandem with Towers). She was also offered a noble title, but instead joined Towers, which is essentially a group of mages and knights focused on pushing the boundaries of magic and martial arts as we know it.
Basically, she became a scholar-
SHIT!
As fast as my body could fall, I ducked under one of the shadows that literally jumped out of the ground. Mid-air, it flipped around and landed upright.
The shadow itself was an almost carbon copy of Lady Umbra, cheeky old smile and all. If not for my current situation, I would be marveling at the fact that she had fused [Shadow Clone] with [Shade Split], not just [Shadow Bind]. With speed no woman her age should ever be capable of moving, she dashed in my direction as the other 5 chasing my physical body surrounded me.
Knowing each was capable of turning into another solid shadow, I had to do something to make a path.
Alright, I should only need one circle for this, as it will only be temporary. One of the original drills I needed to do to learn the basics of controlling shadows was simply molding the ones in my environment. Typically, this was only a visual thing, but this time I was going to modify the instructions of the simple two-instruction [Mold Darkness] spell.
Just past my right eye, I formed a spell circle with the original two instructions for [Mold Darkness]. Additionally, I added the necessary instructions to turn the shadows I mold into shade types, {Environment}, which allows the spell to utilize the element from the environment instead of needing to produce it through the spell, and {Sight} which when combined with {Environment} makes sight the primary way I will select which shadows to work with. {Environment} is an instruction part of [Shade Split], but it fits perfectly in this impromptu spell.
In less than half a second, the spell was complete. I felt a small wave of mana flow through my circuits as I gained access to any shadow I was currently focused on. With it, I focused on the enormous shadow of the gargantuan bookcase flanking me and manipulated the shadows into two waves of shade.
With them flowing rapidly to my position, I pivoted on one foot and spun around to run towards the incoming shadows.
Work work work work work work work!
All I needed was a moment, just a moment to get past them. With the speed they are running, the waves of shade should block their movement just enough that I could do so.
I held my breath as I felt my vision narrow.
Silently, the five shadows smacked right into the wall of shade separating me from them, but my triumph was short lived.
"Hnn-!"
I was frozen in place. With the amount of focus I was dedicating to escaping the predicament in my current scenario, my control and focus over the two shadows I was controlling with [Shade Split] fell, resulting in the six pursuing shades to get past the lackluster defense the external split was attempting and using some shade binding spell to stop me in my tracks.
Clap~clap~clap~clap~clap~
Lady Umbra slowly walked towards me with a beaming smile on her face. I wanted to sigh, seeing how little distance I made it, but the shadelock on my personal shadow made it impossible to move.
If I was stronger, maybe I could have broken out, but I'm only 7 years old and haven't begun my knight training regimen. Father said it would "have to wait" because it was "too time consuming". I'm really wishing that wasn't the case right now.
"That was absolutely magnificent, Johan dear," she said without even a hint of sarcasm. With a snap, she released the shadelock and dismissed her control over the shadows, as did I. Once shadows are released, they snake back to wherever they were supposed to be, so mine returned to its rightful place under my shoes.
"Sigh, I barely got twenty meters, Lady Umbra. That's hardly an achievement worth praising."
She chuckled, "Oh! I wasn't aware maintaining two instances of [Shade Split], modifying [Mold Darkness] all while actively running away from twelve modified [Shade Split] spells on two fronts at the age of 7 was 'not worth praising'~"
There's the sarcasm, but I had no retort. "When did you get back, Lady Umbra?"
"Changing the subject, are we? Ohohoh~" she said, raising one hand to her mouth. I stared at her blankly, which only seemed to amuse her more, just as it does to my family. "Just a few hours ago, Johan dear. I was so very ill that these old bones simply couldn't handle the biting winter of the north."
Ah yes, the grandmaster darkness mage who had lived through the largest war in the last 1,000 years, and two others which would have had that title if not for the 40 years war, had gotten… sick.
She saw the disbelief in my eyes, to which she faked a few coughs.
"Well, at least you have been practicing what I told you, dear. Even I wasn't able to do what you just did at your age!"
Lady… according to records, you didn't even start practicing magic until you were 10. No fucking shit Sherlock.
Before I could voice my complaints, she silenced them with a book. One that brought more emotion to my face than had been there in the last month combined. It was a roughed up, untitled leatherbound book thicker than my legs, but it was one I was well familiar with.
Lady Umbra's first grimoire. "Lady Umbra, I am delighted to see you have gotten over your illness and are back in good health. I, the eighth child of House Nemetz welcome you to the North once again," I said while performing an over-the-top bow.
I didn't even hear her approach, but I felt her wrinkly hands messing with my hair. "Cheeky one, aren't you… Ohohohoh~" She stuck out the grimoire, "Well, with such a sincere welcome, I think it's only fitting we should proceed with today's lesson."
[1] From "Information: Magic": Spell housings (aka the circle) houses the main “code” of the spell. Making one isn’t as difficult as encoding, but it is not as simple as “spawn circle”.
[2] From "Information: Magic": Spell encodings are essentially "classes" (if you are familiar with object oriented programming languages) composed of instructions (the code in this metaphor), and they are what imparts functionality on spells. Without them, you would just be pushing a ton of mana through your circuits with no end goal in mind.
[3] Instructions are essentially lines of code that dictate certain functions the mana will have.
[4] Shadows from the surroundings.