Felix woke up a while later, and the nurses brought him more food, which he happily ate. They told him he was to be confined to his bed for rest for at least three days, while they applied a special poultice to his eyes to treat the extreme light sensitivity he was experiencing, and so his body could recover at least a little bit after he was starving underground. Felix didn't object. Thus, he was left with three days of sitting in a bed, unable to see, so naturally, he turned to Arboro in his spell space, because he had questions.
"Arboro, why was I blinded so badly upon returning to the surface? In my old world, I had heard of miners having similar issues, but never this bad. They just had to wear sunglasses for a while." Felix asked.
"This world and your old world are not the same, child. Did your old world have the great elements?" Arboro asked.
"Well, some people would say it did, some would say it didn't. There certainly wasn't any magic in the world, or if there was, no one could use it." Felix mused.
"Well, was there light and dark?" Arboro asked him.
"Yes. Well, wait. There was light, but, it wasn't really an element in the same way it is here. And darkness was more of just an absence of light." Felix said, after thinking for a moment.
Arboro nodded. "Well, it is not so in this world. Darkness is an active force and an element in it's own right in this world. Your eyes were so sensitive not only because of a lack of the light element, but also because they were exposed to a massive over-abundance of the dark element. You were in the area with the highest concentration of dark element in the entire world in the cave of the Well of Souls, it is little wonder you tried to claw your eyes out." Arboro said thoughtfully.
"You couldn't have warned me?" Felix asked exasperatedly.
"Well... to be honest, as a creature of darkness, I've never had that issue. The thought never even occurred to me." Arboro said, as she shrugged her front two claws.
Felix couldn't really think of any other remarks on the matter, so he changed the subject.
"Another thing... I was thinking about what you said before. About Yin. This feels like a silly thing to ask you at this point, but, what exactly is Yin? I feel like I might have some wrong notions about it." Felix said.
"You're only thinking to ask about this now?" Arboro sighed.
"Even I, the grand dragon spirit of darkness, will not claim to completely understand Yin. But there are some things I can say about it. Yin is the aspect of negativity. It contains many concepts, including death, cold, change, female, time, spirituality, wetness and fluidity, curses, and heaviness, to name a few." Arboro explained.
"So, is Yin evil?" Felix asked.
"Is the reverse side of a magnet evil?" Arboro asked him.
"No, of course not." Felix responded.
"And thus, neither is Yin. Yin is present in all things, and is necessary in all things. To give some examples, a human female will take resources and life force from a male, but in return, she will transform them into children and a household. This is an expression of Yin. The old generations will die, but this will free up social resources and opportunities for the young. This is Yin as well. Everywhere and in all things, you will find Yin, if you just look hard enough." Arboro said proudly.
"I assume the same is true for Yang?" Felix asked.
"Correct. It is merely the other side of the coin, representing aspects such as positive, male, life, growth, fire and warmth, and rigidity. Yang as well is present in all things, and as a male, you are ultimately a Yang creature." Arboro explained.
"One last thing I was curious about. In my old world, according to those people who believed the world did have similar elements to this world, they considered Metal to be a Yang power because it contained lightning, but here it is a Yin power. Why is this the case?" Felix asked.
"Well, certainly Metal is the Yin power I would say is closest to Yang. However, the aspect of lightning is merely the Yang within it. Consider instead the heaviness of iron. Consider cold steel carving through flesh. Consider the toxic nature of many metals, which are known to drive the races to madness, akin to a cruel curse. Consider the defensive nature of the armors you humans so love using. Consider Metal's ability to enable human progress, in similar ways to how I told you earlier a female could transform and improve a male's excess resources. Can you not do the same with, say, a metal axe, chopping a tree, and turning it in to a house? Lightning is merely one small aspect of Metal, but overall, it is indeed a Yin power." Arboro explained.
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"I suppose that makes sense." Felix said, nodding.
"And it is lucky for you that it is a Yin power. Only through your Yin composure as a member of the race of Metal, and your Yin elemental affinities implanted on your soul, did you remain stable and functioning without a Yin spirit. Otherwise you would have fallen out of balance, and probably died, or at the very least become extremely unstable." Arboro said thoughtfully.
Felix shuddered, but then he thought for a moment.
"Wait a second Arboro. You're a part of my soul now, right? And I still have all of that Yin composure, right? Am I in danger now, due to an excess of Yin?" Felix asked, panicked.
Arboro laughed. "No, no. I take all of your excess Yin unto myself, and keep you balanced. Still though, you would be wise to find a forest, or at least a grove, in order to draw wood element unto yourself in order to gain the wood sub-affinity contained within me. It would help to keep you balanced overall... or else you may face issues, after a while." She said, smirking.
"Issues like what?" Felix asked.
"Well... your male aspects may begin to be impacted." Arboro said, while refusing to look at him.
"I will find a forest immediately." Felix declared on the spot. Arboro gave a rather throaty dragon giggle.
"Once a creature of Yang, always a creature of Yang." She chuckled.
"Speaking of Yang... I only had a Yang spirit, but why? Do you know?" He asked.
"I suppose that's because in your old world spirits only contain one aspect. I don't know that for certain, but that's my guess." Arboro said, shrugging her dragon claws.
"You know a lot about spirits and souls, right? Are souls from other worlds common here?" Felix asked.
"No. They're not. You're the first one I've ever seen, and your presence here is a deathly omen." Arboro said, very seriously.
"It is? Why?" Felix asked, confused.
"Because normally, spirits cannot travel here. The Great Yin does not allow the presence of outside spirits because there are a great many in this world already. Enough so, that like I told you before, all of the births in the last ten thousand years, among all species, from humans, to dwarves, to the lowliest of ants, were from the stockpile of souls waiting to re-enter the world. To call them legion would be a vast understatement. So if the Great Yin allowed you to enter... It means that stockpile may be running low, and the Great Yin allowed you in as a test to see how viable it is to allow outside spirits into the world, in order to make up for shortcomings. If the Well of Souls does not resume operations relatively soon... then many more outside spirits may end up entering this world." Arboro said gravely.
"If you had to guess, how long do we have before the Great Yin opens the floodgates?" Felix asked.
"I cannot know for certain, because it is extremely difficult to commune with the Great Yin, least of all in my current state. We would have to get the approval of the other three great Yin spirits to speak to it. But if I had to guess, I would say that we have 20 years before outsider spirits go from basically non-existent, with you being the only one, to perhaps becoming rare, maybe one in ten thousand? But that would obviously still have a major impact on the world. And if the Well of Souls still does not resume operations then, then they will only become more and more common over time. Maybe, eventually, they would make up all spirits in the realm of the living." Arboro said heavily.
"And if they all retained memories of their own worlds... That could be greatly disruptive." Felix added. Arboro nodded in response.
"All right. But why is my spirit so beaten up? And why are some of my memories of my old world missing? I remember a lot, but I feel a lot of obvious gaps in my memories as well." Felix asked.
"Well, it is no easy things to cross the veil between worlds. I do not think I could do it, even as the grand spirit of Darkness. I imagine that you were the test subject, and the Great Yin did it's best to protect you, but who knows what forces exist in the void between worlds? So, you took some damage on the journey. But that's just my guess." Arboro said, shrugging her claws.
"I guess that's fine. I like this world more than my old one anyway. I'm sure the Great Yin tried it's best." Felix said, in a surprisingly upbeat way.
"So, Arboro, I'm going to be sitting here for a while. There's plenty of dark element here, since they're keeping my room dark due to my light sensitivity. What spell do you think I should construct?" he asked her.
Arboro pondered the question for a moment. "Blind." she said. "It is a spell that swarms an opponent's eyes with dark element in order to blind them. It's probably the spell that's most useful for protecting yourself in your current weak state." she said rather candidly.
Felix couldn't argue with her about being weak, so he accepted this. "All right. Can you show me the spell framework?" he asked hopefully.
Arboro nodded. "Sure, that's easy enough." She then formed an outline of a spell framework in his spell space, although it was empty. It was in the form of an eye, with beams of dark entering the pupil. It looked to be about 200 nodes of dark element.
With little else to do, Felix focused on absorbing the dark element around him, and constructing the spell framework. He quickly realized he could construct nodes much more quickly than before, because he was now a middle-grade mage, and his affinity to the darkness had been greatly improved. He was constructing darkness nodes at easily ten times the rate as when he was constructing Night Eye.
This made Felix realize just how unfair this world was. If the difference between low-grade and middle-grade was this obscene... what about middle-grade to high-grade?
He thought about how monarchies eventually ended in his own world... and he thought such a thing would never possibly happen in this world. Not unless the high-grade mages decided they wanted such a thing to happen, for some reason.
It was a sobering thought.
Thus, Felix spent the next three days laying in bed, recovering, being treated, resting, chatting with Arboro, and constructing the Blind spell.