Felix spent the entire night working on Hex: Spirit Disruption, until it turned to daytime in the world above, and he became tired. He suddenly realized he had no idea what he was going to do about sleep. He opened the door of the chamber, and in addition to food, it seems Scarlet had a slave bring him a sleeping bag and a pillow as well.

She was really thoughtful.

Felix ate, and then curled in for sleep right inside of the dark chamber, feeling just like a fish in water in that space. He recognized that it was probably weird for himself to feel at home in the absolute bottom of a massive crypt a couple of kilometers below the surface, but he also didn't really want to think about it too much, because he was afraid it might change his temperament if he did so.

When he woke up several hours later, he got right back to work again, continuing to work on Hex: Spirit Disruption, and he finally completed it in the late afternoon.

Felix saw a nearby spider hanging out on a wall. He cast the hex on the spider and watched.

For a few minutes, nothing actually happened. Then, the spider started crawling on the wall. It was shaking and flexing it's spider legs a lot, like a person trying to shake the numbness out of their limbs. After another minute or so, the spider started crawling around on the wall quickly, but it's movements looked a bit stiff. After another couple of minutes, it actually fell off the wall and on to the floor, but it quickly scampered back on to the wall. After another minute, it fell off the wall again. It was running awkwardly on the floor, and it tripped once. Then twice. Slowly, it's ability to move around on the floor got worse and worse... and eventually, it couldn't do anything besides weakly flail it's legs around. After a few more minutes, it stopped being able to do even that.

Felix broke the hex on the spider. It sat there unmoving, but after a few minutes, it began to show signs of life again, and it started flailing it's legs weakly. After what Felix estimated to be about a half an hour, it was able to move around weakly on the floor again, and after about two hours, it finally regained full mobility and scampered back up the wall. Felix had watched it the entire time.

It seemed he constructed a pretty good spell, albeit a slow one.

Felix turned his attention to his spell space. He saw Arboro asleep. He let her be and picked up the black book of hexes she had left for him, and turned to the second hex Arboro recommended. Hex: Mana Severance. It seemed the effect of the spell was to slowly cut off the opposing mage from being able to replenish their mana from the environment, making them less and less able to cast spells over time. It was obviously a good choice, and, despite it's powerful effect, it didn't seem to take too many darkness nodes to construct. Felix expected he could probably finish it by the end of the night tonight. So, without much further fanfare, Felix sat down and continued to work.

Sure enough, he finished constructing the hex, went to sleep, woke up the next day, and turned to the book again. The next hex Arboro recommended to him, was Hex: Brain Fog. It seemed it slowly muddled the opponent's thoughts over time, filling their brain with a fog that impaired their ability to think. It took Felix two nights to construct this hex.

On the fourth day, as Felix woke up and turned to his spell space to consult the dark book of hexes again, Arboro finally woke up and turned to him.

"Oh! I'm surprised you woke up so fast!" Felix remarked cheerfully.

"It's only because you found such a darkness-rich environment. Where are we, anyway?" Arboro asked, with a grimace.

"At the bottom of the Belrose crypts, a couple of kilometers below the surface, in a room they built that funnels all the dark energy in the crypt into itself. I managed to construct three hexes in the four days we've been here." Felix said, pointing to the finished spell frameworks on the side.

"That's good." Arboro said, obviously still not back to her usual energy. "This place can't compare to the dark cave of the Well of Souls, but it's decent." she remarked.

Felix thought back to the dark cave where he had met Arboro, and pondered that incident. Suddenly, he remembered something.

"Hey Arboro, do you remember how when we were in that cave, the darkness converted into water for me, and you said Yin elements could be converted back into pure Yin energy? Can you teach me how to do that?" Felix asked.

"I don't think it's very useful, but it's a spell just like any other one. The frame isn't very complex, but here you go." Arboro said, lifting her claw and letting out a slight wisp of energy, which carved out four spell frameworks nearby. The four frames seemed to indicate the four Yin elements, being compressed into the shape of the black symbol of Yin, with a small white dot in the center.

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"I can construct any one of these to make Yin energy right? So I could do this one to convert darkness into Yin energy, right?" Felix asked, pointing to the framework which featured an Ohm, which was the universally recognized symbol of darkness in this world. Arboro nodded slightly.

It wasn't a complex spell. It took Felix only a couple of hours to construct the framework. He activated the spell, which he took to calling Yin Conversion: Darkness, and slowly absorbed the darkness around him.

To call the ratio abysmal was an understatement. It took many times the amount of dark energy put in, compared to the Yin energy he got back out. After some time, he had a small, grain of rice sized lump of dark (although it was clearly different from the darkness of the dark element) energy. Arboro watched him. "Be careful not to house too much Yin energy inside yourself, or you might be physically impacted." she said gruffly. Felix nodded.

"Do you know what this can be used for, besides converting it into other elements?" Felix asked.

"No. To be honest, the only reason I knew you could convert darkness into pure Yin energy was because I happened to experiment with extreme pressurization of the dark element before, far beyond what was reasonable. I'm probably the only being in the world besides you and the great spirits of Yin and Yang who knows this power exists. I didn't have any time to research what Yin energy could be used for before Azula betrayed me, however." Arboro said.

"Conversion of the elements.... Conversion of the elements..." Felix mumbled, thinking intensely. "Hey Arboro, this is just a crazy idea, but... do you think I could use the power of Yin to convert Scarlet's metal affinity to a darkness affinity before her coming of age ceremony?" he asked.

Arboro's eyes shot wide open, and she looked at Felix deeply. "That... if it were any other power, I would shoot down the idea without a second thought, but for the power of Yin... that may actually be possible." Arboro muttered, and she began to think intensely. Felix sat silently and watched. Arboro called over the grain-sized Yin element and pondered it, before she hesitantly reached out and scratched a spell framework into the air. It was a simple frame of a person. Inside of the person was a lightning bolt, the symbol of the metal element, which passed through a single yin element node, and turned in to an ohm, the symbol of the dark element.

"I can't guarantee this will work, as it's a brand new spell with no refinement, but, this should in theory do what you wish to accomplish." Arboro said, as she placed the grain sized yin element inside of the yin node. It seemed to fill it up about halfway.

Felix nodded, and sat down, beginning to construct the spell framework. While he worked, he spoke to Arboro.

"Hey Arboro, I thought the elemental wills themselves chose people for their element at birth, right? So how are there "dark" families or "wood" families?" Felix asked.

"The elements choose, but it isn't at random. The metal element is more likely to pick humans since they're the metal race. If you're born nearby a volcano, the fire element may choose you as it will be easier for you to cultivate fire. And so on." Arboro explained.

"So why did the earth and the darkness choose me?" Felix asked.

"I can't say this with absolute certainty, but, I think the elements recognized your soul was incomplete, and that you only had a Yang spirit. Therefore you needed two Yin elemental powers in order to balance yourself out and not die. I think the earth chose you because you needed it's stability the most, and that's why it's your primary element, and the darkness because it's the most Yin of all of the elements." Arboro said speculatively.

Felix pondered this. "If so, it seems I have to thank the elements for saving me." he said.

"I don't think so." Arboro said, shaking her head. "Remember, you were dragged here from your other world by the Great Yin. It's also possible that the Great Yin personally assigned the earth and the darkness to you in order to stabilize you. If someone stabbed you, but then also put a bandage on you afterwards, would you be grateful to them?" she asked.

"No, I suppose I wouldn't." Felix said thoughtfully.

"And thus is your current situation." Arboro said with a shrug. "Additionally, at least this is how it was when I was still alive and stayed with the humans for a while, and I can't imagine it's any different now, if strong elemental houses happen to not get an heir who has an affinity they specialize in, they tend to just solve the issue by marrying a spouse they can find who does house that element. Thus, the various noble houses tend to be rather cooperative most of the time - they don't want to limit their pool of available elemental matches in the future by slighting another house today, and many of them most likely have some form of familial relation at this point." Arboro explained. "Besides, unless there is some massive enmity, it's much more profitable to exploit the lower classes rather than to fiercely compete with another member of the nobility, and that's before you consider the fact that the demons would love nothing more than if the various human nobles started killing each other. So I imagine the monarch steps in if some large matter comes up." Arboro mused.

"Well, why would the elements pick someone from a darkness house to be fire and metal aspected, like Scarlet?" Felix asked.

"Maybe she has a different fate from her household, as a fighter or something." Arboro said with a shrug.

"Fate... does fate truly exist in this world, Arboro?" Felix asked, looking up at her.

Arboro nodded sagely. "Yes. Fate is the known, the settled, the unchangeable. It is what will be, and what is pre-determined. It is a power which belongs to the Great Yin. Conversely, luck is the unknown, the open, the changeable, the unsettled. It is what may be, and is not determined. This power belongs to the Great Yang." Arboro said.

Felix stared at the spell framework as he constructed it. He looked at the Yin elemental node. And he stared at it for a long, long time.