Eliza stepped through the doorway and looked around the simple square room. The walls were a pale white color, as was the floor, which had three cushions arranged in a triangular pattern in the middle of the room. Demitrus was sitting cross-legged on one of them.

He yawned, and Eliza focused on him, particularly on the hand that he used to cover his mouth. It seems like he had gone through a transformation as well. His left arm was covered in the same black armor as Eliza’s legs, and his fingers had elongated into sharp jagged claws. A quick glance at his right arm revealed that it hadn’t gone through a similar transformation.

Seeing her come in, Demitrus flashed Eliza a bright smile, showcasing his sharpened canines.

“Morning, Your horns must’ve given you quite the wake-up call.” He said with a playful gleam in his eyes while she walked over to one of the cushions.

“Must you make such off-handed remarks so early in the morning?” She sighed, sitting down on the softer-than-expected cushion.

Demitrus rested his head in the palm of his new claw while his elbow sat on his right knee, “How preposterous to insinuate such! I wouldn’t dare approach our situation off-handedly. Rather, I would employ a hands-on approach,” He said with a small lift to the corners of his mouth as he sat up and held out his left claw.

Eliza glanced over with a raised eyebrow and a small smile of her own, “You used some pretty big words there, you alright?”

“Worry not for my eloquence, my dear friend. Instead, I would caution you against your tendency to run head-first into any situation. Horns or not, it's bound to give you a headache.” He said.

“How lucky I must be if my greatest flaw is that I use my head too often. You, however, hardly take anything seriously with that beaming smile of yours. Maybe being beamed in the side of the head knocked some sense into you.”

“You say that, but as I recall, you were the first at my side when I came to. Dare I say that you’ve become rather fond of this smile of mine?” He asked with a smirk.

Eliza snorted and gave him a slightly exaggerated look of distaste. “As if, How pitiful must a person be if a simple smile from you was enough to sway them.”

“Is that so? I’ll be sure to keep that in mind-” He began to say.

“Ahem.” A voice interrupted the both of them, causing them to jump and spin their heads to see Io sitting on the last cushion. He looked different than he had appeared before, almost twice the size he had been.

“Are you quite finished yet? If so, I would like to proceed.” He said.

“Uh y-yes,” Eliza coughed into her fist and looked away with a slight heat coming to her cheeks.

“Fascinating,” Demitrus mumbled with a surprised look in his eyes before asking, “How long were you there? I didn’t notice you come in at all.”

“What do you think, Isradine? You’ve been silent this entire time.” Io asked, directing his head to Isradine’s form that was floating above Eliza and Demitrus.

“Since before Eliza and I entered the room,” Isradine said. Eliza looked up at Isradine with a mix of surprise and indignation. Why hadn’t she warned her?

“Very good. At the very least, it seems you haven’t forgotten the basics.” Io said before turning his eyeless head toward Eliza and Demitrus. “As for you two, it seems we need to work on your ability to detect external mana when it's being used...” He said while standing up. As he did so, thin whisps of black mana began to seep off of his form and into the air around him.

“...First, look straight ahead and close your eyes. I want you to then focus on me and try to detect me. We’ll move on once you both have successfully done so.”

Eliza closed her eyes as instructed and took a deep breath to calm herself. Then while continuing to breathe deeply, she mentally reached out and looked for the mana in the air the way she had been taught when she was younger. Almost immediately, she could see the mana around her far clearer than she had ever achieved before. After completing the task's first step, she moved on to the second, detecting Io.

It was here where she hit a roadblock. She had no issue detecting the mana in the room. No, the problem was that other than Isradine, who she could clearly sense above her due to their connection, all of the rest of the mana in the room looked the same. She focused on where she knew Io was standing, exuding his mana. Eliza furrowed her brows in concentration, and after a minute, the only difference she could detect was maybe that the concentration of mana was a little higher?”

Another minute passed, and Eliza didn’t make any progress. Eventually, Io said, “It's been a couple of minutes. Do either of you think you’ve figured it out?”

“I have,” Demitrus said, his voice calm and full of confidence.

Eliza herself wasn’t so confident but slowly nodded her head anyways, refusing to be shown up by Demitrus. She had experienced being taught by her family's mages before and refused to believe that Demitrus, who almost certainly hadn’t received formal instruction, would be better at doing this than her.

“Very well, Then keep track of me as I move around the room. At some point, I will swing my tail at you, and I expect you to be able to avoid it.” He said, and then the room fell silent. The was no physical indication that Io was moving around the room. No floorboards creaking under his clawed feet, No movement of air as he moved around the room, nothing. As far as Eliza could tell using either her physical or magical senses. Io hadn’t moved. And so, she panicked.

She scanned over all of the mana in the room, desperately trying to see where Io was. But it was to no avail, as after a few moments, Io’s tail audibly whacked her on the forehead hard enough to cause her to recoil back. Immediately her eyes opened to see Io standing above her, looking down with a displeased downturn of his mouth. “Eye’s closed until I say so.” He simply stated.

Demitrus chuckled, and Eliza’s face flushed red from embarrassment as she closed her eyes again. She couldn’t see anything, and what infuriated her the most was the fact that she had no idea why she couldn’t. It was only slightly gratifying when another audible smack sounded out a moment later, followed by a thump as Demitrus was knocked to the floor.

“Wha-?” Demitrus said Bewildered

“You may open your eyes,“ Io said, wooden floorboards creaking as he moved back into the middle of the room. Eliza opened her eyes as he came to a stop and turned to look at them, “Now, where do you think you went wrong? You first,” he said, looking at Demitrus, who Eliza saw was sprawled on his back.

“I-” Demitrus hesitated before admitting, “ -don't know,” he said, rubbing his neck as he sat back up. “I was sure I could feel your mana moving behind me, but then your tail came from the front. Also, why did you hit me so much harder than her?” He asked with a glare.

“Simple, as the instructor, I make it a point to be the happiest one in the room. Since you clearly took so much joy at her expense, It necessitated that I must derive my joy from yours, and the best way I’ve found to do that is through causing pain.” He said before turning to look at Eliza, “How about you? Where do you think you went wrong?”

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Eliza furrowed her brows. She still had no idea. As far as she knew, she had done nothing wrong. The mages had praised her before, saying she was exceptionally talented, but as much as she hated to admit it, she was starting to have suspicions that it may have been lip service.

She shook her head, “I don’t know. I could see all the mana in the room, but I couldn’t see any differences between your mana and the ambient mana in the room.”

Io nodded, “And why do you think that is?”

Eliza scowled. If she knew that, then she wouldn’t be having this problem in the first place. “I don’t know. If I had to guess, shadow mana has an inherent quality that I’m unfamiliar with that makes me unable to know how to distinguish the difference.”

Io tilted his head from side to side, “Close, but not quite. While Shadow Mana does have its own inherent qualities that make it different, that's not why you were unable to detect me. The problem lies in your approach. Namely, you relied on what was taught by the surface races to sense mana.” He said. Turning his head back down toward her.

Eliza waited for him to continue.

“From what we have observed from fighting surface magic users, they fundamentally interact with mana differently than we Demons do by treating their mana essentially as fuel. As a result, they merely push their mana out, manipulating and controlling it into complex spells, but not holding any sort of connection with it. Such is not possible for Demons. We live and breathe mana. It is as much a part of us as we it.” He said, beginning to walk to one side of the room.

“Each clan knows of this difference between us and the surface dwellers and, in their own way, have taken advantage of it. For us Shadow Weavers, we use our mana to manipulate the shadow attribute mana that naturally collects within shadows around us to cloak ourselves. To the surface dwellers, we practically become physically and magically undetectable." He said with a bit of enthusiasm coming to his voice as he stopped on the left side of the room and began to walk toward the other, "Our more advanced techniques allow us to even hide from other Demons that rely on mana to see, but I digress.” he said, coming to a stop in front of Eliza.

“You need to learn to not look at but feel the mana. To let it be a part of you and exist with it. By doing so, the differences between my mana and the ambient mana will become quite clear. It’s important that you learn how to do this because you will never detect any potentially hostile shadow weaver, which, right now, there are plenty. Tell me, can you distinguish between your own mana and My Ladys'?” He asked, tilting his head toward Isradine.

Eliza blinked, surprised by the unexpected question. “Not really, no."

“After having gone through your transformations, a pool of your own mana would’ve begun to develop, only controllable by you. It's important that you learn to distinguish between your mana and My Ladys’ because you won’t always have direct access to her mana pool. When that happens, you’ll find that your own mana won’t be as well-behaved and easily controlled as my Ladys’.

“...I see,” Eliza said as Io walked in front of Demitrus.

“As for you, you could barely detect my mana, but not well enough. You need to be able to distinguish whether I am behind you or in front of you. Otherwise, it’s child's play to distract you with a little bit of mana as a diversion.”

“What? You using a diversion wasn’t part of the assignment.” Demitrus said, furrowing his brows.

“The Patriarch once taught that it's important for a teacher to help their students have impactful experiences,” Io said, facing his head toward the ceiling as if he were mimicking a sage in deep thought. “I am, of course, happy to oblige. And since I find joy in granting those impactful experiences to my students, I naturally look for any opportunity to provide them.” He said, his head returning to look at both of them with a sinister grin on it.

Isradine let out a sigh as if she had heard this spiel before, and Eliza felt a chill go down her spine.

The smile on Io’s face widened, “Now, why don’t the both of you try again?” he said. Before turning to address Isradine, “My Lady, I would appreciate it if you would restrict her access to your mana for the time being.”

“Very well,” Isradine said. Almost immediately, Eliza felt her connection with the mana within her disappear. It was still there, but it no longer responded when she tried to manipulate it. A few moments later, she felt...different. Without access to Isradine's mana, it was as if she was growing weaker by the second. This continued until it felt like it was hard for her to even breathe.

Eliza looked sidelong at Demitrus, and both of their gazes met. Demitrus had a look of apprehension in his eyes that Eliza was sure mimicked her own. As it stood, neither of them could detect Io if he didn’t want them to. Additionally, he was powerful enough that Salendal ran away when he appeared. Unfortunately, she had no idea what, if anything, there was to do either. So with a bit of apprehension, she hesitantly closed her eyes and faced her head forward.

“We’ll continue until the both of you can at least detect me reliably,” Io said, and the room fell silent once again.

Eliza looked around at the mana around her, again finding no difference from the time before. She tried to feel the mana as she had been instructed, but she had no idea where to start. How does someone feel mana anyways? While she was trying to figure it out, she suddenly doubled over in pain when Io’s tail practically slammed into her stomach. Eliza gritted her teeth as she sucked her stomach in from the pain. Taking a couple of deep breaths to calm herself down, she sat back up again and continued.

However, the lingering pain made it hard for her to focus on the mana in her surroundings. Thanks to that, it was also hard for her not to focus on the mana within her as opposed to the mana outside. She furrowed her brows, trying to concentrate, but intrusive angry thoughts kept surfacing about Io’s particular teaching method distracted her.

A moment later, she heard a muffled gasp from Demitrus as he took another hit. She forced the angry thoughts back down, knowing that another hit was coming for her next, most likely, and soon. She didn’t appreciate having to figure out how to do this under the pressure of an impending ‘impactful experience,’ nor did she appreciate not being able to focus on the mana around her due to the pain in her stomach. …unless that was the point.

Io had specifically spoken about the difference between Isradine’s mana and Eliza’s own. He had also had Isradine restrict her access to Isradine’s mana and then, potentially, deliberately hit her in the stomach to force her to focus on the mana there. So maybe ‘feeling’ the mana had something to do with Eliza using her own mana? It couldn’t hurt to try was the first thought that came to her mind, but another refuted that because she knew that if she was wrong, she was likely to take several more hits.

Having no other ideas that she could think of, she decided to go with it anyways. Bracing herself for come what may, she delved into the unresponsive mana pool within her looking for ‘her’ mana. It took a bit, but due to the unresponsive nature of Isradine’s mana, it was quite clear when she came across a pool of mana that did respond to her. It was small and, compared to Isradines mana, quite underwhelming.

The mana trembled as if Eliza’s comparison was an insult to it. Ignoring it, Eliza reached for the mana to direct it, but before she could mentally grab ahold of it, it recoiled away, as if it was unwilling to be controlled by her. She furrowed her brows in frustration.

“Oy, what do you think you’re doing?” she thought at it. The mana didn’t respond to her question, so she reached for it again, and it dashed away again. Eliza gritted her teeth, a bit impatient due to the impending attack, and began to mentally chase after it. It slinked away, trying to hide within Isradine’s mana, but by this point, Eliza was able to distinguish between her mana and Isradine's quite well. Thus began a cat-and-mouse chase between them.

She was vaguely aware of Isradine watching the whole exchange go down with what appeared to be amusement, which brought a tinge of heat to Eliza’s cheeks. But she ignored it, instead redoubling her efforts to catch her errant mana.

After some time, she managed to corner it and mentally lunged for it. She managed to latch on right as she took another swipe to the side of her head.

Barely managing to keep ahold of her mana, she sat back up, rubbing the spot where she had been hit. Ignoring the pain, she returned her full attention to her struggling mana.

She directed her thoughts at it again, “You’re in MY body as MY mana. Listen to me and stop struggling.”

It continued to resist for a few moments before, slowly, stopping and holding still.

Eliza internally sighed in relief. She directed the mana to move through her body, and it, begrudgingly, moved through her mana veins and slowly seeped out into the air. Once it was out, Eliza felt a clear connection between her and it. Temperamentality aside, it was clearly an extension of her.

Moving on, she expanded her mana out into the air to try and ‘feel’ the mana.

Almost immediately, she felt a difference in manas in the room. The clearest and most familiar was Isradines’. Apparently, Isradine had been able to somehow manipulate her own mana whilst Eliza was entirely unaware of it.

Expanding her mana out further, she became aware of another strand of mana that she followed back to its source, Demitrus.

Now that she was aware that it was his, the only way she could describe the feeling of his mana was that it felt like him. She shook her head, dispersing the thought and quickly pulling her mana away from his.

Which turned out to be the correct move as she felt another distinct mana, one that was rushing right toward her head. Immediately Eliza ducked, and she followed the mana as it rapidly passed right over her…stopped…and came back down, hitting her in the middle of her upper back. Thankfully, it wasn’t as hard as any of the previous hits.

She followed Io’s mana as he started moving back toward his cushion. A moment later, something about his mana changed, and then she could hear the wood creaking under his steps.

“That is enough. Pull your mana back, all three of you,” he said.

Eliza complied, ordering her mana back. She opened her eyes to see what it looked like as it reluctantly slinked back to her. Visually it was similar to the shadow mana she had seen up until now, the key difference being that there was a higher concentration of the purplish color than in Isradine’s mana. She raised her hand, and her mana wrapped around it before seeping into the mana veins and traveling back to her mana pool. She mentally let it go, and it immediately pulled away from her mental grasp.

Sighing, she returned her attention to Io.

“Well done, both of you.” he said, “ It takes most newborn Demons a couple of days to reach the level you’ve achieved this session. The biggest obstacle, of course, is having the ability to control your mana to the extent that you can externalize it. Our next session will be mid-light tomorrow. I want you to practice your basic mana control and sensing abilities until you can detect at least ten of the constructs around the building before then.” He said, before directing his attention toward Isradine, ”My Lady, continue practicing the corrections I showed to your technique. You’ll be caught back up in no time at this rate.”

“Thank you, Io. I don’t miss our sessions.”

A smile came to Io's face. “Ah, good to see that fifteen years weren't enough to change you,”

“In all the ways that matter.” Isradine simply replied.

“That’s good. To finish our session today, I’ll briefly review pertinent information for you three.” He said, sitting back down on the cushion. His Deminor suddenly changed and a somber air fell over the room.

“The clan leader is ill, and It’s expected that he’ll die within the next few years.” He said.