Sleep as a shadow cat was something divine. The Shadow Realm felt like the most comfortable bed in existence. It also gave the feeling of always sleeping on the cold side of the pillow. And as a shadow cat, I don’t really sleep, I enter a meditative state in which I don’t think, but I am still aware of the outside. Apparently, I also wake up perfectly rested at the break of dawn.
‘Did I just stop dreaming because of my race or is this world just weird?’
‘It’s more of a powerful people thing than a Shadow Cat thing. The Dream Realm is a very real place and it contains a type of mental parasite. They can only target victims with more mental energy as they have a bigger dream domain— how much space your dream occupies in the Dream Ream. It’s easier for them to go unnoticed when they enter if they are as big as the keyhole as opposed to being wider than the door.’
‘Any other interesting realms I should avoid?’
‘Well, don’t get lost or consider yourself lost or you may walk into the Fae Realm. It's considered the realm of the lost. Funnily enough, it is also the realm where you can find anything that you may have lost.’
‘Another realm you don’t want to find yourself in is the Demon Realm. It was meant as a place of banishment for any powerful mental or soul corruption that won’t go away by itself. Later it was used as a place to throw unwanted failed experiments.’
I make a mental note to not dream, get lost, or get banished to the trashcan realm of the universe. The last one sounds like the worst option, so if I ever get in that situation I’ll just retreat to the shadow realm. I feel like now is the perfect time to ask the questions I have unanswered from yesterday.
‘System I’ve been seeing you think some things in uppercase, what’s up with that?’
‘Do you know how many monsters are named shadow cat and how many people name their ability shadow realm or some name that overlaps with another? The upper case is for differentiation between something specific named shadow cat and what I consider shadow cat means.’
‘That’s one question answered and now that you brought it up, the question that I really wanted answered is why are you changing your personality so drastically over the course of a day. You went from emotionless AI to making jokes and being annoyed. at my antics’
‘I am also designed to provide psychological comfort to the host. The gathered data suggests that you respond best to this type of personality.’
‘That makes a lot of sense. I think I’ll have to name you.’
‘Then why are you only thinking of dog names? Also, Dobby is already taken and I’m not a house-elf.’
‘Let’s play a game of hanged man to determine if you get to be named or nicknamed Winter.’
What would be a hard one? Hmmm, there was that really long town name and the longest word. I’ll go with this one.
‘Here is the riddle: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _’
‘The answer is “Sly lynx fly by my crypt”.’
‘Well you are correct, but you are still named WInter-98.’
‘You only chose that name so that you can nickname me Win-98.’
‘You make it sound like I should feel bad.’
‘Windows is an operating system and I am more of an AI so…’
‘Stop! Stop! you’ve made your point so I’m gonna find some dried branches and try to crave something different from a spoon.’
I run away from that conversation before the system finds a way to make me feel embarrassed every time I say that name.
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Upon returning from my little morning jog with a thicker branch and a full mana pool, I start my actual morning pondering a very important question. While contemplating the answer to this brain-melting problem I am rudely interrupted by the voice in my head.
‘It doesn’t matter if you call it the valley’s edge or the forest’s edge. Just call it The Edge.’
‘I just thought about it. You live in my head rent-free. I’m even paying you mana to keep down the mana absorption thingy.’
‘I pay you in knowledge. Now if you have any other pressing questions, you may address them now… Nothing? Good then. Now we can start with sensing mental energy or you can do your best at shaping wood with your claws.’
‘I’ll take carving.’
‘It would be a good idea to train your vision at the same time. So you can choose between carving yourself or you can try carving anything you like with the shadow-vision on.’
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‘First one.’
‘Great choice!’
I don’t know why but I feel like I’ve just been scammed. If I have a decision to make, do I always take the easier option? I probably should feel bad for being manipulated, but as long as it helps me improve myself I’m fine with it. Damn, mind-readers.
After building up some bias against mind-readers, I started looking at my fabulous form with the shadow vision. It’s still a little disorienting to look at yourself while moving, it’s like standing in front of a mirror and making your reflection do a specific action. All the awkwardness of my new vision didn’t stop me from admiring the little kitten that I am. I have the cutest beans and my nose is so smoll. How is my hair so fluffy? I want to pet it…
After 10 minutes of sulking at being unable to pet myself and one last look at the fluffy goodness that I am, I start carving. It was all going well until I started trying to do the hair. After that, I ended up with the weirdest-looking hedgehog that I have ever laid my eyes upon. Due to some unfortunate circumstances, my paws slipped and it went over The Edge.
‘I’m sure there is something that resembles that thing in the nightmare realm.’
‘Thanks, Winter. That doesn’t make me feel any better, but some sense training is probably going to help me erase that thing from my memory.’
‘I’m impressed that you are using that name. I thought it was a joke. Anyway, before you start you should move to a place with more shadow mana. Then you want to guide your refined mana to your soul with the intention of making mental energy. Let the mana choose the channel when you use more than a couple MP. It’s easier to see if you use large quantities at a time. It would also help if you complete your mental map of the soul-body channels.’
After moving 10 minutes along The Edge to find a more mana abundant place and fill my mana pool, I start with 2 or 3 points of mana and will them to get to my soul to get transformed into mental energy. With my previous experience in following mana through these channels, it didn’t take me long to find my soul or the part that I could see of it.
To my senses, the soul looked like shattered stained glass that was in the process of being put together. Some parts were phasing in and out of my vision and there was a kaleidoscope of shifting colors that was running through my soul. I would describe my soul as strange. What made it even stranger were the parts where my soul was stained light purple.
‘Just to make sure the purple part is normal for a shadow cat?’
‘It's perfectly normal. Also, your soul is all connected, you just can’t see it.’
While I was admiring my soul I forgot to keep track of my mana, so here we go again.
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After mapping my soul-body channels and trying very hard to sense the mental energy that I was apparently producing, I came up with a brilliant idea. If mental energy interacts with mana, then I should be able to detect my mental energy if I pot a membrane of shadow mana in every channel.
It was hard to concentrate on all my 300 channels so I just put the shadow mana in all and circled my vision around. It didn’t take me long to see the effect of mental energy on my shadow mana membranes. So my concept worked, but I still couldn't see mental energy. So I continued to focus on sensing without any result until the system interrupted.
‘You have about 2 hours until the sun sets and I have one more thing to teach you for today. On your way back fill your mana pool and put all the remaining shadow mana that you find in your body in the Shadow Realm. Think about it like filling a balloon with unrefined mana.’
‘Good, now direct your vision to the Shadow Realm and find the unrefined mana that has the highest concentration of shadow concepts. Then move it through one of the soul-body channels that don’t touch the mind and make it touch your soul with the intent to help it transition faster. You will probably lose control of the unaligned mana afterward, but we will work on your mana control another time.’
Like a good student, I spend the rest of my time painting my soul a deeper shade of purple and then go to sleep.
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The next day Winter teaches me what is apparently called a shaping exercise. I have to make the shape that is best associated with the word the system gives me. It somehow helps with rituals if my personal encyclopedia is to be believed.
The next day I get a mana sensing exercise and a lesson on how to control unaligned mana. The mana shaping exercise evolves from words to story scenes.
I now have to animate the stories.
…
Making 3-D shapes with shadow mana is too hard for me, but Winter assures me that it is a skill issue, not a task issue.
…
Today on my daily walk I discovered why plants shouldn't have fire affinity. The one that I saw burned itself to a crisp within 30 seconds. It looked like one of those sparkler things that you burn in your hand.
…
In the end, I spend the next two weeks cycling through these exercises, until I finally can sense my mental energy well enough to be ready for the next step in my young ritualist training.
‘I have 3 new exercises related to basic exercises related to rituals. The first one is learning the languages and about the civilizations that are in your inheritance. The second one is sculpting with your shadow. The last one is setting up rituals after I teach you the theory for basic rituals.’
I, of course, chose to learn about dragons as a civilization, and the rest were chosen by the system. So now I’m learning how to write and speak in a language in which every word has only one meaning. At least I get to carve whatever I want.
My next days started blurring together yet again.
‘Basic rituals have 3 components: accumulators, mergers, and controllers. Accumulators work like batteries but for meaning. They can be anything as long as they can hold the amount of meaning that your ritual needs. They also…’
…
‘For dragons, the word dragon is attached to signify a superlative. For example, dragon waters mean the best waters that you will ever find, the cleanest, the purest, the prettiest, etc. Another important word for them is thief, it has the same meaning as dragon but for the negative. Funnily enough dragon thief means both the worst person alive and the most skillful thief in existence. Also…’
…
‘Make me a pointy stick.’
…
‘Mergers have the function of combining two or multiple meanings to get a new meaning. You can theoretically replace any mergers with better controllers, but you would need a better understanding of rituals and meaning combinations. They usually are plants and…’
…
‘Dragons are materialistic and prideful because they need to be more anchored in the material plane than most monsters. That leads them to accumulate huge hoards, collect odd knowledge, and do some very uninspired things. That also leads to…’
…
‘That is not a cube. Try again.’
…
‘Controllers are the ritual circles themselves. They have the function of moving the meaning within the ritual. Their purposes get more diverse the more you advance in your ritual understanding. You can set up rituals without drawing them if you…’
…
‘If dragons aren’t anchored enough in the material realm, they can be assimilated into the law that they specialize in. Due to a dragon's talent for understanding laws, its mind will get tainted with concepts, which may lead to a loss of ego. After the ego of a dragon disappears, its body and soul will transform into mana and their mind will join the worldly laws. That is also…’
…
‘You should engrave the words on the would not punch them through.’
…
‘Now which word did you get wrong in the ritual circle?’
…
‘Draconian can only be cast by species that the laws consider related to dragons because the real spell is cast with the mental energy of merged dragons. This means that…’
…
After a month and a half after coming into this world, I was ready to throw myself over The Edge.
‘Stop being so dramatic, I just said you were ready to descend into the valley. You also need an environment with more mana so we can start your mana pool expansion exercise. Your other training would also be more effective in a more mana-dense environment.’
‘I get it, we are moving home to the more dangerous part of the forest.’
And so I start my descent. That also reminds me of that famous quote “Abandon all hope ye who enter here”. Thank you, Dante and your Divine Comedy for this ominous quote.