Kayden felt like she was plunged into a warm bath and her shaking began to subside. Pali floated over to her as she slowly regained control of her body and sat up.

“That was quite impressive,” he said. “I did not expect you to pick it up so fast even with these extreme training conditions. Even with your mistake of infusing cold into yourself, it is quite impressive.”

Kayden checked herself over and found that the shadow prowler hadn’t left any marks other than a bruise from when it collided. She sighed in relief. Then turned to Pali.

“It is pretty similar to what I can already do to infuse myself with strength.”

He nodded. “That is why I chose this aspect of shadow magic for us to practice. It will help lead with things that are more familiar. Now, let us practice what you just learned.”

Pali folded his legs, then floated down and sat on the floor before her. The prowler was still hanging in the air from where Pali suspended it, yowling and growling at it kicked uselessly.

Kayden joined Pali in a cross-legged sitting position. This was one of the earliest things Pali had taught her, meditating in order to feel the flow of shadow magic. It was another thing, she had a lot of practice with from her time trying to unlock the mysteries of Gate magic. However, with this, she was a lot more successful. As soon as she closed her eyes, she could feel the remnants of the shadow magic she and the prowler had just used around the room.

“Think back to what you did and how it felt,” Pali guided her through the process. “Do it again, except this time without the cold aspect included. Take your time.”

Kayden did as she was bid. She summoned the shadow dagger back to her hand which had vanished into a cloud of darkness when she dropped it after being hit by the prowler, then she channeled the shadow magic through it. As she attempted to infuse it like she recalled doing, she was once again taken aback by how strange shadow magic felt when compared to her other body enhancement type of magic.

“It’s so eager,” she said. “It’s easy to direct, but at the same time as soon as I turn my attention away, it starts to drift away.”

It was like smoke she realized, easy to move around, but it just kept wanting to spread as much as possible. The more it spread the harder it was to control. Then there was the sticky element. It latched on to wherever she fed it and didn’t want to let go. Hungry is what she called it, and that was the perfect way to describe shadow magic.

“Shadow magic is a finicky area of magic. It is ethereal and therefore deceptive in its simplicity. The more you attempt to control it, the harder it becomes. It takes subtlety.”

As he spoke, Kayden could see what he meant. She kept trying to direct to flow and it was easy enough, it quickly complied with her every wish, but small amounts would escape little by little and dissipate into nothingness until she was left with only a tiny amount.

“How do I control it?”

“Shadow magic wants to expand. It wants to consume. You must not fight its nature or you will lose control. Rather you must direct it at what you want it to consume. Watch me.”

Kayden turned her focus away from herself and what she was doing with the shadow magic. It immediately dissipated into the air. Then she focused her aura sense on Pali. She could see the dark currents flowing through him.

The way Kayden was used to controlling magic was by forcing it to do what she wanted. That worked with the areas she was familiar with. It was like working with a material component, you banged it into the shape you wanted and it retained that shape. But you couldn’t force shadow magic. You could only let it do what it naturally wanted to. But you could direct it to where you wanted it to perform its natural function. In this case, making Kayden lighter by latching on to her physical mass.

Pali stopped channeling so that she could attempt it herself. She could see how the shadow magic grew more unstable the longer she held it, so she was quick to infuse it. As soon as she did, it spread quickly throughout her body like it did before. It was almost deceptive in its simplicity, but again it was difficult to get it to actually do anything other than spread itself around.

But body enhancement was her area of expertise. She had been training with it since she was a little girl. So she directed that desire for the shadow magic to spread and latch onto everything around it into what came naturally for her; her muscle. Like when she had done this in the brawl with the prowler, she got a similar feeling of buoyancy as the shadow magic spread through her body.

She opened her eyes and saw Pali watching her. She tested out this new feeling by moving her arms around in the air. It wasn’t strong enough to lift her up and make her float like the deep denizen, but it did make her movements much easier like there was less resistance.

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“Can you feel it?” Pali said. “The shadow magic has latched onto your physical mass and it wants to—”

“Absorb it,” Kayden completed for him. That’s right, buoyancy had been the wrong way to describe it. It wasn’t that she was being made lighter by something lifting her; she was lighter because there was less of her.

She could only retain this feeling for a short time before the shadow magic fizzled out as it tended to do. But she was glad that it did, because the realization that the shadow magic was actually eating her, made her more than a little uncomfortable.

“That is correct,” Pali said once she lost control of the shadow magic. “Shadow magic phases matter. At its more powerful stages, it can corrupt; reduce things to a state of degradation. Don’t worry, you are nowhere near powerful enough to accomplish that yet,” he added when he saw her sudden worry that she might have done that to herself.

“What you did is phase parts of yourself into something closer resembling shadow, making yourself lighter as a result. In essence, you created a partial transformation. That is the power of shadow magic; change, specifically change through reduction and deterioration. You temporarily reduced parts of yourself by letting the shadow magic consume you.”

“And this doesn’t have any negative side effects?”

Pali chuckled. “No, not in this form. We say consume as a way to describe shadow magic’s behavior but it isn’t actually eating you. It is simply briefly phasing parts of you into a different state, reducing you to a more ethereal material. The consequence is that you are made lighter. It is easier to move. But you are also in more danger of injury from an attacker. Once you master this, we will be able to move on to a full transformation which would make it possible for you to completely phase through obstacles. That way, when someone hits you, their attack goes right through you. But that is for the future, right now, we will focus on partial transformation.”

And that is what they did for the rest of the day. Pali once again had Kayden fight the prowler to practice what she learned. This time, she did much better and it didn’t end with her almost freezing herself to death. However, it did end with her getting a long gash down her arm. But even then it wasn’t bad. The prowler was still a juvenile and its scratches, although painful, didn’t do much damage. It was the fangs that Kayden really had to be wary of. However, Pali was good about stopping the fight before the prowler could get too close to her throat. There were a few close calls that got Kayden’s heart rate racing though.

Because she had shown herself to pick up the movement aspect of shadow magic the quickest, that is what they focused on mastering today. Pali said they would train with concealment another day.

All in all, it was a very beneficial training session. Not only did she get to train in shadow magic, but she also got to train in a real combat scenario. Sure, she wasn’t in any actual danger, but even the threat of minor injury was enough to make this feel more dangerous. Kayden’s every mistake had consequences that were easily understood. It put more pressure on her to train harder and faster so that she didn’t get injured. More than that it helped her to understand that out in the real world, there wouldn’t be someone to step in and save her if she made an error. She needed to get stronger so that she wasn’t a burden.

By the end of the training session, she was completely worn out and covered in minor wounds. But she felt like she had a clear grasp on how to create a partial transformation of herself. It had even gotten to a point where she had begun to trail a shadowy afterimage of herself. The first time it happened, it had surprised her and she thought something was going wrong. The prowler was able to take advantage of her confusion and tackle her to the ground.

Once the prowler had been extracted from her before it mauled her to death, Pali explained that what Kayden had done was a good thing. It simply meant she was getting better at phasing more of herself to the point where it was now physically noticeable. With that, the day ended on a high note.

Kayden was panting heavily in the middle of the room while Pali forced the prowler back into its cage. A few minutes before her last sparring session with the wild prowler, Ruth had shown up. She had sneaked into the room without Kayden noticing because she had been completely focused on the prowler.

Kayden headed over to her now, surprised to see her there. Ruth sometimes showed up to discuss things with Sook about the lab they were setting up, but she never interrupted a lesson with Pali.

Ruth smiled at her and explained, “I knew my services would be required.”

When Kayden reached her, Ruth held onto her hand and Kayden felt a rush of healing magic flow through her body. All of the cuts and bruises closed up. Kayden kind of wanted to keep the injuries as a reminder of the mistakes she made so she didn’t make them again, but realized that would be foolish. If they were going to be doing this every day for the foreseeable future then she would need to be in top condition so that she could train as hard as possible. Her training would be hindered if she began to accumulate a thousand scratches. That wasn’t even considering how difficult and painful it would be for her to perform her other duties.

“Thank you,” she said when Ruth was done. “So you knew about this.”

“It was Cassius’s idea,” she said. “We supplied the prowler.”

That explained it. Pali certainly pushed her hard, but he had never put her life in danger. Sure, she technically hadn’t been in any real danger, but still, not many people would pit their student against a wild animal. At least, not in a civilized place like Mitros. They might do that sort of thing out in the Miriad Wastes.

Pali floated over to them. “Cassius mentioned through Ruth that he wanted you to have more…practical experience. He wants you to be in top shape for your upcoming tournament. I mentioned using a shadow prowler as a potential way to do that.”

“So this was a combined sadistic endeavor,” Kayden grumbled to which Ruth laughed and Pali smiled.

Once they wrapped up a final, brief discussion about Kayden’s progress, Ruth turned to her. “I have some more news for today as well. Sook’s lab is finished. We are collecting all of her stuff right now and heading over there. Do you want to go take a look with us?”

Kayden knew that she would have a bunch of cleaning duties waiting for her back at the training compound, and if she was smart she would head back there so that she could get all her chores done at a reasonable hour, but she couldn’t miss out on this opportunity. Plus, she really wanted to be there for Sook, so she quickly agreed to tag along.