----------------------------------------
----------------------------------------
image [https://glasswizardchronicles.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/The-Glass-Wizard_Fantasy-Adventure-Magic-Webstory_Webnovel-about-Wizard-Artefact-hunter_Dimension_Ethereal-Mirror-World.png]
----------------------------------------
----------------------------------------
----------------------------------------
The world he entered was both familiar and strange, both mesmerising to behold and terrifying. Everything appeared shattered and in constant movement. It was as if the entire world was made of glass and darkness, with vast crystal constructions stretching off into the distance. The sky was a deep shade of grey. The air was thick with an acrid smell and a strange energy that Yves couldn’t quite put his finger on. The ashen light was refracted in bizarre ways, creating unreal reflections and eerie, twisting shadows. While Yves could never focus clearly on the shattered silhouettes that every so often passed him like fractured shades, he never failed to hear the ominous swelling of soaring sounds that penetrated the air. It was the thundering of mountains breaking apart in the far distance, of rushing sand constantly underlined with indistinguishable mechanical ticking and clicking. Yves felt the sounds revebrating within himself, but, looking down, could hardly recognise his body. To his own eyes, he appeared like one of the many grey shadows that existed here. Some emitted a sensation of beauty, with wings that in this monotonous world had the faintest traits of colour, while others were grotesque, with twisted limbs and teeth that gleamed in the strange ashen light. Where he was now, there were only few that he could vaguely spot in the near distance. Feeling reassured after a thorough assessment of his surroundings, Yves bend down to pick up the crystal half ball, which had entered this world with him, and then left the immediate vicinity of the mirror. His spell kept it anchored in place.
With his poor eyesight, Yves had to be careful not to confuse the wandering entities with his surroundings, as they often seemed to blend into one another. His presence never seemed to bother them, but it startled them greatly when he touched them by accident. None of them had ever emitted a noticeable presence like that which he had felt just after returning, and they had never interacted with one another or himself.
As he delved deeper into this strange land, Yves discovered structures that defied logic and imagination. Despite its name, the mirror world did not reflect a reverse image of Yves’ reality. There were shadow constructions that twisted and turned in impossible ways, and structures that seemed to be made entirely of fractured ashen light, with twisted tree-like poles and jagged mountain formations jutting out of the ground. Yves couldn’t help but feel a sense of awe and wonder at that which he might not perceive. While he honed his skill as a glass wizard to near perfection, he was no longer able to become a seer or visionary. By day, he was a decent light shifter, but he could not see or capture light in the dark, as other glass wizards could. Not anymore. Likewise, as these skills are directly connected, he struggled to recognise the otherworldly and outerworldly without the help of his artefacts. It was a disturbing disadvantage.
If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Yves reached an overarching grey and fractured structure that appeared to him as a narrow tunnel surrounded by vast, thick, impenetrable grey masses. The dread of an unknown observer made him more anxious the further he moved away from his mirror. He entered cautiously, his eyes darting around as he searched for any signs of the eerie presence. While his reality and the mirror world differed greatly, he had often found that elemental forces coincided. He had entered the mirror world several times from within the lighthouse and it was here that he had first learned to see and walk this plane. By now, he recognised the thick, suffocating wades of grey that surrounded him as the ocean. Regardless of where he entered the mirror world, lakes and oceans always formed barriers as a high as heaven. He believed this unusual passage in between to be the narrow and flooded path of land that connected the lighthouse with the continent. He did not know about the pursuer’s abilities, but Yves himself could only leave the lighthouse area through this slim passage, and even here, movement was difficult, as if fighting against invisible forces. He looked for changes in the structures around him, hoping not to find any traces to the pursuer’s presence, any hints that he had already crossed the tunnel. But everything seemed untouched. If the wizard was still pursuing him, he did not yet find him in this isolated part of both their planes.
Yves would not leave their next encounter to chance. He decided to block and hide the path that led to the lighthouse area. However, he had needed three years to learn how to enter and navigate his mirror world existence and had never succeeded to use his energy for anything beyond that. The rules were different, the energies more elusive and capricious. In this world, reality was twisted, warped, creating a partial reflection of the elemental world that was both strange and perilous, while harbouring unknown beings and energies that Yves could hardly grasp.
To cast magic, a wizard had to connect with the essence of the world itself, absorbing the energies that flowed through it and then channelling them through himself. Yves was a Lightshifter. His core disposition was glass magic. All other skills that he developed in casting lights and illusions also belonged to the Lightshifter spectrum. The spectral division of magical potential meant that he was unable to realise abilities that wizards from the two other spectra possessed naturally, such as influencing and utilising the elements, but it gave him the unique ability to enter this world as a fractured shadow of his physical self, a being that was both physical and incorporeal, caught between two dimensions.
Even though Yves did not originate from this plane, existing in the mirror world was proof that he could use magic in this dimension. He utilised the energy that he brought with him to uphold his form, to see and to move. Now he needed to extend this influence from his body to his surroundings.
In any dimension, casting magic exhausted a wizard’s magical energy. To manipulate the mirror world would demand more of his energy. The Tome of the Ethereal Plaine had warned him of exhausting his innate energy to a point where he needed to absorb that of another plane that was not his. Yves had translated the riddled words as a process of consuming while being consumed. This would be his first time altering the mirror plane. However, everything Yves had done within the last ten years, from obtaining the tome and all necessary pieces to creating the ethereal mirrors up to mastering basic control of his mirror world form, would have eventually lead to him casting magic in the mirror plane. It was necessary to fulfil his agreement with the witch mother, so he might as well start now.
----------------------------------------
----------------------------------------