Dear Friend,

I am sending you this letter to discuss the consequences of this conflict. As you know, you and I are the first supporters of peace. Neither of us wants to go through again what led to the Schism.

Excerpt from a letter, hidden in the secret archives of Irvanon.

After waking up and going through his morning routine Mat prepared to put into practice what he had learned the day before. It had been three days since he had been separated from the others, and he did not miss them. Did they think he was dead? After what he was planning does they might be right.

He hadn't eaten yesterday, and given the expenditure of energy he had made and planned to make, the hunger was beginning to be insistent. At the very least, it was annoying. It was time to hunt. And to venture out. To test himself.

Leaving his lair, Mat arrived in the forest. It was as dark as ever, except for the sky. Mat ordered to see. He was obeyed. The shadows could no longer hide from him. He smiled. That was the easy part, now it was time to do something a little more demanding.

His power for the moment remained limited, he was perhaps close to a point of power but that didn't mean he could become overpowered so quickly, but he certainly had a lot of advantages to him, nevertheless, his new skills didn't need to go to his head. That was how you ended up dying.

Using his new vision in the dark and shadows Mat quickly spotted what he wanted. While his magic could allow him to see more easily in the dark, it wasn't all-powerful, Mat thought that he probably had the vision of a nyctalopia animal, which meant his night vision was all shades of grey, and when the darkness got too deep, he couldn't pierce it. This was still an extremely useful advantage for him, especially here, where the shadows were strong, but the light was still sufficiently present for him to observe his surroundings easily.

Whereas before Mat had felt he was alone in the forest he had been wrong, greatly so. He could see many spiders, silently waiting along the trees. So many that Mat wondered how they could feed. Perhaps they were going out of the territory to hunt? This did not correspond to the behaviour he knew of spiders, admittedly he was not an expert but still. He should stop questioning everything, it wasn't the first time he was faced with physical and natural impossibilities. Even though he had been in this world for several months he was unconsciously reverting to what he knew of his world. This world had different rules, and he had to integrate them much more than he already had.

It made Mat think, even if this world had different rules, it had some similarities, so if these spiders were too numerous to feed on the hunt, then that meant they could feed in other ways. There were thousands of them above him, and if they weren't clumped together, they were still close. The closer he brought his vision to the power nexus, the more numerous they were. Were they using the shadow realm to sustain themselves? If so, how could he do the same? No information on this subject could be found among the information he had found.

For the most part, the scroll that had opened up the field had only given him a few ideas and specific spells, for the moment he was going to be content with following the instructions, but he had already understood the essentials of how this magic worked. It was a matter of discovering the patterns of the magic and then imposing his will on the world to make the magic work. It sounded simple, but it wasn't. But Mat was confident he could master this magic with a little more experience.

Approaching his first target Mat hesitated. The spider was stuck to the tree, a shadow surrounding it making it difficult to see if he hadn't used shadow magic. Even though the spider was dark, Mat could easily see it because he could see what was around the arachnid.

Given where he was Mat should have suspected that the inhabitants of the domain had some mastery of the shadows. Did this mean that if he used the magic that allowed him to use shadows to hide, the spiders could see him? He needed to test this hypothesis before continuing to venture closer to the power nexus as he wanted.

Scraping the earth a bit in search of a stone, he finally found one that would suit him. Using the weave to increase the power of his throw Mat threw the stone. He missed. By a wide margin. Mat swore.

He was going to have to train his hand-eye coordination. The spider had still reacted to the throw, turning towards the noise as the stone hit the bark, but quickly returned to its stillness.

Finding a new stone Mat began again, the stone landing slightly ahead of the arachnid. The beast threw itself, its speed impressive. When it realised that no prey was present the spider turned around to look for it. Before it could realise that there was nothing, another stone hit it directly.

The spider screamed, running quickly down the tree towards the thrower. Mat quickly hid, using magic to make himself harder to detect in the shadows. Now was the time to see if all his plans would fall through.

With his sword drawn, Mat waited to see if the arachnid saw him and went to attack. He was against a root, using magic to hide. He didn't have enough power yet to use the advanced ability that would allow him to blend directly into the shadows. For the moment he could only use magic when the shadow was large enough to hide in. It was not yet time for him to be able to hide from others in the shadows in daylight.

It wouldn't have been much use to him if he wasn't in the Emerald Kingdom, where the thick canopy made the forest twilight.

Attentively, Mat watched the spider. It had arrived at its previous location, only a few meters away, the arachnid should be able to spot it easily. It did not. Mat smiled, if the spider could use any of the power of the shadow domain it was limited in its abilities. As the spider left to resume its position along the tree, visibly displeased, Mat leapt. With a Weave of Augmentation, he sliced downwards, decapitating the spider in one blow.

If the sepulchral silence of the forest were not so oppressive Mat would have laughed with satisfaction, and he would have done so doubly if it were not for the risk of attracting the multitudes of spiders waiting above him.

Cleaning his sword, and looking at the spider Mat finally decided not to take its corpse back to his lair. He would eat later, for now, Mat wanted to get closer to the treetops. And hopefully, spot the guardian of this domain.

Watching the trees around him carefully Mat had to choose his path carefully. Even if he was going to use magic to hide, he would also get very close to the spiders. He planned to climb these trees, which meant that if the spiders spotted him he would be defenceless.

Mat summoned shadow claws on his hands. With their help, he began to climb the tree. Shadow magic was adaptable, it was possible with it to make oneself solid, liquid or gaseous. And this affected the body of the user himself when the mastery of the shadow realm was greater, something Mat could accelerate if he used the nexus of power to deepen his colour in his prism. This would give him greater access to the domain and its power. However, this would not mean that he could do anything foolish, for if he were to achieve his ends and accelerate his access to the domain he would lack two essential things. Competence and mastery.

Skill for the types of power he could use with shadow magic with the magical forms that worked and mastery for his ability to use it. Which meant he would have access to the power but no way to use it, for now.

He was getting a little ahead of himself in thinking about this, but Mat had high hopes. The main drawback of the shadow domain was that it needed the shadows to be used. To eliminate, or at least reduce, this disadvantage he had to become a true master-mage.

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Approaching one of the first spiders on his chosen path along the tree Mat slowed down. From the beginning, he had been using magic, after his tests the previous day the effort involved was minimal, especially with the nexus of power above him. He would have to experiment with this again when he got out of this part of the forest. For now, he could use shadow magic for a long time before his prism could no longer withstand the effort.

The spider was less than five meters away from him, another one was right next to it, he would have to pass between the two. Gradually he climbed up, attentive to the slightest movement. Mat could see the multiple eyes of the arachnid right next to him, the shadow hiding him well. If the spider had seen him he would have had to drop down, hoping to catch himself against the bark before crashing to the ground.

Spiders were particularly sensitive to vibrations, so in addition to using a spell to hide in the shadows, he had surrounded himself with a bubble of silence. Climbing gradually up the giant tree Mat slalomed between the spiders. A little after the halfway point of his climb Mat had to stop. The number of arachnids was increasing and the path he had chosen was interrupted by a spider moving along the tree.

From the beginning he had been very lucky, most of the spiders seemed content to stay where they were. Mat didn't know why, but it suited him. But his luck couldn't last forever, and he found himself stuck.

Holding on with one of his shadow claws at the tree, Mat reached inside his armour to pull out one of the stones he had planned for this moment. Hoping not to miss his target Mat threw the stone. It hit the bark of the tree three meters away from the spider and the spider jumped, as did two other spiders. The three spiders collided, two managed to stay on the tree but the last one fell, letting out a scream that alerted all the spiders around. Mat swore silently, it wasn't meant to be like this. All the nearby spiders turned to look for the source of the noise, some even moved in his direction.

Mat took no time to think, he climbed, now that the previous spider had given him space he had to react quickly before the space became inaccessible to him. Quickly, weaving the increase, sweat on his brow Mat advanced. As he moved forward Mat released the shadow spell in his right hand and clumsily drew his sword. With an upward motion, he slashed at the spider that had come too close. The spider fell without a sound.

Still, in a precarious situation, Mat sheathed his sword before starting to climb again, leaving the area where the spiders were active behind him.

This disaster had at least taught him something, even at less than a meter from a spider, he remained hidden. This meant that if he moved forward near one with a quick sword strike he could kill the spider that fell from the tree and open a safer path than having to slalom between the various monsters.

Deciding to be cautious, he only used this technique when he had no other solution. He continued his gradual climb, avoiding the monsters as much as possible. He had to kill eight spiders that blocked his way before he reached the first spider web.

He was getting tired, Mat did not expect the climb to be so demanding. However, he thought he should still have enough energy to reach his target, the first branches of the tree. Once there he could afford to rest.

Pulling out his dagger Mat sliced through the spider web that was in his way. This one was much stronger than he expected and he had to use a lot of force to cut it. Fortunately, Mat had sharpened his dagger on his whetstone before leaving in the morning.

Cutting enough to let it through Mat breathed a quiet sigh of relief when he was finished. More spiders were waiting on their webs, but the web of spiders was sufficiently tight and large that it wouldn't budge despite Mat's efforts to push his way through it. Even the quiet wind blowing where he was could not move the web.

Passing this obstacle Mat looked up, he still had a quarter of the way to go, the number of obstacles being much greater than it was before Mat thought that it would take him much more effort to make it this last quarter of the way than he had done to get here.

Fortunately, his use of shadow magic was getting easier the higher he climbed and closer to the node as the Eldar called it, the nexus as the person who had written the parchment describing the shadow realm called it.

Even though he was still far from the nexus Mat sought to draw the power into his prism, accentuating the colour in it.

Managing to maintain three shadow spells at the same time over such a long period of time already spoke to the quality of being near a nexus of power. Namely his shadow spell hidden in the shadows, his shadow claws and the bubble of silence around him.

Mat was looking forward to using the signature magic of the shadow realm to blend completely into the shadow, make it his cloak and use it to appear several feet away using the shadow as a doorway to travel through the shadow plane. Once he crosses the shadow plane he will be able to exit it further than where he entered it, as if he teleported.

Cutting through a cobweb that was in his way again, Mat felt the cobweb move. He stopped what he was doing and observed his surroundings.

In the distance he could see a spider almost four times the size of the others moving from one tree to another, using the spider's web as a road.

Mat could easily get rid of the spiders he had encountered on his way up here, especially using the ambush, but faced with the size of this one he wondered if he could kill it in one fell swoop as he had done with the others. He wanted to try.

As the monster moved away the monster decided to take away his opportunity to attack. Although Mat would have to wait until the monster spider was close to the tree before he could try anything. Mat couldn't climb the spider's web, it was too sticky and he risked getting stuck in it. And he certainly didn't want to get stuck there and end up as a meal for this arachnid colony.

Finally approaching the branches of the giant tree, Mat climbed it with difficulty, his arms aching and his back sore. Sitting down on the branch he sighed with satisfaction, he had made it. Half the way up was done.

He had chosen to climb this tree specifically because it was one of the two closest to the power nexus. From here he couldn't see it, even though the power nexus was not something visible in the physical realm. No, he would have to use the technique he had seen in the Eldar scrolls, with this technique it was possible to see the tapestry of the world, it was like perceiving threads that met in a particular place, forming a kind of knot, the closer one was to the knot the more uniform the colour of the power nexus became, until it formed the dominant colour of the domain. Here the colour was black and Mat could see it heading between two large trees, hidden behind the leaves of the tree.

The nexus of power should be accessible between the intertwined branches of the two giant trees.

Positioning himself against the bark of the tree, lying on the branch of the tree Mat rested, within eight meters of him there were several spiders, but he did not let that disturb him. He let only his spell keep him hidden in the shadows so that he would not wear out his prism too quickly.

Given the size of the tree Mat had planned to find a place where he could hide and rest for the night, he didn't think he'd be able to make it to the nexus and back down. Anyway, the whole point of his climb was to get close enough to allow him to take some of the power of the nexus for himself. And that could take some time.

Now Mat began to regret not eating that first spider of the day, he had been too enthusiastic, it was unlikely he would be able to find anything to eat here. And even if he did kill one of the spiders he wouldn't dare feed on it without burning it in the fire first. No matter, he would just have to fast for a few days. It wouldn't be the first time. Maybe he would even figure out how the spiders managed to feed on the shadow as he assumed.

Once sufficiently rested Mat set off upwards again. Navigating between the banks of trees, he noticed that the presence of spiders the size of the first ones he had encountered was becoming less and less numerous. This did not mean that there were fewer of them, no, the higher he climbed, the larger the arachnids became.

Mat didn't dare attack one of them, taking the risk of warning all their fellow spiders. The advantage of the size of these huge spiders was that they were more widely spaced, which gave him room to get around them easily.

As he got closer to the nexus Mat thought that perhaps he should find somewhere to rest. The climb had been hard and the fatigue in his muscles was getting stronger. As Mat assumed that the owner of this place must be the closest to power he preferred to be in the best possible condition. Knowing that the Being whose domain this was must be well versed in the use of the shadow domain, it might be impossible for Mat to use magic to hide from him. He would have to use more discretion.

Finding a corner between two tree branches where no spiders had taken up residence Mat began to look around for leafy tree branches to cut down so that he could build a hiding place. Taking the last few hours before dark to prepare a hiding place, that would allow him to release his magic. Mat sighed when he had finished.

His hiding place looked really shabby, but it would suffice for what he had in mind. If he couldn't get any closer to the nexus, this was where he would stay while he absorbed some of the power for himself.

Entering with difficulty between the branches, Mat twisted, squeezed, he lay down. Alone, in the cold, in a space where he barely had room to move his legs, and none to stretch them out, Mat released his magic, ears alert. He heard no screams, no sound of an approaching multi-legged monster.

Simply breathing quietly, Mat closed his eyes, tomorrow he would meet the master of this domain and make his power his own