Sirius was bored out of his mind, as he watched Eyes of the Forest hold the core of the ghost in her hands. Small layers flew from the surface of the orb, carried by her Astral Body. After observing the thin film she sorted them in small plates. Eyes was deeply engaged in deciphering the life of a warrior, but to an outside observer it was painfully boring, like watching the grass grow.

"So, you just peel one layer after another and try to understand the meaning?" Sirius mumbled with barely contained boredom.

"Oh, I forgot you are here. Do you want to try?" Eyes asked with out stopping the process.

"Can I?"

"It can be tiring for you, but it is a nice training of concentration," she peeled one more piece of the core and inspected it. "Here, take it with your Spirit. Your hands can shatter it easily."

Sirius closed his eyes and locked hands to focus on separating his Astral Body from his real one. He opened his Mind's Eye and carefully took the piece from Eyes' glowing hands. He felt some weight to the small flake, as it was densely packed with colourful mana, with some fleeing emotions radiating from it.

"Why does mana act so strange with emotions?" Sirius voiced the question that nagged on his mind since forever.

"Oh, that I, unfortunately, don't know. Nobody knows, in fact. We can only observe what happens and build upon that. Now focus, what does that fragment say about the man?"

"It is just a mess of feelings..." Sirius furrowed his brows as he strained his senses. "I can distinguish comfort and warmth, nothing more."

"Close enough. That is the binding emotion of this clump. If you try to look past it, there might be more concrete memories, like concepts or even images."

"Look past that? It is all around the flake."

"You think like a Null. The thing is, your Eyes don't need a direct line of sight to distinguish things, you just need to adjust to that particular feeling to see past it. Try to remove it from your senses."

"Easier said than done..." Sirius mumbled, while trying to do as instructed. "Can't we just remove the feelings altogether?"

"Then the memories will just float away."

"So, this strange state of matter is pure emotions and memories? Wouldn't they be everywhere then?"

"I can't say for sure, but I believe the Spirit itself consists of this matter."

Sirius silently tried discerning the contents, desperately attempting to ignore the overpowering warmth he haven't felt for too long. Eventually he gave up and handed the flake to Eyes of the Forest.

"I can't do it. I haven't got the hang of my Eyes yet."

"It's a shame. I could use a hand in that task."

"You say so, but I have only opened my Eyes today," grumbled Sirius.

"Oh, sure. You dealt with a Ghost so quickly I forgot I taught you how to use them," smiled Eyes of the Forest. "That piece contained the memories of home and a family of this man. His comfort food, warm house in a capital, kids, parents..."

"I guessed so..." Sirius said with a longing smile.

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"Oh... That was insensitive of me."

"No big deal. They are in a safety of Kingdom, I hope..."

The awkward silence hung in the room, until Eyes of the Forest took a deep sigh, "I too had to leave my home behind. Most of us had."

"Are you not from here?"

"This city is just two decades old. I was the first to follow the Wish of Nature, when he together with Calmness of Storm began talks about uniting our tribes. He brought our sacred crops to feed the people, and Calmness of Storm's men cleared out the land from wild beasts. Then more and more small tribes came to us, until we achieved this prosperity. My folk though..." she sighed again. "They saw us as a betrayers of faith. Branded me a weed of their sacred garden because I meddled with foreigners. Elder got so angry at them... When everyone who wanted to go after him left the forest, he encircled the whole forest with stone trees, harder than granite."

"And he just left them there?..." Sirius was baffled at the cruelty of the Elder.

"He was the World Shaper. His power could rival that of a deity. He was one for many of them in fact. The area he encircled is self-sustaining ecosystem, with water and fresh air, plenty of animals and plants, so they might still live. But they are trapped there, as trees stop anyone from approaching the wall."

"Didn't they feel betrayed when the entity closest to a god just turned their back to their people?"

"Who knows... Some put their lives on the line just to have a small talk with him. Maybe some couldn't bear the loss of their deity."

"I am sorry for your loss..."

"Don't be. It's been two decades since that happened. They live the life they pursued - that of seclusion."

Sirius sat in silence for a moment, until something caught his attention, "You said that trees don't let anyone in or out?"

"That is true. It's as if the nature becomes more and more hostile the closer you get."

"Don't you find it strange?"

"What exactly?" Eyes stopped reminiscing and focused on what Sirius had to say.

"I have never seen a spell that would work after it was cast. Only if it was a diagram, but I don't believe that the principle is the same, one would need metals for that. The only instance that needed no diagram or anything else was the crystal I created. It was taken away from me, though."

"I inspected it a little, it is in a safe storage underground. But to access it you need permission from elders. How did you create it anyways? The material is unlike I have ever seen before."

"I don't know... Something in my mind just clicked. The ingredients influence the mana, as it travelled through the pathways. It was the cloaking spell, since I needed that the most at the time..."

"Can you show your spell?"

"Huh?... Sure!" Sirius' excitement took Eyes aback a little. He began enthusiastically describing, "the original had a lot of redundant parts, so I rebuilt it into a simpler form. It had three main parts. The opening tube pulled mana from the outside. If it was me who casted a spell, it would focus on my signature, but would pull everything whenever it feels disturbance. Something like a cascade effect."

"It was the signature of the curse though?"

"Yes, but I didn't know that at that point," Sirius finalised the short pipe-shaped construct made of mana. Its surface constantly moved, forcing the mana to pass through it.

"Oh, is it self-powering?"

"No, it will dissipate unless powered. Anyways, the mana was forced into a shell," Sirius created a hard shell from dense mana, covered in a net of strands. "I wanted it to filter out the neutral mana, but the process was too slow, so I had to change things up. I reduced it in size, but the mana pathways turned out to be more important than I thought. This is the most stable structure as I found out. Any less pathways and the shell collapses."

"And this band?" Eyes pointer out the 'equator' on a sphere.

"This seam is also for a reason - there goes this ring," Sirius conjured the third part, a ring-shaped pipe, and filled it with mana. "The mana inside is in constant motion, and I observed that it pulls in the environmental mana as it moves. Therefore I replaced a complex set of chambers and valves with a ring-shaped pipe that soaks in the mana from the inside of the ring, pushing the rest outside. And when it all comes together... There is the cloaking spell!"

"Oh, so it just sucks mana from the outside, filters out the contaminants and expels the rest?"

"Just?..." Sirius was disheartened by Eyes downplaying his achievements. "Well, if you put it like that, than yes..."

"Oh, no-no-no-no, don't be upset. What I meant is it is so simple, yet... genius."

"What do you mean?"

"With some modification and improvement it can be used to pull out the curse from a patient and contain it, while keeping alive! We can study living curse without endangering the patient! Argh, it's a shame I can't use it!" Eyes hit the table lightly, so as not to disturb the core of the ghost.

"What do you mean?"

"My body is not suited for such movement in a spell. Wrong pull and my hand is torn off... Now, go outside. You've been in a hospital for more than a week, you desperately need fresh air."