Leo was one step closer to his final plan. He had just reached 2nd Star, but he was so much more powerful that he could actually face off against the Blacktooth Gang. The only problem was that he wouldn’t be able to deal with their leader yet.
So he decided that his focus should stay on perfecting his spells till he felt that he was ready to attack them. The spells he could learn were incredibly useful and he would be able to sneak into their base if he learned them.
However, he was extremely exhausted from just breaking through that he decided to stave off learning them until the next day. He just packed up the core and went back to sleep.
The next day, he woke up early. He freshened up and started training. He was no longer planning on going to the forest anymore until he was done with the business that he had. This was partially because he needed to focus on his training, but also because of the latest hunt.
He found an actual 2nd Circle Magical Beast in the Outer Forest. This meant that the forest was far too dangerous for him to venture into it without a proper plan. He decided that he would only go in after he learned all the spells that he needed.
“Why are you not ready?” She asked him.
He sighed. “We can’t go anymore. The forest is too dangerous. Just focus on training here. If you really need archery practice, we can do something about that in a month. Okay? Just give me some time.” He said.
She nodded. “Yeah, that works. I just thought since we were going every day.”
She was about to go out but Leo stopped her. “Wait.”
She turned back. “What?”
“Your money.” He said. He threw a pouch toward her. It had around 60000 Star coins in it. It came from selling the Beast Cores of monsters that she helped hunt down.
“Now get out of my room.” He said. He closed his eyes and shut off his ears to ignore her complaints. He delved into the white space in his mind and started his training.
The first spell that he chose to learn was the Shadow Step. When he touched the book, the silhouette appeared again.
The silhouette’s body suddenly gave out light as the magic rushed to its feet. A shadow started forming at the silhouette’s feet. This was the first time he had seen a shadow there. Even his own body didn’t have a shadow. Suddenly, the silhouette vanished for a split second before appearing a few steps away.
It all happened incredibly quickly, but he was able to catch all of it. The silhouette had merged into the shadow. The shadow itself moved a little before the silhouette reappeared from the shadow. The whole premise was that the magic depended on shadows.
Unfortunately for him, the place he had selected to practice it was the hardest place to do so, since there wasn’t a shadow in sight. As he thought that, the room suddenly changed. He was now standing in a very familiar location.
He was right outside his old shack in the alleyway outside. There were only two sources of light – a small lantern hanging on one of the shacks’ walls, and the moon. The alleyway was filled with shadows. He saw the same silhouette performing the Shadow Step again.
This time, it was able to travel a larger distance in the same time. He quickly readied himself to recreate what it had done. He concentrated and brought the magic to his legs. He realized that the magic was to allow him to sink into the shadow itself.
His legs slightly dipped into the shadow before his concentration snapped. He rose back to the ground without any effect.
He knew he was making progress since his legs slightly went into the shadow. The next time, he gathered more magic, and his body almost completely sunk into the shadow. However, once again he failed to completely immerse himself into the shadow and he rose back to the ground. This was all happening in less than a second.
He took a deep breath and tried again. He fully dived into the shadows and suddenly found himself in a different world. He had gone into the shadow on the ground, so when he looked up he could see everything above the ground in a murky color. The whole world suddenly felt like it was from a different perspective.
He tried taking a step forward, but he had to struggle to do that. Every step he took was incredibly hard. It was like he was going through a swamp. He eventually gave up and let go. He rose to the top.
He looked back and saw that he was a meter away from his original position. When he looked around, he suddenly saw something different. In the sky, embossed into the moon was a gold engraved word. It said, Beginner.
He looked back and realized what the word meant. Since he had started learning the spell, he was considered a Beginner. That meant that as he got better at using the spell, his proficiency would increase. He was just surprised that it accurately depicted his exact state.
He took a second to take a deep breath and attempted to Shadow Step again. This time, he went into the wall beside him instead of the ground. The difference was that it was a lot easier to slip into the wall.
When he entered the wall, he suddenly realized that his perception of the world changed. He could only see one direction and couldn’t turn his head in any way. He could only walk forward, or get out of the shadow. He immediately jumped out and realized why he felt that way.
It was because the wall only let him travel along it while the ground let him travel in two dimensions. He decided to experiment with the spell in the space that he had. He was trying his best to understand the spell because it would be the most useful to him out of the three.
The smartest move to do when facing an opponent you cannot beat would be to run away. As confident as he was, Leo still had to have a contingency plan for when he couldn’t beat the Blacktooth Gang.
He was going to run away into the depths of the slums using the Shadow Step and then quickly get away. Once he was in the slums, he knew he could run away easily. Of course, he was hoping it wouldn’t get to that point.
For the rest of the day, he only practiced that one spell. He quickly started to get the hang of it. In only an hour, he was able to move half as far as the shadow in the same time. He also started getting used to the world in the shadows. However, handling the new perspective and switching out of it constantly was incredibly taxing to his mind. He eventually stopped after another two hours.