World Keeper

Chapter 537: World’s Shadow

Thelsa sat within the darkness of her shadow home, one hand resting on a yellow book bound with a silver clasp. This had once been the book that Sora Sparks had used to study her magic. It was filled with complex spell diagrams that she used to test herself, deciphering their individual meaning.

Now, it was a book without an owner. Although it had been some time since her friend had passed, the wound felt just as fresh. In the back of her mind, she could still hear Sora chiding her. “I’m already gone.” She would say with a self-deprecating smile. “You should move on, Thelsa. Be the best you that you can be, for me?”

“But I never wanted to lose you like that… it was my fault.” Thelsa found herself muttering aloud, her hands grasping the book a bit more tightly.

“None of us knew what was going to happen. You gave me a great life, and great friends to enjoy it. Just look outside, see Petra?” The voice in her mind seemed to urge her on, and Thelsa found herself watching what was happening outside of the shadows.

Petra had joined an adventuring party within Fyor, and they were preparing themselves to ascend to the next floor. Petra and Thelsa knew what to expect there. The civilization focused on the development of ki. This would be the first time in Fyor’s history that they would have ascended into a layer that was truly inhabited by a well-developed civilization.

“She’s a brave girl.” Thelsa found herself muttering again. She knew that the pain was just as hard for Petra to bear, and yet she had taken the initiative to appear in public.

“That’s right she is!” Sora would have answered with a laugh. “Now… don’t you feel like you should be a bit brave, too? You can still help people, Thelsa. But, not by sitting in here alone, trapped in your own despair. That’s not your style. That’s not our style.”

Thelsa shook slightly as those words resounded in the back of her mind. She knew it was right, these words were coming from herself after all. Just a projection she imagined of her departed friend. She hesitated for a moment, before snapping open the clasp of the yellow book. Sora was gone, but she would never be forgotten. She was Thelsa’s oldest friend, her first shadow reborn time and again.

She opened the book, and began to study through the designs, just like Sora once did herself. She could almost feel the warmth of Sora reading over her shoulder, the feeling becoming more distinct with every spell she solved.

Eventually, she reached the end of the book, feeling as if she had gained a new understanding of her old friend. She was by no means accepting of Sora’s death, nor Maria’s. Those two names would be forever carved into her heart, two people who gave their lives so that Thelsa could live hers.

She was the Shadow Saint, the one who ruled the darkness not with fear, nor with power. She ruled the darkness with compassion. That was what she took her title to truly mean. If she were to ever give up that compassion, she would lose the very thing she held onto for all those years.

As Thelsa closed the book, she furrowed her brow in focus. It was time to properly learn the power of her own energy, beyond what the title explained to her. There was so much more to be discovered, if she only took the initiative to try.

That’s right. I thought to myself as I took my vision away from Thelsa, who had hidden herself away in the world of shadows. She was the Shadow Saint, and there was something that I had been neglecting this entire time. Something that was so blindingly obvious that I never even thought about it.

She was the Shadow Saint! That was not just some random title that the system had given her, as it came with its own set of powers. Or rather, it came with its own energy. A saint level energy on par with my Ki of Beginning. But if I had to compare the two… it was possible that the energy of the Shadow Saint was of a slightly higher level than that of the Saint of Five Lights.

Thinking to this point, I opened the market again, and began searching through the different energy types. I narrowed my search to those at the saint level, with the aspects of shadows and creation. After a moment of thought, I added in the aspect of sentience as well. That was perhaps the most powerful ability of the Shadow Saint’s energy.

When I had done all of this, the results were narrowed down to but one. I knew right away that this was the energy that Thelsa had been granted by the system through her title.

World’s Shadow, is it? I muttered to myself, considering buying this information on Thelsa’s behalf, and then imparting it to her. After the recent invasion, and considering the upcoming windfall that I would be receiving from the Gilded Branch, I could afford such an expenditure. It might even be useful for me to learn how to wield the energy myself.

During the recent invasion, I had understood on a deeper level what it meant to be a Keeper. I was capable of accessing all powers within my world, be they classes or domains. That thought made me remember the very first time that I had practiced training in the different energies. They had simply been there, waiting for me to grasp them.

Then, when I practiced elemental ki, Terra had told me that as long as it was a type of elemental ki that existed in my world, I could use it. The only reason I had to cultivate it myself at first was so that I could feel what the energy was like personally. Ki and elemental ki were two very similar types of energies, so the distinction would have been hard for me to make back when I was still new to this.

Now, I was more used to things, and I could feel the energies more clearly. I could even use my world sight to pick them apart one by one and classify them. With that in mind… shouldn’t I be able to use the world’s shadow energy?

Closing my eyes, I leaned back on my bed and focused. Deep inside my core, where there were innumerable energies swirling around. Each one gave me a different feeling. Some of them I recognized at a glance, like the four basic energies, or chakra, or even divine energy.

Others felt foreign to me, as I had not personally experienced them. However, I was able to recognize them after studying them for a bit. Martial spirit energy, aeon energy… these two I had only encountered recently myself, when I began cultivating in Lorek.

Then there were others, more complex energy types. I saw one that looked to be a complex mix of spiritual energy, mana, and ki. It gave a dangerous, chilling sensation, and merely touching it caused my spine to shiver. If I had to guess… this would be something akin to necromantic energy?

When did we get an energy like this? I asked myself with furrowed brows. It wasn’t surprising, though, when I thought about it. The residents of my world had had quite a lot of time to study the creation of combined energy types. There were bound to be those that existed for advanced classes that I had simply not purchased yet.

I briefly thought whether I should go ahead and purchase more advanced classes, but I shook my head. With the appearance of divinity, the world was starting to break the ‘mold’ which was the class system. While it might be nice to create the classes to guide them through the use of these energies in the future, I did not want to ultimately turn classes into a crutch that they relied on.

Going through the other energies, I found the most complex three of them all. Two of these energies I was very familiar with, as they were my own World Sight and Ki of Beginning. The last energy seemed to have its roots primarily in elemental ki, but with mana and spiritual energy interwoven. When I touched this energy, I was able to feel boundless darkness.

Nodding my head with a satisfied smile, I directed my gaze down towards my world host, noticing that he had long since finished helping Scarlet restart her empire. Now, he was simply lounging within the throne room of the Sky Citadel, sitting absolutely still with his eyes closed. It seemed clear that he was doing something with the illusions of his internal world, so I decided to wait until he was finished before descending to possess him.

The wait was rather long, or it would have been if I was not fast forwarding. What was no doubt hours below passed in moments, and I felt the warm glow of the system’s light wrap around me as I descended.

Naturally, Tsubaki was standing at the foot of the stairs before my throne, waiting patiently for me to give her any order. When she saw me rising from the throne, her motionless body became more lifelike, and she offered me a bow. “My Keeper, do you have business for me to attend to?”

“Not this time, Tsubaki.” I responded with a smile, descending the stairs and patting her shoulder gently. “There’s an experiment that I need to run, so I’ll be heading out for a few minutes. Also… I wanted to thank you for your help in the battle before.”

Tsubaki’s gaze shifted a bit, clearly happy at the praise. “I see that my Keeper has truly returned to his normal self.”

“Is it that obvious?” I let out a wry laugh, knowing that meant that she had seen through the World Host.

“Not at first. Indeed, the other you matches your mannerisms perfectly. However, a part of his power declined shortly after the battle, which led to my suspicion.” She should be talking about my Keeper power, as the host only had a normal body. “If it was any other time, I would not have thought too deeply about it, but with what happened…” Tsubaki’s ears pressed flat against her skull.

“It’s okay, I don’t blame you or anything.” I assured her gently. “Leowynn is with me now. She’s perfectly fine, just adjusting to her new situation.”

Tsubaki let out a sigh of relief, her tense body visibly relaxing when she heard that. “I am glad, my Keeper. In that case, I shall not disturb your experiment. If you require my assistance, do not hesitate to call for me.”

I gave a brief nod, before shifting my location. For this test, I would be heading to a familiar, isolated island in the middle of the ocean. Somewhere I had not been for a long time, and I knew was far too small to have become an inhabited tourist spot. The island of Trials, the first dungeon.

When I arrived, I found myself standing atop a large stone platform, one which appeared carved from a single piece. This was the entrance to the dungeon, and I took a deep breath, enjoying the ocean breeze. Faintly, I could feel Trials probing at me, trying to make contact. However, I shook my head, speaking in the english of my old world, the original language of the dungeons. “It’s fine, Trials. I’ll just be borrowing this location for a minute to try something. Once I’m done, I’ll head back.”

After I said that, the mental probing vanished, and I got to work. Previously, I had used such an island to create my ki of beginning. Now, I would use it to access this new power.

The first step was to release the full power of the Keeper, allowing it to fill my body. The air shook around me, the water churning as ki flooded through me. I usually kept this power hidden, only pulling what I needed when I needed it.

Now that I had fully released my restraints, I felt inside myself again, looking for the same darkness that I had touched upon in the Admin Room. Since I knew what I was looking for, it didn’t take me long to find the energy mixed haphazardly among the rest. And when I grasped it, pulling it to the surface, I found my body covered in a layer of black tar.

This was the raw form of the world’s shadow, and I willed it to gather in my hand. “Let’s see… she created a shadow of an entire world, or at least a layer of Fyor.” Analyzing the ball of darkness in my hand, I found that it seemed to have a sort of ethereal property. This gave me an idea for how I could use this power.

Turning my body, I held my hand over my own shadow, and dropped the darkness into it. “Spread.” I commanded, knowing that the darkness had a will of its own. From my understanding of Thelsa’s power, the world’s shadow had three primary functions.

The first, and most prevalent of these functions was the ‘shadow of life’. She was able to create living shadows connected to herself on a fundamental level through this ability. They could train any class that she had trained herself, as the energy pulled the foundation of that class from her own being.

The second function was the ‘shadow of power’, which allowed Thelsa to manifest the shadows as living people, their abilities becoming their own in the physical world. With only the first function, her shadows would be simple black masses that could only pass as living people within her shadow world.

Which brings me to the third function, the ‘shadow of creation’. This was the most powerful ability that Thelsa had unlocked, allowing the world’s shadow to create an entire world for her by copying the world she was currently in. This was done by allowing the world’s shadow to spread through the shadows, linking them all together to form the image of the world.

This was what I was using now. The world’s shadow had a will which was linked with my own, and knew what I wanted it to accomplish. Although this was my first time using the energy, it was being powered through my Keeper abilities, making it no weaker than that which Thelsa herself wielded. That was why I was confident that I would be able to create a true shadow of an entire world.