"You still possess but a vestigial dominion of your potential; you are merely skimming the surface of the Shadow's true chasm. For now, focus on tempering your vessel. Adapt to the strength you have usurped, and take it one agonizing step at a time. With my guidance, your future is an inexhaustible abyss."
Having demonstrated his worth, the voice in Li Xi's heart grew noticeably more imperious.
"Thank you, Old Grandpa," Li Xi retorted, offering a smile that revealed a sharp gleam of white incisors. It was a pleasant expression, but it didn't quite reach his eyes.
"Do not speak of my presence to the masters of this world. I trust I do not need to elaborate on the consequences?"
"This is a secret tethered only to the two of us. I am not fond of sharing," Li Xi chuckled, a strange, predatory phosphorescence dancing in his pupils.
"Equivalent exchange is the iron law of the Wizard World. To gain is to owe; to take is to pay. There is no such thing as a gift in this universe."
"A Wizard does not cull the masses without cause. The commoners are the soil from which our power fecundates; without the foundation, the tower falls."
"Knowledge is the only true sovereign. It is priceless. To master knowledge is to master the jugular of reality."
Li Xi had been a denizen of the Purple Flame Academy for over half a year. The two daily Element Wizard lectures served as a cold bridge across his ignorance, clarifying concepts that were once beyond his reach. He had never imagined he would study with such obsessive desperation—his efforts now dwarfed the nights he had spent preparing for college entrance exams back on Earth.
At first, he had harbored the foolish hope of using the Academy's vast resources to find his kin. He soon realized it was a lamentable pipe dream.
Even if they had survived the tearing of the world, the Wizard World was not Earth. Finding a specific mortal in this vast, chaotic landscape was a task even a Magister found impossible. Li Xi was a ghost in the system, and his trajectory was a strange blend of general indoctrination and the brutal physical path of a Body Refinement Wizard.
The Purple Flame Academy was a sanctuary for Element Wizards. Guru was an outsider, a mercenary instructor hired merely to show the students the terrifying heights of physical cultivation. Because he was not "one of them," he was relegated to the jagged edges of the Academy grounds.
And Li Xi was the only one shadowing him. Regardless of his interest in the subtle mysteries of the elements, his fate had been sealed.
Returning to Guru's courtyard after class, Li Xi saw the giant waiting. Without a word, Li Xi relinquished his wizard book and unfastened his robe. Before they could touch the dirt, they sank into the Shadow beneath his feet. Then, before Guru could even draw breath, Li Xi vanished. He became a blur, a whisper of manifestation that left no trace in the open air.
Guru merely laughed, a sound like grinding stones. He lashed out behind him, his massive hand closing over Li Xi's skull. Li Xi had emerged from Guru's own Shadow, intending a silent execution, only to find his head caught like a tired bird.
Li Xi didn't hesitate. He drove his short knife upward, the blade hissing through the air with serrated intent. The giant's hand faltered for a fraction of a second. He dissolved back into the Shadow, slipping through Guru's fingers like liquid smoke.
Guru sneered, his nose twitching as he caught a scent. He threw a punch into the empty air, a strike that roared with the violence of a heavy howitzer. Near a withered tree, a patch of Shadow rippled. Li Xi's head began materializing, but the sudden, screaming warning in his gut made his scalp crawl.
Boom.
The tree was instantly consolidated into splinters. Guru stood in the center of the wreckage, his eyes playful. "Is dodging all you've learned? Does the Shadow only teach cowardice?"
As Guru spoke, an adjacent structure detonated. Stones and splinters filled the sky, casting twenty distinct shadows across the ground.
"As you wish," a voice hissed.
From a shadow near Guru's heel, an arm holding a short knife lunged. "Weak," Guru grunted. He raised a massive foot to stomp the arm, but he could not see the cold, calculating smile on Li Xi's face.
The moment Guru's foot left the ground, all twenty shadows erupted. Twenty blades, forged of solidified shadow and spite, lunged from the darkness.
Clang!
The sound of metal meeting something far denser than flesh rang out. Guru's Wizard runes flared with a dull, menacing light. His aura exploded, and Li Xi was ripped from the earth.
He impacted the courtyard wall with a sickening crunch. His right arm was twisted at a grotesque angle. Before he could draw a breath, a heavy boot pressed down on his chest.
Splat.
Li Xi coughed a mouthful of crimson. "In half a year, you have reached the level of a Low-level Wizard Apprentice," Guru noted. "Once your vessel stabilizes, we shall carve the Gravity Rune Array onto your flesh."
Li Xi funneled his meager magic power into his tattoos. His shattered arm began to knit back together, though his overall aura plummeted as his energy was depleted.
He tapped the ground with a toe. A shadow tentacle writhed out and retrieved his robe. Inside that darkness, he had carved out a small, stable pocket of space—a storage void that cost him nothing but willpower. It was a poor man's spatial ring, but in this world, it was everything.