OCT 15 Tuesday, today I'm at my desk carving my little alicorn model this is the fourth as in the last three I've broken or messed up the carving, I've been carving a lot and I'm having a surprising amount of fun I even bought some wood to make a small shelf to hold my carvings.

Checking the time, I stop carving and spend an hour meditating on the space around me I try to feel the empty space as it moves, I've been doing this for several months now and I've had some small progress in my efforts as I'm now able to vaguely feel the space around me without having to give my complete concentration.

It still takes a massive effort to feel anything, but I can now slow down and try to feel the space around me with more detail than before, along with that I can now vaguely feel when things move, I can only barely feel it but it's definitely there, when I started feeling this, I started moving things around me to train my senses.

The other thing I've been working on is my anti-pest spell and I've made some progress on the part that targets pests, using some bugs and a slug as tests I've gotten the spell to start freezing them it's a little fast for my liking as it drains too much magic right now, but I can work on that and beyond that the spell is looking well within the realm of possibility for me.

It's still fairly early in the day and after my meditation I don't have much to do so I decide to go to the library and find some new books to read, as I walk through the shelves, I pass many different types of books before stopping at the section with plant books.

I grab an interesting-looking book about medicinal herbs before finding a table to read at and settle in for a nice read, after a while I've read through the book, I find several herbs I may want to find or buy as they have some interesting effects, there's one in particular that I really want and that's the White Rose.

The White Rose is much like the False Daisy in that it's almost identical to a normal rose bush, the main difference is in the plant's name the flowers of this rose bush are white and have a magic property the magic they possess is simple in practice but complex in function.

When the white rose is exposed to a cold environment it will absorb the cold protecting the plant from the cold and through an unknown process converts it into ice affinity magic, this is massive as the plant is essentially converting a temperature difference into magic if I could find out how it works, I could make some absurd things.

Even if the process is slow, I can just scale it up to increase the effects, if It's possible to create a spell that does the same as this plant, I could place it somewhere cold and get an increase in magic regeneration for gems and ponies, there are only a few ways that can help somepony regain magic faster and all are very rare.

But objects that regenerate or collect large amounts of magic are even rarer as I can only really think of one and that's the crystal heart and that thing uses the love magic of an entire city for power, so I'm definitely going to see if I can get a White Rose bush for research, beyond that a few of the other plants in this book look rather useful.

As I finish the book on herbs, I wonder what other books I should look for next and I decide on a topic I've been curious about for some time now, illusion magic Is an obscure branch of magic as it uses both high-level math and complex and uncommon symbols, I find a book on it and start reading.

From what I've read from this book and what I've learned while researching other magic, that illusion magic tends to lean towards two paths, the first is physical illusions this type is best described as light constructs creating an illusion around a target, and then there are mental illusion spells this branch is much MUCH rarer as very few even know one or two basic spells of this type.

Mainly because it's illegal to use that type of spell I only know its name because the book I'm reading mentions it in passing, mental magic seems rare in general for this world as I've only found two spells one to help with meditation and the other to help calm somepony down, but beyond that it's one of the branches of magic that's dwindled with time.

After taking some notes I place the book on herbs back and check out the book on illusions before returning to my room, I check on my plants giving the Iron Oak some more soil before I go back to carving, I spend the next hour or so chipping away at the wood trying to be careful not to break this one.

As I carve the pony figure out of wood, I slowly scrape pieces off bit by bit, and after a few hours I have a decent carving of an alicorn it's still a little crude but I'm improving, I place the half-done carving on my shelf and grab the book on illusions and start reading more about them.

Illusion spells seem fairly standard to what you imagine them to be creating things you can see but not touch, a good way to look at this is magic holograms and there are two main ways to go about making an illusion.

The first is creating a spell to show a certain thing like a large beast or monster using math and only a few symbols, this method takes less magic as you're mostly using math to create an image of what you want the downside is that to change it, you'd need a new spell.

The other method is to use mostly symbols and less math this makes the spell much more flexible allowing you to have the illusion be controllable to a degree, the downside to this is the power costs increase exponentially higher with the changes you make but if you have enough magic, you can make just about anything you want.

I look at my gems still having my large ruby along with four small sapphires and one small ruby I had two rubies, but I used one to make a shield around the black egg, I grab a sapphire and place it on my desk and check the book to make sure I have the spell right.

The spell I'm going to be enchanting into this gem is a small illusion spell that lets you draw in a small area, it's only about a foot of space and it only has red, blue, and green to draw with but I'm curious how it looks, and I have a few spare gems, the spell is complex for how little it does, and it takes me several minutes a good amount of my magic and a few attempts to enchant the sapphire.

After I finish, I activate the enchantment and move my hoof and a line made of red light follows it, I spend some time getting used to the enchantment and try drawing with it and after a while, I've made a 3D cube that I can rotate and change as I want, I continue to mess with the enchantment for the next hour drawing and erasing different things.

After I have my fun, I turn the enchantment off and store the gem, I then spend a few moments cleaning up my workspace.

I'm hungry and I don't feel like cooking today so I'm going to a restaurant I found by accident a few days ago so I grab my bag and leave my room, I move through the city and find the place I'm looking for The Cozy Clover.

It's a strange name for a restaurant that serves mostly batponies and griffins, but they do serve fish and I've been looking for a place that sells cooked meat, as I enter the restaurant, I see a pony who greets me "Hello sir can I get you a table?"

"Yes, thank you" They lead me to a table, and I take a seat before they pass a menu to me.

"A waiter will be with you shortly," I nod my thanks and start reading through the menu and after picking what I want I wait a while for the waiter.

The waiter a batpony mare comes up to me "Hello sir what can I get you?"

"A Grilled fish sandwich and some heyfries please," The waiter looks a little surprised at my order but writes it down anyway.

"We'll have that out to you when it's ready" She walks away and goes into the back, and after twenty minutes I have my food placed in front of me and start eating right away the fish is nice and crispy with a lovely sauce that goes well with it, I get a few odd looks from the other ponies in the restaurant.

It's a bit uncomfortable but I can't blame them, it's not often you see an earth pony eating meat let alone enjoying it as much as I am, I take my time eating before I finish and after paying, I leave heading to the park as I want to do some drawing in the clear weather.

I sit on a park bench and take out my sketchbook and start drawing a large tree in front of me slowly drawing its trunk and roots, after getting a decent sketch of the tree I start drawing the background of a few bushes and walkways along with a small pond nearby, But I stop as I hear someponies hoof steps.

I turn to see a pony I recognize and have met in this very park Shining Armor and after walking up to me I greet him, "Hey nice to see you again Shining, how have you been?"

He takes a seat next to me "Same Shade, I've been busy, to say the least I don't think I've had a quiet day for a month at this point" he says back his voice having a tired tone to it.

"What have you been doing if you don't mind me asking?"

"Guard training I've been in a camp for tryouts."

"You're planning to become a guard? good for you."

He nods "Ya I'm excited I start in a few months, but it's just the training that's been a slog and I'm starting to wonder if I really want this."

"The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step," He turns to me and gives me an odd look before chuckling.

"Well, I certainly didn't expect that colt you're just a fountain of wisdom ha?"

"I try," we spend the next hour talking about things mostly work and stupid things like the fact that he likes comics, I swear I mentioned them once and had to stop him after he went on a fifteen-minute rant about a character getting retconned out of the comic he liked, but talking to him was enjoyable.

After a while he had to go, and left the park, I drew for some time before also leaving the park and heading home, after getting into my room, I as always checked on my plants and after giving them water and shifting them around, so they all have enough light.

I sit down at my desk and start working on my pest spell, right now, I'm working on the part of the spell that targets the bugs, I don't want the spell to spread cold over an area but selectively target and freeze pests only, leaving the plant unharmed I've worked out how to target bugs just not how to keep the cold from spreading afterwards.

As I write out math equations, I slowly make small progress in my work, I've managed to get the spell's magic cost down by slowing the freezing effect and I've even gotten the area of effect to a little over an acre of land enough to cover a small crop plot, This won't be perfect but it's far better than nothing, it should be only a few weeks before I can finish and send the spell to Celestia so she can get some ponies to test it.

After getting some spell work done, I go through my nightly ritual of showering and going to bed, but right as I'm about to head to bed I see the black egg shake a slight amount, the sudden movement making me think I was seeing things, but it definitely moved, I don't know what's in that egg, but I know now that it's definitely alive if nothing else, I check the shield around the egg and after finding it working correctly, I head to bed.

Author's Note

Thanks as always for reading.