JAN 3 Saturday.

It's early morning right now and Entropy just finished moving us through the void. We only did a single round trip today instead of two as I want her to still have a good amount of magic for tests.

I held off from testing her new abilities yesterday so I could catch up on several other things, and I also don't have work today so I can focus on this. I feed both of us and I sit down with Entropy in the main room with a notebook. I bring over an empty pot and place it by my window so it casts a single shadow.

I also have a bowl of small pieces of meat, that Entropy's been eyeing the entire time. "Ok girl, try and go into that shadow." She tilts her head and looks at the pot's shadow, after a few moments she walks over and touches the shadow before merging into it.

"Ok, now come out." She does so and looks at me expectantly. I chuckle at her, smart bird knows I give her treats for this. I throw a small piece of meat into the air next to her, she catches it out of the air and gobbles it down. I move the pot away and pick a leaf off of the Iron Oak.

I place it in the same spot. "Again." She moves over to the leaf inspecting it, she then moves a talon into the leaf's shadow and once again melds into it. It seems the size of the shadow doesn't matter. "Stay there for a moment girl." I wait several minutes before picking up the leaf.

Its shadow is now a few feet away. "Ok come on out girl." She emerges from the shadow again. She can leave the shadow even if it's moved, I take another note while rewarding her. The next test I move over the pot again and have her hold the leaf.

She once again touches the shadow before melding into it. I think it's safe to say she needs physical contact with the shadow. She moves into the shadow but the leaf doesn't move with her, it seems she can't bring things with her. I take a note and test this same thing several more times to be sure.

It ends the same way every time, she can't move other things with her into the shadows. Another thing I notice is the fact that she doesn't seem tired yet, I add a note for that and continue. The next step is having her meld into my shadow, and walk around for a while.

She just stays in there for a while as I work on a few other things, sometimes her shadow is on mine and sometimes it's not. Seems she can control that, another note is added. When she leaves my shadow she still doesn't look tired. The next test is simple, I have two shadows connected and ask her to enter one and leave the other.

She does this easily. Next, I move us into my bedroom, I close the door and use a blanket to block out any light from the gaps in the doorway. I can't see anything but have her stand on my back and then ask her to move into my shadow. A moment later I feel her disappear from my back.

I wait a few moments and then move the blanket before leaving the room. Before asking her to come out, she does so. Seems she can stay inside my shadow even in darkness. How does one move into a shadow that isn't there? Maybe shadow magic is the wrong word for this, it acts more like darkness in general.

I again make a note of this. Next test, I have Entropy return to my shadow and ask her to teleport us to the other side of the room. But after a few minutes, nothing happens. I then ask her to just teleport herself, and after a moment she appears outside of a shadow nearby.

Having her inhabit my shadow doesn't get around her not being able to move things through shadows. The next test is the same but I ask her to teleport to another shadow, and she does. She stays inside the shadow, she moved without needing to leave the shadows.

I ask her to move back to my shadow, and she does. I have her stay there and sit down to start meditating. I try to feel the space around me for anything out of the ordinary, but after several minutes I feel nothing occupying my shadow. Whatever this is doesn't mess with space as far as I can tell.

I know she still takes some form of, different form inside a shadow as she can still talk and even move around the shadow. So if she's not messing with space then it's more likely she's becoming a shadow, that does raise some concern in me as I don't know what will happen if a shadow vanishes.

But she can also teleport to other shadows so I don't think she's in too much danger. I can only think of one other big test, how long can she stay as a shadow? And from what I've seen I'm not sure if there is a limit, but it's best to test it regardless.

So I asked her to just stay inside my shadow for a while and continue on with my day. She doesn't seem to mind staying in there so I'll just let her stay until she wants out. I start working on something new, to explain I'll have to go over a few things.

While researching ambient magic I came across something that is considered one of the greatest mysteries of magic. Ambient magic is categorized into affinity ambient magic, and neutral ambient magic, let's start with affinity magic.

Affinity magic comes from anything in this world that causes magic to change its form. Take fire affinity magic, for example, it can come from a being with that affinity or anything that is related like a wildfire and a volcano. This same thing applies to all affinities.

The process of converting that magic can take endless forms. I'm not sure why but I think it's some combination of belief from sentient beings or the odd and vague rules of magic. However it happens, when magic becomes a certain affinity it slowly fades back into neutral magic or is used up by something in the environment.

This means that without a source any affinity magic will run out. But it's different for neutral magic, this is where the mystery comes in. All throughout the world there is a set density of neutral magic in any and all areas, it's never more or less than that just the same everywhere.

And nopony knows why. This is why my gems can all gather magic at the same time in a small space, once they absorb some magic it's replaced by more to keep its density the same, the best way I can describe this is if you teleported a ball of water away while being underwater.

The second that water vanishes more flows in to replace it. The only way to overcome this and store more magic than that base is with a medium to bind that magic to, gems, living things, any anything else capable of holding magic.

They also do collect some magic from many affinities but that's basically nothing compared to the amount of neutral magic. This also lets me do something interesting, I walk into my workroom and sit down to start my work.

I start with the linking spell, it's not too complex to cast but it is very delicate and can break very easily. So not being in any rush I slowly work my way through the spell over the next few hours. The spell does several things but at a base level, it just moves magic.

But it's also not the best at this, it's a simple spell but that also makes it a little inefficient at what it does. A rare example of a spell being simpler making it worse. I added a new rune on top of the old one and even doubled the amount of math.

I've modified the spell to move more magic in a more stable flow while making it possible to roughly adjust the amount of magic moving through it. It's not perfect though, it costs more magic to use and upkeep while also being more complex to cast. After I double-check the spell I can move to my next step.

I grab four Steel wood cubes and a medium ruby. I enchant all of them to hold and gather magic before linking all of the Steel wood cubes to the ruby. I activate the links and wait, I've used enough of these to roughly know how long this should take.

While waiting I spend my time copying the Companion Vine. It's slow and tedious but I push through and keep going over the next few hours. I stopped several times to check on the ruby while also checking the time and taking notes. It was faster but not to the degree you'd expect.

The Steel wood can only slowly gather magic so the effect is roughly five percent per Steel wood cube, but that's just my best guess. I can't make many of those cubes very fast so while this is helpful I'd need more magic to grow more Steel wood to make anything truly impressive.

Still being able to recharge gems faster without using more gems is nice. I check on Entropy, it takes a few attempts for her to respond, when she comes out she's fine but gives me an annoyed look. It took me a moment before I realized she was probably sleeping and that I just woke her up by calling her name.

"Sorry for waking you girl, I'm just checking that you're ok. You can go back in there to sleep if you like?" I offer and after a moment she does so, melding back into my shadow. I take another note that she can sleep in my shadow. I spend a while checking that the new linking spell works fine before leaving my workroom.

I want to go out so I tell Entropy to not leave my shadow unless I ask her to, I get a small chirp from her in response. I take that as a positive and put on my necklace and bracelet along with my saddlebags and cloak before leaving my apartment. I still have a few hours of daylight left so I have some time.

I don't need anything right now, but I feel like going somewhere. I go to a small cafe I haven't been to in a while. I walk in and find a nice place to sit, and not long after a mare walks over to me. "What can I get you?"

I want to treat myself a little so after taking another look at the menu I order. "A piece of cherry cake and some lemon tea." I don't eat cake often and it would be a nice treat.

"Sure it'll be right out." And a minute later I have a slice of cake and a cup of tea placed in front of me. I take out my sketchbook and start to draw as I enjoy my treat. I spend a little while here even getting a refill on my tea before leaving. When I do go outside it's near the end of the day.

And considering what happened last time I was out at night I hurried home. I get home just fine and spend a moment taking everything off. I have Entropy leave my shadow and let her free. She spent a total of nine hours in my shadow without any problems.

She's done a lot today so after a quick trip through the void I start making her food, I give her a bigger meal than normal. I also make a smaller meal for myself. While eating I start organizing my notes on the tests I had Entropy do, and I must say this is a very odd form of magic.

At its base, she seems to be converting her body into some form of non-physical magic construct. I have no idea how but it is very useful for me. She seems to be able to stay in my shadow as long as she likes, I could have her with me at all times from now on.

I probably won't though, she needs her own time to have fun. But it's still nice to have a better way to hide her when we move around. After I finish with my notes I start practicing again with my space sensing. It's still getting easier to sense space but I don't think I'm ready to try unlocking my space affinity.

After the sun sets and I get tired I move into my workroom and drain my magic into a growing Steel wood piece before heading to bed.

Author's Note

I'm making the joke first to get it out of our systems. Chapter 69, nice. Ha-ha I did the funny.

Thanks for reading and have a lovely day. :D