JUN 3 Wednesday.

I watch as a blood-red sprout grows from a pot and starts to rapidly form into a small red bush. Once it's fully grown I leave it be and start on the next blood Leaf Tea bush. I've been spending a little time over the past few weeks to selectively breed the Blood Leaf Tea and progress is as slow as I expected.

I'm still using most of my spare magic to train my space magic so that doesn't help, and the plant itself takes time to test. I don't have a good way to test how much it's improved.

The best method I've come up with is to stop draining my magic at a roughly consistent point, and then timing how long it takes to fill back to full while drinking tea. That combined with the magic needed to grow and harvest the tea means that the Blood Leaf Tea will only see very slow improvements.

But progress is progress, so I'll keep working on it. Once I'm out of magic and the plants are grown I leave them be and rest while doing some other work. After some thought over the past few days, I decided to learn the T.P.T spell, and it's also proving to be slow going.

The spell is complex and requires a decent time investment to learn properly, the first problem I had to get around was the runes used in the spell. The book I found the T.P.T spell in had the context on five of the nine runes but the other four weren't included, so I've had to start tracking them down.

Two of them were in my own rune collection but the last two are unknown to me, so needless to say I'll have to find both of them. Another thing I've learned is that this spell wasn't made to be an enchantment, I'd need to modify it a good amount to use a gem to cast it.

This is because spells can be classed into three categories for enchanting with spells. Non-useable, multi-usable, and usable.

For most basic spells they can be used as a spell and an enchantment interchangeably, these are multi-usable spells because they can be used for both purposes. But more complex spells are different, as a spell gets more complex it also gets more specific with how it needs to be used, the T.P.T spell was made to be cast by a pony on a pony. And it falls into the Non-usable category because of that.

The last category is for spells that can only be used as enchantments and not cast by ponies, although this category is by far the least common. The vast majority of spells fall into Non-usable or multi-usable, making a spell that can only be cast by a gem simply takes away a lot of its usefulness so not many do it.

I could try to enchant the T.P.T spell into a gem regardless, but that's just asking for trouble. It could work, or I could get unlucky and get myself killed. So until I have some time to modify it I'll have to cast it myself.

Another thing I'm thinking about is a way to keep myself safe in case the T.P.T spell fails for whatever reason. I think the best thing to start with is the modified Float spell I made a while ago. It locked down an area and kept things from moving inside it.

And I realized that with some tweaking and work I could basically make a Slow Fall spell. If I have the spell apply to a pony instead of an enchantment and have it only keep things aloft enough to make them very slowly fall then it would negate most falls.

It would take a few hours of work and a good amount of testing but it should be possible. Once my magic is mostly regained I start draining it again by saturating the Blood Leaf Tea leaves enough for their magical effect to develop, after that, I start picking leaves with my field and placing them in numbered jars.

Once that's done I check the time and grab my things to leave, it's time for work. I walk through the busy morning streets, it's a nice day like most and everypony seems to be going about their business. I put on my small badge and walk through several hallways until I reach the right door and walk inside.

Blaz looks over to me for a second and nods before going back to his work. I move my saddlebags to the side and sit down to do the same as him. My work is fairly boring and I spend a lot of time just thinking about problems and ideas I have. A prominent thought for me right now is the upcoming Summer Sun Celebration.

Specifically, I'm trying to think of what I'm going to gift to Celestia, and so far the best idea I've had is to make something from the Solar Vine. But the plant is not that useful, the things I could make out of it are limited. The wood is soft and easy to bend but not that durable or strong.

And while I can make tea from the buds, I've made it before and it's not the best tasting. So that leaves me with only a few options on what I could make. I keep thinking about it while working and don't come up with anything good by the time it's lunch, I'm so focused on my thoughts that I don't even realize.

But Blaz does and he gets my attention. "Lunchtime Colt." I hear him and turn around to look at him, I give him a nod and finish up what I need to. We both silently walk into the breakroom and join Daisy, and Maple at a table. I don't have anything to really talk about so I stay silent as Daisy asks Blaz something, "So what are you doing for the Summer Sun Celebration?"

"I don't have anything planned, why?" He asks back.

Daisy turns to me and Maple who are sitting opposite of Daisy and Blaz, and gets our attention before continuing. "Well, it will be announced tomorrow so no harm in telling you right now. The library normally only closes for a single day on the Summer Sun Celebration, but we found some damage on a support beam and it needs to be fixed soon."

As she talks we all start paying more attention, including a few other ponies sitting around us. Seems she intends for this to spread around, it's probably not very serious news if she's willing to do that.

"That would only take a few days. The Summer Sun Celebration is on the twenty-first, that's a Sunday. So we'll be getting not only the weekend off but also Monday as well so they can fix it." She says all of this louder than she needs to for us to hear her, and it's now blatantly obvious she's deliberately trying to be overheard by the other ponies, who are all happy at the news.

She quiets down after that and keeps speaking. "And I'm planning to visit a friend who lives near Canterlot. I'll be leaving on the twentieth and staying a day there before coming back on the twenty-third. So do any of you want to take a trip?" She looks at all of us with a hopeful face, "Come on it'll be fun, and a nice break from work."

We all go silent for a moment, all thinking about how to answer. Blaz is the first to answer, "Sure, I got nothing better to do and you're right it'd be a nice break." Daisy gives him a beaming smile before turning to me and Maple. After a little while Maple nods, and Daisy turns to me.

It would be a nice break from work, and some quiet time outside of the city also sounds nice. "Where are we going?" I ask curiously.

"Nope, I can't lose the opportunity to hold this over you, and surprise you." She says in a joking tone, while keeping her large smile.

I give her a deadpan stare, "Seriously?" She gives me a happy smile and nods. Daisy likes to mess with me sometimes and the best way she's found to do that is to surprise me, or to keep something innocent from me just to annoy me. I gave it some more thought and decided to agree, it'd be nice and I could spend some time relaxing with friends and having fun.

And I'd be a bad friend if I didn't let her have a little fun messing with me. "Fine I'm in, but at least tell me what I need to pack for this trip." I get a smile and a happy laugh.

"We'll be staying with an old friend so you won't need to bring much beyond the normal. And thanks for coming Shade, I promise it'll be fun and you'll like where we're going." I smile back at Daisy and nod again. After that, we get back to work.

A few hours later I'm free for the rest of the day, free to get my flank kicked. Stone is as rough as always and spends our two hours together beating me into shape. But I also once again get to try and form a combat style, I've made a little progress but it's not easy to improve without instructions.

By the time I'm finally home I take a nice warm shower and spend some time working on the Slow Fall spell I thought about earlier. The Stasis spell is a good base to work from and all I really need to change is the spell's power, effect, and area of effect. And for all that I need some testing.

I start with the spell and take a few unneeded things out, once that's done I add what I'll need. I add a rune for weight, this rune is used to tell the spell how heavy what it's slowing down is. I want the spell to negate my weight just enough to make me fall slowly.

I add another rune for Pony so the spell knows to target me and then I just have to add all the math. It's not a complex spell so it only takes me two hours to finish it. I still have work tomorrow but I should have enough time to test the spell in a few ways.

I draw out the relatively simple spell and feel the world around me shift slightly, I feel lighter than before. I gently test it by bending my legs and trying to jump up very slightly, and as my hooves leave the ground I fall back down faster than I probably should.

I tested it several more times but its effect was too weak, so I modified the weight negation a little and tried again. I repeat the same test, only this time I go far too high. My head bumps against the ceiling and I start rolling around in the air flailing my limbs trying to grab something.

Eventually, I just stop moving and very, very, slowly float down to the floor. Ok lesson learned, don't nullify too much weight. I rub my head where I hit the ceiling, I hit it surprisingly hard even though I was moving so slowly. I think about that for a moment before realizing why.

I've been thinking about it wrong, the spell doesn't remove or nullify my weight, it only counteracts the effects of gravity on my body by pushing back with a similar amount of force. So even though I'm floating like I would in low gravity I still have the same mass. So when I bump into something I still hit it with the same force and mass.

I'll have to make sure not to hit anything else then. I once again modify the spell and test it, while also keeping something nearby to grab onto if I need it. This time I'm closer to what I want but it's still not right. After a few more tests I decided to leave the rest for another day and go find Entropy.

She's waiting for dinner in the main room, I call her over and have her take us through the void like we normally do. Her ability to teleport is still growing, we're up to twelve teleportation's twice a day to keep her magic drained, but her improvement has started to level off again.

It's just not a far enough distance anymore, maybe I can find somewhere when I go on that trip Daisy's planning? I guess it depends on where we're going. I let those thoughts leave my head as I feel and see the cold embrace of the void once again.

This place is always so odd, it always feels comfortable and peaceful in some way. Many would probably find it disturbing or scary, and maybe it's because I've died, but this place is always a little relaxing. It's like all the problems of the world just melt away for the small moment I'm here.

I've thought about experimenting with this place more, maybe seeing if Entropy can keep us here. But I never do, this place is almost completely unknown to me and I don't know what could happen to us if I do. Even if my curiosity is killing me.

After Entropy's training, I spend some time cooking dinner for us and checking on my plants before bed.

Author's Note

Thanks for reading. :}

PS, anyone know about a half decent map of Equestira? Or Equis?