Book One – Chapter 3

Now, the mirror plane was a world of shards and light. There were no other tangible components. Yves’ mirror world form had become just like that, a body constructed entirely of a substance that in his dimension was non-physical energy. He wasn’t composed of flesh or bones; he was made of shards, crystalline and insubstantial. Yes, he had proven that he could mold and reshape his form, but distinguishing his original energy from what he had absorbed within the tunnel seemed an insurmountable challenge. These energies had merged, intertwined, and become an integral part of his being. He had consumed and incorporated them, just like the human body consumed food. They now were his body.

Unable to deconstruct the microscopic shards that constituted his current form or differentiate the absorbed energies from his original essence, Yves could not isolate these energies after they had merged.

Instead, he turned his focus towards the free-flowing, so to speak non-digested currents required to cast the Somsaraa, the intricate ritual for activating the ethereal mirror. He sought to consciously segregate the mirror world energies from the small fraction of his original essence that remained, a task that felt like trying to sift grains of sand in a relentless desert storm.

It was like telling a human: Well, you drank a glass of water. Then you vomited up all the water except for one drop. Then you drank five full jars of poison. Now make it so that your stomach does not digest the poison, but don’t even think about throwing anything up. You see, that last, inconsequential droplet of water is all that stands between you and certain death on your journey home. Lose it, and you might as well start counting out your four days.

A mere drop of water and shitloads of poison. The analogy was far from perfect, but who was there to judge? Only the most useless of wizards would venture into the realms of literary arts. If one aimed to shape or subdue “the minds of the people”, it was a Transcender wanderer they would seek, not a poet. Regardless, the crux of the matter was clear: Yves possessed a minuscule trace of energy crucial for his spell, alongside a colossal reservoir of energy that could potentially shatter his ethereal mirror.