Shadow Slave

The hospital staff had provided each of the newly Awakened with a small room at one of the underground levels of the complex, to have a place to rest and get accustomed to their new abilities while waiting for more permanent accommodations — if they were going to remain at the Academy, of course.

It was also a place they could take their families to talk and spend time together in privacy. Currently, many emotional reunions were taking place in similar rooms around Sunny's, made especially joyous and heartbreaking because the survivors of the Dreamer Army had spent long years on the Forgotten Shore.

They had gone through hell, indeed, but their loved ones in the real world had suffered a great deal as well.

...Not that Sunny would know anything about that. No one had been waiting for him to return, after all.

In any case, the room he had been provided with was sufficiently comfortable. There was an area for training, a desk with a pitcher of water and some snacks, a sofa, and even a bed.

None of the returned were going to sleep, of course. Not for a few days, at least.

At the very end of the field of shimmering runes, Sunny could now see a new string of symbols:

Gateway: —

Usually, the name of the Gateway that an Awakened had last used would be written there. This was their anchor in the Dream Realm.

Every time an Awakened fell asleep, they would be transported to the Gateway they were anchored to, spend some time in the Dream Realm — either as much as they wanted or as little as possible, only until their soul was ready to travel between worlds once again — and then go through that Gateway to wake up back in reality.

However, the Gateway of the Forgotten Shore had been destroyed. For that reason, every single survivor of the Dreamer Army now had no anchor in the Dream Realm. That didn't mean that they would remain in the waking world forever, though.

Rather, it meant that they were going to be transported to a random one as soon as they fell asleep, just like during their first journey into the land of nightmares. The prospect of being at the mercy of the Spell once more was nothing short of terrifying.

Especially for Sunny, who had the misfortune of always finding himself in only the most extreme of circumstances.

However, the situation wasn't really that bad.

There was a way for a newly Awakened to change their anchor without relying on chance. It was to acquire the services of a Saint, who would be able to take them to the Dream Realm without involving the Spell, appearing near the Saint's own anchor.

Of course, that anchor would most likely be situated in one of the human Citadels, allowing the Awakened to anchor themselves to a Gateway in human territory.

There were just a few dozen Saints alive across all of humanity, so for an average Awakened, their help was not easy to get.

However, Sunny was not an average Awakened. In fact, none of the survivors of the Dreamer Army were.

Every year, the most promising of the newly Awakened were recruited by powerful Citadels and provided the means to anchor themselves to their Gateways. Everyone profited from this arrangement — the talented Awakened received a chance to change their anchor if they wished to do so, while Citadels received new powerful defenders or useful craftsmen to enhance their living conditions and infrastructure.

With how extraordinary the hundred survivors of the Forgotten Shore were, and how unusual their circumstances turned out to be, there was going to be a small recruitment war happening in the next few days. Prosperous Citadels were going to fight for the right to add these outstanding young people to their populations, promising better and bigger rewards, as if during an auction.

The government would inevitably get involved, too, helping those who for some reason failed to find a Citadel to call home.

The survivors of the Dreamer Army just had to remain awake long enough to make a choice and settle the details of their future anchors. Since their physique was far superior to that of mundane humans, they didn't have to sleep every day, so two or three were not going to be a problem.

…Sunny had a lot to do in these few days.

The first thing he had turned his attention to after retreating to his personal room was test the limits of Shadow Step.

The result of these tests left him pleasantly surprised.

Just like he had suspected, the ability to travel between shadows was akin to a weird form of teleportation. He could enter a shadow that was large enough to encompass his body and instantly appear from another.

The distance of that jump, however, was not too large. Currently, it was even smaller than the range of his Shadow Sense, around a dozen meters or so. However, he knew that it would increase as he absorbed more shadow fragments, just like the range of Shadow Control had increased back on the Forgotten Shore.

There was an exclusion from that rule, too.

He was able to travel between his own shadows no matter how far apart they were.

By now, he could control his shadows from as much as a couple of kilometers away. That meant that, if both were sent into opposite directions and reached the limit of the Shadow Control range, he could potentially instantly cover about four kilometers of distance in less than a second.

And that was just one side of Shadow Step. The other was, arguably, even more miraculous and unexpected.

Before, Sunny could move through shadows as though he was one of them, becoming practically undetectable.

But now, he could literally become a part of the shadows, diving into them and becoming incorporeal. Not only did it make him completely undetectable by means of sight, hearing, and smell, but it also allowed him to move with incredible speed through any uninterrupted shadow, no matter how long and vast it was.

In that state, he was invulnerable to physical attacks, but also unable to perform physical attacks of his own.

It also felt very strange. Sort of... peaceful. Sunny had to constantly remind himself to concentrate and not forget what he was doing.

That ability would become truly incredible at night or in the depths of some terrible cave system, like the one they had traveled through on their expedition to the Hollow Mountains.

In short, Shadow Step was incredible.

However, it came at a price.

Unlike Shadow Control, which was as natural to Sunny as breathing, using Shadow Step required him to expend essence. The more distance he covered with a jump and the more time he spent as an incorporeal shadow, the more essence he would have to consume.

Sunny suspected that the theoretical four-kilometer jump would eat through all of his essence, leaving both of his cores dry as a desert.

Spending essence was not the same as spending shadow fragments, of course. His soul always slowly generated essence, eventually filling his cores to their maximum capacity, while shadow fragments increased that maximum capacity and were used to create new cores, as well as turn Echoes into Shadows.

Still, he also needed essence to fight effectively and use the more powerful enchantments of higher rank Memories, so balancing its expenditure was an intricate task.

Truly, becoming an Awakened had opened a whole new layer of both incredible opportunities and insidious problems. It was a lot to take in.

…But he was going to get there, eventually.

Sitting on the floor of his temporary quarters, Sunny sighed and summoned the runes.

Finally, it was time to reap his reward.

He had worked so much, and done so much, to get here. First, repeating the same sword strike thousands of times, day after day, until his hands bled and his muscles screamed from the pain. Learning the basic katas and movements of Neph's flowing battle style, then gaining enough insight into it to make it his own. Almost dying to receive the gift of clarity, then fighting against the Shadow Saint and slowly incorporating her grounded technique into his.

Studying the movements of his shadow to catch the slight difference in how it held itself, then spending countless hours trying to decipher the hidden meaning behind it, until his mind was ready to boil. Solving that mystery and traveling into the past to observe the birth of the nameless temple slave, and the beautiful dance of his mother.

And then, torturous practice and arduous process of turning his vision of the elusive and wonderful battle art into reality.

Only to finally succeed in the middle of the furious, bloody battle against Nephis.

Of all his achievements, this was perhaps the one he was proud of the most.

Because Shadow Dance was entirely his. It was something he created out of almost nothing, something that bore and expressed his individuality.

Sunny had never received any type of inheritance, so this legacy, which was created by himself and for himself, held a special place in his heart.

...Looking at the shimmering runes, he read:

Aspect Legacy: [Shadow Dance].

Shadow Dance Mastery Level: [1/7].

First Relic: [Claim].

Second Relic: Unearned.

Third Relic: Unearned…

Holding his breath, he concentrated on the runes describing the first relic and whispered:

"Claim."

As Sunny watched, the runes glowed brightly for a few seconds, and then changed.

First Relic: Claimed.

And a moment later, the Spell spoke softly into his ear:

[You have received an Aspect Legacy Relic.]

[You have received a Shadow: Soul Serpent.]