I analyzed everything I heard from Maggie.

  Claire stumbled on something that could change everything. She was sitting on it for too long, keeping it all for herself.

  The ability to create or contain the fog and create stuff, or at least bring it from somewhere, had enormous implications for my continued survival and life in this mysterious place. Maybe even a way to travel to another, whatever that inner plane was.

  If it had its own supply of ghouls, or better yet, the weaker shades, I would have a solution to all my problems.

  Safety and resources—gifted to me on a silver platter.

  I shouldn't forget that everything Claire did was based on guesses and fictitious ideas about the occult.

  It worked for her, but some of it was probably superfluous, even if she didn't know it. Similar to everything I did when I tried to reverse-engineer her ability to heal. Sure, the spell would work in the temple if you draw strange symbols in spit and blood and say your prayer to the Goddess. But it was all redundant. Unneeded.

  And I knew exactly the things that were not—intent and power.

  Hand gestures, words, or symbols helped focus my intent, including the intent to cast in the first place or how much energy to channel. During the first experiments with Kenny, I had to trigger a spell with a snap of my fingers, a clap, or a command, and measurely breathing out helped draw power into the magic. These practices were helpful, some only at the beginning, and some were still used, but ultimately they were unnecessary.

  Items like my mask were another example of something I used in spellcasting. It served as a purchase—an external support for the spell, but I didn't know if it was a hard requirement. It wasn't anything more than fancy scaffolding for the magical effect to hold on to.

  Distance was another factor. It weakened spells, and nothing could beat having direct contact. Though Claire did use a direct line of sight to bridge the gap somehow, I added mentally to my growing knowledge of the fundamental rules behind it all.

  And some effects were more accessible than others—Sight and Force, for example. Comparing the power needed to use the Sight or to Force my body to barely float was like comparing Heaven and Earth.

  But the bare bones of magic were the effect I was trying to impose and the power to do so.

  For the last few days, maybe closer to a week, I was constantly charged to my maximum, lugging around the excess essence I didn't need just yet in the large pentacle on my person. And yet I didn't learn or do anything new or groundbreaking, not since the creation of the mask, my trump card.

  Not since I gained the abilities needed to safely hunt the shades, which were now extinct, thanks to my efforts.

  Hell, I didn't even do the one thing that had become common to everybody else—I didn't hunt ghouls. I was armed, and I had more abilities than almost anyone else, and still, I hesitated to face off the stronger enemy on my own. No, instead, I restricted myself to the safer shades because I lacked confidence in my ability to win unscathed.

  Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  Maggie was right—I let fear dictate my decisions for me.

  There was a fine line between being cautious and afraid, and I crossed that line.

  Intent and power, I repeated in my head.

  I had all the power I could use in the short run, yet I was not thriving, which could only mean one thing—A failure of imagination.

  I didn't try to discover new things that could change my survival strategy. So many doors were just waiting for me to open, and they remained closed.

  Well, that was about to change, and I was going to start with the fog circle.

  I crouched in an abandoned apartment further into the city, tracing a continuous line into the dusty floors with a jagged stone I casually Shaped into a sharp edge.

  First, I concentrated on the idea of protection.

  The idea was too broad, and I didn't like it, but it was a good first step to take.

  I sat inside the circle, hands touching the line from within, and channeled my energy into it.

  As I gradually increased the power, the circle's glow intensified in its usual ethereal golden light. But even after a while in peak excretion, nothing visibly changed, so I stopped to rest and plan ahead.

  The second attempt showed better results. I followed Maggie's words more closely and concentrated on a more narrow idea of protection against the world's energy—any energy from outside the circle.

  When the mists started to appear inside the circle, I removed my mask and, for once, used regular sight instead of the magical one. The rate at which the mists manifested drastically improved, and I stopped before I was forcibly moved to a part of the tests I wouldn't be ready for soon.

  And so it went, test after test.

  Powering the circle from outside made a slight improvement.

  Closing my eyes and deactivating the Sight entirely during the test improved it even further.

  The smaller the circle was, the less energy it took to fill it with the magical mist, though the intensity required of me was unchanged.

  And during all that time, one thought kept bugging me—The mist was just a side effect.

  I didn't create a spell to create the mist or concentrate on the right idea when powering the circle. Instead, I focused on protection. The mist appeared on its own when the conditions were right.

  So I had to ask myself, what were the conditions?

  After all of the tests, the answer was simple—I removed myself and my energy from the circle, empowered it with the intent of shielding it from external power, and stopped observing it.

  But I could do it better, couldn't I?

  The idea behind my mask was one I was comfortably familiar with by this point. Hiding, Concealing, Obscuring, denying the ability to Observe.

  Nothing stopped me from applying the same intent to the circle, so I tried it.

  Partially shielding from external energies and partly hiding the circle. Not just from any random observer but from the world itself as much as my understanding of it allowed me.

  This was my best attempt yet.

  I had to repeat it from inside, as the concealment was so strong that even I, its creator, was affected. Even while in direct contact with the circle itself.

  This gave me the opportunity to test my defenses against the fog.

  I never let it become too thick, but while I was inside, I found that the best defense was the trusty Sight and infusing the space around me with my energy with the intent of having it touch, permeate, and feel, for lack of better words, the space it occupied.

  It was like having a continuation of my body made of the lightest invisible pillow that followed my every step and movement. Similar to a shade's appearance when it was in its diffused form.

  After training with it for some time, a better word came to mind.

  Presence.

  I was infusing my Presence into the world around me, and it was enough to completely eliminate any strand of mist that came near me.

  Observing the mist and remembering everything I knew about it pushed me to understand it better.

  Reality was like a helpful hand that held things down, contending with an invisible breeze that was eager to vanish anything that was not held tightly enough and move twist space.

  It was like the default state of everything around me was being malleable, and reality was doing something extra by fighting that malleability by making everything more permanent.

  Outside the circle, there may be some contention between the two forces, with reality winning the fight, but inside, it was solely up to my Presence to hold my surrounding down. To impose immutability on my surroundings.

  Creating and defending against the mist was easy enough at that point. Still, I was not ready to travel to the inner plane on my own, if it even existed, so I decided to move to the next ability I wanted to develop, but that required me to relocate to a more suitable place.