Mike’s eyebrow rose in curious scepticism in response to the statement, “And how am I going to do that?” he asked.

“I told you before that the reason I can no longer aid you is because there were soul wards on my cell are stopping my Magic from exiting? When they added to them to restrict my Magic they needed to add Light Magic to them. It opposes my Magic, as they are opposites but the opposition isn’t perfect, I can oppose it back, degrading the barrier over time. I can break it but they will return and renew it before then as they know how long it will take for the barrier to degrade. With your help though, using Light Magic to influence the barrier, we can break it much faster, especially as I already know the weak points for you to exploit.” As Ishare finished signing he reached out to the still animated Darkness before him, the image dissolved and seeped back into his hand and arm like smoke, leaving only a few wisps behind. No, they weren’t left behind. as Mike focused on the wisps of dark mana he realised he could sense them, he hadn’t been able to sense the spell or the mana that Ishare had used to cast it, he could see it, but not sense it.

Before he could figure out what was going on, Ishare began signing again. “This time, after you distract the Guardian, I will find the weak points in the door's ward and then we can break it together and get out of here.” He finished.

Mike grinned back at the Dark elf now. “That sounds like a much better plan than last time, just let me make a bit of a change,” Mike stepped to the side of the door and said softly, “Skills.”

Mike put a hand against the wall to brace himself as he used the other hand to move the tick mark for Dark Magic over to Light Magic. He experienced the same frozen instant before he came to and could feel the Light mana all around him once more. Mike thought for a second and decided that he should probably use those two mental points now as well, opened his status and put them into willpower, that stat was abysmally low.

He dismissed the screens with a swipe of his hand and walked back to the door, looking out at Ishare and nodding to him, “Ready.”

Ishare nodded back, so that did mean the same thing here or at least something similar. Ishare started to sign, “I will begin, follow the flow of my Magic and try to interfere with the wards at the same places when you sense them.” A shape appeared before Ishare, formed from Dark mana, what Mike now knew to be a rune. Tendrils of shadow mana shot out of it in straight lines towards seemingly random places on the bars, seven of them, and at those seven places, a shimmering surface became visible, being distorted by the lines of Dark Magic.

Mike focused, sensing the light mana at the weak point nearest him. Nothing. He could sense the mana sure, that vague sense of light, colour and reflection as he understood them, but the spell that he was supposed to be interfering with wasn’t there. He glanced to Ishare, “I can’t sense it, what am I supposed to do?”

Ishare looked to him and signed, “to sense others spells you must contact them with a spell of your own or with mana under your control, I am very curious to see you this.”

Mike nodded then once again reached out with his senses, but this time he tried to control the mana at the weak point, thinking of making it his, grasping it and moving it as his will. As he looked at the mana he was controlling through mana sight he saw it shift, feeling it as well, but this time not into a spell, it simply shifted into the mortal realm as the mana had every time he cast a spell, but with no shape this time just raw energy.

Raw Light mana was bright, Mike had to squint at it, this mana was his now though, he could feel it much clearer now, it was light in its rawest form, illumination, colour, but it was part of him now as well, he could sense it resonating with him in ways he couldn’t explain. He could also feel the ward now, not just the weak point that his Light mana was touching but the whole thing, it was a smooth pane of Light mana interwoven with something else, formed into a barrier across the front of the cell that repelled. it didn’t repel light, though Mike suspected it could. it repelled its opposite, Dark, and an aspect of Light mana that Mike hadn’t come into contact with, though the AI seemed to use often, Sound. Why would the High elves ward sound when they had cut out Ishare’s tongue? So Ishare couldn’t hear him? But Ishare had been able to hear him, right?

Mike realised that the mana under his control was weakening, it wasn’t meant to be in the Mortal Realm, and the reason it was glowing so bright is that it was unformed and was converting into its most natural physical state, rays of light. It was decaying in another way, a way that Mike didn’t understand. He needed to break the ward now.

He couldn't feel the weak points in the ward, the whole thing felt uniform to him, but the lines of Dark magic that contacted it were interfering with it. They were decaying it in a similar way to how Mikes mana was decaying, the ward was only made of limited mana so could only block so much, but it had been made to block this mana so the rate that it was decaying at was incredibly slow. Not all the points were draining it at the same rate either, two of them were much less efficient than the others.

Examples, Mike understood, those two were there too show him how the ward normally reacted to Dark Magic. Mike focused on the actual weak points and tried to sense the difference between them and normal reaction. There were flaws in the pane, gaps that weren’t formed as solidly as the rest of it, they leaked light mana, Mike suspected that these flaws were actually intentional and that without them the ward would be permanent, but as the ward didn’t have enough mana to function indefinitely, trying to make it so would just make it fail, so these flaws leaked mana.

Now knowing what to do Mike spread his light mana into one of the flaws and shoved, it wasn’t made to accept light mana, so it was like shoving together the negative ends of two magnets, they repelled. The ward shattered, not just metaphorically, there was the sound of breaking glass as the ward broke into a million pieces. Doing that had used up all of the Light mana that Mike had controlled.

Mike felt the sensation of a notification from his arm and he wanted to know what the benefits of that experience, it was by far the most magical thing he had experienced so far. Not worrying about whether Ishare saw Mike said, “Notifications,” and willed the Light mana before him to turn into the Window.

You have Discovered the Spells:

Nice! Two new spells, one for breaking the ward, and one for understanding what it did. Mike dismissed the screen and looked back too Ishare.

He smiled as he saw Ishare cast the same spell as he had first done, The spell formed of runes spread out this time in a wave and enveloped them as it had his door. Ishare stepped through them as if they weren’t there, he reached back and touched the shadowy bars and they recondensed into the same rune that shot at his door this time, once again enveloping it and turning it into a shadow in the doorway.

Mike stepped through, “Another try, I hope it goes better this time,” he said smiling at Ishare.

Ishare just nodded and started to walk towards the end of the Hall.