194 An invisible shadow 3 (1/2)

What was it to shadow another person?

Most accustomed the term to working alongside of a predecessor in a field of knowledge or occupation, with the intention of improvement through observation.

The practice was most commonly utilized in work formats akin to internship, and primarily to obtain use and critical knowledge.

The intern would observe the expert from all angles of their proceedings, behaviors, and logical analysis to obtain a heightened perception, or obtain an enlightened procedure in obtaining a result at a much swifter and efficient pace.

The intern was to absorb the accumulated knowledge and wisdom of the expert via constant observation and tutelage, to develop their own shortcuts or extensions in a specified path of knowledge or occupation.

Later, upon graduating from this scheduled internship, the former intern achieved the state of offering shadowing services to future interns to provide an opportunity to glimpse at their methodology of logic.

The shadowing that many were accustomed to was intended to provide the intern with the foundational basics to forge another path, but the dire majority of interns merely assimilated into the expert and transformed into one of many of their 'copies.'

A copy of the expert manifested when the intern had saturated all of the knowledge accumulated by the expert, that their soul and its proceedings altered itself to acclimate to that of the expert.

Through the system of tutelage, the intern's personality, logical reasoning, and demeanor morphed into an identical copy of that of the expert.

The appearance, gender, and actual name might be different, but once the 'copy' graduates from the task of shadowing, they have established themselves as a duplicate of the expert.

The future works achieved by the 'copy' was attained through the expert's methodology, and their demeanor and personality was completely akin to that of the original persona.

The former intern, upon perusal by the public, would appear as the expert via a simple analysis – and the intern would disappear.

However, the shadowing of the was rather different.

Removing the field of influence from a soul would render others unable to recognize them for their existence, but the extrapolated upon that principle a step further.

Not only was the field of influence removed, the shadow of an individual was removed.

Thus, practitioners of the were immune to physical interactions regardless of the magnitude, and could not be detected for what they were.

Even if one were to stand before a person and wave their hands, the person would never recognize their presence as a human.

Every shadow possessed a fluctuation similar to the original that emanated from the soul, but derived a step lower in complexity.

The fluctuation of the shadow permitted nearby souls to recognize and interact with the soul – the shadow served as the preemptive identifier of such existence.

And if the fluctuations of the shadow were mimicked by another without a field of influence, the original soul would never notice a difference upon interaction.

The mimic would merely be recognized as a component of the soul's fluctuation, and wouldn't be detected in the slightest.

Furthermore, any phenomena enacted by the mimic would similarly never come to the original soul's awareness, not until the mimic has ceased imitating the fluctuation emanating from the original soul's shadow.

Thus, An Fei was experiencing… a rather peculiar sensation.

She possessed neither a field of influence nor a shadow, causing her experience to become tinged with a mass of excitement and happy sensations.

–

”What… happened to me?”

In the Sanctum, a young girl bumbled around, mumbling nonsensically to herself as her body swayed and staggered without pause.

An Fei nearly caught herself from falling onto the crystalline ground, her fingers scrabbling at the surface of a mahogany table to her right.

She felt… absolutely peculiar.

If she closed her eyes, her movements would immediately straighten and no long possess the charismatic qualities of a wasteful drunkard, and her sense of hysteria and worry would abate as though it were never present.

Disregarding the lack of sight, everything regarding her body was perfectly normal.

Once she opened her eyes and allowed herself to receive the scenery of the Sanctum, however, everything changed.

”W-woah!”

The young girl stumbled onto the ground, her cheek pressing against the crystalline surface with her limbs sprawled over the floor.

An Fei's eyes drifted onto the sky-blue crystal, and the scarlet irises inadvertently saw their reflection.

”No, no, no!”

The diagram pulsing in her chest dutifully enacted its miraculous task, and the head-shaking and nauseous sensation surged into the young girl's consciousness without end.