“Funa, I’m hoping that you’d be willing to give me some guidance for the next week I’m still in the nation.”

Thera’s aunt seemed to light up, at least as much as a shadow woman could. When her niece had walked up to her, she’d never expected to receive this request. Finally, she was ready to fulfill the offer she’d been putting out for years.

“You’re ready to let me help you raise your charm?” She said in excitement. It was something she wanted to help Thera with since she’d come to learn of the issue, getting her to level 6 to grant her the means of suppressing its abilities. Sadly Thera quickly dashed her hopes.

“No, I want to learn dark magic.” She went on to explain the advice she’d gotten from Anailia during the end of her trial.

While initially disappointed, Funa’s interest grew as her niece spoke. She’d never heard of anything like that herself, but at the same time before Abrus fell in love with Pelenia she hadn’t interacted enough with the various races in the world to encounter such things.

“It’s an interesting idea, and I have no issue guiding you as I can, there's just two points I want to advise you on first. To begin with, there is the chance that developing and raising darkness magic could cause your charm to increase too, they are pretty tightly linked after all. The second is that I won’t be able to get you to the point where you have the skill in the next week. I can try and instill as much knowledge and technique in you as I can, but when you go you’ll have to put it into practice yourself to the best of your abilities. Of course, I’ll try to visit Stonewall every now and then, but I’ve already promised your mother to make training Karly my priority.”

Thera nodded. “Don’t worry, I don’t have any illusions about this being easy, you know how long it took me to level earth magic after all. As for my charm… Well, I’m hoping that as long as I only get up to level one or two in dark magic it won’t speed up my next level of charm too much. I only just got another during the trial, if it speeds me up by a couple of years then hopefully I’ll have a solution by then.”

She decided to put her faith in Ben figuring it out like he promised he would. So long as he could come up with a solution in the next twenty years then it probably wouldn’t be an issue, and remembering the look in his eyes she knew he didn’t intend for it to take so long.

Thinking on how seriously he promised her, as well as the situation her mom had caused with the stunt she had pulled the previous night left Thera feeling complicated, and she was a little glad he was too busy to join her for her talk with her aunt. Hopefully, things would feel more normal to her by dinner.

“Alright then,” Funa said, pulling her from her thoughts. “If that's the case then let’s get started. First things first, we’ll need to work on your dark mana.”

“What do you mean? I’m pretty sure I’m able to use dark mana fine. That’s kind of my main problem.”

“The dark mana you have is automatically being wrapped in charm, causing it to radiate out of you. If you could see the mana as clear as I do you’d look like a star. First things first you’ll need to get a hold of your mana either before it gets its charm or remove it after. Neither option is better than the other and once you get the hang of it you’ll be doing both soon enough.”

“Okay, sounds good.” Thera sat down and tried to do both options, neither feeling like it was working but knowing she would need practice to get it. As she did her best her aunt continued talking.

“Whether you get it or not you’ll also need to think about what sort of darkness spell you want to form. While I think you’ll probably be exceptionally suited to fear since it’s the same sort of mental manipulation spell as charm I would personally advise you against it, at least until you have a level or two on you. It would be too easy for you to think you had it and try to put mana into it, only for you to accidentally be training your charm instead. As another option, I’ll have you try shadow fog.”

With her words, darkness seemed to roll off of the great spirit, as if it really was a fog instead of an illusion that sapped the light around her.

“Your issue then,” She continued. “Is making sure it has the proper shape to activate the spell.”

Funa’s lessons continued on as Thera tried to absorb as much information as she could. Having a great spirit as a teacher was a boon few could hope for, she wouldn’t let anything go to waste.

The day had stretched on from morning till dinner, and by the time she was done her training she couldn’t wait to eat. She knew she was nowhere close to her goal, but that was okay. It was never going to be easy. As long as she didn’t let it interfere with her earth magic practice then she was happy to give it her full effort.

When she walked to the dining room she was surprised to find Glob and Karly already there and already fighting.

“I still can’t believe you tried to kill me!” Glob yelled.

“Well maybe stop being the sort of person people would want to kill. Honest to god your duplicate was much more bearable.”

“Now both of you, I did warn you weren’t ready for the trail but what’s done is done." Her mother reasoned with them. "Why not put any unpleasantness behind you and look towards the future.”

Kary looked embarrassed while Glob continued to fume. “You’re right Pelenia, I shouldn’t have rushed into it. I’ll try not to let it affect my work with him from here out.”

“Easy for you to say you bitch! You’re not the one who was beaten half to death!”

“Can’t you be a little embarrassed at how easily you were beaten by something that was supposed to be your perfect copy?”

“No! You both got the jump on me, how was I supposed to beat that?”

“By being better,” Karly said dismissively, and Thera thought Glob's head was about to explode from the comment. Thankfully Ben walked in, silly hat and all, and diffused the tension by bringing out dinner.

“Now now, no fighting. I made a very special meal tonight, a little piece of my homeworld so you all better get along and enjoy it.”

Oh right, Ben did say he wanted to make some foods from his homeworld for me to try-

“Wait, you made spaghetti!” Karly yelled, once her plate was handed to her.

“I mean, I did say I’d do something about it, didn’t I?”

Karly looked mortified, her face was flushed red. “I thought that was just a part of my dream! Forget everything you saw and heard.”

“Come on, it’s not like I don’t feel the same things. Now eat up, I spent all day figuring out how to make a pasta and red sauce. Pasta was easy enough, it’s actually known in the world and there's plenty of plants that resemble grains and plenty of animals that lay eggs to make it with, but not a single thing resembling a tomato on the planet. You wouldn’t believe how complicated it had to be to get the look and taste right. If you ever want it again the head chef has the recipe so just ask.”

Karly had a bite and had to take a moment to collect herself after her outburst. “It’s great. Thanks Ben.”

With a firm pat on the shoulder and a smile when he saw how happy it left the other human he took his seat and started eating.

Thera felt a small stab of jealousy seeing Ben interact with his own kind and noticed her mother looking at her, grin plastered on her face.

What? She mouthed, not in the mood for any more antics from her.

Oh, nothing. She mouthed back, smile never leaving her lips.