Umi piloted the Kurogingyo deep into the jungles of the Great Cerberus Forest, he was here on a mission to recover more materials for his magic weapons for his 7 commanders, which he named Shichi-bashira no Ryugujo This particular mission would not require the use of Yoko, so he left him behind to watch the completion of his weapon while he was out gathering the material for Mortimer's shield, and of course, had to bring Mortimer with him

"This one's gonna be tricky, not only is this monster hard to track, but it's skin makes it particularly difficult to capture"

Umi landed the ship on the edge of what appeared to be a small swamp, the land there was cleared of large trees and served as a good place to dock the ship, grabbing his belongings, he readied his staff to use his flight magic with.

"[i]Scopoe Volent[i], Hop on Al"

Stepping onto the back and gripping onto Umi he waited till they had taken off. "[b]So do you have any idea where this chameleon could be? It's habitat, movement patterns, prey, anything?

Mortimer was a little more than skeptical at this given that they were searching for a mystical CHAMELEON. Mortimer wouldn't be surprised if the thing could turn invisible altogether... And so far he had no idea what the thing looked like, its size or capabilities. Sometimes he wished that Umi could be a bit more descriptive.

"Well, they are kind of hard to see, every single topic on my Archive has the same picture, a drawing taken by an explorers, so im assuming it looks like the chameleon that he drew it as. It has Attention-Diverting magic, thus i cant track it using my ESP"

Umi showed all the crude picture that was drawn of the creature, it was a basic, pencil thin rough sketch of what the explorer saw during his trip. It an aspects it looked like a Human World chameleon, but much Much larger. Umi required the use of a stronger sensing spirit for this one.

"Evocatio Spiritualis: Sensor~kun"

Umi conjured the spirit of magic sensing, a chibi mage character with an oversized hat an tiny little wings.

"He's much better at detecting magic than me, We can use him to track this thing, Sensor~kun, can you check for high-class Attention Diverting Magic?"

The spirit hovered in the air and closed its eyes, sensing magic far too fine and powerful for Umi to sense with his ESP, it took the spirit several minutes to track the beast, a testament to its skill.

"Mana is flowing towards something that i cant decipher, it's classic diverting magic, it's this way."

The spirit started floating in a direction to the southeast of them. Umi hopped onto his broom and invited Al to join him.

Splitting into a swarm of bats and ignoring Umi's invitation Mortimer flew after the spirit. Hopping Umi would follow after him he had the bats which made him up speak in a unified high pitched squeaky voice "Can we dispel the distraction spell long enough to get a hit in?"

Mortimer knew of a way to defeat the creature but it all hinged on the thing being visible... or at least in plain view to him. If he was distracted (a skill this thing seemed to have innately) then he wouldn't have a chance to end it in one attack. However vague Umi was at the start he had explained that this thing became resistant to any given attack type which it had previously faced. That meant he had to either end it in one attack or lose the creature forever.

"The spells not the problem, we can have our spirit track it for a long time, however, the difficulty lies in it's secondary ability"

Umi took to his staff, using it as a broom, he rode on it like he was surfing. He caught up with Mortimer pretty quickly, and outpaced him on his broom. He knew that since he had no bodyguard, and could not fight directly at all, it would require Mortimer to fight the monster, while Umi backed him up.

"The creature naturally has the ability to mimic and replicate the characteristic of what is around it. Spells are a no go, since it'll just replicate the strength and abilities of the spell on its skin. Any type of attack spell it replicates will add to it's defense. So we have to pull this off with a 1HKO ok?"

"We... I can deal with a one HKO. But I need a clear shot of its eyes. I need to make eye contact with it before I hit it. With that I should be able to end it so long as I can affect it with a curse and attack before it assimilates the curse into its defense. Is this a possibility?"

Staying in Bat form was a good way to break up psychic attacks and all but it also meant a hive mind and a temporary dilution of identity.

"[i]Can you use that boost spell on my strength while I attack it?[/b]"

"Sorry Al, it's not something you can pull off at this level, this thing is easily AA rank, its scales cant be harmed heavily, and it's body has to go mostly undamaged, We're going to need an attack that can both pierce and kill the creature in a single movement, or an attack that deals internal damage as a 1HKO. As far as i can tell, your going to need to learn a little more power before we continue."

Umi didnt like to lie, but for this mission he had an ulterior motive, he needed his Shichibashira to be stronger, as strong as their title, and despite their flawless victories in their past few tangos with the Arcadians, a name Umi picked up from the last time he fought them, a little unintentional mind-reading on his part, he had to admit, in order to continue on with there plan, they would need to get several times stronger to even make it in Utopia

"Sounds like the right time to train isnt it?"

...Training. We're in the middle of a f***ing forested desert and you want us to train... Fine, if you don't think we're strong enough then how about THIS"

The swarm that was the shadow mage began ascending, higher and higher climbing up into the sky until the wind began buffeting them so much they could hardly stay together. The bats once again collasced into their normal form of the purple haired red eyed sorcerer who immediately began casting the spell Nocturna Nigredinis even as he fell from the soaring heights. But it didn't stop there. Even as he fell he gathered the shadows within his coat forming them into a half-plate armor around himself. Then drawing on the shadows created by the nocturna itself he began forming a large spear around the cane which acted as his wand.

He had now lost almost half of his altitude now and was falling even faster. Still he wasn't done. Ordering his Nocturna's numerous shadow ribbons he had them all converge on a single point beneath him as he angled the shadow spear to be at the same point as the nocturnas ribbons. Causing the familiar to swing its massive arms mortimer and the entire contraption began spinning. Had anyone been looking on they would have seen what looked like a black top falling from the sky.

Still he fell faster and the rotation increased. After what seemed an eternity, the rotation increasing, the ground approaching, the shadows gleaming, Mortimer landed... Landed of course being a very general word. More like, drilled through part of a a tree and straight into the forest floor below.

Mortimer was now twenty feet down in a hole the size of his nocturna. Everything was sore, everything hurt, and he had used up all his magic but he had managed to drill down through twenty feet of packed earth.

It was at this particular point that he had no idea where Umi was at this point...

"Still not heavily impressed ill give that an A-Rank skill, but as a Pillar of my Castle, you need to be stronger..."

Umi lost track of the mage as he plummeted through the air, with the help of his little spirit friend, he was able to detect the presence of his ally. He dropped in elevation as he lowered himself into the jungle. Finding Mortimer weakened body, he was forced to revive him with the flower off a nearby patch in order to resuscitate him.

"GeroGero, Fragrantia floris, meis amicis vigorem, vitalitatem, auram salutarem, Refectio, you know whats a good power-up? A pactio, what do you say?"

"*Chuckling* Sure, of course... not. Haven't we been over this already Umi. I'm your equal. NOT one of your puppet minstra. And I'm going to get better through my own power. Not from borrowing someone elses."

This might have been a bit more grandoise... if Mortimer wasn't stuck in a pit as he said this... Sometimes the setting REALLY doesn't match the tone.

"Why do you always have to turn this into a Dominance thing, I think we should make a pactio to increase our organizations strength, I form pactio's as signs of an agreement, a promise, that i will help you fulfill your goals. Now im sure there's a reason you are in Ryugujo, something you wanna accomplish with my power right?"

Umi got back on his staff a lifted himself up into the air, he commanded his sensing spirit to pick up the signal of the monster again so they could continue tracking it.

"No actually. There's absolutely nothing that I want from you. I have no stake in your organization, no ambition to become a pillar of anything, or to become insanely strong beyond reason. Really, you shouldn't be asking me anything. Give me a reason. ONE good reason WHY I should stay with you. Tell me ONE thing that I can only do with you at my side that I can't do with someone else, or better yet, On My Own?"

The speech was a lie. Mortimer did have a reason for staying in the Ryu-ju-go but there was no way he was going to tell Umi what it was.

"Actually i was under the impression that you were here for that exact reason: You dont have anything. There's nothing you want and nothing you'll fight for, you have no goals and dont know what your future is. Hence why you stick with me, whether of not I succeed or fail, you will inevitably suffer little to no repercussions. Its perfect for you, it gives your magic an outlet, it gives your a goal, on opinion, a choice without having to commit to anything."

Seeing as Mortimer refused to get a move on tracking the creature, Umi pulled him onto his broom and took off

Mortimer hung onto the bottom of the broom as Umi zoomed around. "So does that mean I should kill it now?" He asked.

"Your still gonna have to do a little training before we can continue, if we Phantasmagoria our training and i turn up the time perception, we can get about 7 hours of training in before the spirit locates the monster, we can easily use that time to teach you the 1HKO spell."

Summoning the spirit of telekinesis, he had it manage the broom while he started the ritual in order to seal both of them inside of a Phantasmagoria space and do some mental training

As Umi completed the spell, Mortimer was drawn into the phantasmagoria space. It was much the same as last time. A near perfect reproduction of Kyoto... except for the sky of course. The sky was a bright blue ocean. Still, on the ground here, the laws of physics seemed to work normally.

"So what did you have in mind for phantasmagoria training? If I want to take something down in one hit, wouldn't it make more sense to do physical training?"

"Not this time, you may be a magical duelist, but you have distinctly mage qualities about you, right down to your heavy use of reinforcement magic. So obviously, we're gonna have to work on your mana capacity. And a new spell you may want to work on to increase your offensive power: Shadow Claws"

Pulling up the characteristics of the new spell onto a viewing screen via his Archive, Umi went over the basic, while Mortimer would have to deal with the harsh training exercises he would have to put up with first.

"Unguis Umbrae: A high-level of the close combat branch of Soueijutsu, It manifests the user's shadow and compacts it into an extremely deadly claw, the offensive and piercing power of the claws is enough to shatter nearly any defense, however, in order for you to make it effective, your gonna need the upgrades from your shadow armor, and in the case of any further environmental factors brought in during the fight, your gonna need to increase your magic capacity."

Snapping his fingers, Umi changed the characteristics of the illusory space, it suppressed the ambient mana flow in his subconscious, forcing Mortimer to put more effort into gathering mana than before


Now go full Shadow Armor and bring out your Nocturna Nigiridlis, we have a too few hours to dawdle, after that, bring out as many Umbrae as you can, maintain it for as long as possible"

Mortimer began by first gathering as much shadow around him as he could. He had magic stored within him and he knew he could draw on it but when he tried using it portions of it seemed to slip away. Still he had to draw as much of it as he could. By the time he had it all drawn around him he was on half empty.

Mustering as much as he could he felt the power disperse away even as he tried in vain to form the shadows into workable armor. "%*@!!" he cried as he fell to his knees trying to think of what he could do. Whatever affect Umi used, it had caused all the magic in the room to spread out from each other.

Normally he could just passively wait for magic to enter him, and then let it out as needed. But that wouldn't work here. He had actively drawn magic into himself before but that had been a while ago and a necessity. This was all unnecessary. Mortimer wanted to just lie down and go to sleep, wait for Umi to get back and then leave. And that's exactly what he would have done... had it not been for the one in front of him.

"What's the matter Morty worty, all tuckered out" The being said in a snide mocking voice of sympathy. "Don't you want to get all stronger wonger, and save me we?" continueing in the mocking tone.

"Stop taunting me Delilah. I stopped him. I stopped him and gave you the chance to come with me but you didn't. I tried to get you out of that place but all you did was cling to him and cry! I did everything I could but you still wouldn't let go!"

The figure giggled. "Oh of COURSE you did big BORETHER*. You're such an idiot some times" the being said as it seemed to teleport right in front of the kneeling Mortimer only to kick him in the face sending him sprawling back. "But you know that's not good enough." The figure continued to stomp on the prone Mortimer as he coughed at the first several kicks. "You know you've never been good enough! You KNOW, that you've ALWAYS given UP because you KNEW you could NEVER, measure UP." The being punctuated each harsh word with a harsher kick.

"That's why you sleep all day. You think that if you don't try you'll never fail right! And whenever you do start failing your first instinct is to fall asleep and look away from your problems. So SELFISH!" Kicking him across the floor with the last word.

"You just walked away after all that time and barely looked back. How could you be anything but a selfish little blank? You don't care about anything at all do you? Just go to sleep and that's it. You don't care about getting stronger, you don't care about your friends or your lovers. You don't even care about your own existence! THAT'S what makes you selfish. You've gotten ALL this power, and what do you do with it? NOTHING! While others would kill for what you have, all you do is lie around, and do nothing with the power you obtain. And the irony of it all is, if you ever started using your power for something, we both know it wouldn't be enough. The frustration of trying to do something and failing... what you fear most right? So you gave up caring altogether... and now we're back where we started!"

The being was once again in front of the now kneeling Mortimer. And it kicked him again sending him sprawling. "Wasted power. Fear of not having enough. Selfish sleep. That's all you are Mortimer. That's all you'll ever BE!"

As the being tried to kick him again Mortimer grabbed the foot. "Everything you've said is true and more Delilah. All of it. But you've forgotten, since I left that graveyard... I haven't given up on anything." Mortimer was standing in front of the being now. As he moved closer to it, it moved back almost fearfully.

"The paradox of power was all that weighed on me for a long time. And I felt guilty that I wasn't strong enough to get you to leave that retched place when you had a chance. Then I went numb and buried everything I had in sleep."

As he continued to step forward slowly, the malformed shadows seemed to become more solid but kept their tattered jagged form. "Then I started getting dragged around. Pushed into situations and places I didn't want or care for."

At his next step his familiar spirit, the Nocturna Nigredinis formed around him. "At first I hated it. I wondered why I should have to go through all of that for gains at the end which I didn't want."

Another step and nine shadow soldiers appeared around him. "That's when I realized how happy these people were. How happy they became when their goals were completed. How happy the felt when they were working towards their goals. How happy they were when they worked towards them. I may be selfish as hell. But seeing them happy made me feel something I thought I couldn't anymore... I'm not empty anymore Delilah."

A black cloud of darkness enveloped the entire room. "I'm filled with everything"

Loud booms and noises could be heard from within the cloud but the exact events could not be determined. But surely enough in time they too stopped. But the darkness remained.

(*Purposefully misspelled as a play on words of Bore and Brother)

Properly Mortimer was experiencing the Shadow usually associated with these kinds of levels of phantasmagoric training, whatever was happening, it appeared to give Mortimer the extra push he needed to exert the power necessary to move forward with his training.

"It's been about 20 minutes, were gonna need a little more time with this..."

Mortimer waited. Within the sealed room he maintained the power he exerted. Recognizing that this place would drain him of the energies, he had to rework his magical channeling from the ground up. Starting with the basics, he previously had been sending his magic as if it were a stream, now he let it branch out of him gradually, growing and drawing from the ambient magical energy... like a tree. With himself as the base he would use the "leaves" (concentrated pockets of darkness-aligned magic) and extend the magical "branches" of his spells. Using this method Mortimer could not only maintain the energy... but continually expound it. The tree metaphor allowed for greater stability and density than the "water" or "gas-light" model he used previously.... but it wasn't without its flaws. Although allowing him to draw on greater power it was slow and wouldn't serve him in actual combat. He needed to improve upon it.

"I prefer the visual of the the world, its flows through you with infinite energy, and as you circulate it through your body, simply imagine taking in more energy, your body will burn slightly like your sore, but after about another hour, your should be used to it. Magic Power-ups are a specialty of mine"

Umi sat back as watched the implausible scene in the sky above them, the ocean undulated back and forth as it normally did in the real world, Umi was attracted to the motion, he was transfixed on the simple movement of the sky ocean above him.

"Of course, we can always pactio. Your not that bad looking, and i suspect your worthy of being the Spring Palace Pillar, if you play your cards right."

Mortimer ignored Umi's comments. the world was a fine medium and all, the only problem with it was its sheer non-sensicalness. The world, vast seemingly infinite. Billions of people, living organisms, landmasses, combinations, a great circuit idea but the formation of all those prospects was impossible without months or even years of work. And even then, if Umi was only refering to the generic world model as a celestial body, that was quite possibly the most mundane external magic-circle in existence. It wasn't infinite energy and caused a total loss of 3.53 mJ per minute. And in a highstakes battle where every ounce of magic was neccessary the world model was a poor choice. No, he needed efficiency of magic and the speed to both draw it in and unleash it.

Unfortunately, Umi ended up unconsciously reading Al's mind, of course he picked up on Mortimer's disbelief from the frown and eye roll he always did when he talked.

"It's not that at all, you have the ability of the entire world at your disposal, yet you refuse to use it. You have the power of the gods flowing through you, but if your will remains weak, you wont be able to harness it. Keep it in constant motion, constantly interact with the world by drawing from it. Remember, your close minded-ness is what keeps you from harnessing your magic properly. Audacia Paula Look..."

Umi exerted his magical power, he had been working on the magical bursts his body could create thanks to his mana capacity. He simply forced it out of his body at the greatest strength he possibly could. The sheer force of the magic released displaced air around them and crackled with power before Umi quit, he was fatigued, but once he closed his eyes, he replenished his magic reserves in only a moment of two.

"There see? Even in this world where magic is siphoned out, I could expel all of it, and regain all of my magic in 5 seconds, I cant do it a lot, but if you do this right, you'll learn to do it"

Dropping the magic circle Mortimer turned and glared at Umi. "Even if it is unintentional, reading thoughts is a huge invasion of PRIVACY!" He thought yelled to Umi in as loud and painful a mental voice as he could muster.

"And I'll say it openly this time. The world model is inefficient. The continued rotation of energy out of and into the body causes too much of a bleed and drains too much magic. Along the poles especially you're creating beacons which turn you into a light-house of magical energy to anyone sensitive enough. I need either a new model of absorption or an old.... Umi is the data storage area still in the same place it used to be?"

Motimer had had an epiphany. Yes the world model was imperfect but there was a way to make it truly astounding! All he needed was access to Umi's files... or even an internet connection, he just needed to look something up.

"The World is what is taught at Magic Schools, so dont deny the fact that it is simple and effective. Your just a logical hard-ass who denies what he cant comprehend. But here."

Umi snapped his fingers and created the entrance into the reference room, taking all the information he had in his Archive, he added it into his psyche through a unique ritual, which made him virtually a library of magic.

"Better hurry, we only have a few more hours before we get there..."