Chapter 709 – Dreamweaver World 47

Chapter 709 – Dreamweaver World 47

“A shadow is the outline of an object painted jointly by light and darkness. A creature without a shadow will be utterly rejected by both light and dark. Willpower connects the original body to its shadow, and only extraordinary willpower is the key to actively controlling one’s shadow…”

The very first sentence of the book captured Mo Lan’s attention.

She read on eagerly, the words on the pages unfurling like flowing water:

“A Shadow Hunter can manipulate an enemy’s shadow, thereby affecting their physical body. The Power of Shadow extracted from hunted shadows can be used to nourish one’s own shadow or shadow pets, while creatures and objects stripped of their shadows will suffer varying degrees of harm…”

Mo Lan’s breath hitched slightly. So that was how it worked!

The question that had always puzzled her—how shadows could inversely affect the objects themselves—finally had an answer.

According to this book, a shadow actually represented the original body’s capacity to accept light and darkness.

Shadows were not mere optical phenomena, but the tangible manifestation of an object’s ability to receive both light and dark.

Willpower was the bridge connecting body and shadow. Ordinary willpower could only passively maintain the link between the two, keeping the shadow in existence. Only extraordinary willpower could actively manipulate the Power of Shadow to influence the shadow itself.

Only now did Mo Lan realize that her stumbling, accidental use of psychic power to amplify her control over the Power of Shadow had actually been the right approach. Willpower, like psychic power, was an energy that leaned more toward the soul side—and it was entirely possible that the two shared the same origin.

And when Shadow Hunters manipulated another’s shadow, they were essentially using the Power of Shadow as cover, employing the shadow as a medium to engage in a contest of wills with their target.

The victor could naturally influence the other’s will and thoughts, achieving the goal of control.

Whether it was being unable to move one’s body, suddenly losing sight and hearing, or one’s body acting beyond one’s control—all of it happened because one’s willpower had been suppressed and one’s body and senses seized by another.

This method was somewhat like a hybrid of Witch Curse Magic and mage Psychic Magic.

The shadow served as a casting medium similar to those that amplified the success rate of Curse Magic, while the contest of wills resembled the clash of psychic power when casting Psychic Magic.

Combined, it was more covert and roundabout than Psychic Magic, less dramatic in its effects, but because of the shadow serving as a casting medium, it had a higher success rate and was harder to defend against.

Of course, if the target possessed overwhelming psychic power, this kind of manipulation would still fail.

That also explained why, even before she had changed tribes, the children in the village had been unable to budge her shadow.

And if a shadow was completely stripped away, the situation was far more severe than simple manipulation—the original body would be simultaneously rejected by both light and darkness for a period of time.

Mo Lan’s gaze fell on the exquisitely rendered illustration beside the text.

A nightglow flower that should have been blooming with fluorescence in the dark was rapidly withering after losing its shadow.

The artist had captured every moment of its decay with delicate brushstrokes. The edges of its petals curled and blackened, its luminous blue glow fading like life being drained away, until finally the entire plant crumbled into a pinch of ash, frozen in eternal death upon the windless page.

“A person or object without a shadow will be scorched by light and will bleed away its life force when submerged in darkness,” she murmured, reading the annotation below. Her voice tightened involuntarily. In the corner of the illustration, a line of small text was noted:

“Test subject: Nightglow Flower (duration of shadow deprivation: 10 minutes) — excerpted from Mo Lan breathed a sigh of relief when the passage continued after that heart-stopping text:

“The shadows of objects are relatively inert, easily stripped and tamed; but the shadows of living creatures are tightly bound to their bodies, requiring willpower far exceeding the target’s own to sever the connection.”

Based on Mo Lan’s earlier discovery that willpower and psychic power were complementary—and possibly even the same energy at their source—with her level of psychic power, there were very few people who could strip away her shadow.

Having confirmed that her own shadow was safe enough, Mo Lan could finally relax and continue reading.

“The shadows of living creatures possess a degree of self-healing ability. As long as they have not been completely stripped away, they will slowly recover over time. If nourished with the Power of Shadow, they can even accelerate the recovery of the original body. Even if the shadow is entirely lost, it can be regrown by infusing it with the Power of Shadow.”

Her gaze swept over a small illustration beside the passage—in it, a kitten with a missing ear on its shadow lay napping on a rock, its actual ear also bare of fur and stained with blood. But at the gap where the shadow’s ear had been, fine threads of shadow were slowly writhing and regenerating, and the wound on the real ear was easing in tandem.

“The shadows of inanimate objects have no self-healing capability. If damage is not repaired promptly, the original object’s deterioration will accelerate; conversely, if carefully nourished with the Power of Shadow, the lifespan of the original object can be greatly extended.”

This passage was accompanied by a set of comparison diagrams: on the left, an iron sword with a damaged shadow, its blade covered in rust; on the right, the same type of weapon whose shadow had been carefully maintained, its edge gleaming with cold light.

Mo Lan suddenly recalled Dani, the panicked little girl in the plaza, nearly in tears when the hem of her skirt’s shadow was taken. It turned out it wasn’t just about vanity.

“If the shadow hadn’t been returned to her then… her actual skirt in reality would probably have developed a mysterious hole, wouldn’t it?”

The realization made her chuckle. “The relationship between shadows and their originals is quite fascinating!”

Mo Lan now fully understood Matina’s disdain for the adventurer class of “Shadow Hunter.”

The skills that adventurer Shadow Hunters learned amounted to nothing more than displacing through areas of shadow and summoning shadow pets to fight alongside them—superficial combat tricks at best. They were like amateurs who had learned sword forms without understanding how to forge a blade.

But true Shadow Tribe Shadow Hunters—their abilities had long permeated every corner of daily life. Tailors could use the Power of Shadow to mend the shadows of clothing, restoring worn fabric to like-new condition. Craftsmen nourished their wares through shadow, allowing an ordinary iron sword to be passed down for a hundred years without rusting. Physicians could even treat certain ailments beyond the reach of medicine by tending to a patient’s shadow.

Turning past the theory section, she came to the content on shadow classification.

The book divided shadows into two categories: inanimate shadows and living shadows.

Inanimate shadows were as sluggish as rocks, the easiest to strip and tame.

Living shadows were further divided into two types: the shadows of non-sentient creatures and the shadows of sentient creatures.

The shadows of non-sentient creatures were like rippling water—they would instinctively resist but lacked strategy. The shadows of sentient creatures were like wary beasts—not only would they fight back, they might even counterattack the hunter.

Mo Lan’s fingertip traced over a passage in gilded text:

“Never in this world has there existed a shadow that exists independently of its original body. So-called ‘shadow creatures’ are in truth constructs cultivated by hunters using the Power of Shadow and imbued with fragments of the hunter’s own will.”

In the illustration, an elderly Shadow Tribe man was tearing a small piece from his own shadow and injecting it into a spherical mass of shadow.