gromp lol

Down below, he heard a knock on the front door, and Shannon answered. The brief moment of distraction snapped his clone back as if it had been yanked with a tether. Once again, he was left gasping for air and dripping sweat. He deactivated his magic and ripped off his headband, immediately sighing in relief. That sensation alone was worth the stress of training, as if slipping into a hot bath.

“Because I was like you when I was young. My ego was as great as my powers, and I did awful things because I thought right and wrong didn’t apply to me. Then, when I was finally put on the right path and looked at myself, the guilt was unbearable, eating away at me like a swarm of goblins. My mentor, my predecessor as Light’s Emissary, helped me bear my pain and taught me to carry the guilt instead of dragging it behind me.

Slowly, and with no shortage of effort, he began to pry off his clone, separating centimeter by centimeter. Sitting on the floor, he resembled an animal shedding its skin. Eventually, he and his clone split like dividing cells, but the seal was trying to pull them back together. Moving his clone forward felt like trying to swim upriver, and it was taking everything he had not to be pushed back, let alone advance further. However, he felt himself closing in on something, a sensation, or perhaps it could be called a state of mind. Whatever it was, it seemed to help him project his mana. If he could make this state of awareness easier to access, then his magic would surely grow much more powerful.