Unsurprisingly, after being deprived of all of his external senses for quite some time, the influx of information Valyr had received from it being forcefully opened caused the young man to feel a considerable level of mental pain.

If he were to compare it to something, then it would be more or less equal to the mental strain he had put his mind through forcefully pushing the entrance to the connection open.

Nevertheless, as someone who had endured such types of pain before, Valyr knew what to do and quickly shut off two of his most important senses, closing his eyes and covering his ears to allow his other senses to acclimate to his current surroundings.

Then, once he felt comfortable with three of his senses active again, he removed his hands from his ears, allowing his sense of hearing to acclimate, before eventually allowing himself to acclimate his sense of sight, opening his pair of eyes in what was quite a considerably long amount of time.𝒪𝗏𝑙xt.𝗇𝓔t

‘Mngh…’ Squinting his eyes as he limited the amount of light his eyes took in, Valyr’s sight eventually adapted to be able to see his current surroundings, which only left the young man at a loss of words as he stared at what was before him with his mouth slightly agape.

“Elder Noel…” Shifting his gaze to the old man that was beside him all this time, Valyr tapped on the latter’s shoulder to catch his attention, considering that the old man had been staring out into the horizon for what seemed to be quite some time now. “Is this really the Shadow Plane?”

“Hmm?” Hearing his name be mentioned, Noel turned his head to look at the origin of the questioning voice, only to notice that the young man he had brought to the Shadow Plane was now looking at him. With an expression of surprise briefly adorning his face, the old man’s mouth curved into a smile as he nodded.

“What other place would this be if not the Shadow Plane?”

“That’s not what I was trying to say…” Reading between the lines of Noel’s response, Valyr scratched the back of his head as he gave the elder a slightly bitter smile. “In my mind, I thought the Shadow Plane would look like…”

“…it would have an appearance related to its name, I presume?”

“Yeah.” Valyr nodded, a bitter smile still adorning his face. “But don’t you think this sight before you is somewhat the opposite of that?”

Shifting his gaze to the sight before them, Valyr took in the surroundings of the Shadow Plane once more, taking in a deep breath to make sure he did not ask Noel the same question.

When one compared the colors of the Shadow Plane to the colors of the real world, then the colors of the Shadow Plane were said to be slightly muted, leaning more towards a darker version of that color. The most prominent example of that would be the skies of the Shadow Plane, which looked to be the same sky blue as the one he was familiar with, but mixed with a somewhat murky gray.

However, if one were to compare the landscape of the Shadow Plane to the landscape of the real world, then one would easily notice that there was a drastic difference between the two, something Valyr took a long time looking at to understand why the place was called the Shadow Plane, even though it was not a literal world of darkness.

For one, land and water seemed to take on the opposite property in the Shadow Plane. As far as he could see, the ground they were standing on could be considered a large body of water, with small waves propagating throughout as many creatures roamed the landscape. He did not know how he and Noel did not sink into the water, nor was he going to try and find out within the limited amount of time they had.

As for the land, Valyr was fortunate that there was a decent plot of land only a fair distance away from them, taking on the shape of a small lake. Watching some of the creatures lean their necks towards the land and proceed to take a bite out of it, the young man was left scratching the back of his head for a considerable amount of time, which was only exacerbated by the fact that one of the creatures fell into the land while taking a bite out of it.

Indeed.

Fell into the land.

Even the trees and plants that one would become used to when out in the wilderness were also topsy-turvy within the Shadow Plane.

Trees would have trunks made out of leaves, and leaves made out of wood, with the fruits hanging from the leaf branches having a seed-like exterior. As for the flowers, their petals were made out of leaves and wood, while the stem and leaves were made out of a petal-like material, which prompted Valyr to think that all of them would droop due to how flimsy petals were.

But they didn’t.

Lastly, he noticed how the grass had its blades made out of roots and its roots made out of grass blades, prompting the bitter smile on his face to become wider. As to how he knew?

Well, he could see the grass blade roots through the water, after all.

If anything, Valyr was glad that the living creatures of the Shadow Plane were not inverted as well, with their inner organs being their outer appearance and vice versa. Then again, he would eventually come to know that the Shadow Plane had taken on a different approach on how these creatures were the opposite of their nature in the real world.

But that would be a story for some other time.

“I’m guessing you’ve gotten an idea of why it’s called the Shadow Plane?” Seeing as Valyr continued to stare at the sight before them, Noel decided to pose a question to the young man as he let out a chuckle.

“The real world is considered the light, so the opposite of that would be…” Though still somewhat uncertain, Valyr faintly nodded as he voiced out the conclusion he had come to, which only made Noel let out another chuckle in response as he nodded in agreement.

“The shadow. Correct.” Noel faintly grinned. “The reason why this is called the Shadow Plane is because the nature of this place is the opposite of the real world, with only a few things between here and the real world being the exact same.”

“In any case, I definitely wasn’t expecting you to only take this much time to form your Shadow Eye,” said the old man not long after. “I could only recall a couple of people having formed their Shadow Eye within a day. And that day is in real world time, not Shadow Plane time.”

“On the other hand, you only took like… what? Six hours within the Shadow Plane to form it? Factoring in the time ratio between the two, you’ve only taken less than an hour in the real world.”

“You’re definitely a monstrous talent, Valyr.” Saying these words, Noel’s grin became wider.

“And man am I glad I could pass on this subclass of mine to such a talent.”