Chapter 3

Starry Skies is the third chapter of The Journey of a Dark Elf with Fading Powers manga series, written & illustrated by Daisuke Itabashi. It is apart of Volume 1 and released on February 18, 2026.

Plot

Chapter 3 starts off with Amira hard at work on her staff outside the house. It's not going well. She grunts and strains over the workbench while Lilicena hovers nearby with reassurances that it's nothing to be depressed about and she should just keep trying until it works out. Amira eventually snaps, screaming that none of this is working at all and threatening to just throw money at the problem, before collapsing into a full wailing meltdown over a pile of failed, mangled attempts. Lightbell, who has come by with her classmate Thorry, admits it takes guts to attempt a craft this difficult, though these are usually the work of dedicated crafters and nobody succeeds on the first session. Amira produces something she's less than certain about and asks Lilicena to try using it. Lilicena channels her magic through it and the thing sputters, sparks, and dies. The magic force fails to carry over. Amira deflates, but Lightbell insists it's very good work for a beginner, just in need of adjustment, and she means it. She suggests a short staff like the one Amira is making would be perfect for her. Amira agrees for a practical reason: she can't cast magic, so she can't stash a staff in hyperspatial storage on the go. Her plan is to hang it from her waist, which Lightbell loves. The chapter then breaks for a three page graphic on magic staffs. Three length classes: short (under 3 feet), middle (3 to 5 1/2 feet), and long (over 5 1/2 feet). Long types hit hard, suit attack-oriented sorcerers, double as melee weapons and transport, and cost more in materials. Middle types cover wide range for support sorcerers holding the rear line, with no melee capability. Short types sip magic force and can handle weak offense and support, and the model has only spread widely in the past 30 years. They're nicknamed "command types" since they work like radios for issuing orders to distant parties, with high-end models reaching over 3,000 miles. A staff breaks down into the amp (magic amplifier that compresses the user's force), the handle (whose magic receptor purity dictates how much force transfers), and the release stone (the replaceable jewel that unleashes the magic). Three of Lilicena's own staffs illustrate the classes, two crafted by Gen and one by the fairy crafter Charlerey. Amira ties up her sleeves and declares she had a good cry and feels better now, and she's not stopping until this is finished. Lilicena, smiling, offers to prepare tea for her next break. Amira asks for lots of sugar. Working with her hands, she realizes, feels much better than sitting around worrying about things. That evening, Amira and Lilicena find Lightbell still grinding away in the academy workshop, so locked in that she jolts when they call her name. Thorry tries to lure her to the dining hall with a spicy goldlamb stir-fry special, and while Bell would love her fill of that, she wants to work her staff a little more tonight because she feels like they're matching their breathing rhythm now. She explains what she means: when she starts, she's alone with the wood, figuring out what to make of it. She whittles along her plan, always hits a wall like she dropped her roadmap, but keeps poking around for a way forward until it starts to feel like a conversation with the staff itself. A millimeter thinner here, a gram lighter there. Once she reaches that point, the piece usually finishes itself soon after. When asked what made her want to be a crafter, Bell says there was no grand inspiration. She's an oni, and among oni your horns show your power, and hers gave her nothing to brag about. A flashback shows her home village in the snowy mountains, where kids mocked her as too weak to ever be a warrior and refused to be her friends, and even her mother scolded her that staff-making is dwarf work and being an oni means being a fighter. Young Bell hammered away anyway, determined to amaze everyone with what an oni can't do. Or rather, what only she can do. When the same villagers later marveled at her handmade staff and even asked her to craft one for them, that childhood wish carried her down the road to crafting for good. Now it's half fun, half hard work since it's her job, but she keeps at it because she has a whole world inside her, and she wants to show it to everyone, to take her own idea of what art is and etch it into the very heart of everyone she meets. Walking home, Amira gushes that she hasn't seen a crafter like that in centuries, and decides to put more time into her own staff that night since she'd be fidgety otherwise. Lilicena notes to herself that Amira must not be aware she makes the exact same kind of face whenever she's enjoying herself. A long, hard week later, the staff is done. Amira even lost a little weight from the focus. On a rocky overlook under the night sky she hands it to Lilicena for the final test, one only Lilicena can perform. Amira warns her to be gentle since it can't be that sturdy, but Lilicena can already tell this will be a success. She casts, and light streaks across the starry sky over the water like fireworks. A grand success. Amira reflects that in the thousands of years they've both lived, the mountains, rivers, towns, and people have all changed, and Lilicena counters that this starry sky certainly hasn't. Amira agrees, until this moment. Tonight she's seeing a whole new set of stars. She's so, so glad she saw this through to the very end, and she's going to keep this staff until well into the future. The chapter ends at the academy, where Amira introduces herself to her first class as a lecturer serving under Lilicena starting today, with extensive research in sorcery, so feel free to ask her anything. The students size her up. Lumina finds it fascinating her data shows this woman was already alive in the medieval era, Milya approves that she at least tries to look the part, and Garr growls that the girl the great mage brought hides a secret he can smell. Then team leader Barbato requests permission to ask a question: Lilicena told them Amira was "out of magic," so can she cast any spells at all? Since a sorcerer's strength lies in the power of their spells, he doesn't see what he could learn from one so beneath him. Amira just smiles.

Characters in Order of Appeareance

• Amira
• Lilicena
• Lightbell
• Thorry
• Milya
• Sheritha
• Lumina
• Garr
• Barbato