This was fun to read! I'm really digging the spectralism/duralism duality you've created here and I hope you continue to develop it. I assume Duralists are able to make flimsy materials more rigid/solid? So they can travel incredibly lightly, turning thin clothing into tough armor, sheets of paper into razor sharp swords, etc? So awesome! There's a bottomless well of really cool things you could do with that power.
I do have one question--just something I was confused on: How is Mishi scaling the wall of the castle? Here you mention he is making the stone immaterial
which I think is a really cool line and I love the way you wrote it--but what is Mishi grabbing onto if he is spectralizing through the stone?
Later, when he's fighting the guards, he is able to lunge through the sword by spectralizing again, which is also super dope. But if he can do that, wouldn't he be able to avoid stepping on a creaky board? Or would he just fall through the floor if he turned gaseous and tried walking around?
Looking forward to the next installment on this!