it doesn’t sound very, positive even by the game’s standards, which is basically the most neutral thing when it comes to describing magic’s properties.
“ominious shadows that drain grace and color from all they touch” doesn’t really sound particularly neutral
“ominous” is just the common peception of it, people have been scared of shadows and the dark for ages so of course a magic that resembles it will be feared and considered ominous, and that’s again just thoughts, not properties
how exactly does it “drain the grace from things”? all the magic does is remove colours, so i think the word grace here is just referring to that and that vetex needed a second adjective to use, still not evil
and yet, ultimately, such an impression has been given to us by an omnipresent, all knowing, and all powerful magic selection screen. It holds no bias, it’s not meant to, it tells the player what they’re allowed to pick.
also, not to mention, but vetex himself has directly addressed shadow magic as “some evil energy”, so clearly it’s not a neutral magic.
it still uses a word defined by uncertainty and subjectiveness, it is just stating the common perception of the magic or simply the fact that shadows are feared
i don’t care what vetex thinks because this is stupid, no power unless it is physically only able to be used to commit evil deeds is evil, everything depends on how you use it and what you use it for
look man, until there’s some amazing new lore revelation that drops, Vetex has spoken, and he says that shadow is an “evlish” magic, which, quite frankly, perception or not, basically confirms my argument.
even if it sounds uncertain it’s not like he’s saying anything else about it, he even says “it’s not that deep” which, like, yea, it’s just weird evil dark energy.
Trying to predict the lost / ancient hecate mutations for magics is like trying to piece together a puzzle when you not only have just half of the pieces to it, but have some pieces to a completely different puzzle.