Shades of the New World

Chapter 120: The advance force

Evin noticed the instructor's eyes, and smugly began narrating his day

"Yesterday was hell. After I was separated from you, I went to visit grandfather and inform him of what had happened, but then on the way back, I was attacked by some non-mage hornbearer. He wasn't anything too special, but it was super nerve wracking. Nasst told me that it's the winter lady's warning or something. Also, one more very interesting thing happened yesterday, which is the reason I came to you today But I can't tell you about it with instructor Otora here," Evin said haughtily, before wondering why he was trying so hard to impress this woman. He calmed himself down and started talking normally.

"After that, I went to the mansion and went to sleep. In the morning, master Nasst and I discussed some stuff about my shadows and we decided on a certain thing, but I'm not sure if it will be effective or not. After that, Nasst gave me this book," Evin said and pulled out the book of illusions.

"These are all various illusions and methods to discern and counter them. It also has a year and a country affiliation, so I'm guessing every year someone in the World creates an illusory method that isn't in this book. Master Nasst told me to memorize it all and get tested. Apparently it's my first task," Evin explained.

Arza held out his hand in hopes to see the contents and Evin walked up to show some of the tricks he learned. 

"Please don't use the other Worlds," reminded Otora, when Arza tried to infuse his eyes with Thought energy.

Arza complied and just listened as Evin described some of the illusions and explained the methods to detect and counter them. Arza was naturally smart, so he absorbed the info like a sponge. 

Like this, an hour passed and Otora removed the infusion device from Arza's body. She gave Arza a communication device and told him to contact her if something happened. The two children saw her off soon after.

"Wow, what a hot lady... Beautiful, smart, and probably rich! Are you going to marry her?" Evin teased. He noticed a hint of red appearing on Arza's face as the boy was reminded of his childish days.

'Speaking of those childish days, it was only a few months ago, huh...' Evin thought as he looked at Arza's slightly unfocused gaze.

Evin didn't know what the boy in front of him was thinking, but he could see that he was confused. Thinking about it, leaving the skinshifter to look after the boy was probably a good idea. 

"Anyway, I came here to leave Karan with you," Evin said.

Arza was slightly surprised.

"Remember that interesting thing I was talking about? Karan actually gave birth. For two whole hours his moans and groans resounded in my head, until he finally stopped and gave this World another of his kind by splitting himself in two," Evin described.

[Stop!] Karan shouted in his head.

"Well, the man himself seems eager to explain the details to you," Evin laughed loudly and brought the silver skinshifter out of his shadows and gave it to Arza. The thin spear-sword thing which Evin preferred transformed into a normal short sword in the other's hands after briefly turning into a mass of metal shards.

"Can I see your new skinshifter armor?" Arza asked.

Runa's cheerful voice chirped approvingly inside Evin's head and in the next moment, a mass of black metal slithered up from Evin's shadow and turned into a slim spear in Evin's hands. 

"Her name's Runa, it's one of the World Sprites that were inside my shadow," Evin explained and then thought of something: "Speaking of World Sprites, there's a spot near our city that houses a World of Life Beast Lord where I want to take you. I forgot about it before, but something reminded me of it recently. Do bother me about it once in a while, or else I'll forget about it again"

'I'm becoming old...' Evin thought with some amusement.

Arza understood Evin's meaning and solemnly nodded.

"Well, that's it from me. Hope you enjoy your school days. Make lots of friends, okay? And don't beat them up because they think differently than you," Evin jokingly said and left the blushing Arza in his room.

An hour later, Evin was walking through the non-mage area, heading towards the coffee stall. The place was empty as always, and Rhea was glancing at the passing people with a bored gaze.

"Hey, Rhea," Evin called out as he approached.

Rhea turned her head, hearing her own name and found the familiar young mage approaching her stall. She didn't know what to think.

"Hello, young master Evin," Rhea replied calmly.

"Please pour me a cup of coffee," Evin said and sat down on one of the empty seats. Glancing around, he could see a variety of men smiling at him knowingly. One of them even threw a thumbs-up at the little boy.

'Please, I just wanna drink some coffee~' Evin thought with resignation. Unkowingly, he glanced at Rhea's ass again.

'Fuck! I'm being peer pressured!' Evin cursed in his head.

Calming himself down, he started thinking about other things. 

He had just come from meeting Zorrik. He asked about Nasst's organization and found that the latter was a considerable bigshot and a super-imposer at that. The only reason he was working as an instructor here was because of Evin himself, so Zorrik joked that Evin probably shouldn't try to accidentally kill the man, if he ever annoyed Evin. 

The boy took the words to heart and his excitement increased.

'Maybe I should reconsider going to the Western Academy after I become old enough, because of Nasst's tutelage,' Evin wondered.

'The few weeks after this, it'll be mostly peaceful. It'll probably take a month for me to memorize the whole book and aside from doing some odd missions, I won't really have anything to do' Evin pondered.

'I'd love to learn more, but Nasst seems unwilling to teach me more things for the time being. Maybe I should polish my new spells to its limits. I should be able to increase the size of my Shadow Zone, plus my flying spell and the suffocating spell. I should also try out some new spells to try out with my increased mana But I shouldn't try that for the time being, since I don't want to be too heterogenous in my specializations'

'What I lack now is spells with medium power. My air bullets are too weak, while my Dark specialty is too strong, or unreliable. The suffocating method is great, since it has the shock factor and a hidden and mysterious factor. I'd like another spell like that. Perhaps the offensive Dark spell will be something like that but I should still try to create something my own'

Evin who was feeling like he had nothing to do, gradually felt like his schedule was packed. The freedom that the Worlds gave to mages were great, but it could also feel a bit overwhelming. 

Soon after, Rhea came with his cup of coffee. Evin sipped on the bitter drink, absentmindedly feeling the caffeine slowly stimulate his mind. But he couldn't quite feel the same addictiveness he felt when he started drinking coffee as Evan Lorelei. Perhaps it had something to do with his new body. Evin felt that it was a good thing, but still decided to be alert when indulging himself in his favorite drink.

'Once a day at most,' he thought with resolution. 

"Peace is truly best" Evin murmured, noticing that his mind was getting filled with random thought more often.

In one of the underground oases in the Eastern Deserts, an odd group of 10 individuals had gathered.

There were three Ivari, two Layeq, two humans, one griffin, one undine and one Cosmic in the group. Every one of them exuded an aura of a strong mage, with their unique mana leaking from their bodies like they were beasts. It was the group of individuals that were sent to check up on the Organization that attacked Evin and the rest.

Only two days after their meeting at Kena's place, the Authorities managed to gather a group of peak super-imposers to send to the spot that Kena found out about. Efficiency and productivity was unparalleled in an empire ruled by collective despotism based on personal strength. Especially when everyone was focused on that one thing.

Walking thought the underground cave, the group could see many objects and equipment that could only be seen in the most high end of research laboratories. Strange machinations made of metal, with countless wires and lights, scattered throughout the damp corridors of the underground. Pity they were all destroyed and burnt beyond usage. 

A faint smell of burnt metal and chemicals filled the air around the group, notifying them that the destruction happened not long before they came here. Perhaps a day ago at most.

Soon, the group entered a room with a bunch of similar machines which exhibited some sort of glass tank on its body. All the machines were connected to a huge lodestone vein with a cacophony of wires.