Shades of the New World

Chapter 127: The Dark Room

"Well, first things first. The somaturgy expert might take a bit longer to come. There seems to be something big happening lately and everyone seems abnormally busy But. There is one thing that you could do for the time being, and that is to study materials that mages frequently use," Nasst said and gave Evin another thick book. 

Evin took it in his hands and found that although it was quite thick, it was mostly filled with drawings of various organic and inorganic materials. 

"You don't have to memorize that book, but you could give it a read, get familiar with the materials, especially the ones that work well with the Dark World. If you encounter something difficult, you can ask me, or the other instructors. It seemed like the previous instructor assigned to you, Losha, was quite knowledgeable about various Mana-beast variations and Lesser races"

The last two words drew Evin's attention.

"Lesser races?" he asked. 

"Well, nowadays most call them Lesser races for convenience, but it's just a racially derogatory term. You know of the Myrmis, right?" Nasst asked and Evin nodded.

"The Myrmis, the countless skinshifter variations and the Chaos creatures are considered one of the Lesser races. Even the Cobfolk, Griffins and the Undines were considered to be part of these Lesser races at some point during the Empire's history," Nasst said. 

"What are the Chaos creatures?" Evin asked. He knew most of the beings listed, but he never heard of Chaos creatures.

"Oh, it makes sense that you've never heard of them. They're a race of creatures that are hunted extensively since they can use what's called 'Vital essence'. The term sounds similar to the energy from the World of Life, but there are some fundamental differences Let's see, do you think you will be able to grow another pair of arms using the World of Life?" Nasst asked, after thinking slightly.

"Probably not. But considering the fact that we can strengthen our bodies using the same World, I'm guessing there are methods to achieve it," Evin answered. 

"Strengthening our bodies and completely changing them are two completely different topics. The World of Life assists us in strengthening and healing, but Vital Essence assists us in the matter of mutations and change. But whether or not you can survive that change is another question as well," Nasst said and continued.

"The biggest example should be the Horn Ceremony. The crucial spell that is cast on your body during the Ceremony is a World of Life Spell, sure, but did you know that it's just an extremely powerful healing spell? Without the Vital Essence helping you form the horns, you wouldn't be able to experience any change. But, if one only used the Vital Essence, without any healing measures, the children would simply die because their bones are being ground down and directed towards their heads. The combination of the two allows us to create the miracles of the Horn" 

Evin nodded and realized that the old man in front of him was much more authoritative than he imagined.

"So these Chaos creatures, they're able to make use of this vital essence without issues?" Evin asked with shock. 

"Exactly. Newly born Chaos creatures would look like slimy blobs of liquid. As they walk around, they would start consuming everything that contains organic materials into its bodies: leaves, grass, insects, and some unlucky small rodents. Obviously, they're not much of a threat at this stage"

"But whatever they eat, its features will start appearing on their bodies. If it eats a huge amount of plants, it would start looking like a giant mass of living vines and moss. If it eats a large amount of worms and insects, its general shape will start looking like those. Obviously, if it becomes big enough and starts hunting mammals and birds... well, you get the point," Nasst said softly. Evin hearing about these shapeshifting slimes, felt that he truly was in a magical World.

He didn't understand why hearing about these creatures made him feel more like in a magical World, even though he used magic on a daily basis.

"Aside from these creatures' ability to consume various biological materials, they also possess the talent that many researchers like to call: 'Perfect life structure'. It's just a fancy way of saying that these slimes can arrange and use the materials they consume in the most optimal way possible. The researchers of the past thought that they were using some sort of World of Life spell, but eventually, at the cost of hundreds of experimental subjects, they were able to find out about Vital essence"

"How are they born?" Evin couldn't help but ask.

"Now that's a mystery. Supposedly, they could be born anywhere with rich flora or fauna, even inside a laboratory or botanic garden that meets the requirements. But we can't be completely sure of this, since there were some cases of them appearing near one of the Oases of the East," Nasst replied and continued explaining the creatures.

"In any case, after a Chaos creature becomes big enough to absorb big mammals, their danger level increases greatly, as they start to instinctively hunt for living beings with mana inside them, most of them being mana-beasts. Obviously, they sometimes attack mages, but mages wouldn't have trouble against these creatures, but children or infants with mana-cores aren't quite exempt from the danger of Chaos"

"You might think that they're not much of a threat even with a mana-core, but remember their 'Perfect life structure'? These creatures can somehow use their mana-cores even better than mages, directly creating phenomena in the World using raw mana. Their danger level shoots up the rooftop," Nasst said with some admiration. Evin didn't understand why.

"What's so good about directly using raw mana?" Evin asked with some expectation.

Nasst grinned and let go of the podium he was stroking and stood up.

"That's a topic for later. For now, follow me to the test room" 

Evin was slightly disappointed, but he could only wait.

Entering the underground test room, he saw the large empty room, reinforced with metal beams on the corners and some walls. Between the steel beams, there was a water and fire-resistant, malleable material that was designed to absorb shock. There were also some Magical Devices inside the room, which were designed to record efficiencies of spells and its general power output on the walls, some measurement mats, among various other tools. And everything that was measured would be show up on a small display. Evin spent a lot of time in this room, testing out his spells and illusions for the past two weeks after it had been constructed.

"Today, we'll talk about gestures and chants. Cast your Dark Room," Nasst ordered.

"My what?" Evin asked. In his head, a certain room that could be found in strip clubs and brothels appeared.

"Your Dark World Spell, the one which engulfs the area around you in thick shadows," Nasst explained.

"Oh, my Shadow Zone," Evin understood.

"Shadow Zone?" Nasst vocalized the words like he was offended by it. "Anyway, everyone else calls it the Dark Room, so let's not be overly creative here," he then said. 

Evin didn't know whether to laugh or cry, but didn't say anything and focused on the spell.

Since his mana-core wasn't filled, it took him half a second to absorb the energy from the Channeling Artifact and another three seconds and a half for him to visualize the Dark spell in his head. It wasn't a complex spell, and most of the work was done with the help of the World Sprites.

"Four seconds, not bad. I can see that you spent a lot of time training this spell," Nasst praised and continued: "Now use your Suffocation spell on me"

Evin did as ordered and about six seconds later, Nasst could feel his body sending warning signals. With little effort, he dispelled the spell around him and asked for Evin to start floating.

It took Evin much longer to construct the floating spell from scratch, since there were too many parts and elements to this spell. When he finally started floating, 15 seconds had passed. Usually, Evin would start constructing the spell the moment he would feel something wrong. This was why it usually felt like it took him a really short time to start flying around in a battle. 

Nasst, looking at the result, was pleasantly shocked. 15 seconds seemed like a long time in life-or-death situations, but it was still an extremely short time for such a complex spell. Smilingly, he gave Evin a small scroll with Thought imprints on it. 

Evin sent mana inside the scroll and found that it was some kind of a shockwave-type World of Storms spell. The idea was to condense air from around the area and then explosively push it away from one's body.

'It reminds me of that spell that Parvan used, except his was a World of Earth spell,' Evin noted.

Since he wasn't that unfamiliar with the World of Storms, he was able to recreate the spell in five tries. But even his successful attempt took him 30 seconds to activate.

"Get close to the wall and use that ability," Nasst ordered. Evin understood that the latter wanted to measure the spell's power.