Shades of the New World

Chapter 181: Bath of Darkness

Evin sat inside a tub of dark liquid, feeling scammed and betrayed.

He checked his mind again and sure enough, there it was:

[ Find Selat and inquire from him about the origins of the Horn, as well as the battle of the Fourteen Heroes ]

'Didn't I technical learn about the battle of the Fourteen Heroes already? I'm pretty sure I learned a lot of things that Kena intended me to see in his series of quests There should definitely be something regarding the Twelve Failed projects of the Empress as well, or whatever they were called officially' Evin couldn't help but think.

Technically he also knew about the origins of the Horns, as he heard about it from Nasst. 

The only thing he didn't do was actually meeting Selat. But Evin was sure that doing so wouldn't really matter much. Unless...

'Maybe Selat is supposed to do something else to me' he then thought hopefully, before he shook his head with a shudder. He remembered having a similar conversation with Rith at some point, about the dangers of the Authorities. Evin didn't take Rith's advice to heart at the time and look where it got him. Well, the series of events wasn't really his fault, but he really didn't want to be put inside some unknown World again. 

'But this quest of Kena should at least show me what I'm supposed to do after I meet Selat' Evin thought annoyedly. 

The more he learned about Selat, the more Kena's mission seemed like a scam. Apparently, the Authority would go around living under many different names for whatever reason. Evin was sure that if Selat wanted to hide from the world, Evin would never be able to find him. And even if he somehow chanced upon him, he wouldn't really know about it, since there was no way for him to distinguish Selat from a normal bystander.

The only method Evin could think of to find Selat was to have the other Authorities search for him. From what they said, Evin was sure that they could distinguish Selat from normal people.

'Maybe I could ask them how they distinguish if it's him in the first place?' Evin though of a daring idea. At least this way, he wouldn't just miss the man accidentally if he happened to chance upon him Evin regretted not being more proactive when he last met the Authorities, but the atmosphere felt a bit off at the time, so he didn't want to annoy them.

Obviously, all that depended on the fact that he could actually learn how to find him. But, this was the only thing he could think of now. If it didn't work he could give up on it and trust in his luck.

Shaking his head, he focused on the bath he was having. He could feel the power of Darkness seeping into his skin, slowly but surely working its way towards his heart. Evin didn't understand the logic behind it, but he really didn't mind this method of increasing the size of his mana-core. Nasst stood next to him, to make sure that nothing went wrong with the process. But, it seemed very unlikely for the elder's help to be needed.

"Your World Sprites make me feel so jealous" Nasst muttered for the umpteenth time. 

Apparently, Evin was supposed to suffer greatly during this process, trying his best to gather and absorb as much of the Core Shards as possible, his heart stinging every time a drop of it was wasted but thanks to the existence of the World Sprites, he really didn't need to do anything. The Core Shard's pieces were actively trying to dig their way into his heart, leaving Evin with nothing to do, but casually enjoy the process of his mana-core developing rapidly.

Speaking of the World Sprites, they were still lying unconscious inside Evin's shadow, every one of them soundly hibernating. Evin wasn't worried about them.

When he first checked up on them after noticing that something was wrong, he noticed that they were developing stronger souls. They looked much more alive now, compared to the time when they looked like animate dolls. They now had different faces, varying genders and even different sizes. He didn't know how long it would take them to fully stabilize and get used to their stronger souls, but he guessed it wouldn't take too long. 

One more thing Evin noticed was that when he activated his soul vision, he could see how other people's souls looked if he put his mind into it. It was a bit hard to learn this fact, since there really wasn't much difference between one's body and their soul. It wasn't like normal people's souls didn't glow light blue like the Corrupted Souls.

Evin could notice the difference because Rith's soul looked different from normal. In Evin's eagle eyes, Rith looked like how she first appeared inside the World of Space. A large Felines with a dark body, one covered with countless stars. Evin could also see that Rith had become stronger, since her yellow stars had turned almost white like her brother's at some point. 

'I guess their star colors change as they become stronger. I'm guessing it goes from red to orange, then yellow, then white and finally blue? But from what I could see, there's two colors in the half-core level, which are yellow and white. If the lesser-imposer level is blue, then what happens when they become super-imposers?' Evin wondered. 

'Hmm whatever it is, Rith is becoming very strong, very quickly I always wondered how people increase the core sizes so quickly. Apparently it's like this,' slouching inside the bathtub, Evin sighed in a satisfying tone.

'When is she finding the time to sit in a bathtub of Space energy though?' Evin thought idly.

In any case, it was a nice change of pace, compared to his lifestyle inside Four's World. Just relax and become stronger. Absolutely no need for complicated training or practice...

...

After some time, Evin noticed that he finished absorbing every drop of the Core Shard at hand. He got out of the tub and dressed up. The two then went to the small classroom inside the mansion.

"How big did your mana-core become?" Nasst asked after sitting down on his spot.

"It went from 41.8% to 43.7% I think," Evin said, satisfied with the progress he made. Today's gain was more than his three months' worth of labor. This meant that the total amount of mana he could absorb had increased to almost 28 kgs! Evin excitedly thought about all the new things he could do with such a huge amount of mana.

Nasst nodded with satisfaction and started explaining the process.

"Well, in the ideal situations, your mana-core's progress should look something like that: A long period of gradual increase and one big spike. And you repeat this process. There are tons of methods to spontaneously increase the size of your mana-core, like the bath you just took. But overusing these will be highly detrimental for your growth, so you have to follow it up with a method that works over a long period of time, like the syringes. Centuries of experimentation showed that this is the best method."

Evin listened attentively to the elder's words, since he wasn't always going to have Nasst helping with the growth of his mana-core.

"This will also help you get used to the newfound powers you absorb. I know a few people who have strong mana-cores, but somehow unable to use them to its full extent. Don't be like them. The path of a mage is filled with progress and experimentation. Now that your mana intake has increased so dramatically, you should try your hands at different methods of attacking. And also you will notice that every one of your abilities have become more powerful. I'm pretty sure that one of your serious punches would completely obliterate a normal person. I definitely recommend you to go to the Test room later and see how different it feels exactly," Nasst smiled.

Evin thought of the various spells he had and imagined the amount of destruction he could wreak upon his enemies. And to think that he'd become much stronger than that, he couldn't help but feel fearful of himself. And this was with only 28 kgs of mana. Imagining what lesser-imposers, much less super-imposers could do with their hundreds and thousands kgs of mana was simply baffling to him.

"Now you might be wondering how come super-imposers like us haven't yet destroyed the whole world yet, with the huge amounts of mana we can move to our will" Nasst laughed. 

Evin nodded, remembering how in Anna's memories, Perdrakar completely destroyed an entire peninsula, basically creating what was the Southern Islands of today. From what he could understand from the memories, the average power of modern mages was a level above the Hex and Magi of the past, due to the many different Worlds they could access. 

But Evin could tell that the ones who were truly powerful in the past were much more domineering than the super-imposers and lesser-imposers that he saw. This feeling of Evin mostly stemmed from the fact that he never saw a super-imposer fight before. But the fight he witnessed between the Hero of Sun and the three Heroes of the Nosk Empire was so unbelievable, he couldn't help but call the event a near apocalyptic event. This led him to another question.

"How many super-imposers are there in the World?" 

"You probably feel like there are quite a lot of them in the World, since you've met so many powerful individuals but there are only 40 known super-imposers in the entire World. And the difference between their powers is worlds apart. If you think the difference between 20 kgs of mana is big, imagine the difference between thousands of them. Even though I'm a super-imposer myself, when I look at someone like Kena or Kal, who is the current leader of the Paradra, I feel the same as how you would feel when you look at me," Nasst laughed wryly.