Shades of the New World

Chapter 239: Magical construction

Evin quickly started floating, so he didn't have to look up while talking to Snyden. It was a trick he learned eventually, where if he wanted to be taken seriously, he would float at eye level with whoever he was talking. 

From the other side of the portal, a line of people came strolling with Snyden in the lead. Evin counted three well-dressed females other than Snyden, which he presumed were mages, and a fifty or so non-mages in total, all male and cleanly dressed, though not so fashionably.

'Gender discrimination?' Evin thought amusedly, but quickly disposed the useless stray thought.

"There's our client, he-he!" the man exclaimed as he walked over to Evin to shake his hand, "Sorry if I've kept you waiting, eh? Took a bit of time to gather all the materials needed for your project," the man said in a lively tone.

"No worries, after all, it's easy for us mages to keep ourselves entertained," Evin said.

The man seemed much more polite compared to the last time he talked with Evin, which Evin really appreciated.

"That it is. Anyway, let's sign the Non-disclosure agreement and we can get to work," Snyden said and brought out a bundle of papers. 

Evin wanted to put everything on a World Contract, but sadly, the things weren't so easy to acquire that every business used them. So, he had to trust the integrity of Snyden's group and the Cosmic affiliation that it had. 

"There are a few rather special children inside, so please don't startle, or be startled by them," Evin said, after everyone finished signing on their Agreements.

"You were so secretive about your dimension the last time we talked, I even had some dreams about it afterwards, you know?" Snyden laughed and the rest of his group followed behind.

"Please don't panic," Evin shrugged and channeled some energy to his shadow, which in turn widened and slowly engulfed everyone present. He then made the dimension accessible to everyone present and the next moment, Snyden's group appeared inside his shadow.

Snyden whistled as he floated above the ground to look at the place in detail.

"Never thought I'd see a real dimension in a shadow Only heard that the Oathbreaker has one in his possession, though his place doesn't sound like it's something so clean and nice as yours," he then commented as he landed next to Evin.

"Oathbreaker?" Evin asked, curious about the new name he just heard.

"The current Mage King of the West A very mysterious man, to say the least. One of the strongest super-imposers who got famous by breaking the many Oaths and World Contracts he made over the years, which ended up crippling him greatly, but somehow ended up becoming the one who enforced those Oaths upon others. In any case, some say that his shadow also works similarly to yours and houses countless horrifying creatures of darkness in it instead of a bunch of kids," Snyden said wryly, gesturing at the World Sprites, who looked at the new group with unveiled fascination.

'How professional...' Evin thought thankfully. He was glad that the man, or anyone from his group for that matter, didn't inquire about the World Sprites and also didn't give Evin some weird looks for keeping a group of children in his shadow.

'Or perhaps they've seen many similar scenes in other dimensions and became numb to it...? Wait, ain't that bad?'

Evin eventually rid himself of the random thoughts and focused on the conversation.

"Well, I got this all from the Cosmics, so I thought that more people would have dimensions similar to mine, although they could be pretty rare."

"Well, sadly, I myself only know hearsay about those dimensions as well, so I'm afraid I won't be able to tell you anything useful. And besides, it doesn't change the job we gotta do," Snyden shrugged and floated up once more to see the landscape again.

Evin could see the man take on a silver hue for a second, before coming back down. He then pulled out a piece of paper and started drawing with inhuman speed. A minute later, he gave Evin the paper, which had a fairly detailed first draft for the town. Evin looked at the paper for a while, before nodding with fascination. 

Aside from the buildings being arranged in a circular way that was very pleasing to the eyes, Snyden had also left some reasonable explanations for his choice of their locations, like living areas being a bit distanced from the noisier central areas which included the business buildings and the central hall He'd even left some empty space that was reserved for possible future projects like workshops, smelting stations, and blacksmithing places.

As far as Evin could tell, there wasn't much to judge about it all, even if he wanted to be nitpicky. Even the arrangement of underground infrastructure like the sewage lines seemed perfectly planned.

"Very impressive," he commented in the end.

"Well, your dimension is relatively empty, which makes my job very easy. And your arrangement of the trees there also helped me decide the overall shape of the town to be a collection of circular pockets. Almost everyone opts for a neat arrangement of perfect squares or rectangles, which honestly, gets a bit boring after the 20th time. I'm a goddamn artist at heart, not someone who draws a bunch of squares! Though, don't tell my other clients that, alright?" Snyden laughed.

"Don't worry about that. Anyway, let's go with this plan, if you don't have any other revisions."

"Perfect. Ah, how I wish every customer was the same as you, so unpretentious and easy to talk with. Some people just can't get over their need to make at least 10 revisions before starting the project... Sigh, come on over, girls," Snyden said with a big sigh and called over the three mages. 

The three looked over the plan for a bit as Snyden described some details, and then the group went towards the monument of trees, where the World Sprites were chilling. 

One of the female mages pulled out a gigantic pile of what should be limestone, dirt and pebbles from a storage ring and started mixing them together. The other pulled out a river of muddy water and started mixing them together with the earthen mess that the other was working on. 

'An Earth Mage and a Water Mage...' Evin thought, pleasantly surprised by the fact that he wasn't being weirded out by the sight of the swirling mass of muddy water.

The non-mages, on the other hand, pulled out a variety of thinned out logs and planks (all of which seemed to be weightless) from Snyden's storage ring, and started building a frame of a house. Some time later, the two-girl-show continued to its next phase, and they started adding the binder to the wooden frames of buildings. The third mage, on the other hand, used a heating spell on the limestone to dry it faster.

'Cool,' Evin thought and then walked over to the World Sprites to see Snyden's group work on his town.