Shades of the New World

Chapter 240: Mess of illusions

Snyden's group slowly worked on the buildings one by one, while the man himself oversaw everything from above. Seemingly satisfied by the progress, the man floated near Evin and started some small talk, occasionally glancing at the World Sprites with veiled curiosity, especially the large, pitch black fox who had a bunch of the children snuggling in its fur.

To keep things secret, Evin had instructed the World Sprites to not talk at all and try not to peel off their skins while the crew worked. He actually wanted to hide them in some hidden place, but the World Sprites seemed intent on watching, so he could only give up.

Besides, they looked much too human to be mistaken for a World Sprite, so there wasn't much to worry about there. Most likely, Snyden would think that these were children who contracted some disease that made their eyes go black and at worst, he would think that they were the results some experiment that Evin imposed upon them. But since Evin acted very friendly with the World Sprites, the chances of the latter thought appearing was pretty low. 

"By the way, how long do you think the construction will take?" Evin asked meekly.

"The girls should be finished with the buildings by tonight, and by tomorrow, we'll have finished creating the forest and the river. The others will work on adding some life and detail to the buildings in the background which usually takes a bit longer, as you may guess."

"So a week at least?"

"Around that time, yes. The girls will help with decorations after they're done with the larger things, so yeah. If you want, you can go attend to any other business you might have. Though, I recommend you block off that window to the main World as you do it," Snyden said simply, pointing at the sky, which faintly showed the world outside. 

Even after Evin's shadow became a full-fledged dimension, it still retained some of its old properties where the residents could glance at the World outside through the dimension's sky.

Naturally, Evin could disable this feature, but there were some problems.

"Alright, but how are you going to see? Since this dimension is based on my shadow, its natural state is complete darkness," Evin said.

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"Well, you did buy some extra sun and rain from us. Come, let's get some light and water inside this dimension of yours. Could you show me the Dimension Core?" Snyden asked.

"Ah, give me a few moments," Evin stood up and excitedly walked towards a random spot in the tree arrangement he made. 

"What in the Empress' arse is that?" Snyden said, as he looked at the abomination that Evin created. As a proficient World of Thoughts mage, he could definitely see the vomit inducing excuse of an illusion.

Evin had hidden the Dimension Core behind such a convoluted and thick layer of illusions, a passing mage who was searching would simply see a mass of silver entanglement in the spot.

This was Evin's plan to hide the Core. He knew many grand illusions from the book that Nasst gave him, but honestly, anyone who had access to the same book would know of these famous illusions. Although he could add some details to it and make it a bit original, it was basically the same as changing the numbers in a math problem and couldn't be relied upon.

He eventually decided that the simplest way was just to chuck as many illusions as humanly possible around the area. Optical illusions, directional illusions, tactile illusions, anti-magic illusions you name it. At some point, the location of the Dimension Core became somewhat of a Schrodinger's spot, where it almost existed and not existed at the same time. 

A mage would be able to see the mass of illusions, but whenever they tried to focus on it, they would find themselves seeing nothing. If they tried to grasp at the spot with their hands, they would find it missing its target by a wide margin and if they tried to run at it to hopefully tackle the Dimension Core out, they would find themselves running in a completely different direction.

Even if they blasted magic at the thing, they would witness their trusted spells steer clear of the damn mess like it didn't want to deal with it.

Obviously, after a small moment of confusion, they would notice that it was just a mass of simple illusions, and that each of them were pretty easy to deal with individually. It was just that there were so many of them that it looked impossible at a glance. 

But obviously, it wasn't that simple. For a random mage, the process was akin to solving a jigsaw puzzle where you didn't know the end picture that it was supposed to make. Naturally, the jigsaw pieces were all made of different materials as well, just for the heck of it. 

The process would get easier over time, but it was a long time before anyone got familiar with all the thing, at which point Evin would already be notified of a mage trying to disassemble his illusions. 

"Why did you even bother making it so complicated? Since it's inside your shadow, the moment a mage tries to take this, you'll learn of the fact, no?" Snyden asked flabbergasted.

"You're would be correct But I was bored. And after adding, like, the 200th illusion, I just decided to go all in and pile on as much as humanly possible," Evin said smugly.

"How much mana does it even cost to maintain this thing, anyway?"

"Surprisingly little. After all, the World of Thoughts is one of the cheapest Worlds to use, unless of course, you're a dragon or an Authority," Evin shrugged.

"And how are you going to get the Core out in the first place? I don't really feel like going through hundreds of illusions every time you try to get the Core out is a pleasant experience."

"Well, I'm the owner of this dimension for a reason," Evin said and channeled some Dark energy towards the ground. 

Some rumbling in the ground occurred and the black, spiral dicone slid out of the mass of illusions, connected to two Mana-complexes stacked on top of each other.

"Is that something special to shadow-based dimensions?" Snyden asked, surprised by Evin's abilities: "Last time I checked, no other dimension owner could shift the ground in their dimension with Dark energy."

"Come on, man, let me keep my secrets," Evin said and gestured Snyden towards the Core.

The latter pulled out what Evin recognized as a perfectly spherical piece of theium. He was very confident about this fact, as the kilogram of theium he bought felt exactly the same as this piece in front of him.

Theium as a material was relatively simple, compared to the other World affiliated materials, like pelium, or vizium. After all, it was just a very bright piece of metal. 

It didn't have differing states like nyxium, and it also didn't have the mind-boggling weight-to-size ratio of a chrysalium. For comparison, the 1kg piece of chrysalium that Evin received was barely the size of a single grain of rice.

At any rate, a set of very detailed engravings were chiseled all around the piece of theium, and weirdly, Evin could feel a sense of dominance and safety from it as well. Snyden carefully held the theium piece near the middle of the dicone and took on a silver hue. A wave of Thought energy jumped back and forth between Snyden and the theium orb, while Evin carefully observed the process. But he couldn't really infer anything from the process, so he soon gave up and waited for it to finish.

Snyden then let go of the piece and Evin could see how the bright white orb float near the Dimension Core without issue. 

"Alright, it's all set up," Snyden said and gently pushed the orb around the Core.