Shades of the New World

Chapter 271: Illusions and Darkness

If Evin sat on the watchtower doing nothing in particular for two days except staring down on the people who walked through the town gates, he should be able to find some pretty shady people among them. After all, every team should be equally clueless about the whereabouts of the secret base. Even Evin's team, who was the elite of the country it was hungry for information.

And what better place to search for information than the town right next to it. Even if the non-mages weren't usually allowed to learn about specifics regarding magic, they could still sometimes witness some things that they weren't supposed to see. As far as Evin could tell, the surrounding area wasn't something so dangerous and the forest didn't look to be some kind of cursed, or haunted one either. 

Although unlikely, it wasn't impossible for the residents of Saar to have witnessed someone accessing the secret base. 

By this logic, the elites of the other countries should be sending someone into the town to gather information. Most likely a pair of mages disguising themselves as simple travelers. 

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They could even be walking around covering themselves with a thick layer of illusions, but Evin was sure that no one would be that daring. After all, every elite was sufficiently trained to distinguish the things, especially if they were sitting in one place doing nothing else. 

It would be fine if they were just having it on as they were traveling, as all less-noticeable illusion discerning spells required some time to work properly. 

For example, the method that Evin liked to use the most was a spell that he could apply to his eyes. It wasn't anything too fancy, just a passive buff to his eyes that made illusions apparent to his eyes over a certain period of a minute. This meant that if he was looking at a general area that housed one person who was hiding behind and illusion, after one minute, Evin would be able to take notice of it. After that, he could use more specific methods to try and bypass them without alerting the caster.

But if someone covered in illusions just flew over the area without making any noise, Evin wouldn't really be able to know it.

Obviously, there were more powerful and surefire methods to detect illusions. Wide area spells that were used by city guards and military bases. These were designed to detect and locate any illusions inside a set radius and was almost impossible to avoid. But Evin couldn't use these, as it would make his location known to every mage in the distance of a kilometer. After all, he would need to be throwing around such a large amount of Thought Energy, he would start looking like a lighthouse in the middle of a storm. 

All this made his ability to hide in the Darkness such a big advantage on his side. After all, from what he could see today, most mages opted to use illusions to hide themselves. If they couldn't do that, they just decided to create a disguise and pretend to be a normal person. No one seemed to be using the Dark World to scurry in the shadows like he was, so most likely, the enemies would be keeping an eye out for illusions and not random shadows.

'It's even better for me, because if I can trust Kyune's words, then even the other users of the Dark World wouldn't be able to notice me so easily. On the other hand, I'll be able to find them much more easily!' Evin thought happily.

He then focused on finishing his map and after a while, he was finally done with the task. He sighed and decided to return to the unmanned watchtower. 

Making sure that there wasn't anyone on the tower, hiding behind a veil of illusions, Evin got out of his Dark Room. Even though he wasn't hiding inside it, he was still pretty much invisible in the darkness, so it was still relatively safe. He then changed his passive Time Beams to become much thinner and spread it around the area, in spots where he expected a mage to fly through. 

'Although this would notify a potential enemy of my presence, the Time Beams would heavily disrupt the enemies' spells and illusions, revealing their faces and also stopping their floating spells from working' Evin thought.

If Evin was quick enough, he would be able to seriously hurt these enemies with a sneak attack, but since there was no information other than that there was some random mage flying in the area, Evin was just going to try to memorize the intruder's face and focus on hiding afterwards. After all, there could be five hidden mages waiting behind the one that got caught in Evin's trap, and there could even be a lesser-imposer among them. Evin wasn't really brave enough to try his luck against a World Domain any time soon. 

Although a bit risky, it was necessary to set up these precautions, as this tower was undoubtedly the best vantage point in the city. This meant that the chances of another mage wanting to take control of it was extremely high. It was completely possible that they would make a beeline for the tower under an illusion, and Evin wouldn't be able to take notice of them until it was too late. 

Even though it was relatively safe for Evin, since he wasn't covered in illusions but was hiding in the darkness, it was still a risk that he didn't want to gamble on.

'It would be too awkward if I suddenly find an intruder sitting right next to me, after all,' Evin thought with a chuckle.

Anyhow, Evin got comfortable in the shades, activated his eagle-eyes, and silently monitored the four town gates one by one. Nothing really happened, as small town gates weren't really bustling with activity all day every day. Especially so for a town like this one, which didn't have a Tribe ruling over it.