Shades of the New World

Chapter 48: Two Years

A few important things happened during these two years.

First, he spent some time to learn more about his newfound ally, the metal skinshifter.

Evin was expecting the organization to send more people to search for Karan, but his worry was starting to seem unwarranted. The skinshifter, though, was still very on edge. Randomly walking through the street, Evin would hear a voice in his head telling him to steer clear of a specific person, for one reason or another.

Aside from that, Karan seemed content with the new environment. He ate metal to survive, so someone with a lot of money like Evin was a godsend owner to him. They found that if Karan eats more special or enchanted metals, he would partially absorb its powers. Evin usually fed the skinshifter some extremely durable and adaptable metals so he could have a good foundation. Although he wished to purchase more expensive metals, he was unable to purchase most of them freely. Evin did most of his purchases through Rith, so he didn't look suspicious in the eyes of others.

Evin soon learned how to communicate with Karan in his head, so he didn't look like a lunatic whenever he walked on the streets. They practiced a lot inside Evin's test room alongside Ssatsko, who taught his grandson all sorts of wholesome things like, where to stab a person to immobilize them the fastest, or how should one slice someone's neck so it make them bleed the fastest, or how Evin should always be ruthless with his opponents, since he wasn't strong enough to be lenient in a fight.

They would then go to the forest and hunt for mana-beasts. They would search for their trails and would spend days following them. If they finally manage to find it, Evin would get to practice his newfound abilities to his heart's content. After receiving such rigorous training from the old man, Evin was starting to feel confident in his close combat abilities.

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Most of his confidence came from Karan. Whenever Evin sparred with Ssatsko, they would both deal dozens of minor cuts to each other, since they both had methods to increase the reach of their weapons. Ssatsko utilized his flames, while Evin had a metal skinshifter as his weapon. Karan could also turn into many different other weapons, so Evin had a variety of options available to him.

Evin felt that Karan got accustomed to being a weapon very quickly. If he himself was to turn into a weapon, he didn't know how well he would've taken it. He talked to him about it, and the Karan replied that it probably had something to do with the biology of the skinshifters. Not just metal skinshifters. Most other skinshifters were very indifferent to things. Something horrid or life changing happens to them, and they could shrug it off with an "I see".

He confessed that if Evin died to an enemy, he probably wouldn't mind going to the person who killed Evin.

The revelation startled Evin, but Karan assured that he would not betray him when he lived.

Evin also didn't slack on his magical studies. His core finally reached 1.9 cm. Now, he only needed a small push to reach the quarter-core stage. Since he was able to absorb more mana, he was able to much more intricate things. The biggest boost was his floating abilities.

He became able to perform much more complex movements while floating. His maximum speed increased and he could make sharp turns in the air. He stopped imagining that a wind was blowing him to where he wanted to. He now imagined him having air nozzles around himself and they would blow air in a direction he wanted to. With his tiny size, he was becoming a pain to deal with even for Ssatsko.

But this also posed a problem to Evin, which was that it didn't have any power to it. Since Evin was basically weightless when he was floating thanks to the Heavy World, his blows didn't have any impact, other than the force from the World of Storms. So when he was floating, he would mostly opt to use ranged attacks.

He tried copying Ssatsko's various World of Fire tricks, but he just couldn't get the things working. He first tried copying his flaming arcs. The old man's flames were solid somehow, while Evin's flames seemed hollow. He then decided to try the old man's 1000-degree blistering-hot dagger technique, but he simply lacked the mana to do such a thing. Karan also did not like getting heated up like that. Ssatsko explained that his dagger was enchanted in a way that makes it easier to absorb heat. If Evin wanted to copy that, he would need to feed a few special metals to Karan over a long time.

His Air Bullets on the other hand were becoming more and more powerful. It was becoming similar to a compressed air gun. Except instead of a stream of air, Evin was shooting pockets of air. In real life, such things would definitely cause damage to a person, but it wouldn't be that bad. Evin mostly solved this problem with his will. It's a world of magic. Why should he constrict himself by always thinking scientifically? Just imagine the air bullets being like real bullets and it would work most of the time, although it took a bit of an effort.

Evin's prowess on the World of Thoughts became a bit more diverse. He could add a lot of new elements to his illusions, making them feel more realistic. He managed to make his illusions have sounds and heat and whatnot. He also tried to add more overly theatrical effects to his spells, to just add a bunch of noise and useless information in the enemy's eyes.

Since Sasha also had a horn that allowed her to channel the World of Thoughts, they would spend their time creating flashy spells. Speaking of her, she probably got the most versatile World with her horn. Even though she can't create anything that's real, like high-level mages and dragons, but if she ever gets a chance to increase the size of her horn with a World Core or something, the things she could do would increase tremendously.

As for Rith, she had her kittens after two months. She only had three of them, but one of them turned out to be a Cosmic. Abvelgail took that one away, and the rest stayed in Evin's house. The black cat that impregnated Rith eventually became a house cat under the guidance of Rith and was unceremoniously named Blackspot by Sasha. The two kittens were female and male, so they were named Riz and Raz, respectively.

The sight of a family of cats looked new to Evin, since no male cat would stay with a female for long on Earth. Blackspot also seemed very surprised by the development as well. Fatherhood came at the cat completely unexpectedly. Evin started to act very kindly towards the cat. Blackspot's loving gaze towards Rith couldn't help but make Evin and the rest feel sunshine in their stomachs.

Rith herself seemed to be becoming more and more like a normal house cat. She would laze around all day, looking after her two kittens and fooling around with Evin. Evin asked how long his monitoring would continue and the answer he got was that Rith did not know either.

As for his financial situation, he saved them all in a savings account. It was a 10-year program and Evin would cash out big time when he turned 12, right before he enters the Academy. His account now had about 15000 gold, increasing slowly but surely thanks to the percentages. Obviously he didn't save everything for himself, and had about 1000 gold coins in a normal transaction account.

As for the projects that he vetoed, there were no news as of yet.

Arza also grew bigger and bigger until he was deemed worthy to receive magical instruction by Aran. the time came for Evin to receive magical instructions. Evin was now four years old, and he had two years to dedicate himself to his study of magic, before he left with Ssatsko to the North for the Horn Ceremony.