Shades of the New World

On a small path near the border between the kingdom and the Tribes, a small boy was driving a carriage on the road. He didn't really know where exactly he was going, or where he was in general, but his grandfather told him to follow the bald dirt road, so that's what he was doing. He occasionally pondered, why would people ever bother with this whole ordeal, even though there was a cat that could literally teleport him to anywhere in the World, sleeping on top of his lap.

First few days of travel were very interesting for the boy. It was his first time going out of the town and everything. He felt like this was his first step into his path to immortality. He was thinking of glorious things like the first step of a ten thousand-mile journey began here, and other related things that excited him greatly. He even started humming some war song he heard somewhere.

But after 10 days, he realized how shit traveling was, even though he knew that he had it better than most, thanks to his magic. He could easily create baths for himself on the go, he didn't need to carry a bunch of things thanks to his storage necklace, he could keep the flies and mosquitoes away from himself by casting a simple buff on himself, he could take care of his sweating by utilizing the World of Water.

But the truth of the matter was that it was a dull thing. Traveling. The boy wanted to focus on his magic studies, but his grandfather demanded that Evin should focus on driving a carriage for now. He did not understand the man's logic. It would probably be the last time for Evin to drive a carriage in his life. He could fly in the air and all of his belongings could be stored in one necklace. They had traveled for 20 days by now, but the boy reckoned that he could make the trip in a day if he was flying in the air unobstructed. Even better, it would only take a minute if the Feline on his lap decided to teleport them.

But no. We must spend our time directing some dumb horses that would topple over the carriage in ten minutes if not supervised. Evin tried studying and driving, but decided against it after he almost fell off the driver's seat when the horses drove into some random pit on the road.

Evin was starting to really hate normal horses. Why couldn't there be Celestial Stallions or something, a race who would create a national policy that focuses on turning every normal horse into a Celestial one through years of interracial breeding? Then the horses would become able to drive by themselves due to the increased intelligence, no? Wouldn't it be revolutionary?!

Self-driving vehicles were invented only in the late 20th century on Earth. But on Alvox, it would be introduced in the 13th century! Just imagine the possibilities!

As Evin pondered about the cruelties of life, Arza came out of the carriage, well rested and energetic.

'Oh nice, Arza's coming to impart me knowledge,' Evin thought in delight.

He would avoid the boy in normal circumstances, but times were getting tough these days, so any kind of company seemed welcome to Evin. The boy also came and told Evin about all the magical knowledge that he learned from Aran's book, as well.

Then, he consult about some of the more confusing things with Rith and Karan.

Evin thought that traveling with Arza would not be a fun experience, but in all seriousness, it wasn't that bad. Evin's impression of Arza was a genius boy who could do most things with his talent, but it turned out that he studied extremely diligently when it came to studies. Evin was still in shock from the discovery.

So Arza would spend most of his time digging through the book his father left him. Evin thought it impossible, but he could see some homesickness in the boy's eyes when reading.

All of this time Evin spent with Arza made him think why exactly the boy wanted to become a mage so much. Evin used to think it was just because it was cool, but something told him that there was more than meets the eye.

"What ascendant knowledge have you come to impart to me today?" Evin asked.

"Today's is easy," Arza replied.

"Oh, why?"

"It's just an introduction, and there isn't any knowledge on how to use it. It's called Inscriptions"

"Is it something like drawings that give objects magical prowesses?"

"No, those are called Engravings. Inscriptions are for you own body. They're like tattoos, but according to the book, you can store a spell in it and use it without the help of your imagination. You can also tuck a lodestone next to it, so it can automatically receive mana from it as well,"

"That's pretty useful. But how does it work for complicated spells like my floating? I have to do a lot of mental thinking to change directions midair or change my flying speed," Evin asked.

"There're special Inscriptions for those as well. Think of your floating spell like the main Inscription. Then you can add a bunch of extra Inscriptions like changing speed and changing directions. But I read that they're quite difficult to remove, so you should only receive an Inscription for a spell that you're absolutely sure you're going to use for a long time," Arza recited from the book.

"I see, that's pretty cool. I don't mind getting an inscription for my floating spell since I use it all the time. As for getting it removed, we'll cross that bridge when it comes," Evin commented.

"Next are Engravings. These are similar to Inscriptions, but they're for objects. I think the glove that girl from the mansion had was an engraved item, as well,"

"I thought that it was only used for storing energy inside it, no?"

"That itself needs an Engraving to work. Or else you would just get a glove with a bunch of sorbothium on it," Arza explained.

Evin nodded thoughtfully. He felt that Engraved objects were the most used items in mage circles. He wanted to get something similar to Bella's glove, but found that such things were extremely rare and ridiculously expensive. Rith didn't know how Bella managed to get one for herself. She guessed that there was a powerful mage in her bloodline history that passed down the artifact to her.

She then explained that most Channeling Artifacts only have two or three Core Shards on it and most mages make it themselves. No one has one with more than a dozen Core Shards like Bella.

"Did the book say anything about practicing them?" Evin asked.

"None for Inscriptions and only sculpting and general engraving practices for Engraving"

Just like this, Evin learned his much desired knowledge about magic in bits and pieces.

At first, the two learned about how to more consistently use their imagination for different Worlds. Evin could now make use of each of the twelve World without issues. He could finally cast some World of Emotions and World of Space spells a bit. As for the World of Light and the World of Water, he was still ignoring them for the most part. Evin did not like water and even though he could now cast without getting affected by the Worlds so severely like his first time, it was still annoying to deal with.

For the World of Emotions, it was best to make them work by associating them with something. Like happiness gas, or make-you-cry drink. But most of the time you would go for gases. Karan explained that griffins could directly affect someone with just magic, but that's too direct for humans to use. So they try to make it a bit more obscure by making the emotional effect a byproduct of something else.

Karan also said that humanoids who focus on the World of Emotions are usually much better than the griffins. The griffins don't have to think about making something feel natural for their soldiers. They just raise their morale and the soldiers will accept it without fighting back. But for humans, they have to be much more subtle. They would need to use their mouth to set the mood and only use the World of Emotions when someone was already feeling the emotions that the mage wants in the first place.

Obviously they could force it upon their victims like the griffins, but that was only in super specific situations. Like how Karan was forced to receive it because the people who kept him wanted to make him feel specific emotions for a certain project.

As for the World of Time, Evin still didn't find any success. He could somewhat make himself a bit faster than others, but it took an ungodly amount of lodestones.

For the other Worlds, he found a few better ways to imagine them, but nothing substantial. Arza was probably the one who profited most from the book. He mainly only used three Worlds in the beginning, since he was just so naturally talented at them. But now, he could very easily use the other Worlds of magic. He even found a way to distinguish Illusions from reality, making his sparring sessions with Evin go much better for him.

Evin needed to actually try hard in the fights, since his biggest advantage over the child was stripped open. These days, he's been employing kiting tactics against Arza, since if you ever get caught with the boy in a melee brawl, it always turns into a messy fistfight.

Evin didn't mind such close range battles, especially since he learned how to use the World of Life to invigorate and harden his muscles, but he definitely preferred to keep his range between his enemies.

Then came the studies of magical applications. Evin and Arza were still on this topic, with the Engravings and the Inscriptions. The previous days, the duo learned about a countless different magical plants and animals and their numerous and mostly obscure uses for mages. Most of it went through Evin's one ear and went out the other one.

There was also some bait in the book. It talked about World Core weapons and armor.

The most distinguished mages of the kingdom are given a chance to receive Core Weapons and Core Armor. They were tools of war that were made from peak quality sorbothium ingots, which are also made with unimaginably high concentration of World Cores.

Nigh indestructible when facing normal weapons, cleaves through steel like butter, gives perfect resistance to whatever World its Core is made out of and gives the mage unparalleled control over one type of magic World.

If a Half-core mage would wear it, their raw power would rival Lesser-imposers. But needless to say, such things are pipe dreams for weaker mages, since only the most powerful mages would get the chance to receive such powers from the kingdom.

They were basically mech suits. Oh, how Evin wished to get one for himself. It was a man's romance. Even though he knew they were bait, he couldn't help himself. He could only curse Unabach for writing such alluring content in his book.

As Evin was lost in his own mind, Ssatsko ordered the two to set camp for the night. Arza and Evin did as ordered, and after setting the camp, they went to spar with each other. As always, it turned into a tag game where Arza would do everything in his powers to catch Evin.

Lately, Evin's been trying to immobilize Arza instead of just knocking him out, like he did before in hopes of humbling the boy. It was actually working pretty well, considering how Arza became much more tame. Aran's boy was also actually learning things from the fights, instead of just attempting the same thing over and over like a madman. The boy's progress was frightening, to say the least.

Evin even wondered if he was the reason why Arza seemed to act like an idiot all the time. All sorts of stories about child head injuries and their consequences began to appear from Evin's memories. Evin promised to never hit Arza unconscious ever again.

After the sparring session ended, Evin took another look at the things that Arza explained to him. They were now about two-thirds finished with the book. Most of it described methods of imagination for specific Worlds, and they were quite wordy to say the least.

Ssatsko was done with the cooking, so he called the two kids over.

"Tomorrow, we should reach the borders of the kingdom. I'll drive from tomorrow on, so you can have some free time in the carriages," the old man declared.