Shades of the New World

Finished with the book, he stopped floating and got out of the carriage. To keep himself floating for the duration of the flight, he used about 15 kgs of crystal-grade lodestones. It was peanuts to him, but other beginner mages would definitely strangle him to death for such wasteful usage.

The crystal-grade lodestones would take about a week to completely recharge themselves, so Evin put them inside his storage necklace. Evin's storage necklace was one that could charge mana lodestones inside it. It was also bigger and more complex than most normal storage artifacts. On top of the section dedicated for mana lodestones, it also had a section similar to a fridge where Evin could store his food without worry.

He stretched slightly and got out of the carriage and went outside to sit near Ssatsko. To his surprise, the road they were taking was immersed in a thick fog. The carriage was covered, so he didn't know what was happening outside. The fog made him feel quite weak and vulnerable. He couldn't see 20 steps in front of him, and the whole place was awfully silent as well.

No wonder Ssatsko decided to drive himself.

Evin wondered how the man was able to know where he was going, but then he noticed some signs and arrows pointing towards the border on the ground and on some sign poles.

He also noticed a few signs that seemed to be conflicting as well. For example, there was a sign that said borders and pointed to the East, while there was another sign that also said borders but pointed to the west.

"What's up with the two different signs that point to different directions, but have the same name?" Evin asked the old man.

"The false ones lead to bandit ambushes and some other less desirable places, while the correct ones lead to the border," Ssatsko replied.

"No wonder you wanted to drive yourself. Pretty sure we'd end up vanquishing a few bandit groups if I was the one to drive," Evin joked.

"I'd love to see us kill those guys, but you probably won't make a dent in their numbers. And we might end up in a den of a bit more dangerous bunch,"

"Who are you talking about?"

"Air-shifters," the man replied shortly.

"Is that like Karan, but for gaseous substances?" Evin was startled and he couldn't help but ask, "How many of these Shifters are there?"

"As many as there are concepts in the World. Gas, liquid and solids… Avians, mammals and reptiles… Flowers, mushrooms and trees. Humans, Ivari and Layeq… Griffins, Colossi and Myrmi… Anything you can think of and there will be one shifter among them. You can say that the Cosmics connect the Empire's gold, while the Shifters connect the Empire's blood"

Evin never met a skinshifter other than Karan in his life. But he suddenly had a thought that maybe someone in the town was actually a skinshifter. Perhaps the chicken he ate in the morning was a skinshifter.

'Eh, probably not. If I could turn into any avian I could be, I sure wouldn't turn into a goddamn chicken,'

Evin continued the journey in silence. Thankfully, they didn't meet any bandits on the way, so the trip was quite uneventful. The silence of the fog was slightly disturbing, but somehow calming at the same time. It felt like a blank slate, and Evin enjoyed the numbness and emptiness of the situation.

Soon, the sound of splashing water became apparent in Evin's ears. The moist air was slowly becoming even more humid, creating tiny water particles on Evin's head.

Arza came out of the carriage because of the sound of a waterfall, and Evin recited about the things that Ssatsko told him. Rith was also awake at some point and was listening with interest. Arza wanted to go find bandits regardless, his justice instinct kicking in randomly.

The sound of a waterfall became more and more apparent, and Evin finally got close enough to see the waterfall itself. He could only see a wide area where the water seemed to be falling from. He tried looking up, but his eyes couldn't penetrate the thick fog. The sound it made was awfully loud, so Evin knew the water fell from a very high place.

He decided to channel the World of Storms to clear some of the fog away and sneak a look at the waterfall. He gathered the energy inside his core and threw it towards the sky.

His spell shoved away the thick fog surrounding the waterfall, flying upwards for about a kilometer, and then disappeared.

Evin was shocked with the revelation. This meant that this one waterfall was taller than the tallest waterfall on Earth. He told Arza to come over and throw his strongest fog clearing spell he could muster. The two combined their efforts, but it still didn't go more than half a kilometer more. Because of the distance, the combined spell didn't add up to two, but instead stopped halfway.

Evin wanted to ask Rith, but Ssatsko smiled and gave him a scroll.

"It's called a Fog-clearing scroll. It should be able to do whatever you're trying to attempt," he said.

It was the first time Evin was seeing a scroll, so he wanted to very carefully inspect it while using it. But Arza threw a tantrum, because he wanted to be the one who used the scroll. Evin could only shake his head and give up.

Happy with his victory, Arza used the scroll immediately. He just had to inject some mana inside it, so it worked as a catalyst. Instead of a wind spell, as Evin expected, tremendous amounts of heat appeared from the scroll. Evin could see that the tiny air particles in the air turning into gas, with vast amounts of steam flying upwards from everywhere in the area.

The fog slowly disappeared over the course of a few minutes, leaving Evin and Arza with their mouths wide open. Evin could only describe the true size of the waterfall as huge. Evin guessed that it might even reach five kilometers upwards. That's basically half of Mount Everest! And it's a waterfall!

And the most shocking part was that the cliff that the water was falling from continued on as far as Evin could see.

'Didn't this mean that the Northern Tribes lived five kilometers above the Western kingdom? How would the kingdom wage war against them?' Evin couldn't help but think.

"Welcome to the Third Cataract, the second accessible border crossing between the North and the West," Ssatsko declared with some pride.

"How many of these cataracts are there?"

"Total of four. Three of them inside the Kingdom's territory, one near the Tower City," Ssatsko said.

Evin realized that this cliff was only a fraction of the whole thing and it acted as the border between the two countries. The Kingdom was doomed to be under the North from the start. At least the North is a peace-loving country.