Shades of the New World

Chapter 178: Gains

Evin got outside his shadow and slowly looked at his surroundings, trying to get used to the bright palette of colors. His eyes were a bit unaccustomed to a scenery that wasn't just a bland mix of pale white, with the messy addition of blue, so the process took a while. 

[Are you okay, big brother?] Runa's voice asked him. The skinshifter heavily insisted on going outside with Evin, even though her existence was better off as a secret in Evin's mind. 

[Don't worry about it, Runa,] Evin shook his head and reassured Runa, his finger gently fondling the gauntlet on his right hand

'It's sure damn nice to talk to people other than Four And I can finally fill my stomach with something' he thought happily in his head.

He wasn't starving or anything, but it was truly a pain in the ass to be mildly hungry every single moment of a day. It was similar to having your back itch constantly and there was no way for you to deal with it, except to just try and ignore it. 

It was rarely the big things that got you. It was always the small things piling up to become unbearable. 

He then looked at Twelve, who was sitting next to his body.

"Thank you for looking after me during all this time," Evin said. 

Twelve shook her head and turned her head towards the Cosmic: "Rith, could you please leave us alone for the time being?" 

Rith didn't object and promptly walked through the hole that Twelve created inside the barrier. Evin was already prepared for this talk, as Four always reminded him that he will most likely be banned from divulging or using many things. And even though he wished it would come after he had a proper meal, it was probably a bad idea to keep an Authority waiting as he stuffed his face with food.

"I don't mind if you spend some time to fill up your stomach," Twelve said, like she knew what Evin was thinking. 

'Oh my god, I love you!' Evin thought in his head, but didn't act out of line in the exterior.

"Uhh, thanks," he blushed a bit and brought out some bread, jerky and melted cheese from inside his storage ring. He really didn't want his first meal in a month to be dry jerky and a some slightly stale bread, but he didn't want to be picky now. At least he had some cheese to give the two ingredients some flavor. 

As he ate, he thought about the time he spent inside Four's World.

Like the weird girl said herself, hunting and absorbing the souls was extremely easy for Evin. Especially after he regained his magic. And the souls themselves would, more often than not, mindlessly dash at Evin threateningly. Evin thought that Anna's soul, the first woman that attacked him, could be considered dumb, Evin quickly realized that she was one of the better ones. Most of the others acted similarly to the spirits Evin found back on Earth.

Four said that after some time, they would become smarter, and a bit more difficult to deal with, but thankfully, such things didn't happen. Thus, after laboring for five days, Evin was able to hunt down to extinction the 400 or so corrupted souls that were born alongside his own personal World of Death.

Evin's goal was obviously the High-quality Soul Mask. Not only did it allow him to have a stable source of Soul Energy, he also didn't want to carry around a bunch of smaller ones. He also felt like it would be easier to make.

In any case, Four began to teach Evin the method to create a high-quality Soul Mask, one that was able to grow alongside Evin. But it turned out that the process was much more difficult than Evin imagined. All day and night, he would be processing these poor souls down into these immaterial, white strings, all while their voices would be droning off about one thing or another in his head.

For some reason, the souls didn't really act crazy when Evin was going through this process. It was obviously a good thing for Evin, since he really didn't want to have them screeching or screaming into his head all the time. It also helped Evin pretend the contents of their talk as some kind of white noise, since it mostly didn't make any sense.

In any case, he then had to fit all these strands into the shape of a mask, but it all felt like trying to stuff something that was close to bursting. Well it was natural, since while the strings were relatively small by itself, there were still about 400 of them. Thankfully, Four provided him with a mold, so he didn't need to worry about keeping its shape right. She also explained that the mold will automatically bind and connect the strings in the most optimal way, which was a great help for Evin.

But Evin still had to constantly exert Heavy energy onto it, so that the strings contained inside it wouldn't just burst open. And he had to add in the strings one by one, since trying to fit it all in at once was practically impossible. 

This process took him about a twenty days total after which Evin had to delve into the memories that were stored inside the dark-blue orb that was left by Anna.

Without wasting any time, Four taught him how to bring out those memories. Sorting through them also took a lot of Evin's time. At that point, the hunger was taking over his senses as well, so focusing on some things became really difficult. 

In the end, he had spent about ten days inside the World of Death, digging through Anna's memories. But it was very worth it, since he'd gotten so much information from those visions. He was sure that most likely, no one else in the World knew more about the Great Ages before the Empire than himself.

How society before the Empire worked, how mages couldn't decide which magic to use, but it was decided almost randomly, how strong and unruly the Hex and Magi of that time were, how the initial use of the Oaths were completely despotic, which countries had the best balls and parties... all those good stuff. 

Not just stories of the past, he even learned how to productively use mana... though, unfortunately, it was only limited to soul Burning and Molding in general, and Anna's soul related tricks and abilities. The ability she could perform using divine essence was interesting for sure, but its use was too niche to be actually useful for Evin in most situations. And he was also sure that there would countless methods to do what she did in the modern day and age.

One more thing that Evin was disappointed by was Anna's title.

Anna was supposed to be an Arch-hex, which sounded really cool and powerful, but the title was mostly just a seniority badge. Anyone who was a mage for 50 years could become one. Obviously, she was still pretty good with how she used her soul, but Evin couldn't really call her a battle-worthy Hex. After all, the woman couldn't handle any kind of physical pain, she avoided conflict at all costs.

Which was why, Anna's main occupation was a healer of the Souls of some sorts... a Soul 'Guru', if you will. And while she knew a lot of methods to life one's spirits and invigorate them, she really didn't go out of her comfort zone to try out new things, or try to better her craft for that matter. 

She would much rather spend her time trying to hook up with some nice person, traveling the world, while jumping from man to man. But the problem was, her taste in men was absolutely baffling. Almost two thirds of her life, Anna was going through some toxic relationship or another. The rest of the time, she would be questioning and regretting her life decisions. It also didn't help since Anna herself seemed to have unnaturally high standards.

Even though Evin experienced Anna's life through his personality, from the life choices she made, Evin could tell what kind of person Anna was. She definitely wasn't the brightest of people, making the same mistakes over and over, always choosing the worst options out of the choices she was given. 

Thankfully, taking care of one's soul was a popular practice at the time, so she didn't live a bad life.

'But I can always tell that she took her life very seriously. Just because her choices are bewildering to me, it doesn't mean that she herself didn't believe in them. Just because I don't agree with her, doesn't mean that she's wrong... Necessarily...' Evin concluded unconfidently. 

He didn't know why, but every idle moment, his head would steer towards these memories. 

Shaking his head, he decided to take Anna's matter out of his head and focus on his gains.

Even with Anna's rather underwhelming abilities, Evin still considered himself pretty lucky, since he could feel how his Soul-burnt spells had become much stronger and cleaner after he applied Anna's knowledge into it. He also felt more confident in being able to mold his soul properly. 

'On second thought, I really should've been more careful about this, huh?' Evin thought with worry and caressed his eyes. He managed to mutate another part of his body and it was related to his eyes. In hindsight, it was probably an unnecessarily risky mutation, as it also involved a very important part of his brain.

Evin managed to grant himself photographic memory, by messing around with his visual cortex a bit. 

He still didn't know what took over his mind when he attempted this Soul Mutation suddenly. After he had finished delving through Anna's memories, he was suddenly reminded of a mutation in the long list that Four gave him, one that worked very similarly to photographic memory. 

He didn't know why, but he just knew that he would be successful when he tried to Mold his soul brain for this ability. And without even questioning it, he just went for it. Miraculously, nothing went wrong that time, so Evin was beginning to feel confident. A bit too confident he might add. 

Like a gambler that won one hand, he began to think of all the other mutations that were in Four's list. Obviously, his mind was thinking about the biggest prize. A second brain. 

Just by thinking about the possibilities it entailed, he would start drooling for it. What if he had two more? Three more? A literal four-head mage?!

Thankfully, Four managed to convince Evin out of this stupid idea. Even though Evin had a ton of knowledge from Anna's memories, he still lacked practical training and experience. Perhaps in the future, he would become the four-head mage he dreamt to be. 

'Hmm... no...' The more he thought about, the more he was scared of what would happen if something went wrong...

'Yeah... Probably not my brightest idea...' Evin shook his head and gulped the last piece of his jerky.