Chapter 71: The City of Smog

"Thanks for taking the loss so well," Evin told Hector after receiving the gifts.

"Parvan needs to feel some losses. A fight like this one was inevitable with the way he conducted himself," the broad-shouldered man shrugged.

Evin agreed with the man. It was a matter of time before the boy's arrogance took the best of him, resulting in a fight he couldn't win.

'I thank the Empress that I was the first one, allowing me to achieve such great treasures' Evin prayed inside his head.

Evin glanced at the wailing noble boy and shook his head with a vague smile.

Hector said his goodbyes and went to Purzo to help with the Customs house's renovations. For mages, building and fixing things were quite easy, so the rotund man's house was back to normal in no time.

"Do you know what was in that scroll Parvan was about to use?" Evin asked Rith with sudden curiosity.

"It's something that borders on forbidden. It's a spell that emits invisible light that can burn your skin off your flesh if you stay inside it for too much. They also say that it can affect your general health in a terrible way, but there isn't much research on it. It is one of the methods a Luminous mage can use to hurt their enemies. But don't worry, the scroll is quite rare and mages that can use it are even rarer than the scrolls," Rith explained.

'Ultraviolet radiation? But doesn't that take like hours to properly affect its victims? Much less burning someone's skin off their flesh, it would at worst give you a small burn' Evin's only guess at an invisible light that can burn someone were UV lights. But the severity of its effect was much stronger in the spell, compared to normal UV radiation.

'Oh, willpower can take care of the lacking powers,' Evin concluded.

Evin kept forgetting that even though magic in this World was based on science, it wasn't actually bound by the rules of physics. Evin wondered what he could do with the Dark World in the future.

'Perhaps I could follow the footsteps of the other distinguished users of the World? Maybe develop a Devouring Darkness like the Pale Knight or a Purifying one like that one mage from the North defected to the South?

Evin decided to think about the matter much more deeply on the road. Also, the horns that would appear on his head would also decide which Worlds he should focus on. Channeling a World with and without a corresponding horn had huge differences.

Not to mention that he had to learn the World of Space from the Cosmics in the future. Evin could probably make do with Rith taking care of all his teleportation and storage needs, but Evin saw how powerful the World of Space was when Rith fought with those Easterners. He wanted to be able to do those things himself.

There was also the problem of his immortality and the time limit that Two Tales put him on. Before he reached 15, he had to find a way to reduce the emotional effects that the Worlds had on him. Evin remembered how hard it was to simply be imbued with the energy of a World when he first tried out the Worlds. The Heavy World practically made him insane just by being inside of it.

Evin sighed and decided to approach things one by one. His first objective being the Horn Ceremony. But that was far in the future, so Evin decided to focus on the Dark World after experimenting around with his spoils of battle for a while.

Since Arza could use the Luminous World quite efficiently, Evin decided to give the wand to him.

'I'll keep the Necklace of Knowing to myself, and when I reach the quarter-core stage, I'll try to improve my floating capabilities using the scroll as a base. Hopefully, I would have learned enough to decipher scrolls by then,' Evin concluded.

Ssatsko had finished talking with his friend, so the group was ready to continue their journey. Rith got out the carriage and horses out of her storage dimension and the group bade farewell to Hector's caravan. Hector had to wait for other horses to be delivered, since they let the previous one go free.

…

A few days passed after that, and Evin spent most of his time practicing his magic. This time Arza was driving the carriage, so Evin had much more free time compared to the past. He would explain to Arza some of the contents of the book at night and then have a little spar, but mostly he would be bettering his methods.

He tried out some applications of the Dark World that he could think of, but his mana-core would usually lack the capacity to make his imagination a reality. But he did manage to polish his other spells as much as he could. He could now control his shadow like he was controlling his arms, he could enter it without any delay and he could influence the shadows in his surroundings much better.

If he had to fight in an area that was half light and half shadows, he could practically turn the whole area completely dark. Especially if the shadows were scattered about. Evin realized that his fighting style was gradually tilting towards the uses of darkness, so he was even thinking of purchasing a simple scroll or an engraved item that created shadows in an area so he doesn't have to worry about these things in the first place. Evin didn't know how applicable or cost-effective it would be, but he would definitely try it out.

Evin's financial situation was thriving anyway, even without him doing anything. He had about 40000 golden coins in his savings account that was identical to the one that Bellaslayn got, so he could cash out big time when he turned 12. He had about 2000 coins for daily usage, so perhaps he could use some of it to buy some magical equipment.

He also received a letter from the coffee shop owner in Tower city. Rith would sometimes give him a letter from the shop owner or a financial statement of the shop. Evin actually didn't receive any more project plans from the Cosmics after two years, but he guessed that the Cosmics wanted to see if his suggestions were true or not.

Evin didn't know this, but the Cosmics invested in every project that they sent to Evin, except of course the coffee shop business that Evin personally took over. They wanted to see if Evin's suggestions would play out the way he explained.

But that was a story for another time.

Evin owned half of a coffee shop in Tower City. Sadly, the coffee shop wasn't working that well, since the taste of coffee wasn't yet popular at this time. When he was first becoming the investor of the shop, Evin sent a list of recipes that were popularly used with coffee on Earth. But since they were mostly just various additions of milk, sugar and chocolate, the owner sent back a passionate rejection letter, writing about stuff like keeping the spirit of coffee pure and whatnot.

But after working for two years, the shop was practically losing money, so the coffee shop owner finally relented to Evin's suggestion and was working on adding new recipes to the shop. Even the most passionate of people would lose their spirit when every day felt like an uphill battle. The guilt of running an unprofitable business with the money of others, the mockery of his rivals and the scoldings from his wife forced the shop owner to relent to reality.

The shop owner was actually quite grateful to this unknown Northern investor. He never met Evin in real life, so at first he just assumed the investor to be some pompous bigshot in the North who had some connections with the Cosmics.

The man even had the gall to send a bunch of expensive and unhealthy recipes to them right after becoming the investor. Obviously the man rejected the proposed recipes… but even when the shop was losing money, the investor didn't seem to mind and kept sending money. The unknown investor didn't even pressure the owner for returns. With that, the shop owner's heart was moved, and he informed the investor that he decided to try out the various recipes the investor proposed.

Evin was, naturally, oblivious to these developments. But since the shop owner decided to implement his ideas, he should start seeing some more success in the future.

Just like this, Evin's days passed peacefully on the road. Evin did not meet any other travelers or villagers, since Ssatsko was not traveling on the road. He didn't need to since Evin could make the carriage light and just go over rivers or valleys. And after two weeks of travel from the Customs house, Evin saw the silhouette of a gigantic city, surrounded by a wide river. Trails of smoke rose from the city's insides, creating a scene that reminded Evin of some anti-pollution posters from Earth, depicting a factory with smoke trailing off its top.

The walls of the city were tall and imposing, but a closer look showed Evin that it was worn and used. Cracks and black spots created from constant emission of smoke decorated the city's walls, a clear indication that life inside the town wasn't as comfortable as one would imagine.

"Welcome to the City of Smog," Ssatsko introduced.