Death, Devotion, Dissonance

Chapter 146 - Problems Arising.

Two weeks later, Evin was sitting inside Rith's house, finally finding six hours he could dedicate to learning portals. The Cosmic herself was out for a bit, gathering things that could be useful for the class. 

'I can use these few minutes to catch a breather…' Evin sighed and slouched into Rith's couch.

These past two weeks were truly packed for Evin. He would attend his classes during the working days of the week, evenings would go to Bella, and as for the rest days, he would dedicate one to Bella, and the other to his family. 

For his classes, aside from the must-pick ones like Mana-core Cultivation, Spell-casting, General combat, and the other non-mage classes like Math and Languages; he picked Illusions, Spear-fighting, Intermediate Runes, Magical Engineering and another History class.

As for the Heart-casting class, the more Evin read about it, the more it started to sound like something useless. It was something that took years to become used to, but even then, the rewards weren't really that great. You received about ten seconds to do whatever you wanted with a World, but even then, it was extremely hard for the mage to focus on a spell, as the insanity-inducing effects of the World would be messing with your ability to think.

In any case, the teacher, Sufi Zurikh still hadn't picked her students to teach, saying that she was comparing their potentials. She was an old, messy-looking woman who looked like she hadn't eaten a thing for years. 

So, Evin decided to stay far away from Heart-casting, as it definitely sounded like a huge waste of time.

The must-pick classes were mostly what he expected. He didn't need to worry about his mana-core's cultivation, as he had no trouble getting Shards for himself and was nearly able to absorb five lodestones' worth of mana. He always aced spell-casting, and he was even getting good enough to do it without Endra's help, thanks to Endra's new lectures about his home-world

He was now learning to create Hard Air like Endra did, and was even successful in creating a mock-up version of the Accelerator. It wasn't as powerful as Endra's, but Evin was able to successfully shoot out stone or metal bullets out of it using bursts of compressed air. He couldn't shoot out air bullets, even though it was technically the weakest bullet, but he learned that he could shoot out small ice bullets, as long as he was careful not to destroy it.

After he mastered the Accelerator, Evin decided to commit himself to creating Illusions on the same level as Endra.

For his Combat classes… although he couldn't participate in them fully due to his foot, he still made sure to attend them as a spectator. Sometimes Bokh, the Vice-Chair, made him a test dummy for the other students' ranged spells, so Evin didn't feel terribly useless during it. 

Unfortunately, Evin couldn't do the same for his Spear-fighting class, as leg-work was practically the most important part of fighting with a weapon. For the time being, Evin was just practicing to get used to the spear's weight-changing abilities. 

The idea for a sorbothium sword (according to his teacher) was to make it as heavy as possible as it landed on the enemy, but otherwise, to keep it light as a feather. Not completely weightless, as that tended to make the user confused and lose sense of where the spear was, but light enough to be swirled around one's fingers without problems (though Evin's hand wasn't big enough for that yet). 

In any case, Evin was getting used to utilizing his sorbothium spear properly, and he was excited to try fighting with it when his foot was stable enough.

For History… he chose it only because he found himself interested in the topic. This year's history class was supposed to dive deeper into the kingdom's history, as the last one was akin to a history of Alvox in its entirety. It was good for him to have picked it, because the first time, Evin only heard about the humans falling under the Dragonshifters' protection and then being forgotten until they appeared later on, having become very powerful with magic. 

Well, after attending two classes of History this year, Evin learned about how exactly humans survived without any special advantages like the other races for about a hundred years, before meeting a Godling which turned out to be the first step they needed to take to better understand and use their mana-cores. 

Evin was then also introduced to the pinnacle of mana-beasts: the Tier-5s, or more commonly known as Godlings. Like their name suggests, Godlings are beings of mythical powers, whose strengths are often compared to the Twelve Calamities. But unlike the Twelve Calamities, they rarely ever… did anything to the twelve races. They were always a neutral force, and sometimes, even a friendly one. Like the Ape Godling that taught humans how to use Gestures for spell-casting.

Hearing about all this, Evin's love for history was fully ignited, and he decided to attend all the other history classes following this one.

As for why he picked Magical engineering and Intermediate Runes, it was because he found himself wanting to do something for Endra. He figured that perhaps they'll be able to learn about golems eventually, during their Magical Engineering studies, since he felt slightly guilty about picking a research about Absolutes as his prize from the kingdom.

Endra was becoming much more open and talkative compared to before. He generously shared his thoughts and knowledges about many technological and scientific knowledges about Earth and, widening Evin's perspective greatly. 

Endra knew a disgusting amount of things. And the things he talked about never felt boring to listen to. Well, it was natural, as he was talking about a whole entire world, which possessed technology and science that could only be called magical from Evin's perspective. And Evin made sure to absorb every single bit of it, because he knew they could be used to cast magic in the right circumstances. 

Endra also described his imaginations to the smallest details, hoping that perhaps if Evin copied it thought for thought, it would achieve the same results. Sometimes it did, sometimes it didn't. But Evin noticed that if he practiced enough with these specific imaginations, then more often than not, his spells got stronger.

But aside from stuff about magic and science, the voice sometimes decided to talk about other topics. It would talk about the history of his own world, while also narrating bits and pieces of the life stories of a few people. The stories never had proper structures or reasonings, they just… were. A story about a coroner lady walking through the streets, while others spread rumors about her being a witch and an agent of hell; a story about a how one serial killer picks his next victims by measuring how happy they are in life; a story about a woman just… living with her daughters. 

If there were any lessons to be learned in these stories, then Evin wasn't finding them. But it was hard for Evin to ignore these stories because he could feel how important these stories were to Endra, judging from how he talked about them. 

This was also the reason why Evin wanted to do something for him. The heavy atmosphere that Evin's head would be filled with every time Endra spoke was making Evin realize how selfish he was acting.

And thus, the class on Magical Engineering and Runes. Evin personally wasn't very interested in it, but he tried his best to absorb and note the class's contents to the best of his abilities, thinking it might be useful for Endra.

As for his time spent with Bella… if he was completely honest, it was becoming a bit too much. Evin still liked her a lot, he even thought he loved her… but her trying to spend every waking hour with him was becoming a bit annoying. She was the main reason why Evin was finding himself with no free time all of a sudden. 

He felt like he was past the point of blindly loving every moment he spent with her, and was now recognizing her flaws as flaws, instead of just brushing them off as cute quirks.

She was clingy, she was jealous of Lora, she was overly stubborn, and she wanted Evin to live and act the way she wanted him to. 

But Evin couldn't wholeheartedly hate these things, because in a way, it was kind of what he liked about Bella. She was someone who was intimate and passionate, and Evin could tell that she really liked being with him. Evin also liked being with her, but at some point, he would suddenly start feeling forced to be with her and yearn for some time alone.

Hence the reason he was enjoying this moment he had to himself here in Rith's house so much. But unfortunately, the moment was destined to end.