Shades of the New World - Chapter 258

Two days passed.

Evin was looking at the last three totems that he had to engulf in his Darkness. His hair was drenched in his sweat, his eyes were surrounded by dark hollow areas due to the fatigue he accumulated throughout the two days, and his heart ached like a needle was piercing through it, as it was constantly working for the past two days.

The Vulpine Mother made sure to keep Evin’s mind and body awake during this exercise of his, and was taking care of his nutritional and bodily needs through magic. Evin of course, soon forgot that he needed to eat, sleep and shit, wholly focused on the array he was working with.

‘Steady… Steady… Only three more to go. No need to rashly spoil everything,’ he thought in his head.

The Dark Room cautiously moved towards the next totem and linked Evin’s brain with the totem. After Evin made the connection, he quickly shoved the excess information he received from the totem into the symbolic corner in his mind, before his brain could get swamped by the excess information from the area.

Once again, his brain only contained the connection and location of the 29788 totems under his control. Any more information than that was enough to destroy his concentration.

Sighing, he then checked the rest of the totem web to see if there was any spot that fell out of his control.

“Good…” he murmured, after making sure that nothing was out of place.

Slowly but surely, he’d been getting to know about and then ignoring every little detail about this kilometer-wide cube. He could probably even count the number of hairy tarantulas in the entire place, but sadly, he gave up after counting 42.

In any case, whatever he was feeling could probably be called omniscience, or rather, proof why omniscience was probably the worst ability to possess. Evin was actually starting to feel sorry for gods and goddesses who were portrayed to be all-knowing and all-seeing.

If he was such a god, he would have probably killed himself ten times over at that point. After all, his omniscience was only effective in this 1 cube kilometer area of the world, mostly made of dirt and stones, and even that felt like something impossible to comprehend. Evin could only live through it because he was ignoring practically 99.99% of the information he was receiving from the spell. He imagined what it would be like if he knew and saw literally everything in the universe and couldn’t help but shudder.

‘I’d rather not bother myself with these subjects, I’ll be satisfied with becoming immortal,’ Evin thought and eyed the next totem.

The Dark Room extended further beyond and Evin claimed another part of the caverns under his possession. As always, he shoved the useless information aside and checked the status of the rest of the web.

Unfortunately, three parts of his web were torn away from his control, forcing Evin to spend some more time reconnecting to them. Similar incidents happened many times in the past, so Evin wasn’t disheartened. Reconnecting a torn part of the web was much simpler compared to newly obtaining totems, after all. He had a general idea of what the area felt like and he could very easily shove the useless information away from his concentration.

‘Same old, same old. I can probably do this while I’m sleeping,’ Evin thought.

After he got things in order, he eyed the last totem. Finally, he could see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Carefully and slowly, he repeated the process that he performed over 30 thousand times in the past two days.

Connect to the totem, shove away the useless information, check the rest of the web. Miraculously, he detected no more problems.

Like a holy tributary that had just ascended to the step above, he proudly observed what was probably the biggest achievement of his life. But, the moment of happiness wasn’t destined to last long. Evin still had one more task ahead of him. One last push to finish the masterpiece that the Vulpine Mother had prepared for him.

Almost immediately after he finished setting up the connection, he started to create a portal shaped in a net that was designed to gobble up the huge piece of land from the bottom to top, the way he usually put items into his shadow.

He didn’t have the leisure to check out whether the caverns were appearing where they should be, he could only focus on maintaining the grand spell he was performing. Kyune was also saying something on the sidelines as well, but sadly, Evin didn’t have the spare brain cells to worry about that. He’d stopped hearing her or anyone else for that part for the past day or so.

After this brutal experience he was lived through, the only thought that filled his mind was to maintain the portal. The net traversed steadily through the designated area and after ten minutes, it had passed through Evin’s body and he could feel that his body was now located inside his shadow.

‘Yes!’ Evin could only celebrate in his head, but at least, he received confirmation that the spell was doing its job properly. Another ten minutes later, the net finally snatched up the huge chunk of the Third Cataract that was the Vulpine Mother’s home.

Evin finally let go of the gigantic spell he was holding together, and his head cleared up as if the weight of a mountain was lifted from it. The omniscient feeling that filled his mind beforehand was also gone like some kind of dream. But Evin wasn’t going to miss that feeling. Not any time soon, at least.

Blissfully, he let his mind fall into a much-needed stupor.

…

Evin woke up, refreshed and reinvigorated. He found himself in a bathtub filled with a very nice-smelling lukewarm water, which Evin recognized as a medicinal bath of some sorts. The building he was in was the house he had built for himself in his shadow.

“Oh, you’ve finally awoken,” a familiar voice called out to him from the side.

“Rith, good morning,” he replied. Usually, he would have felt groggy after a long sleep, but none of that was apparent now.

“It’s almost nighttime, but okay,” Rith said and threw a towel alongside some clothes to Evin.

“How long was I out?”

“One day only.”

“Do you usually spend your free time accompanying a sleeping child in a bathtub?” Evin asked smilingly.

“I wish I didn’t, but unfortunately, you are very prone to slipping into the water while sleeping, so someone had to keep an eye out for you,” Rith said and murmured out the rest with a sigh, “I wondered if you would wake up by yourself if I let you choke on water for a bit, but sadly you didn’t, so I had to save you from that as well…”

“What?” Evin asked, hearing something dangerous near the end.

“Nothing. Anyhow, congratulations on your monumental achievement. I heard the Vulpine Mother saying that she expected you to fail once or twice before succeeding. She was acting very matter-of-fact about it, but I could notice the pride in her voice,” Rith said.

Hearing about the incident, Evin reminisced about the reason why he ended up like this state in the first place.

Weirdly, the all-knowing feeling still lingered in some parts of his brain, like he was still connected to that huge array of totems.