Shades of the New World

Chapter 138: Arza

In one of the battle arenas of the Ekhri Tribe, Arza stood with his fists clenched tightly. The energy from the World of Life ran throughout his body, invigorating and strengthening it beyond normal human capacities. If one could see inside his body, they would be able to witness tiny pink sparks of lightning going off through his muscles periodically.

In front of him stood a boy who was half a head shorter than him, slouching, panting heavily with his hands, while holding his stomach. His long black hair which was usually wrapped up in a short ponytail, was now drooping down to his shoulder, drenched with the boy's sweat. Although it looked like the boy in front of him was considerably smaller compared to him, in the Tribe Grounds, the boy was considered a giant. It was Arza who was unreasonably enormous. 

Two months ago, when he first came to the Tribe, he was almost as big as a normal nine-year-old, but after he started absorbing the World of Life shard into his body, his growth began to rocket and now he was even bigger than some 10-year-olds. 

Arza glanced at the crowd and saw them all whispering to each other with worried eyes.

'Why do they have to care about this so much?' Arza lamented in his head.

"This "Friend" of yours is a murderer and we both know it! Why do you have to defend him like this?" the other boy asked through his gritted teeth.

"Evin isn't a murderer! You understand nothing, Ellar! Why do you need to slander someone who doesn't concern you?" Arza bellowed loudly, his naked emotions seeping through his tone of voice.

[Calm down, child!] Karan's voice came from a sword on his hips, but Arza ignored it.

"Then what is he, if he's not a murderer? Isn't he just a disgusting old man who refused to die and now pretends to be a child? Do you really think he considers you as his friend? At most he feels he's indebted to your father and accompanies you, or at worst he thinks you're a nuisance!" Ellar shouted spitefully.

Arza fell silent at those words. He regretted talking about Evin and his past to these children. He first thought it would help the children get over their fear and wariness of Evin, but for some reason, they became even more hostile towards him. Nowadays, every child would make it their life sworn duty to point out Evin's flaws to Arza. After ignoring such slander to his best capabilities, Arza's mind was finally giving into the pressure. 

'What is he, really?' Arza couldn't help but think when he heard these kinds of questions.

Unknowingly and almost instinctively, his mind entered the World of Thought. Arza savored the familiar, yet addicting feeling of time slowing down just for him and the moment when the clouds in his head cleared up and he felt like he could solve any problem that he faced. Ellar, who he was facing turned to a featureless silhouette, like every other child and adult that watched this one-sided fight.

Such moments would happen occasionally throughout the day, and Arza knew that it was reaching dangerous levels fast. Just yesterday, he spent almost three hours in the World of Thoughts thinking. And every time, he would be thinking of some sort of topic on his mind. This time, he thought about Evin.

From the moment his childish consciousness formed, Arza knew instinctively that Evin was different from others. 

Unlike Evin who holed up in his house all day, Arza was one of the more popular kids in town. Ever since he was three, there would always be an entourage of children following behind him. He happily played around with them, and it always felt right when he was surrounded by attention. All these children seemed different from a glance, but most of them were fundamentally similar in their conducts since they were still children who had just learned how to walk and talk. Among them, Arza was like their biggest brother, since he was naturally much smarter than most of them. Moreover, he was also much more talented than them, so he had developed a sort of superiority complex at that time.

But his rare meetings with Evin would always remind him that he was a dumb little child. Evin knew so many things about everything, without ever taking a step outside his little test room. Even when he was forced to accompany the group of children to babysit them, Evin would most of the time opt to chat with the Cosmic beside him, rather than playing around with the children. 

For some reason, this pissed off Arza greatly and he challenged Evin to a battle. Arza still remembered his first fight with the other. He bravely charged at the smaller boy with the intention to hold him on the ground and teaching him a little lesson, but without even realizing how, he would find himself sprawled on the ground. He spat out the dirt and charged again and again, but the outcome was the same no matter what. 

And the worst part was, Arza could never understand how he would find himself on the ground every time. One second he would be running towards the boy, and in the next moment, he would be lying on the ground. Later he learned from his father that he most likely fell under the other's illusions. Arza didn't quite understand the concept, before his father demonstrated and explained it to him. 

'Petty trickery,' he thought at the time and didn't think much of it and continued to challenge Evin every day. But unfortunately, reality was that he would fall prey under the same trick every time. Eventually, Evin made him promise that he could only challenge him once every two days if he lost a fight where Evin wouldn't use any illusions. 

Arza was very excited and agreed on the spot. In this fight, he realized why he would find himself on the floor every time. As he charged at Evin, his hands would be pulled over Evin's body and with it, his whole body would follow behind and fall onto the ground. Very simple.

Arza was in love with this move. He asked if Evin would teach it to him and the latter shoved him off to his grandpa. The two then started to learn some martial arts under Ssatsko's guidance. From that point on, Arza stopped hanging out with the other kids and exclusively spent his time in Evin's house. 

He also started to learn more about magic, since Evin was much more likely to talk about the topic, unlike his father who always found an excuse to not talk too deeply about the subject. Arza then also found out about two of his most talented Worlds.

His father told him that the reason why he's good at the World of Life and the Luminous World was because he liked having lots of friends and he was also more active than most others. And he also told him that he shouldn't bother with the Dark world and the World of Space, since his talents would be abysmal at them.

Out of stubbornness, Arza attempted to use those two Worlds specifically, but the World of Space was a mystery to most mages, without even mentioning how hard it was for a three-year-old like Arza, and the Dark World just seemed much too distant and weird to Arza.

Realizing that, he began to focus on the two Worlds exclusively. His father also encouraged this and told him that the less Worlds he practiced the better. But after a certain incident, his enthusiasm towards one of the Worlds died out completely.