Death, Devotion, Dissonance

Evin emerged from his room, with his throat feeling dry. He walked towards the cafeteria and ordered himself a meaty steak and two glasses of berry juice. As he waited for the steak, he had one of his juices and sighed tiresomely.

<I think I get why Leanne hates the Cosmics so much,> the Voice sighed as Evin drank.

<I think so too,> Evin replied as he saw the steak coming towards his table. He didn't wait on ceremony and started digging in.

The two Cosmics had been relentless with their questions about Evin's ability to cast magic. They first needed to establish at what level Evin could cast using the various Worlds.

Evin explained that he had absorbed seven Shards in total and after speaking about his proficiency in Lochra, Exivear and Seyethe, he spoke about what he could do with the other Worlds.

With the energy of Apdenul, he could make himself feel more vigorous and energetic, though he couldn't make his muscles stronger or his skin and bones harder. He also couldn't use the World of Life to heal. He learned this fact when he asked the voice whether it could fix his hand. It refused, saying that Evin's body was almost refusing to let the energy of Life enter it, granting some credence to the Chairman's words about not overusing the World of Life.

<But even without your body doing this, I don't think I'll be able to fix your injuries with ease. Unlike fire, which basically needs only two or three base elements to work, your body's a collection of trillions of tiny complex things that also have even tinier complex things inside of them. Trying to heal you while keeping all those things in mind seems like hell to me. At that point, it would be faster to convince myself that there's a Conceptual Element of Life that governs all things relating to healing and strengthening one's body and order that to do the healing for me.>

Saying so, the voice refused to heal Evin's body in any shape or form, at least until it became confident with using the World of Life.

Well, eventually, Evin enjoy its strengthening effects, since he was in the Enchanting Class. In it, he didn't need to force the Life energies to his will, he just had to circulate it throughout his body (in the correct way). According to Leanne, if he did that enough times and became good at it, it wouldn't be much different than casting a World of Life Spell. He'd be able to reach the strengths that Arza is able to reach.

He relayed this to the Cosmics

Next, he spoke about Tenarak, the World of Earth. Evin had absorbed its Shard after Seyethe so he had high expectations of it. After all, the Voice could do so many things with the World of Air, that Evin couldn't help but be excited about what they'll be able to achieve with a new World.

But, they soon realized that they had no talent with the World of Earth. The Voice was able to create walls and defenses, but they were brittle and half-hearted. He explained that it was similar to why he couldn't use the World of Life. That the composition of the ground was too complex to be easily controlled. Evin tried after the Voice, but he wasn't very successful, to say the least.

When he first absorbed the Shard of Exivear, Evin could immediately tell that he had talent with the World and he was able to wrap his head around the concept of darkness (which was just the absence of light) very quickly. Soon, he realized that he was able to cast better Shadows than the Voice after some practice. Evin didn't know why, but he wasn't ashamed to admit that it was probably his greatest achievement.

But there was none of that familiarity with the World of Earth. No matter how hard he tried to, the rubble on the ground didn't form itself into a shape Evin desired, so he promptly gave up.

It was a similar case with the World of Light. Evin imagined he would be able to easily grasp his head around the concept of light, since darkness was so easy; but light was much more complex than he first expected. He asked the Voice to teach him more, but it refused, saying that it didn't want to overcomplicate things in Evin's head.

Evin was a bit dejected at this, but the Voice only chuckled and explained that there was no need to be better at everything.

The final Shard that Evin absorbed was of Ivelisi. He and the Voice wasn't particularly good at it, nor were they particularly bad. His proficiency in the World felt about the same as the World of Fire.

Evin explained all this to the Cosmics, leaving out the details that he judged too advanced. But little did he know, this was only the start of the talk. The two's questions moved away from generalities and went into the details of Evin's spells. They would tell Evin to cast a spell and then ask him all manner of questions about them: what kind of words he imagines when casting those spells, how many seconds it took, and how difficult it felt to him, etc.

The same process happened with each and every one of Evin's unique spell, leaving Evin fantasizing how great it would be to see Decatur struggle with this interrogation.

When they were finally certain that Evin spoke about every major spell in his repertoire, they went into the vaguer questions. Why Evin was good at certain worlds and not so much at others? Did he imagine the World energies to be the same colors as their Shards? What Evin thought about the World of Space?

These were at least more fun to answer than the previous ones, but they were still a drag to plow through. At the end of it, they even stopped asking about things regarding magic and went towards other topics, like: what would Evin do if he were to save either a baby or an old man… or, what did Evin think about this or that political view.

These were still pretty interesting to think about, but Evin reckoned he would've liked them more if there weren't so many of them. Evin guessed he answered at least a hundred questions in total.

But the worst part was, the Cosmics never allowed a question to just be answered and then left alone. They always had follow-up question to whatever answer Evin provided and at the end of it, one question would lead to a full-blown debate.

The Voice pointed out that the Cosmics were trying to dig out something from Evin. It said that they definitely knew that Evin was hiding certain details of his story, and were trying to trick Evin into speaking about it, using various different approaches.

This made Evin much more conscious about the conversation than he probably needed to, forcing him to waste braincells on the most random of questions, searching hidden meanings inside it. Every debate seemed like a game of words and deceptions to him brain, and it exhausted him to the core.

Evin had just finished one such debate with the Cosmics, where the question started about the willingness to share water with a starving man at the desert, but then somehow evolved into a discussion about how best to start a proper community in extreme situations.

After that, Evin was finally deemed too tired to respond and was urged to eat some dinner. Evin feared to finish his steak. Something told him that more questions would follow. But the Cosmics had reminded him to not be too late, casually threatening him with

<Well, we've had some rest. Let's go back inside… If things seem to be going badly, be ready to cede control to me,> the Voice reminded and urged Evin to go back to his room.

When Evin appeared inside the room, he saw Arza speaking to the Cosmics. His voice sounded elated, as he asked the Cosmics, "He's really going to become one of the King's Mages?"

"I told you already. He's just going to try to learn portals and other magic that use Therae. I reckon if he does well enough, he would maybe work for the King, but I don't think that means he becomes one of the King's Mages," Abe replied, sounding annoyed.

"I'm sure the King would immediately make Evin one of his loyal retainers if he meets him. If I was a king, I certainly would!" Arza continued with his logic.

"Whatever you say, brother," Abe said and saw Evin. "Evin! How was your dinner? Good? Good. Let's get back to our talk. I don't want to intrude upon your roommate's rights, so let us find a more private place, yeah?"

Arza saw Evin and congratulated him with warm sincerity. It was hard to dislike the red-head. Arza then offered to leave the room, saying he was planning to meet someone anyway. The two Cosmics looked at his back with curious amusement before their feline eyes focused on Evin.

The three exchanged pleasantries and Abe finally spoke, "We are all busy people, so I shall not waste our time. We know you are hiding something from us and we want to have a conversation regarding that."