Ebony's Fable

“So Ebony here woke up in the forest without any memories, chanced upon little Clovis who sneaked out of the village getting attacked by a hoarfrost boarlet and saved him.

He has been a guest at the Thoya household for the past weeks and since he seemed to have had a sword that broke during the rite and you want to get him one from the village warehouse?” Orren summarised.

“Yes Chief.”

“Ridiculous. A saviour of one of our own is one of our own themselves. You didn’t have to ask me for something such a small issue, beside those swords are just a waste of space to us. Ebony you can take any that you fancy, a pity we don’t have any good swords that we could gift you.”

“Thank you.” There was much he could have said but a simple thanks was plenty and meant more than any flowery language Ebony could come up with.

“Mmm. Halvis, just take Ebony there and let him take his pick later.”

“Yes Chief. Ebony why don’t you return ahead of me first, you listen to Clovis talk around this time of the day don’t you? He must be feeling lonely by now. I have things to discuss with the Chief and will bring you to take your pick a little later.” Halvis asked Ebony, eliciting a raised brow from the other Elves that went unnoticed by Ebony.

“Okay.” Ebony preferred to return to being productive anyway.

❅❅❅

It wasn’t till half past the 14th hour that Halvis came looking for Ebony. The warehouse was pretty far away, about half an hour walk away.

There were no guards, no locks, nothing. Simply a large wooden building like that of a barn with a thick layer of snow piled up at the doorstep. Halvis waved his hand and all the snow blocking the door parted.

Crates and boxes laid around and stacked up high, a few empty shelves here and there.

“The warehouse is mostly used to keep some food stockpiled for winter so it's mostly empty now and will slowly fill up during autumn. The only thing here now should be the spoils, monster parts or other materials that the village guards and dungeon clearing teams collect that we’ll try to sell to the merchant.

There are few herbs growing around these parts so we usually keep any we find and just sell or even give them to the village herbalist, the Lasil family.” Halvis explained as he made his way towards the corner of the building.

“Could you help look around as well? Someone probably moved it aside or kept them in one of these boxes.”

“Of course.” Ebony started from the corners of the room.

They weren’t lying around anywhere on the ground so they started opening crates.

The square crates or cubes were a metre by a metre or they would call it a fifth of a gir which was a little silly and long winded.

Since he didn’t think the swords would fit in those, they narrowed it down to the rectangular ones which were half the height and trice the length.

“Finally. Get over here Ebony, I found them.” Halvis called out.

They took almost an hour of looking through the many crates.

By the time Ebony made his way there, Halvis had already taken the swords out and laid them against the crates.

He also saw some shields inside but didn’t bother with them, they were not his thing.

‘That’s more than I thought there would be.' Ebony counted 12 of them from left to right.

“Take your pick, they are all Common rank. Those that travel all the way here wouldn’t be using a inferior rank weapon and even if we find them we don’t bother bringing those back. The broken ones are also long tossed away so these are generally in working conditions. I’ll go out and make a few targets for you so take your time.” Halvis left as he said.

6 of them were longswords or claymore types, 3 of them were ridiculously large blades that Ebony wasn’t sure how to categorise, 2 of them were shortswords, 1 of them were thin fencing type swords, the estoc or rapier.

It wasn’t hard to tell that large two handed swords were the preference here.

There was the help of stats to wield big heavy weapons and if monsters tend to be large like the boar it is understandable that weapons had to scale up too.

They were all double edged blades as well.

Ebony started from the [Steel Estoc (Common)]. It had a basket hilt and was about a metre long.

Ebony drew it and stabbed a few times before putting it aside. Obviously wasn’t considered a greatsword, it was too light for Ebony to feel comfortable with it too.

Ebony did like stabbing though, he had tried practising a lot of stabbing with the greatsword.

He gave a swing or 2 with the one handed shortswords too but didn’t bother with them too much.

One by one he tried out all of the swords.

Of the 6 two-handed longswords, only 3 of them seem large or heavy or whatever it is that causes a sword to be considered a greatsword by the mastery skill.

The Thoya family didn’t have any books regarding this so Ebony came up blank on this.

For the 3 anime sized swords, Ebony could barely lift them with all his strength or even not lift them at all so he gave up on them.

The blade handles were thick enough that he couldn’t form a full grip. They were most likely made for other races who were larger on average.

They were all over 2 metres long like that of a zweihander but wider, thicker and of course heavier.

Even if he had a higher Strength stat Ebony wouldn’t choose any of them.

They were too unwieldy even with two hands, wielding them with a single hand?

It wasn’t even about strength anymore, he would have no balance and fight properly for it.

Ebony already mentally picked his favourite already but he still took all 3 that his skill considered greatswords out to the open field outside the warehouse.

Seeing a few humanoid, boar, deer and wolf snow sculptures. They were honestly pretty crude compared to Ton’s life like clones but Ebony wasn’t going to say that.

Putting the swords that he lugged out down, he drew the 1.6 metre long cross blade [Harden Steel Sword (Common)] and ran towards the human snowman.

Decapitating its head without resistance but he unconsciously used two hands, his left supporting the lower handle to give the extra oomph. The grip was a little too thick to fully grip as well so he quickly sheathed it back.

Single-handed Greatsword Mastery didn’t make much sense, they weren’t even designed to be wielded like that. But Ebony wasn’t able to get the normal Greatsword Mastery. Did he have no talent for it? Did having his version of Mastery stop him from getting the normal one?

Ebony didn’t know but didn’t bother since he was beginning to work things out already anyway. His free hand could be used to focus his Ice Magic while it's free anyway.

Next up was [Compressed Steel Sword (Common)] and the heaviest of the 3. Which was still lighter than the damn leaf mind you.

Standing at the same height as Ebony it was about 1 and a half palms wide and the thickest part of the blade was almost 2 cm thick. Unthinkable for swords from Earth but perhaps necessary for monster hunting. Thicker blades are more durable, it is no wonder the swords were so heavy.

This one had a deep fuller in the centre of the blade, the grip was comfortable and the roughly 35cm long handle, almost reaching the end of his elbows made Ebony able to grip higher and had much better balance.

He mowed through from snow sculpture to snow sculpture with considerable ease. Lighter, better grip, better balance, a longer reach and about half as wide as the leaf blade which made it easy for him to twist and recover the sword after a stab.

If there was one problem it was the long and thin cross guard would get in the way of his spinning and he had to be wary of downward slashes that may hit his own leg. The blade had a sharp edge but Ebony could spot a chip or two.

Finally, his chosen one.

Ebony was pretty surprised by the familiar design, unlike all the other western, medieval or fantasy looking blades this one was different.

Just a tinge bit shorter than himself it should be 1.75 metres or so in length with the grip taking a full 40 cm of it, extending past his elbow a little even when he gripped close to the guard.

This sword being the only sword that doesn’t have a cross guard but a simple rectangular block with its edges curved out. The grip was wooden and fit well in his hands.

It was a straight sword with its blade completely flat, a bit thinner than the previous one. Similar in width to the second blade, it was dark brownish red, reddish-brown. The pommel was like a small rounded orb being part of the handle and not a separate part.

[Compressed Bronze Sword (Common)] its design is almost a copy of the Chinese Han Jian, just flatter and straighter, if there was a version as large as this anyway.

Ebony danced with it, he really liked everything about it. It didn’t impede his movements in any way with its very straight and balanced body.

At roughly 7-8 kilos or 1.4-1.6 tiv, Ebony could actually lift the tip of the sword off the ground for an extended period of time.

Pulling the sword close to his body in an attempt to copy the ox guard but with one hand, the other in front of himself like aiming for a badminton swing. He took a large step forward and stabbed at the snow boar's face, completely swallowing the blade. Swinging upwards, the snow sculpture collapsed as Ebony tried to sheath the sword.

Too bad for him he failed miserably, he tried to look cool but he hadn’t practised sheathing since his leaf blade had no need for a sheath or scabbard.

Furthermore, the sword was long and weighty. Trying to sheath smoothly was actually a challenge, thank goodness the blade wasn’t any longer and the grip was unnaturally long.

The scabbard was wooden and black like ebony, simple and undecorated.

“Excellent display, looks like you have decided. Interesting choice, If I’m not wrong that sword is of Xeng make but I could be wrong I never took much notice of swords anyhow.” Halvis spoke up.

“Thank you, yes I have.” Ebony answered as he laid it against the walls of the warehouse before taking the rejects and returning them to the original place, placing all of them back in the crates as he softly hummed. Unknowing that he was heard. They quickly put the place back the way it was and made their way back.

The Xengs are the largest collective, human group on the continent that wasn’t directly under the Empire's rule. Not to say they were a large group of people but everyone else was just an Imperial citizen under the Empire.

The city of Xienor could be considered an anomaly on the continent, the entire continent was under a single rule which was the Empire. Yet, they were not hostile to each other and they followed the Empires’ law as well when out of their city, they just had their own ruler. Why didn’t the Empire bring them under their rule then? Well, it was none of Ebony’s business.

‘Haha, so he can express emotions after all. Roya and the chief were right after all.’ Halvis couldn’t help thinking as he heard the slightly cheerful and upbeat hum.

Ebony was normal in that he could feel happy, sad, angry, shock, surprise and all the other ‘normal’ emotions he just wasn’t good at expressing them and he was numb to most.

❅❅❅

“The Chief thinks Ebony’s not from another world?”

“No, what he said made sense. How could we have missed that?”

“What do you mean? Can you just tell me what he said already?”

“...Ebony might have been a mana slave or at least one that’s in the middle of ‘training’. He either somehow escaped or was released for some reason. His high mana pool, loss of memories, most likely tier 2 meditation type skill, his stoicism, not even knowing Elcrian and also his presence so far away from Imperial lands. All boils down to someone keeping mana slaves in secret, far from the Empire.”

“!? Keeping mana slaves has been completely abolished by the current Emperor. They must be seeking death. There’s no way they released Ebony, they must be looking for him as we speak. We can’t let those elling bastards take him, that poor boy.”

“They must not be far from Arcta, chief reckons that they already know Ebony is with us. Since they haven’t taken any actions against us they shouldn’t be too strong. Now that the chief is back they would have no chance to get Ebony as long as he doesn’t leave the village unguarded.”

“We must have missed it since it was abolished before we travelled and hardly saw any of them. The remainder were hired by the Imperial council to maintain city and town barriers.”

“I thought the same. The chief said to treat him the same as we would our own and wouldn’t matter even if he was an otherworlder.”

“We already do. Let’s just hope he doesn’t pick a ‘Meditative’ Class.”

“Haha, I highly doubt that he wouldn’t. Nevermind that, how’s his robe coming along?”

“Perfectly, it's a work I’m proud of. Your common quality cotton is also slightly improving in quality, especially how much mana it can withstand.”

“I still got quite a ways to go before being able to get them to Uncommon in a reasonable time frame though. The natural mana density of soil, snow and ice here just isn’t good enough.”

“It's okay, we’re both improving at a fast pace and you know it.”

“I know. Speaking of improving, you’ll never guess that Ebony was actually happy about getting a sword. I think he is slowly starting to show emotions.”

“Happy? Ebony? That’s hard to believe.”

“...”

❅❅❅

On the night of the day Ebony got his new beloved.

He just finished his actual meditation session. It's a habit despite not needing to sit still and meditate and he was not planning to stop, even more so when there are skill levels for it now.

Checking his status as usual before he went to sleep.

Name: Ebony Rime

Class: N/A

Sub-Class: N/A

Profession: N/A

Health: 57/60

Stamina: 60/60

Mana: 100/100

Strength: 5

Vitality: 6

Constitution: 9

Endurance: 6

Agility: 7

Intelligence: 6

Wisdom: 10

Perception: 7

Generic Skills:

Deep Persistent Meditation Lvl 51

Lesser Stealth Lvl 6

Identify Lvl 12

Sheer Cold Resistance Lvl 26

Running Lvl 26

Treading Step Lvl 29

Humming Lvl 18

Ice Mana Manipulation Lvl 28

Icebody Enhancement Lvl 25

Mental Mapping Lvl 2

Single-handed Greatsword Mastery Lvl 23

Kicking Mastery Lvl 26

Mana Weaving Lvl 14

English Lvl 8

Elcrian Lvl 5

Mental Arithmetic Lvl 1

Dish Washing Lvl 3

Meditative Ice Enhancer Swordsman - Requirements: Deep Persistent Meditation Lvl 50, Ice Mana Manipulation Lvl 25, Any Ice Enhancement Magic Lvl 25, Treading Step Lvl 25 & Any type of sword Mastery Lvl 10

Seems like being partially made of mana was truly more beneficial than not. Though he wasn’t fully healed even after 3 days this time he could feel himself getting better, his bones could heal reasonably fast.

‘Close. But I’m still missing something. How irksome.’ Ebony thought as he mentally skimmed through all that he learnt about Classes.

He had learnt a lot but it barely scratches the surface of all there is to know about them. People don’t write down and publish all the truly good stuff after all.

A simple way to gauge the quality of a Class was how many skills were required for it.

It directly relates to how many bonuses one gains after or during the Class Fortification. Basically no one took a single skill requirement Class anymore.

The most used examples of Classes require 2 or 3 skills. 4 is pretty uncommon but not exactly rare which Clovis’s Research Scholar is under.

Nobody has publicly announced the Classes and skills required for any Classes requiring 4 or more skills. Academies and master-disciple relationships for crafters may have some of this knowledge ‘shared’ or passed down.

There was no general education for all so academies were mostly attended by the rich, nobles or sponsored highly talented commoners.

Crafting Classes are more often passed down in master-disciple relations or so Roya and Halvis had told him. They apparently travelled to Empire lands a little in the past.

The number of skills required only tells how many bonuses one would gain. The skill level required tells the percentage buff gained. Simple as that.

The more unique Classes would be like Ebony first offered Class that he no longer has access to.

Self-taught Apprentice Ice Mage - Requirements: Achieved Lvl 10 Ice Mana Manipulation with no prior knowledge of Ice Magic and no one to impart said knowledge from.

Requirements beyond a skill, these Classes are the more unique ones. They would still receive the same number and same percentage buff of bonus but have been said to have hidden benefits.

As to what kind of benefits, only those that have these Classes would know and they may actually not even know it themselves.

Meditative Ice Enhancer Swordsman, any ice enhancement magic requirement changed from lvl 10 to 25 when his Icebody Enhancement reached lvl 25.

The Class name remains the same, the only skill left to get to 25 would be Single-handed Greatsword Mastery. Only 2 more levels and he would be able to get a Class with 5 types of bonuses.

It sounded really good but Ebony couldn’t help but feel something amiss.

“There’s something reeeaally important that I’m forgetting.” Ebony couldn’t help saying.

That something was at the tip of his tongue but he just didn’t know what it was.

Perhaps even he, Ebony Rime was getting excited about gaining power or gaining the ability to grow further, to Level. And that was clouding his mind. Ludicrous.

Ebony will not have that, he demolished that speck of cloudiness faster than it appeared. Mental clarity may not allow one to see all but it lets one see more. He remembered. He never forgot.

There was only one thing one can do at times like this. Sleep.

The more one tries to dig for missing pieces the further it will drop into the depths of one’s mind.