Ebony's Fable

“What do you do after class every day?” Ebony asked, he didn’t want to hold them up if they were supposed to go home and had a curfew.

Despite the class having 28 students, they were all surprisingly close-knit. All 28 remained in the class, physically blocking the doorway. Maybe they just wanted to see his ice sculpture performance again.

He received an array of answers from studying to playing to helping out at home. Most of them seemed to stay in a dorm within the Academy’s premises. The few that didn’t were locals and lived not far away.

“Faelk, you have a small mana pool. Although the general trick to gathering elemental mana initially is to make a large bucket with your mana and embrace the ambient lightning mana it might not be the most suitable. One property of lightning mana is that they tend to attract each other more so than earth or fire. You can try grabbing a mental hold onto a tiny amount before manipulating it around the air to stick onto other lightning mana.” Ebony had long noticed they all had mana pools around the same size but Faelk the beastman was a few years older.

As a beastman, his Wisdom stat was weaker in terms of mana regeneration and capacity. He wasn’t sure to what degree, he wasn’t going to believe a generic value after changing his own physique and base stat’s effectiveness.

Faelk’s wolf ears perked up and he attempted Ebony’s suggestion on the spot.

“Is that possible? I don’t see that method in any of our books.”

“When your mana pools mature, play around with your mana and elements more. Experimentation goes a long way. Books help but don’t forget practical applications.” He wasn’t surprised, once you could gather lightning these small little tricks for a pittance of lightning didn’t strengthen a spell noticeably. Unless they were in the midst of a thunderstorm.

Ebony remembered the reminder that some of his instructors gave the class. It was an instruction not to use their mana. His classmates weren’t wearing myriad bracelets and had their overflowing essence uncontrolled.

Adult humans had a regeneration rate of 10% of their base max mana pool per hour and his classmate’s mana regeneration was roughly around 3 to 7%. On average, twenty hours should get them back to a full mana pool. However, all mage schools throughout the Capital followed the one-day break cycle for children under fifteen. It was believed that overexertion would be harmful to the growth of their mana pool.

If there was anything he was intrigued by it was that children’s vitality, their health regeneration fluctuated and could even surpass an adult human in terms of percentage.

Faelk failed twice and was already a quarterway through his mana pool. He would have to stop if he wanted to have mana for their practical training the next day. If only they knew some of their instructors would be able to tell from a glance they wouldn't dare to play with so much of their mana.

“How about this, make a sphere of mana on the tip of your wand then swing it around and touch the lightning mana. All you need to focus on is making sure it's stable.” Ebony took out an inferior lightning mana ore he prepared and rubbed it with his thumb. Creating dust flakes caused lightning mana to expel from its ore form. A lot was lost in the process in this manner but it temporarily made it easier to control.

Ebony showed them what he meant, forming mana spheres was one of the very first mana manipulation practices he had. They might not be able to see mana with their naked eyes but a ball of sparks was quickly captured in the ball.

Faelk succeeded and he couldn’t hide his inward glee. He swung his wand around to catch the lightning mana that was about to disperse onto his wand. A ball of lightning sparked on the tip of his wand. “Ahh!” A little too entranced by it, his free hand that was near the tip of the wand touched the ball and hurt himself

“I’ve never gathered so much lightning mana before…and so easily.”

Some of the eager boys copied Faelk and tried to do the same. They all carried similar wands. It was probably given by the Academy but Ebony didn’t have one. They probably thought they would insult him by giving him a stick of wood.

The more success within the class, the less the more disciplined children could control themselves.

Ebony just rubbed lightning mana ores into dust between his fingers for them.

In half an hour, every single one of his classmates was running around the class with a sparky wand to catch the ambient lightning mana.

Just then, the classroom door opened and all the children stopped reflexively to look at the intruder.

“What’s going- on…how? Hey! All of you are getting detention!” Raika scanned the room with 28 sparky wands.

‘Detention exists here?’

“Noo! Miss Raika!

“Mercy!”

Everyone who lost focus had their mana dissipate. Only Yusqly and Faelk remained focused enough to hold onto their mana. Faelk was nearly bone dry on mana and couldn’t hide his disappointment when his mana sphere broke apart and released his ball of lightning sparks.

“What are you kids doing? You know you’re not supposed to use your mana. How are you going to join practice tomorrow morning?” Raika was angry but she withheld the urge to yell.

“Don’t blame them. I’m to blame for it.”

“Big bro!” A dozen voices exclaimed and he was used as a physical shield from Raika.

They seemed genuinely scared of Raika.

“That…this won’t do Mr Ebony. They have practice before they can fully recover and disrupting their regime isn’t ideal.” Raika carefully picked her words.

“My apologies. About their mana regeneration, don’t worry they should heal up just enough before sunrise.” Ebony waited for Raika to catch what he meant but it seemed like her senses weren’t good enough to gauge how the children’s mana regeneration was boosted by him.

“Haaa, you kids can go. But if I catch you one more time-” Raika warned while pointing her finger up, conjuring a spark of electricity on it.

“RUN!” The boys and girls charged out the door and knocked Raika’s leg left and right.

He caught her from getting pushed off balance. He could understand her getting caught off guard as he was doing his best to control his strength to the minimum so that he didn’t hurt any of his classmates with his passive vibration reflections or even just by moving his body. Touching them with his finger might poke a hole through their skulls if he wasn’t careful.

“Th-thank you.” Raika pushed herself off in a rush. She hemmed and hawed before pulling him to Laika’s office to get a stern warning. Followed by pure curiosity on how the children managed to control a ball of lightning.

“They didn’t control lightning. As an element, lightning is a lot harder to manipulate compared to ice even if you discount affinity. Solid elements are more docile, they would sit in place once moved but lightning is similar to fire and doesn’t sit still. To get used to the element’s properties and movements they need a medium to observe the element for a longer duration. Your school focused heavily on lightning manipulation but a mage’s foundation is their personal mana.”

Fortunately, it was easy to understand the simplicity of the exercise and he was released quickly.

Late afternoon was used up chatting with his instructors in the faculty office. Scholars and teachers were the best to talk to, especially when they were passionate about their work. There was no small talk, every word advanced their conversation only regarding the knowledge each of them was interested in.

His body clock reminded him that it was almost time for dinner and he excused himself. He checked the ice orb that he imbued his Will in was set near the Academy’s dorm and left once he confirmed his mana regeneration buff was slowly spread out in a thin and controlled manner.

“Stop there.” Ning Xin charged at him while he took off his boots at the entryway. Those houses here didn’t have a specific spot for shoes but they just made it right after stepping into the house and demarcated the floor.

They also did the flooring by adding a layer of wooden planks instead of stone flooring. They preferred it this way.

“What’s going on?” As still as a statue, he let her grab his collar and push her mask onto it.

“You smell. Like a woman.” She paused between words to sniff his robe.

“The faculty office had people who used a strong perfume.” Ebony reflexively looked to the left when she bent down and exposed herself under the apron and loose shirt. Nowadays, she seems to like wearing shorts around the house. It was more cooling and comfortable so he knew it was only a matter of time before she understood the superior choice of loungewear.

“Not the perfume.” Ning Xin sniffed him from the collar down to his sleeves. “This one.”

Ebony looked at his sleeves and was forced to think. “I caught someone falling.”

“Okay. If the same person falls in your presence again, let her catch her own fall. Drop your robe and clothes into the laundry, I’ll wash them after dinner. Get rid of that scent, I’m almost done.”

“Mmm. Where’s Muse?”

“She was summoned to heal someone.”

Unfortunately for him, music lessons were still out of the question as Muse hadn't come up with a method tailored for him and refused to start until she observed him more.

Having recreated fashion or loungewear from Earth, he felt slightly more at peace whenever he wore them. He realised that something so insignificant could have a stronger impact on him than he imagined. Ning Xin dressed in a t-shirt and shorts with black hair like a modern-day girl was also a sight that brought him back to Earth.

Muse didn’t come back for dinner and it was just the two of them again.

“We can expand underground right?”

“The regulations are up to forty girs downwards, but yes, if we take our basement into account we can dig and build thirty girs deeper,” Ebony recalled the information about the land they bought. Forty girs equivalent to two hundred metres were the deepest they could dig and use.

They were permitted to reconstruct it as they wished but they had to report it to the Quest Hall if they disconnected their house to the sewage. It was complicated; the sewage’s ceiling should be roughly two kilometres beneath the surface so there was plenty of space to reroute.

He was not an architect and the sewage system here wasn’t something he understood well.

However, not being connected to the sewage was not an issue for many families. Their toilet usage was low and there were many methods of clearing such waste. They were used to living on a trailer and could deal with it.

“Why don’t you build a swimming pool? I need the practice and we have the space to spare.”

“...Did you come to like swimming?”

“You can say that. You don’t agree? Even though you’re the one that insisted it’s my weakness and I should overcome it.”

“I didn’t say that. We should get professionals to do that.” Ebony wasn’t an earth or stone mage. Even if he could dig, he might as well hire the structural experts. A swimming pool was just a deep hole so maybe he was just lazy.

Ebony wanted to wait till he had a significant amount of Will before he continued feeding his pet tree and he was starting to get tired so the day ended early and he went to sleep.

❅❅❅

‘I had a dream? Not having Everlasting Tranquillity is…an experience. But I see, so that’s what I was feeling. I guess I’m a healthy male?’ Ebony climbed out of bed and chilled himself for ten minutes before he got changed into training clothes.

He had concluded that the tension he felt from time to time whenever he was with Ning Xin was just lust. Although, he probably already knew that for a while.

Icicle and his robe were set on their specialised stand near the entryway where their shoes and boots were aligned. Icicle sat at 3550 kilograms when he borrowed the weighting scale the Quest Hall employees used to measure the weight of mammoth bones. It never got any heavier for years and had probably reached its limit in terms of physical growth.

Ebony surpassed that mass as his mana compression continued to improve and his physique got refined. He secretly measured his maximum weight to sit at 8810 kilograms. It was like an elephant’s mass compressed into a human’s frame. It was mostly thanks to his mana.

With updated information, he used his gravity sense and estimated his physical mass when he emptied himself during a training session to be around 600 to 700 kilograms. Roughly the weight of a normal horse or cow. It had been fun to estimate the weight of his mana.

His robe had been dried overnight and smelled like plums again. It was currently only about a quarter filled with mana. The robe wasn’t able to contain his fully compressed mana anymore, it was diluted by about 40%. Hence, it was considerably light despite the quantity of mana it could contain.

“Give me ten minutes.” Ning Xin yawned from her room after inching her door open. Ebony didn’t spread his mana within the house but he was still able to hear the door, footsteps and every little sound.

“I’ll wait outside.” Ebony equipped himself and went to feed his pet tree.

Taking his own sweet time to gather his Will, he was now sure that sleeping helped to recover Will slightly faster. He made sure to get back into the same mental state as the first and every other time he fed his pet.

He watered it with 30% of all his mana. It would come back before he began morning conditioning and he didn’t need a full mana pool to train.

It had been months since they’ve evolved yet the total skill levels they got across the board was less than 5.

“Maybe we’re not suited for vacations,” Ebony commented on their leisure trip to the Quest Hall’s training ground.

“Itchy?” Ning Xin replied while stretching her arms.

“A little. What do you think about your progress recently.” They’ve not duelled even once since their evolution and he was surprised how patient she was.

“Slow. Guess that benefit grandma is talking about is about to come. I have a feeling it's a boring one.” If she was saying that, it was likely true.

“Mmm. If pest control is what it is, then it does sound boring.” Ebony had cold water poured on him. However, he remained positive that the long years of suspense couldn’t possibly be summed up as ‘pest control’. Although it would make sense, pest control was a huge benefit.

“I'd rather stay home and continue researching dishes.” The chef said honestly.

“I’d rather water my pet tree.” Ebony had relegated most of his regenerated Will to play with his domain skill. He still had mana to spare so his combat capabilities weren't completely affected.

“What happened to getting itchy?”

“There are probably mighty pests. Hmm… want to visit one of the rare or epic dungeons in Tidal?”

“Right now?”

“We have seven hours before my classes begin.”

“Guess we can clear a rare dungeon or two in time.”

“Race?”

“Bring it on.”