Ebony's Fable

Name: Scarlet Rhael Ning Xin

Core Skill:

Rampaging Immortal’s Pulse Lvl 605 (Ⅳ)

Transmutative Heart Lvl 602 (Ⅲ)

Firebird Heathen’s Imitation Composition Lvl 1 (Ⅲ)

Class: Sword Witch of Infernal Blood Lvl 301

Class Skills:

Spring Bolt Lvl 621 (Ⅳ)

Fire Mana Command Lvl 634

Cascading Sword Art Lvl 621 (Ⅳ)

Cascading Dismember Lvl 603 (Ⅳ)

Infernal Permeation Lvl 634 (Ⅲ)

Pyro Eruption Lvl 601 (Ⅲ)

Gospel’s Perforation Lvl 642 (Ⅳ)

Immolation Field Lvl 600 (Ⅱ)

Blood Seethe Lvl 601 (Ⅲ)

Sword Witch of Infernal Blood’s Conditioning Lvl 301 (Ⅳ)

Blood Mana Control Lvl 602

Infernal Witch’s Blood Halo Lvl 552 (Ⅲ)

Fever Nourishing Meditation Lvl 478 (Ⅲ)

Blood Cauldron Lvl 23 (Ⅱ)

Innate Psyche Shift Lvl 152 (Ⅲ)

Sub-Class: Tempest Butcher Lvl 301

Sub-Class Skills:

Wind Mana Control Lvl 507

Lightning Mana Control Lvl 522

Pulsating Tempest Augmentation Lvl 552 (Ⅲ)

Stormpot Inoculation Lvl 454 (Ⅲ)

Revolving Razor Veil Lvl 502 (Ⅲ)

Static Palpitation Lvl 537 (Ⅱ)

Thunderlash Lvl 518 (Ⅱ)

Cyclonic Blade Lvl 499 (Ⅱ)

Empty Skill Slot

Empty Skill Slot

Profession: Culinary Carnage Lvl 301

Profession Skills:

Carnage Cooking Lvl 488 (Ⅲ)

Delicate Heat Perception Lvl 562 (Ⅳ)

Live Ingredient Deconstruction Lvl 509 (Ⅲ)

Vigour Ingrain Lvl 59 (Ⅱ)

Empty Skill Slot

‘Numbers make me dizzy. Looking at this much is enough.’ Ning Xin might have been impulsive and destroyed one or two of her skills just for her new Core Skill but it was worth it in her opinion. Most of her skills were just advanced versions of her old skills and spells.

She was not as divergent in her skill set. Ebony was right in that she made it easy for people to counter her in specific situations but her belief was not shaken. She just had to be even stronger at what she did. She was better at killing while he was better at not being killed. It was fine that way.

The difference wasn’t all that obvious in the past but now that they were rather deep in their paths, the difference between them was only going to increase and that was perfectly fine.

‘It’s just rather annoying that even though I’m already obviously stronger, he just keeps getting even harder to beat.’ The closer she got to being the best at beating someone, the closer Ebony got to becoming the most troublesome opponent to beat.

Her first Core Skill evolved thanks to Gen and Ebony. Taking away her swords from her was…an experience. Getting slowly eaten piece by piece by bats that straight-up absorbed heat was another experience. Other than refining her physique and the blood spider experience, it was the most harrowing experience of her life. She never thought she could bleed so much.

It was also during that time that she realised the blood in her body was black. When smudged against ice or snow, dark red marks will surface but the liquid itself was black to her eye. Calling the fluid in her body ‘blood’ was starting to push it. The consistency of honey didn’t even match up to the sludge coursing through her veins. It made her muscles and flesh a brighter red instead so she wasn’t complaining.

Transmutative Heart didn’t get any direct benefits from her evolution, it still simply converted energies within her body. Most efficiently was stamina and mana to vitality.

Firebird Heathen’s Imitation Composition was the skill that she sacrificed other advantages for. Even changing her mind on some juicy Fortifications for it. She could barely recall what those options were but she knew that her mind was changed.

It was a passive skill that changed her physical body directly. She didn’t understand it well and barely knew how to level the skill up. The description didn’t tell her much either. The obvious benefit that drew her eyes to the skill was that it uses a portion of her blood’s energy to strengthen her body against physical stress. It also increased her heat resistance even further but she didn’t focus on that even though it gave her a 350% increase on her base.

Now she didn’t have to worry about Rampaging Immortal’s Pulse killing herself. Well, she still has to but that issue wouldn’t be all that concerning once she found a better training method for Firebird Heathen’s Imitation Composition.

With all three of her Core Skills being in balance, she saw no limits to her strength increase anymore. The ceiling had been raised so much, she would probably take a long time to reach it again.

Gospel’s Perforation was still just her sword thrust active skill. Sword thrusts were her speciality and precision was key. Her precision and accuracy were just so high that she could cut one hair of her opponent moving at similar speeds as her. One could even choose which hair they wanted cut and she could pierce near the roots without harming the rest of the head.

Missing within a certain range was pretty much impossible for her.

Infernal Permeation was basically her fire mana imbuing spell. Stormpot Inoculation was rather similar, it was from Ebony’s suggestion to stuff lightning mana with fire. She doubled down and mixed it with Blood Cauldron to contain all her elemental mana. All the elemental imbuing spells were mostly for their combined spell but she used it a lot more often.

Blood Cauldron was a new skill from her evolution as well. It wasn’t mainly an external active spell, it was semi-passive. One of the other skills that she sacrificed another blood Class Skill for. It was a skill that actively consumed her mana to ‘boil’ down her energy so that her blood could contain even more energy. It was the perfect match for her Fortifications.

If she didn’t have this, there was no chance she could beat Ebony in an extended race in crossing distance. Her extreme physical prowess came at a high cost. When you thought about it that way, there was no way she could beat Ebony if she had the same amount of food in her system.

She was still in the middle of balancing and controlling how much mana the skill was consuming but it was oscillating between 2 to 3% of her mana regeneration at the moment. Surprisingly enough, it didn’t hamper her mana regeneration despite consuming mana. It was a skill in between a physical and magical one.

Her active Augmentation consists of Blood Seethe, a fire type enhancement, Pulsating Tempest Augmentation which was both a lightning and wind enhancement and Rampaging Immortal’s Pulse. Two-tier 3 elemental enhancements with a tier 4 vitality-based enhancement

Ebony’s active Augmentation was his tier 3 Woven ice flames and runic formula both backed by a tier 4 mana compression.

Rather balanced but in her opinion, her Core Skill gave her a lot more pure power than his stable, compressed mana. She could keep dishing out greater amounts of physical buff while he would slowly weaken as long as she could force him to use up his pool of compressed mana.

Harder said than done when her consumption far exceeds the rate at which she could push him to use mana.

At the moment, they were still balancing their new spells and mana usage so it was hard to say if she would use up all her energy before he did. If she wanted to beat him in a duel, now was the time.

His physique change reduced his stamina regeneration, a small problem when he couldn’t ever exhaust it. The big problem was his body, musculature in particular would give in faster. However, he was in a situation like she was after evolving into a Master and didn’t have a third Core Skill. It would be rather unfair.

Pyro Eruption used to be her fire spear spell but it became so much easier to lump up fire mana and chuck it at her targets. It didn’t require too much mental effort and dealt explosive and heat damage. Great for pushing away multiple opponents while she focuses on one in close combat.

She was still mana-hungry and didn’t improve Immolation Field, the area of effect fire spell she had.

Her Blood Halo was an amazing help. It didn’t take her focus and could help her just like how Ebony’s Glacial Models help him. He used his Model’s as distractions but her Blood Haloes were weapons. Now with Blood Cauldron, it’s lethality would rise but it wouldn’t nearly be as versatile as his Models.

It was a pity that she wasn’t able to get far with Vigour Ingrain, her Profession skill which was how she made food gave out some temporary buffs but she had a feeling she took the wrong direction with the skill. Injecting energy into food didn’t seem like the right method. Bringing out the best of her ingredients felt more like the kind of chef she wanted to become.

She didn’t pick up many Generic Skills. Even though she could get stats from blood, her all-time increment barely equated to one or two level up’s worth of stats. A grandmaster’s level up.

On the topic of Fortifications, she probably lost ground now that Ebony caught back up with massive multipliers. She was just unclear as to what all his Fortifications were since they were playing a game of guessing. His choices confused her, although they stroked her ego. Sure, covering up ice’s general weakness of melting was good and all, but he couldn’t build on his advantages even further.

She couldn’t complain when he proved that his path didn’t lead him to becoming weak.

She got a glimpse of his cold flames at work and they were rather terrifying. It didn’t have a direct power up but being able to dig into any surface and target something’s internals was more troublesome than something that hits hard. She had a feeling if his flames touched her, she would have to spend a lot of effort and energy to keep herself from being frozen solid.

His ice magic felt stronger so he probably finally got a direct power up to Intelligence. Once again, his mana changed rather drastically. It was as perfect of a match as her trinity of Core Skills. Compressibility, resilience and density were all simple properties that build upon each other and he clearly did one thing right.

She couldn’t pinpoint what his new Fortifications were other than ice and sound magic’s obvious increase in power.

One of her Fortifications was heavily influenced by Ebony’s lengthy talk about heat and materials. Specific heat capacity. The term used to be new to her but she understood the concept pretty well as a chef that dealt with cooking liquids. It was the amount of energy required to raise the temperature of a certain amount of substance.

Her Sub-Class, like Ebony's, was rather subdued in every perspective be it power, variety or use in battle. It was honestly expected. In this regard, Ebony was making use of all his skills better. She didn’t mind since her Sub-Class had always been about augmenting her close combat potential while giving some mid-range capabilities.

Carnage Cooking and Live Ingredient Deconstruction amplified her battle direction against organic opponents.

Fortifications:

Class: Sword Witch of Infernal Blood

Mana Efficiency with Fire Magic increased by 750%

Fire Magic increased in heat by 750%

Casting Speed with Fire Magic is increased by 300%

Attack Speed when dual-wielding longswords increased by 750%

Agility increased in effect by 300%

Blood’s density is increased by 200%

Resilience of heart is increased by 200% relative to Constitution

Mental processing speed is increased by 200% relative to Intelligence

Bone Marrow’s Efficacy is increased by 100%

Fire Magic’s Explosive Force is increased by 100%

Blood’s Specific Heat Capacity is Increased by 100%

Sub-Class: Tempest Butcher

Casting Speed with Lightning Magic is increased by 300%

Casting Speed with Wind Magic is increased by 300%

Mana Efficiency with Body Enhancement Magic is increased by 300%

Natural Reflex’s speed increased by 200%

Conjured Wind is naturally 200% sharper.

Sensitivity to Lightning Mana is increased by 100%

Lightning Magic’s Retention Tendency is increased by 100%

Profession: Culinary Carnage

Control of heat increased by 300%

Control of precision when handling ingredients increased by 300%

Ability to understand unknown ingredients is increased by 200%

Predatory Aura’s Potency is increased by 100%

As a chef, she obviously understood that bone marrow produces blood. She could have gotten a blood production increase Fortification for a lower price but it wouldn’t be as encompassing and balanced for her body.

There was not much to say about the explosive force of fire magic. As for increasing specific heat capacity, it might sound counterproductive as she increased the difficulty of enhancing herself but she was more troubled by the fact that her blood would evaporate away. This would increase the limit to which she could take her augmentation. Her blood being harder to boil was far more beneficial than detrimental.

A few days was enough to tell her it helped increase her energy capacity even more. Her body temperature already rivalled that of a Frost Elf if not lower.

Nearly all organic creatures had lightning mana in their bodies, an increase in sensitivity improved her perception for these creatures.

The issue she had with lightning magic was that it struck an opponent, dealt substantial damage and that was it. The stunning effect did last a while but it wasn’t enough for her. Since her blood magic did what Ebony recommended from her lightning to contain fire mana, she got lightning mana to stay in her targets for a longer period without manual manipulation.

She wasn’t nearly good enough to retain control over lightning mana when it was inside her target.

As for her Profession, it was rather concerning.

When she looked at people, her usual first thought was how to break them down and process them. Looking for their weak points in her ‘bullet time’ was all too common.

Predatory Aura was a rather boring choice for her. Despite being a cowardly effect of falsely frightening other creatures, she saw the use of it. It was controllable to some extent and appeared to be an extension to overflowing essence. She was still learning how to make use of it.

Honestly, she was unsure why she picked it. But to be fair, she didn’t have any more currency to spend on other Fortifications after splurging and sacrificing for her new Core Skill and Class Skill. This was the cheapest option and the other options for her Profession were even more lacklustre with no combat implications no matter how she thought about them.

It didn’t help that she had been in a time crunch during the evolution.

Doubling how scary she was to other creatures honestly didn’t seem like much but now that she had it, her opinions changed. It would be rather useful once she could control it and the Fortification increased more.

To some degree, even her pre-evolution overflowing essence could affect monsters and people’s movements, emotions and even. Often people since they faced and hunted down strong monsters.

The morning dungeon race allowed her to pick up from the dungeon’s creatures' reluctance to attack her. However, that was only for monsters on the first floor.

Ning Xin heard the door open and smelled the scent of spiced roasted fish.

“Fish?”

She then complained about the small amount he bought for her but was more concerned that she smelled something more concerning. A woman.

It was quite concentrated, a sign that he was in close proximity with the woman for an extended time. Initially, she panicked momentarily at an accelerated pace. The shopping trip and meeting with an odd woman honestly didn’t help. However, she picked up nonchalance and absolute indifference from Ebony when he told her about them shopping for shoes together and calmed herself down.

‘No, even if this unknown woman is not a threat to me now, what about in future? What if another woman’s a threat? He’s so strong and cool, of course, he's a good catch. I can’t get overconfident, there’s so many beautiful women here.’ Ning Xin was forced to face the fact that they were exposed to civilization and a great amount of people. She fell back to the ‘advice’ she was given.

‘Urgh, maybe the book has more merit than I assumed. Doesn’t hurt to try some new training exercises but what kind of training can increase my charm?’ Ning Xin sighed internally and remembered the tips about physical contact and privacy. She managed to make her demands sound natural.

She was slightly surprised Ebony agreed so easily after saying he wouldn’t give her a massage. His massages honestly hit all the tight spots in her body. He understood which muscles she used and how to loosen them up.

Sadly, all she felt from Ebony was his curiosity as he probed and put pressure on her muscles and skin.

‘I thought I was beginning to feel that from him but now he’s not looking at me uncomfortably again. Showing more skin isn’t going to work and I pretty much showed most of it already…stupid tier 4 meditation and battle junkie, why you gotta make it so difficult for me.’ Ning Xin took the book she left in the house into the trailer. No better time than the present.

‘Huh, there are drawings?’ She flipped to the second page once she entered the trailer and made sure her room’s door was closed tightly.

She was expecting more nonsensical words, but the presence of the drawing of a woman’s body made her rethink that the book actually contained useful exercises.

‘Let’s see. Okaaay?’ She skimmed through the introduction for ‘basic preparation’

‘Caress, what for? What’s this, imagine your partner’s touch?’ The drawings showed a woman running their hands over their own body.

‘I’m not washing myself why would I rub that? Odd.’ She flipped to the next page where the drawing of the woman had her hands on her chest. The short explanation and tip was to massage herself until they perked up. Ning Xin tilted her head in confusion while she rolled around on her bed. Why did she not understand the book despite understanding the words?

The more she read the more stupid the exercise felt. It was full of nonsense. There was no strength, dexterity or agility to be gained from the exercises.

‘Haa, I guess I should at least try before I judge.’ Ning Xin finished five pages of short text and drawings of an odd massage technique. She didn’t really need to try very hard to imagine when residues of body heat and scent were on her body.

‘This is stupid, what will this do?’ Sceptical, she followed the book’s instructions step by step.

It took some time before she realised that something was odd. It was quite magical, the simple caress from herself made her fire mana and blood mana move by itself. Shocked by how such a silly exercise could activate some of her skills, she put aside her scepticism and followed the next instructions more earnestly. Maybe it was more of a spell than a physical exercise, it would explain why her initial thoughts put the exercise in a negative light.

From then on, she found weird reactions from her body that she never felt.

Finally, she cursed the shop owner. ‘What was that…oh no. That’s dirty, I didn’t know that happened…is this good or bad.’ Ning Xin didn’t know how much time passed but she only got to the end of the first chapter before she must have gotten sleepy. She had mixed feelings but her hot body reminded her of what she did and the state of her bed did not help.

Feeling like she dirtied herself, she accidentally burned her bed to ashes with the sole exception of her bolster. She found out she was late for morning condition while she was washing herself but morning conditioning was the furthest thing from her mind.

It was hard to face Ebony while her mind was in scrambles and his perception got her embarrassed despite his ignorance because of how focused he was on his magic practice. Fortunately, he seemed rather distracted by his constant thoughts of improving his magic spells. She double-checked that he was gone and far away before using the alchemy scent absorbers and cleaned her room and the entire trailer multiple times before locking herself in the bath.

‘Curse that shop owner.’ She slapped her face. Water couldn’t wash away how dirty she felt. Her mind kept racing back and the moment she recalled that she would have dinner with Ebony made her rush out a meal, wrote a note and dashed into the dungeon to vent her curses on monsters instead.