Ebony's Fable

“What did you do Mr Ebony?” Ebony found himself in Laika’s office with Madam Wilcox and another man he hadn’t seen before.

From their overflowing essence, they were obviously all Grandmasters. The numb feeling in the air was rather new though. It seemed like the presence of three Grand lightning mages were enough to cause a slight increase in lightning mana concentrations in an enclosed room.

“I’m just as curious as to why Umar fainted. I have a feeling it’s my fault.”

“We are well aware, the boy shivers the moment he hears your name.” Madam Wilcox retained her gentle smile.

“How is he now.”

“Raika is sending him home after making sure his condition is stable.” Laika rubbed her forehead. “Let me introduce you, this is Zephire, one of our instructors.”

Ebony gave the man a tet.

‘Oh.’ He raised the same hand as the man by accident. It seemed like this man thought he was the senior. He was probably right but Ebony accidentally raised his hand by the sensation of Zephire’s overflowing essence.

Ebony saw Zephire’s face scrunched up when he put his arm to raise his other. He didn’t know why it made Zephire annoyed when Ebony was the one that changed hands and he didn’t care so he turned back to Laika.

“It might be one of my passives and Umar appears to be highly sensitive to..it.” Ebony wanted to say Will but they wouldn’t believe it if they didn’t believe he was a fourth-order mage. He wasn’t about to stand out as some kind of clown or joker.

“What kind of passive…we can’t have you slowly spreading that effect to all our students.” Laika tried to phrase her sentence politely.

Zephire on the other hand had no regard to him, “Get out if you’re here to cause trouble, why is a grandmaster joining an unclassed lesson if not a spy for another academy?”

‘Ah, that is what it looks like isn’t it.’ Ebony internally nodded to Zephire’s words. The awkward greeting made more sense to him now.

“It’s the first time anyone’s affected by it so I’m not certain if it’s indeed me but it’s due to my overflowing essence.”

“You’re not leaking much, if we have a hard time sensing it I doubt the children can sense it.”

“We’ll be the one who decides if it’s because of your aura, not you.”

“Fair enough.” Taking into account Zephire was the teacher and he was the student, that sounded about right.

“What’s a respectful, non-aggressive amount.”

“Huh, enough nonsense and hurry it up and show me all you got. I have to get to Targot’s training for the ranking.”

“Okay.”

Zephire eyelid shot open, then he fell down.

“Oh my, maybe it’s not my passive effect. Is Umar just that sensitive to mana?” Ebony couldn’t help but mutter when Zephire lay down on the ground.

The mage shot back up on his feet two seconds later and zapped to the edge of the room reflexively. Honestly too slow if he was in a battle.

“You’re right, maybe it wasn’t the passive effect. Umar might be better than I thought.” Ebony quickly misunderstood but a data set of 2 was too small to determine.

He waited for someone to speak up since he didn’t have anything to add to the conversation but they seemed to have nothing to say. “If there’s nothing else, I’ll be taking my leave. I’m not a spy or anything, just here to learn. I’ll leave a recorder in class from now on instead of coming personally if it’s really due to my passives.”

Ebony walked out of the room. When he was at the front gate of the campus, he heard them ask each other what a ‘recorder’ was.

‘Should have said memory light recorder huh…oh well.’

Ebony traced down Raika’s mana residues and found Umar’s mansion. “Seems like he’s fine.”

He Flickered back home.

“You’re finally back! Your wife ran away from home!” Muse charged at him when he entered.

“You’re here.” He took the piece of paper Muse handed to him.

“Why’re you still standing there? Go after her!”

“She just went into the dungeon to test a new skill. Although, it would’ve been nice to go together since I wanted to check out one of the creatures inside again but since it's the ruins of verdant decay it doesn’t matter if we go in together. She can protect herself.”

“Humm, that’s the one where parties are split up right…fine, I guess she can find some people to party with. Aww, I dropped by for a quick dinner and some cookies. Now I can’t see her for months.”

“Months? She’s just testing a skill, she’ll be back in days at best.” Ebony shook his head at the terrible estimation.

“No waay. Dungeons are so big, the fastest we’ll see her is in a few weeks.” Muse skipped back to the dinner table where she was nibbling on some dried treat.

“We just cleared that yesterday, it took one morning. As long as she’s eating and doesn’t get held up or lazy at running, we’ll see her soon.”

“What are you talking about? Anyway, it doesn't matter if she’s back in days. I have to go soon, Yvette is calling me to work…”

“You’re not going to teach me?” Ebony hadn’t gotten any music lessons from the Royal guest.

“I want to! I already know what direction to take. But I have to be away for a while. You can practise on your weakest spot first.”

“And what’s that.”

“Cadence. You understand tone, but you sound dead all the time. Go listen to some live musicals. Oh right, your pittaw will be delivered tomorrow so be here to accept it.”

“Clarify.”

“What do I sound like when I speak?”

Ebony pondered on the question, ‘this has to be some kind of trick question, what does she sound like? Like a person. That’s obviously not the answer she’s looking for…’

“Singing! Singing! You oaf, don’t you hear it?”

“You mean how listening to you talk feels soothing as if I’m getting healed? I thought it was the city’s healing in the past but I’m sensing some sort of odd mana in your breath when you speak.”

“I’m just talking about music not healing…anyway, you don’t understand emotions. Go do some people-watching as well.”

“I disagree. I understand emotions better than you’d think. I’ve been people-watching long enough. Walking through the streets is enough for me to gather hundreds of human interactions. I have enough data to conclude and identify most emotions now.”

“And? Never mind, I’ll listen to you play the pittaw tomorrow.”

“Mmm, I’ll make dinner. Any requests?”

“Something sweet.”

Ebony whipped up something quickly. He bid the little non-human girl goodbye and went about the rest of his day.

He made enough recorders to listen in on every class in the Piercing Tempest Academy. Other than the one for his class, the rest were just spheres of transparent ice that had the ability to retain sound and surrounding gravitational information. With the amount of Will he placed in them, he would have to reabsorb and refresh them every three days.

‘Now I can spend the time in the library instead of sitting in class. Should I continue creating these recorders and place them in all the academies I was rejected by? I’m not that desperate and that's just straight-up theft…I have free time, let’s go check on that secret metal mage.’

Ebony fed his pet tree mana and took care of his garden before getting dressed and leaving to check on the receptionist metal mage. It was honestly just for entertainment, thinking about how the action seemed like stalking. He was going to remove the model following her as long as she hadn’t done any self harm.

‘Hmm?’ Ebony stopped in his tracks when he walked past the specialised stand for his robe and sword.

Icicle was dimly lit.

“I’ll bring you along so don’t sulk.”

The greatsword seemed to brighten up but then its light dulled down to nothing again.

‘Honestly can’t tell if he’s growing or not.’ Icicle doesn’t always respond to him. He almost thought they were just delusional about their swords reacting to them.

“My mana’s reach has increased a lot lately, maybe…sounds good.” Ebony slid his robe on and took Icicle out.

Icicle floated in front of him and slowly turned transparent then, he sent the floating sword to the skies. At the edge of his mana’s reach of about two kilometres, Icicle could follow him in incognito.

Flickering to the West District took a few hours. He tried to sense his own Will. It had a wider range than his sense for mana but it was not easy when the Capital was so large.

‘Found it. She’s underground? I don’t know any path down…can I reabsorb my Will from here? Why are so many people keeping watch on strangers here?’ Ebony quickly sensed multiple eyes and senses the moment he Flickered outside the barn-like warehouse.

In the next second, he realised he was in a rather abandoned area. Far from the Quest Hall, residential or any area with large congregation of people.

‘Ah, I’m in a farm region. Secretly a metal mage, from store employee to quest hall employee and she’s in a farm area at night. Hmm, I’d say it’s about time I stop stepping into others' business.’ Ebony wasn’t hiding himself but if multiple people sensed him the moment he Flickered in, they probably found out about his little tracking device.

Just then, he managed to retrieve his Will and the recording for the past weeks. The mana vessel it was in melted, there wasn’t much left and the Will he retrieved was lacking in memory so there were missing bits and pieces. But sieving through the information, he decided to put another model on her. A better and one with more Will this time.

‘Alright, time to hightail it. She’s some middle-ranking member of Lure. My curiosity got the better of me. Doesn’t seem like she knows Tuffock so it’s not like I can return the favour for the neck snap, and the saving I guess. Sister Jing’s coming over soon, I should ask her about the shop that kidnapped me. Can’t leave Tidal though…maybe I’ll get her to send them over to me instead.’

“Now who might you be? I don’t think we invited anyone into our homes late at night.”

‘Huh, was he talking to me?’ Ebony just Flickered away when the voice reached him. Now it just looked like someone was talking to themselves or talking to air.

‘Ooo, pretty indetectable and fast.’ Since he was using a short-distance Flicker, he faced a rake flying into his face the moment his body stayed in place. He wasn’t able to sense the person until they were already in mid-swing.

‘Ethereal Form Arts needs human opponents more so than monsters so I was indeed looking for good close combatants but…I’m a little lazy to deal with Lure. Oh well, I only have to deal with them if they can chase me.’ Ebony hadn’t found an opponent good enough to train his close combat mastery excluding the temporary non-aggression with Ning Xin.

Shady organisations just smelled like trouble, even if they had delectable opponents for him. He’d rather not waste his time.

The person swinging a rake had a black scarf covering his entire face except the eyes. With a rather lean but muscular figure, it should be a human male.

Ebony was slightly more interested when they popped up beside him after a full Flicker. ‘Nice, I’ll augment myself and see if they can keep up. If they do then maybe they’ll be good training partners.’

‘They’ were multiple wrapped-up figures with roughly the same outward dress style and figure.

Ebony began to have a little fun when they didn’t lag behind too much. He brought them for a run around the Capital going from district to district throughout the night.

“Huh? Why are you stopping?” Ebony Flickered back to find a dozen of them who stopped chasing him.

They were panting hard.

“Ah, sorry. I’ll wait for you to recover, we can continue playing catch once you catch your breath.” Ebony snapped out of it once he finished his sentence. ‘Wait since when were we playing catch? Oh, the sun rose already.’

“My apologies, I didn’t see the time. I have to go to school now, we can continue another day.” Ebony’s mind returned to simulating training for his classmates. They had promised to meet him in their District’s Quest Hall for secret training in the fifth hour. He usually started his own morning condition in the fourth hour but he could always start early.

The children already complained to no end when he asked them to meet up in the fourth hour. Since sleep was quite important for physical growth, he yielded.

With Raika and Targot having listened to their loud excitement, it was no secret. Since Laika didn’t mention it, he shouldn’t be breaking any rules.

The rake-wielders had been rather silent the entire time, but he didn’t even spend a second to wonder what was up with them. If people didn’t want to converse and started swinging rakes at him, he was fine with ignoring them. An eye for an eye, since they swung a farming tool the most he would do was swing back at the same strength.

Ebony found it hard to take their violent intentions seriously when running around for a night was enough to get them panting and supporting their knees with their arms. The hostility was there but he didn’t sense any intent to kill. As long as they leave him alone, he would do the same and ignore the rake swing at his face.

‘Probably my fault again, I invaded those poor farmer’s lands or farmers in disguise. Whatever, I’ll apologise for trespassing next time. Not even a single skill level, I need better training partners.’ Ebony shook his head at the difficulty of skill levelling.

Not gaining a single level from the dungeon race was no surprise. Dungeon creatures were known to give far less experience than natural ones and the Guardian might have been strong but the experience was split amongst over thirty people. All of his peers were higher level as well.

He made sure to erase his tracks as best as he could and no one was following him before he went back in the correct direction. He didn’t think he would be in the North District after running around in random directions.

“Hmm, glad you could make it Umar. Are you feeling better?” Ebony was going to check on the boy later but he was surprised the boy came to their agreed-upon location on time.

There were about fifteen of his classmates present. Most of them had sleep in their eyes and some had untidy clothes.

“That was the greatest escape ever!” Bilal was the only energetic one.

It appeared like the untidy kids with messy hair secretly ran out of their dorms. He would love to see their reactions when they found out that nothing they did could escape their instructors’ senses. Maybe they could remain undetected if they were a warrior school but not a mage school.

“So what are you going to teach us?”

“What are we starting with, there’s no practical lessons today. Maybe we can sneak in a few minutes of magic training.”

“I can’t wait to beat that cocky face in.”

Ebony rented the same training room he used daily and brought the children down. There was no need to get a bigger one when he already used a relatively large room. He nodded to Targot who was secretly following the children when he brought them down.

“I can make a screen of reflection so you can watch and they won’t be able to see you’re in the same room.” He sent a stream of vibrations to the worried instructor. Thankful, Target went down with them and believed him about the invisibility.

“Alright, let’s begin.” Ebony clapped to get their attention. He saw all the instructors in Piercing Tempest Academy clap to get their students' attention and for them to quiet down. It was more effective than he imagined.

“So, what will we be doing?”

“Run,” Ebony told them.

They blinked in confusion.

“Start running in circles. You need the minimal physical abilities to stand a chance.”

They didn’t complain for long before they started running.

‘They don’t have the energy…okay.’ Ebony conjured the sculpture of Cerise, their bully and made her dense enough to look blue before sending her to chase them around.

“Ah!!”

With the normal human pace, Cerise couldn’t catch 15 kids so he made the two boys who followed her as well. It wasn’t hard for the faster children to catch all 15 kids and place them in armlocks.

“Why aren't you escaping if you’re not held down anymore?” Ebony asked those who fell but no longer had the sculpture holding them down.

He wanted to see their reactions in front of danger but they weren’t doing so well. With only a few weeks, building their physical abilities up enough to rival the Arcane Warrior’s students wasn’t possible. Hence, they needed more directed training.

He concluded that having them fight against his copy of Cerise for the next few weeks would give them the best chance of winning a play fight. If he had more time, or the goal was different he would’ve found a better training regime for them.

Of course, cardio with a little bit of motivation was barely the beginning.

‘They’re going to fall in love with training.’ Ebony psyched himself up with every bit of mental prowess he could muster. Subconsciously, he was testing his new Fortifications on Will being more compelling.