Ebony's Fable

Ebony left the delivered piano under his pet tree and didn’t touch it.

After the construction work was completed, he placed tiles over the toughened earth basement. The second basement is beneath his small forge and storage area. He also installed some runic light formulas on crystals to brighten the place. He made it look as much like an indoor swimming pool as possible.

He asked the earth mage to make steps. So the entry to the second basement had a 5-metre path for walking, a towel and a clothes rack. It would face the 30-metre deep pool that had a few steps leading into the water. The ceiling was roughly ten metres high and the ceiling thickness was roughly the same.

He couldn’t help but take a swim once he filled it up with water. Other than swimming practice, he practised Phantom’s Flicker underwater. It helped him understand how water resistance affected his movements better.

‘Two sun loungers here would be nice. I’ll carve one out of wood.’ He furnished the pool hoping to make it more comfortable.

“Yo!”

Ebony’s head gently swayed to the right allowing the skinny fist to fly by.

“Hello Sister Jing, leave your shoes out. I’ll make some tea.” The only thing that intruded his underground forge was her arm.

“I’m hungry, make me some grub.” The craftswoman spoke through the compressed space channel. “Hey, where’s my little Xin?”

“She went into the dungeon to test a new skill. It has a pretty interesting portal system. You should check it out.”

“Ah those, that’s real portaling. I can't do that shit you know that I can’t teleport. Most space mages utilise space compression and expansion for traversing. I can do something similar but not the same.”

Ebony fried a wok full of rice as a midnight snack for both of them.

“You’re early.”

“I was gonna give both of you a surprise.” Kong Jing tossed her coat onto the sofa and made herself comfortable at the dining table.

“Sister Jing,” Ebony didn’t take long to make something as simple as fried rice. He made extra rice the night before just for the chilled leftover rice.

“Yeah?” She spoke with her mouth full.

“Can you do me a favour?” Ebony knew that he wasn’t sensing anybody in his house. Only his sight noticed her. No vibrations, no gravitational waves, no hint of mana. Nothing.

It was similar to the steampunk middle-aged man who was supposedly a space magic user.

“Depends on what it is about.”

“You know who kidnapped me, I would ask you to fetch me to them but I’m somewhat stuck in Tidal. Not the kidnapper though, just the gun-burstbow shop owner and friends.”

“What’cha wanna do? I have some lackeys who keep track of them and I believe he’s still operating his business in peace.”

“Lackeys?” Ebony might have heard her mentioning something about a second group of kidnappers that she caught instead of the halberd mr kidnapper.

“Thanks to you. Bah, they just send me reports annually. Got no time for lackeys but they help collect information. You gonna kill?”

“What? No. it’s not like he killed me. Thanks to him, my previous evolution. I mean, the one before that wasn’t as rushed. Now I know the benefits of getting an additional skill over the two time limit. It pays off in natural potential.” Ebony wondered why he gave her the impression that he was out for blood.

“So..?”

“A certain fish taught me a life lesson. I’ll just seal them for as long as they caged me. Maybe a little shorter since I gained something.”

“Uhhh. whatever floats your boat I guess.” Kong Jing’s visible confusion was not lost on him.

“It's the mastermind plus the grand lightning burstbowmen. Leave his assistant alone, he made the cell comfortable for me.” Ebony did not forget the man who kept his stuff for him and brought him his daily meals that got better over time.

“That’s so far away…are you in any rush?”

“Nope.” Ebony honestly couldn’t care less however, the benefits gained aside, they meant to lock him up for good. It didn’t feel right to forget about the issue, he would get taken advantage of if he let everyone off.

“By your words, since he got someone to kidnap you, you should do the same. I’ll just get those lackeys of mine to..nah they’re only lousy masters.” Kong Jing dropped the ceramic spoon onto the empty plate and licked her lips.

“You’re right. Can’t have double standards.”

Ebony was enlightened, she was right. Since they hired people to kidnap him, he should do the same. It would save him the time and effort that was better used learning about how to utilise Will better.

“So I’ve been dying to ask...” She gulped and pushed her cup towards him for another glass of juice. She seemed hesitant to complete her sentence.

“You rarely exaggerate, go ahead.” Ebony used mana to open the fridge and uncovered a jug that floated over to pour her another glass of green, sour fruit juice. It was pretty much the kiwi fruit equivalent.

“What in the world is in your garden?”

“Plants. And my pet tree.” Ebony stored the rest of the juice without moving from his seat. She rarely asked redundant questions but he answered

“That pet tree of yours is alarming. I’m not sure what it is, but it’ll attract attention.”

“Just testing out this domain skill of mine.” Ebony was surprised, ‘Can she not sense or use Will?’

“...You’re a grandmaster, right? Whatever, shouldn’t be surprised when you said you could use Will as a Master.” Kong Jing straightened up for a second before losing interest in continuing the topic. Changing the subject, “So you know where to find some professional kidnappers?”

“Hmm, I don’t know any but it shouldn’t be that hard.” Ebony wasn’t going to rely on the farm he visited a while back.

From what he understood, the organisation Lure was akin to a terrorist group. Not a normal criminal group. When mana slavery was all the rage, there were more professional kidnappers than professional assassins. Now that that died down, the criminal groups weren’t as prominent.

However, Ebony knew where one could find actual assassins. He could go into a dungeon.

That was one of the extremely few possible or reasonable places for assassins to operate in Tidal. However, it was unrealistic for them to only work there. They needed to bait their targets into dungeons after all.

Ebony could think of multiple ways that people could get killed in Tidal. ‘It shouldn’t be that difficult, just tear all vitals apart and keep them separated. The healing speed of the city sped up and down depending on the person and injury but people still died of old age.

By watching the kids heal, and making a cut on himself he estimated that it was rather easy to simply outpace the healing. The claim that people couldn’t die was still a massive belief amongst the citizens but they probably knew there was a limit to it. However, the limit doesn’t matter to them. It’s not as if they are in danger of monsters breaking into the city or assassins coming after their lives.

‘Still, other than gravitational signatures the rogues and mages here are all better at hiding their mana disturbance of movement. Catching them in the act is not something I’ll see every day either.’

“Now for the real question.” Kong Jing wiped her mouth and disappeared from her seat, lying on the sofa instead.

Ebony stood up and cleared the table. He could make a dishwasher that shot highly pressured water and fill it with soap but that would deprive him of some quality time and the skill experience.

“When are you getting married? You’re already living in the same house. For like…years. Even if she’s not completely Xeng, we are traditional. I expect her to have been waiting for you.”

“I’ve had that in mind. Definitely before we’re King ranked.” Ebony answered casually. He was pretty sure the person in question wasn’t eavesdropping.

“Oh? Why?” Despite the one asking, Kong Jing was visibly surprised.

“Because I won’t stand a chance at beating her soon.” Ebony never forgot her customs, even if she didn’t care about them. ‘Soon’ was relative considering how fast they were improving.

“And you stand a chance now?”

“Slim. Discounting advanced preparation.”

“I’m no fighter but give me a brief description on both of your strengths and why you think you won’t stand a chance.” Kong Jing didn’t hesitate to call herself a non-combatant.

“She specialises in pure one-on-one combat while I spread myself a little too thin recently. Her advantages are getting more obvious. In direct combat, she can probably beat me now. In a real battle, she probably can’t kill me but I can.”

“I don’t understand, you just said she can beat you.”

“Too high a cost, no matter how energy efficient or how large her capacity gets she’ll never outlast me. In fact, she’s getting further away from outlasting me despite increasing her energy capacity. And she’s currently not strong enough to overpower me in a few minutes. That’s what I specialise in, weakening and outlasting. Outside of my close combat proficiency, I’d say I still have the upper hand in technique.”

Ice magic might not seem effective against Ning Xin but Ebony’s constant use wears out her mana even faster. And that was her greatest weakness. She might have gotten a better vitality-based enhancement but the rise in the tier for her mana-based ones tore into her mana pool within minutes if not seconds. It was so bad that she couldn’t train the body enhancement spells at full power for extended periods of time.

Although she had her Sword Art to cover the lack of magic-based enhancement, Ebony believed he could mess up her combos with the support of Ethereal Form Arts. Not allowing her to build up too much strength or speed

“You could’ve summed her up as the killing expert while you’re the survival expert but you two aren’t out for blood.”

“Yes.”

“And you think that one more evolution will tip both of you past this current balance.”

“I’ve been doing well in maintaining this balance even with diverging my skill set so…I can’t tell, but it still stands that beating her in a duel is only going to get more unlikely.”

When he looked over to Kong Jing since she didn’t register in his mana sense, he saw her unmoving and snores didn’t take long to escape.

Ebony didn’t bother taking a spare blanket and used her coat to cover her up.

‘Hmm, should I make my pet tree out of clear ice? It’s started to branch out to a third as wide as our roof and leaves seem to be sprouting soon.’

When Kong Jing woke up in the morning, he showed her the Vitalis Heartvine. He would have asked Lang, the knowledgeable old man, about the Vitalis Heartvine if Kong Jing didn’t come.

Despite being a dungeon material, it could be processed and used safely in a potion. It was an old recipe since the dungeon here was rather old but there were rumours that a certain noble family who had so much of the potion, began to show a permanent increase in health regeneration. A change in physique.

But dungeons change over time.

The monsters change, and so does what the dungeon produces as bait. The Vitalis Heartvine became very rare and not everyone knew about the ingredient. The Noble family tried very hard to monopolise it once they’d made a potion formula for it and it took decades before another alchemist made a similar recipe.

Although Kong Jing said she could make a better potion, a single Vitalis Heartvine would be a single potion. It would take hundreds if not thousands of continuous consumption to have the chance of a physique refinement. “Just let little Xin cook it. I’ll teach her how to get rid of the remnant essence.”

After a harsh critique of his small forge and the offer of a forge refurbishing, Ebony left his house for the craftswoman to look after and made his way to the Quest Hall early.

‘It’s so noisy today.’ Ebony did not like the boisterous Quest Hall.

However, he managed to sieve out pieces of interesting information. He preferred to talk to people he already knew but Lang was in charge of materials and wasn’t on shift so early in the morning. So he listened a little longer and took in every conversation that wasn’t silenced or made private.

‘What did she do…’ Ebony managed to find out what happened in a minute.

If their information was accurate, the third floor of the Ruins of Verdant Decay was said to have a massive forest fire. One that affected almost the entire floor’s temperature. It was supposedly hot enough to boil water in town without any pot or fire. They put up the town barrier and had water mages cast an artificial rain to cool the temperatures within the barrier down but the temperatures outside the barrier continued to rise.

There were murmurs that the dungeon might be forced to cast a mana storm that would put every party and individual outside the towns in danger.

The Quest Hall personnel were assuring the families of crafters that the towns inside were completely safe and that there wouldn’t be a mana storm. As for the freelancers and dungeon clearers, few people asked about them. It was rather recent news but it had to be dated.

The only news they could get was from people who exited from the eighth floor. News from floor to floor wasn’t that hard to pass around since callstones still worked and each floor was connected with towns except the eighth’s exit.

The chances of a mana storm occurring were very low. It was extremely energy-hungry and dungeons usually only did that when they were in great risk of going into a huge energy deficit.

With his experience, he highly doubted a mana storm would occur so the employees probably weren’t lying. The Ruins of Verdant Decay was an old dungeon, unlike Ordina which had no stockpile of energy after its birth. There should be no way a single person could cause it to become so desperate in such a short period.

As long as the Quest Hall wasn’t lying, the forest fire had long been put out hours after it had first been discovered. They had to wait for more reports but fortunately, it seemed like she didn’t cause any indirect deaths.

‘She’s a grown woman who can take care of herself but I should give her another warning about forest fires.’ Ebony did not even hesitate to put the blame on Ning Xin. The Quest Hall’s employees were going through a list of suspects who were all fire mages who worked in the dungeon long term.

Ebony stopped eavesdropping on their indoor offices when his classmates arrived.

Training went about normally, with no more additions to his little morning training. He let them train with his Models while he went about his conditioning in a different room. This time, Laika the headmistress was watching over the kids.

They were either too overprotective or they didn’t trust him. Probably both.

‘I’m so gentle with these kids, there should be no problem.’ He was slightly unhappy but fully understood why he was not trustworthy. They were pretty much strangers, he might be some kidnapper for all they knew.

He was so overwhelmingly gentle with the regime he planned for them that there should be no complaints. Hence, Targot’s overreaction was unbelievable.

The Masters whom he was supposed to help in training were only starting next week as some of them were training in a dungeon with another Grandmaster instructor besides Madam Wilcox whom he had never met.

If he was lucky, he could deal with them in the same manner as the children. Just have a few Models deal with them. If not, he might have to be personally involved. It wouldn’t be a bad thing if they were actually strong or had interesting skills but if there were in between, it would be a waste of time and effort.

‘I guess I should hurry and iron out the evolution for Glacial Model.’ Ebony’s laziness encouraged him to hasten his experiments.