Ebony's Fable

“Hahahaha! Not as rich as you imagined to be, are you now? Now you know how disgustingly expensive it is to be a crafter and do research on magic.”

Ebony dug into his storage room while Kong Jing laughed at him for reaching the bottom of his pockets. He had just enough Blues to make the largest power source. After spending on the renovations and more importantly, the exceedingly expensive privacy enchantment for his house meant to last a decade, he was running out of Blues.

He could’ve gone to exchange the filled ones for more empty ones but he didn’t want to swap a few ores out of his bracelet every few minutes. There had to be a better method for higher-level mages. But he never bothered since he needed his mana for training.

‘Purples are too rare, I’ll have to search for higher denominations of currency or just larger lumps of unprocessed Blues.’

Kong Jing’s mana compressor worked faster and could handle greater volumes. Ebony was able to watch it solidify his mana in real time.

‘I’m not far from being able to solidify my mana. Can I even cast augmentations when my compression can solidify my mana?’ Ebony remembered there was a slight difference to all his spell-casting the moment he had liquid mana.

The change had been gradual and honestly, didn’t affect him much from a gaseous-like state to a liquid state but he was worried about how that would affect his spells if his mana was a solid.

Ebony was a hoarder, he spent a few more days making more Purples with his mana signature for the core of the power source. Using Kong Jing's industrial mana compressor of course. He spread out his mana usage between making this and feeding his pet tree.

“Frost Dusk, that’s your name. Like it?” Ebony patted the trunk of his pet tree. It was now fully grown and didn’t change physical form no matter how much Will or mana he fed it.

He rebranded its scales with runic ones that gathered ambient mana together with a durability and toughness formula. The durability portion was usually dormant and could actively use mana to increase its defences by up to 20%. He couldn’t make it any better while still supporting the ambient mana absorption.

Although the tree changed the scales itself without any hint of mental effort from Ebony, his Inscripted Mana Moulding was levelling at a brisk pace. The effects it had on his runes’ capabilities weren’t ideal since Ebony had no Fortifications or any other compounding skill effects but it was doing its job.

It had a spot carved out above the mini room that was for the power source once it was done and already made capable of a two-way energy transfer. The hollow or door of the tree didn’t change in size but its internals were wider than before.

The odd leaves only grew near the outer surface of the crown, underneath them were all plum blossoms ready to ignite. It had thick roots meant to stabilise itself but probably had little offensive or defensive capabilities. If he made his Will right, targets who came close would be attacked and have sealing magic run across the contact point. He wasn’t good enough to cast sealing magic from a distance and it wasn’t all that strong.

The roots weren’t capable of extending too far either. He didn’t want his tree to be uprooted by something pulling on the roots.

There were dozens of plums hanging off its branches too but without a gravity vortex inside them. He gave it the ability to sense touch or vibrations on the plums. Only when a hand grasps its fruits would it begin to cast gravity vortexes within and open pores for foreign mana to enter. They were solid ice throughout but the filled space within would melt for frostblaze when it was time to drop and there wasn’t anyone to fill them with fire mana.

These plums were moulded with heat resistance and a structural runic formula he developed for this particular shape. They can handle more heat and both internal and external pressure so they wouldn’t burst as easily and increase their threshold for safe capacity.

The temperature of his garden had dropped too much so he had to block off his pet tree’s immediate surroundings to protect his garden with normal plants.

There was no response from his pet tree but its name had already been decided and accepted.

“Dusk?” Ning Xin overheard him while fanning the fire under her grill.

“Yeah, you like it?”

“It’s…fitting. I don’t know why I get that feeling.”

“Right?”

The name had come to him when he saw the fully grown tree and he didn’t stop to think of a second one the moment the name came to mind. It just felt like the right one.

He took the last minced meat bun with the softest bun he ever had and left to train the Instructors of the Piercing Tempest Academy. Including Raika, Targot and 6 other Masters.

The first time he met them, he was faced with an angry Grand Lightning Mage who introduced himself as Rauffeq. The one responsible for the Master’s training and the one that brought them out for field experience. He had been unhappy that Ebony was called in to do his job and challenged Ebony to a duel.

Since he was supposed to teach them about warriors’ habits and tendencies, he made sure to use arcane warriors’ favourite moves. A sudden explosion of speed and strength to land a decisive blow was their favourite tactic while they stayed on the defensive for most of the duration of a battle. It was mana and stamina efficient with good survivability and a high chance of landing a critical blow as long as they judged their opponents correctly.

Ebony had been very careful not to punch a hole in the instructor while explaining to the 8 Masters what to look out for. They seemed surprised whenever he Flickered to keep his distance with the zapping mage constant. The Grand Lightning Mage’s movement was quite similar to his own. The instantaneous zap to another location probably made him dangerous to warriors and mages alike.

Rauffeq wielded a two-handed blade instead of a staff and could handle himself pretty well. It raised his expectations for his students and he was right. The Masters were good and weren’t new to combat so his Models couldn’t keep up. His Models could only use a dialled-down version of Phantom’s Flicker so that their legs didn’t shatter into dust and these lightning mages all used the same movement skill. But they weren’t powerful enough for him to take any lessons from or improve himself in any way.

Half of them were mid-range specialists while the other half were long-range focused. Raika was the only all-rounder but still outdid the others in all scenarios. Good, but all the same. It made no difference as none could touch him. It made it hard to teach them how warriors counter till he forced himself to stay still and use a randomly conjured sword.

It was not impossible to ‘cut’ or disperse lightning by coating a weapon with mana, and then sending pulses through on impact with the spell. It was what Cap Dwarf called Dispel, a lot of warriors seemed to have some form of Dispelling skill. Although catching lightning was too difficult, all one had to do was predict where they were aiming for and prepare a pulse of their mana on a shield to split the spell up to remove a portion of the spell’s strength.

Ebony used them as a practice for this technique since even he couldn’t catch lightning once it was fired. It was rather interesting that the speed of lightning was rather different for the children and the adults. He used them to learn the timing to pulse mana as a defensive manoeuvre. It proved useful enough that he managed to persuade Ning Xin to learn it. She would be able to 'cut' magical spells and elements if she learnt it.

Unlike him who predicts trajectory and senses a mage’s gathering and conjuration of mana to prepare a pulse of mana ahead of time, she was using pure reflexes and reaction speed. She was getting amazing with the trick.

She used lightning mana as a defence. When a magic projectile reaches her, the contact point near her skin sparks with lightning. It was the element she could gather and cast the fastest with besides fire which wasn’t the best for defence. Although lightning arguably wasn’t good for that either. She was considering making it an actual skill.

Adults were better, he didn’t have to talk or explain after the initial lesson with their instructor as the demonstrator. Just show and repeat the beatings. He kept using the same move against a person until they figured out a counter. The presence of an actual teacher sped things up. There was no drama with the Grand Lightning Mage, he just probed Rauffeq to give his students advice in real-time.

Ultimately, these adults weren’t as fun to train as children who seemed to have greater potential as their path was still wide open. Masters should be more than open to diversifying but these 8 lightning mages were too stiff. They took too many attempts to notice that he was pointing out an opening.

They complained too much about pain so he shut that noise off and doubled down so they didn’t have time to complain.

“Mr. Ebony, can you pull your punches…I don’t think they c-”

“They don’t have to come back. I’ll be leaving for some time after next week, it’s up to them whether or not to come while I’m still here.” He was only here as a sort of repayment for the favour of being invited to an academic meet that just so happens to be today.

Rauffeq tried to speak up for his students, from the looks of their faces they did not appreciate the beatings as much as the children did.

‘Other than being more inflexible and stiff in their growth, my aura affects them less. So Will is generally weak when it comes to how it influences the world around me compared to mana or even vitality. I’ll check out its effects on Journeyman when I get the opportunity.’ Ebony already knew Will did not require him to fully recover for it to 'leak'.

He had come to the conclusion that Will did not have a stable pool like with essence. It didn’t have a consistent recovery rate. And finally, it’s always ‘leaking’ regardless of how filled he was. Even if he was emptied after imbuing every morsel into his Model or Arsenal, Will was being exuded from him and his thoughts.

With his Fortifications, unclassed children were affected just by being near him. But these Masters barely noticed anything different from their usual state.

Targot had to persuade two of his friends from leaving while he had a bruised face and swollen cheeks. The women weren’t spared but he took a look at them and noticed that he might have subconsciously avoided hitting their faces.

His classmates were gradually ramping up against a normal bully instead of a weakened one. Atticus brought two wooden swords to mimic Ning Xin. It was kinda cute. He had no coordination between both arms and was doing worse than unarmed or with a wand. But he stuck to it, so Ebony gave his bully a sword too.

Piercing Tempest Academy might be mage-focused but that didn’t mean they didn’t have any close-ranged users of lightning magic. It seemed like that was what Atticus aimed for.

Ebony asked how Atticus got his toy swords and it seemed like his father carved it out by hand. He got permission and helped Atticus sand it down to match his size and centre of balance. He seemed to like it more and wasn’t as awkward with it so Ebony gave himself a pat on the back.

Faelk was now against an ice bully with slightly higher physical ability together with a tiny bit of Ebony’s Ethereal Form Arts. Umar was running around a 100% bully with slightly higher technical skills programmed to make mistakes.

Bilal and Fabian kept trying to trip their frozen bullies with each other’s frozen bullies and they actually succeeded once. Sadly, the goal hadn’t been teamwork and trapping mechanics so he broke them apart. But he did add a section thanks to their insistence that incorporated what a group of them could do if they ever met those bullies again.

Ebony couldn’t teach them much in terms of teamwork so he did the same thing and let them figure out while using the ice bullies to aim at timings when they were distracted or people who were standing around without doing anything. They hated that he didn’t give them time to conduct their ‘strategy meeting’ but it was only obvious there was no chance he would give them that time.

It was much nicer to play with them even though he didn’t like noise as laughter was present. The rowdier boys kept adding on ideas for their classmates while the softer-spoken girls would give reasonable ideas occasionally or harshly shut the stupid ideas from the boys down. While the Masters, and their instructors complained or yelped in pain.

None of the adults left but their performance had been lacklustre.

After the morning session with the Piercing Tempest Academy, he went back to get changed for his tea party.

“Do I smell?” He sniffed himself and asked the scent hound. He didn’t break into a sweat but if he were to meet high-level people, there was no doubt some might have a great sense of smell and he didn’t want to leave a bad impression.

She nodded, “good.” Even though she should’ve been able to smell him from a literal mile or ten away, she closed in and put her mask onto his sleeves to take deeper breaths.

“What should I wear?” His wardrobe has increased in variety thanks to his extended exposure to civilization and frequent outdoor activities. Wearing modern design would make him stand out so he had enough clothes for daily wear for the city.

“It’s a boring tea party but a tea party all the same, something presentable.”

“I guess I’ll have a Model carry Icicle and my robe around.” With his current regeneration, he’d finally found out the limit of his robe to sit at 7 million MP equivalent to about 70 Blues. He was pretty sure it used to be more but the amount he could store changed after he evolved and his mana’s properties changed.

That was possible despite not having a single mana ore within his robe and not something he could replicate with his current Inscripted Mana Moulding. He was more than familiar with the runic formula after running his mana through his robes so many times. It wouldn’t have the same effect if he were to remake another robe with the same runes and materials.

He was made to change through 4 sets of clothing before she deemed him presentable.

‘This was the first set I picked…’ Ebony straightened his white long-sleeved shirt, dark blue jacket and matching pants.

“Don’t comb your hair, this is fine.” She messed his hair up after he ran his fingers through it to push his bangs aside.

“Why not?” He knew she always mentioned how he should comb his hair after moving at high speeds.

“This is fine.” She picked at his hair and made it a little messy but his hair was smooth so it didn’t sit in place that easily.

Trusting a woman’s fashion sense, he went as is. He had his incognito carrier holding his spatial bag with empty books and his writing tools flying over 2.5 km away from him. Ebony’s range of mental reach has never increased at such speeds before. Yet, he was probably still disadvantaged in this regard even compared with the Masters that he was beating up in the morning.

It was a pity these mages never make full use of their range limit. They don’t always have their perception skill or mana sense active. Most don’t fully control their spells within their range, just letting the projectiles go at full power and making minimal trajectory changes mid-flight. It was a waste of mana when their spells missed and hit the ground, losing momentum and the mana used to propel the spell.

Range of mental reach was highly dependent on Wisdom stat and the amount of time and effort put in training to reach their limit. Never had Ebony truly reached the limit of his Wisdom stat. He would always evolve before he reached his Wisdom’s range limit. And once he evolved, it seemed like the effect or maximum limit of each stat point in Wisdom was greatly increased.

Not even constant training of 28 hours a day was enough to catch up to a hundred-year-old mage. It wasn’t something he could practise while fighting either so he didn’t have that much daily practice.

Raika was about 150 years old. Her fellow instructors were around 2 centuries old. From what he knew, they were all second or later generations of lightning mages in their families. It meant they started basic mage training like mental range extension and mana pool expansion from a young age. Raika was supposedly the closest one to be ready for evolution in less than two decades.

All Imperial mages, be they part of the military, a freelancer or a dungeon clearer had one ability clearly leagues ahead of Ebony and that was mana efficiency. They were extremely frugal and able to make very good use of every single point of mana. It was beyond just dependency on Fortifications, their barest abilities could already do that better than he could.

The difference was vast, he might be spending anywhere from 3 times to 300 times more mana for the same effect depending on who he was comparing himself with. Mostly 3 to 5 times, and the odd outlier like Mark the runic fire spearman user every now and then. It was just hard to compare effects when he barely saw users of the same elements as him.

No matter how much mana he regenerated, he couldn’t help but see the necessity of getting more mana efficient. Hence, he hadn’t been getting complacent about his spells and skills. Just with an adjustment of focus from doing more with even more, to doing more with a little less.

Being a century, or two ahead of him was not something he could catch up to in his short years as a mage and he was not aware of any methods to speed up this extension of range.

It took longer than he expected to get to the Mystic Morsels Pavilion but he arrived fifteen minutes early and studied the menu.

‘Nice tea party, the congregation of mages made the mana in the vicinity denser than the Ruins of Verdant Decay.’ Ebony looked forward to the meeting, he already knew that some people including Madam Wilcox were on the premises of the extravagantly large cafe. With a couple dozen pavilions and a pairing pond beside each pavilion.

They each had their scenery and every pavilion was over 30km away from each other, making every gathering of customers relatively private. They could hold outdoor parties meant for hundreds to thousands of people without any issue. They had as much land area as one of the many farms in Tidal but with a vastly smaller working force.

The Mystic Morsels Pavillion held a different charm from the Aroma Alcove. Neither better or worse than the other, just a matter of preference and Ebony preferred the small, dingy and quaint Aroma Alcove.