Ebony's Fable

“Sister Jing, there’s so many silver ones. Which one do you want?” Ebony spoke aloud to no one. He was hours away by his speed. So far away from the bright, crowded fortress that the floor was no longer tiled.

The tiled floor was an amazing piece of magical architecture. It absorbed spells that landed on them and recharged the fortress’s magical towers and structures. An unknown number of spells were being tossed about and the elemental residues and all aftereffects of elements were just a waste of mana.

The Granite Hall family’s architecture would send a weak pulse of unique mana. If a mage responded the pulse would go away. If the tiled floor didn’t get a response, it would get to work and break down all elements back to the basic pure mana. The inconsistent efficiency barely mattered when hundreds of thousands of spells landed on their tiles every second.

“Biggest and shiniest one but the more the merrier. Don’t damage them! If I’m not wrong they came from eating a planet filled with silvershim, a metallic plant. It’s great for both alchemic potions and explosives along with toxic weapons. The shinier, the more concentrated the compounds in their bodies are. Tell me if you need backup, I won’t send Xin over because she’ll ruin the slivershim with heat.”

“Okay, I’ll set up my experimental lab here too.” Ebony did not forget that he was here for statistical data.

‘Certain Allochromes can resist freezing to a point where it’s not mana-friendly for me. Silversonics are the best at breaking free from their frozen restraints and the type that sister Jing wants me to get is a variant of Silversonic Munchers. The Arcanite Cortex Formicidae are unfreezable unless I set them ablaze and even then, too much mana is consumed. Whatever, this isn’t the data I’m here for.’

“Dusk, root yourself here.” He caressed his pet tree after placing it down on the dense earth. There were no people anywhere around him. Only a sea of Ants lined up and charged whenever there was space to move forward.

“Dusk, you can sense intent right?” His partner’s leaves shiver and its packed flowers rebloomed over the next second. The prepared plums also resurfaced from their packed pillar form.

“Good girl. First priority: protect yourself at any costs, retaliate against any intent of harm. Override the ‘protect humanoids’ order when it comes to protecting yourself. Self-preservation comes first, even if Ning Xin attacks you but you can be more biassed if you want.” Ebony knew he was somewhat talking to himself but he didn’t care. Dusk responded without his manual input which was enough for him to treat it as such.

“Your mana pool isn’t even 0.1% filled at the moment so don’t go crazy. After data gathering, I’ll give you new information about energy efficiency. Probably something regarding your output depending on your mana pool and hopefully I can do something about your situational awareness.” Ebony had better use of his mana than fill up a power source that he had no idea of its capacity. Kong Jing’s brain teaser was to calculate or estimate the total capacity of the power source.

The unfortunate news was that after the conversion done on ambient mana to mana that was equivalent to his, something that Dusk can do, the actual value was far less than that. Density wasn’t an issue since all power sources condense mana, it was his mana’s resilience and all the other properties that made his mana his.

Taking all that into account, every spell of his that Dusk tries to use with the backup mana from the power source consumes way more mana in numerical value. Way more.

Although he had an extremely talented crafter do him a favour and make the power source together with her set of runic skills and formula, he asked for capacity and only capacity. It allowed the craftswoman to go crazy with hyperspecialization when it came to runic formulas. Having a runic formula do one function extremely well always came with better results than making it do very well in multiple functions.

This made it such that the range that Dusk could absorb ambient mana dependent on the absorption runes on its scaled bark and the power source had no such capability. With his insistence on slamming more Purples as the core of the power source, the basic material of the power source itself already gave it the mana capacity over dozens of billions.

Ebony did not know how many compounding Fortifications the Xeng craftswoman had for runes and neither did he know how many compounding runic engraving or boosting skills she had. He didn’t even know how complicated the runic formula could get when she had such a large sphere to work with. That was outside of her usage for spatial compression of runes.

Suffice it to say, he didn’t need maths skills to tell that he didn’t need to bother upgrading the power source anytime soon. Maybe not even in centuries if he could make it to that age without dying.

To increase the rate of charging it up, he could improve on his inscripted moulding and further optimise the formula.

“Alright alright, I won’t get lengthy with you since I can refresh you tomorrow. Now just rest here while I finish Sister Jing’s errand then you can play and I can collect data to optimise you.”

‘It doesn’t make any logical sense but the number of grandmasters seems to be equivalent to the number of King ranked ants. Not a single Master is present. Using that grade scale, the grandmasters are like grade 1 to 1.5 grandmasters. The Kings are around grade 1.5 to 2. Barely any difference other than an obvious increase in physical stats. None can use magic so far, the Arcanite Cortex can only absorb mana but not use it directly. I don’t think any Grandmaster humans with a tier 1 skill in their main class exist so these are weak creatures indeed.’

Ebony kicked down the wall of frozen Ants around Dusk and walked out but it didn’t take long for the hole to be filled again. They didn’t get far before getting sealed up. The Kings could break free but not before freezing up after taking a step or two forward. It was a massive skill experience. He also wanted to test how much he had to do at his current level to level up without killing monsters but that test would not be fruitful at the moment if ever.

They seem to register Dusk as an opponent despite it being a tree made of ice and that worked out rather well for him. ‘Must be the vitality, mana or the mixture that makes them determine that Dusk’s an organic living cre-I suppose she doesn’t have to be living to be a target, many of these ants eat metal.’

‘I can collect data on myself first. Firstly, can I cast my domain even if Dusk exists?’

Ebony expelled some of the compressed mana in him to summon a 3-metre radius domain.

‘It worked, as long as I have Will I can cast a second separate domain. Interestingly, with Dusk in range, I have two spheres or semi-circles of heightened control. I can still override Dusk’s motions but that would defeat the purpose of all the automation I imbued. Let’s see how much it takes--’ Ebony spread out his domain to a wider range before pulling all his mana back in a second.

‘I knew it, too much. My previous calculations suck and the domain changed. My mana efficiency fortifications can’t stack. If I only buff ice magic and ignore all other elements, then the mana cost would cut down accordingly but it also only translates to my ice mana efficiency which is increased by 300% which is a 4 times deduction in mana cost.

So technically ‘full-powered’ Arsenal of Will would cost 88,750 mana per minute or 1480 mana per second for a 5-meter radius. And that’s uncompressed, I have terrible mana regeneration. Technically, I can half that cost if I’m on the ground and don’t activate it into the ground. But one thing is for sure, other domain mages would have unthinkably large mana capacities and even then, they likely can’t maintain a domain for long. Of course, my version is inefficient at the moment so I can’t say the same for other mages and their domain might not buff 4, or 5 types of magic but only 1 or 2.’

Ebony was convinced, Domains were supposed to be like Dusk. Immobile or at least, something built over time. It wasn’t supposed to be a spell to be cast at any time and place. He didn’t know the static multiplier for other mages but his control over his elemental manas being 1000% or ten times more robust meant that it was ten times harder for other ice, gravity or sound mages to use these elements within his domain.

And sound to Ebony, was simply vibrations including those that came from physical impacts and movements. He hadn’t received an impact hard enough to test what that meant for his defence but it meant Dusk was hardly afraid of physical impacts.

With Arsenal of Will Domain at level 604, he had a 3770% strengthening to all his magic. It worked differently compared to a direct increase in Intelligence but the difference in effect between the two was not distinct.

Mana cost of an area of effect spells followed the formula for volume. The skill description gave a value in terms of the cost for a sphere following the formula of 4/3*π*r^3. For full use of gravity magic, Dusk made use of the full sphere but cut the cost on all other magics underground. Ebony would likely use it as a hemisphere more often which helped a lot. In no world would he be able to cast his domain to his maximum range of 4km when just 5 metres was already so expensive.

Ebony pulled the Domain to cover right above his skin and buff his Augmentation, he also had no choice but to decompress his mana for the Domain to be sustainable. It was an Enhancement Mage’s occupational sickness to use what they can to reinforce their body.

‘I can beat her for sure, regardless of how much energy she has or how good her current tier 4 enhancement is. Unless she now has another compounding enhancement that I’m not aware of but even then, I have the advantage.’ Ebony got too caught up.

After he drew Icicle and made a lunging horizontal sweep at the shiny munchers that kept biting at him, he knelt on the floor with a hand supporting him.

‘Oh this is bad, the dissonance knocked me out awhile there.’ Unbelievably, he sustained a mental injury.

Ebony had the physical tolerance for the augmentation, they were all augmented proportionally. He simply moved so fast and violently that his mind, Tranquility or not, was knocked out.

‘Firstly, Endurance and next Intelligence. My brain can’t keep up and both my Core Skills and Wisdom aren’t enough to protect me anymore. What’s this noise? Notifications. Oh…’ Ebony dialled his Augmentation down and looked up to see a few silent silver Ants surrounding him.

“I’m not trying to defend myself but they were unintended casualties. I mean…I would be lying if I said I wasn’t here to take some of your lives away.” Ebony clean sweep had left a cone-shaped trail of frozen bodies cut in two for a long way forward.

“**** ***” The 3-metre tall and 4-meter-long silver ant chirped.

“You can speak. Great. I think that’s Gia, sorry, I haven’t picked it up.” Ebony Flickered away from the coordinated munching from multiple sets of mandibles. He blocked the mandibles that closed halfway when he flickered back into view.

‘Okay, now we’re talking. If the Kings are grade 2, these Emperors are 3.5 or 4 in terms of physical stats. A big jump indeed. They mean real business.’

Tier 2 skills were more than twice as strong as tier 1. Tier 3 was another doubling excluding base refinements and so on. A grade up was more than a doubling in a rough gauge of power. Together with an obvious increase in size, difference in appearance that indicated Physique mutations and the massive increment to stats due to level difference, he could see why the Emperors were considered kin. Unlike the others, they didn’t attack anything in sight wantonly but the difference was hard to spot as they could treat most as prey.

Icicle that was stabbed in the ground to guard against the mandible cut through the earth while Ebony's scaled robe-protected arm remained stationary.

‘Maybe around level 350 Apex Ape in physical output. I haven’t fought the Grandmaster Apex Apes to know for sure. Some kind of poison or contamination. I can’t remove it from Icicle and I need to dislodge a scale to stop the spread.’ Ebony kneed the jaw and sent the mandibles swiping up.

“Do you ants have jaws?” He curiously asked.

“***** ********** ****” The 9 of his bullies responded.

It took half a second before Ebony realised similar vibrations were being made repeatedly.

“Sister Jing, can you translate?” He recalled that he had an observer and translator watching him.

“They said ‘Oh my goodness, oh my goodness, oh my goodness. Massive tribute for our queen. Mega delicious treat. Must pay tribute.’ something along those lines, with more repetition. I agree, when I went hunting for natural treasures, your essence signature told me the same thing. Eating one of you might evolve their physique. Not to mention, they can let you regenerate and farm your body parts. They are very good at creating flesh farms for their race’s sustenance requirements.” It took some time before the space mage’s voice was transmitted near his ears. He could tell she was having fun reenacting the tone of voice of a little girl.

Ebony unsheathed Icicle and tried Ethereal Form Art's effectiveness on giant ants. Sonic Intrusion was now Fortified but it was still a little lacking when it came to injuring Kings and Emperors alike, no matter how weak they were.

“Oh by the way, that's what their lesser kins have been saying with their pheromones but they just think you’re for them not tribute for their queen. The good news is that they are saying the same thing for almost everything and everyone here so you’re not a high-priority target yet and they won’t bother telling their queen, I bet they can’t even turn back to send news back.”

He wasn’t even going to ask how she translated the pheromone language.

“You don’t have to tell me that. Ants and trolls, I’m trying to get into a dilemma to find out what kind of person I am but you are really making it difficult for me.”

“HAHAHA! Stop thinking, survival of the fittest that’s all we know, isn’t it? Hunt and eat, I’ll make use of everything else. If they turn back then whatever, but they’re not so stop wasting our time here. Enough contemplating on nonsense.”

“That’s not the point. I was thinking of making the most of them. They are an invasive species, elimination is only natural.”

“Oh? You weren’t holding back on killing them? I thought you suddenly had an issue with killing monsters and people alike.”

“I never had that problem, monsters are no different from people. If they want me dead they are asking for the same treatment from me, that’s common sense I’ve learnt before I learnt to run. The problem is that I’m actively looking for them, if I didn’t find hungry animals I wouldn’t be in their crosshair and they wouldn’t have been mine. Anyway, let’s talk after I gather more data on them. I’m checking if it's viable.”

“I thought you became soft. Luckily you haven’t gone down that hole. Oh, silvershim causes stamina regeneration to take a dip and also causes hallucination. The big boys have multiple mutations that I assume are survivors that have been through more than one planet so I’m not sure what their effects are. Don’t get hit.”

“A bit late for that, my fists are already coated in them.” He wanted to ask her to keep quiet but he realised he wasn’t too distracted by the talking and the use of a weakened skin-layer Domain Augmented him to heights he’d never reached. So much so that even Ethereal Form Arts had trouble using his strength and speed properly.

“I thought you don’t touch things past your repulsion.”

“I’m hitting harder and faster than my repulsion can push them away. It’s usually the other way around so this is new.” Ebony quickly Flicker away again but he stepped between another pair of mandibles. ‘This is the fourth time, they know where I’m going to end up. Precognition is said to be more common in insect-type monsters compared to other races and this is what it’s like when an insect race reaches such levels?’

“...your sword, it broke when you swung it earlier didn’t it?” The space mage noticed why he sheathed Icicle.

“Just a crack, it’ll regrow in a minute.” He was playing it down, it burned from friction but cooled down almost as soon as a fire started. Since he swung it without magic it didn’t have any freezing flames warding friction and heat.

“That fast?”

“Benefits of growing on my mana. But it hit the ceiling a while back. It hasn’t been growing any more resilient or hard.”

“I’ll take a look at her later.”

‘They are still faster than me, considering my mind can’t even keep up with my top speed I have to use a diluted Arsenal to strengthen Woven Frostblaze Augmentation, Tempestuous Repulsive Membrane, Sonic Intrusion, Firm Path, Tremor Stomp, Stalwart Foundation for my close range capabilities. Indirectly buffing Fluid Blitz and Ethereal Form Arts ties all of them into one martial fighting style. I’m surprised Ethereal Form Arts didn’t swallow Tremor Stomp up. It feels like my mana is moving too slowly in my body for it to show its full effects. I need a greater Intelligence stat…oh, my muscles are tearing faster than I can regenerate and reconnect, I need to dilute it more.---Now my bones are freezing to brittleness faster than I can warm them up with vibrations. More dilution.’ Ebony needed this chance to test out his full capabilities.

He was well aware that the duelling grounds in the Quest Halls might not necessarily be built to withstand him. Much less overwhelm Madam Wilcox, he didn’t even use Woven Frostblaze Augmentation to the point where cold flames ignited over his skin.

‘Their precognition beats my prediction making Ethereal Form Arts a bad match up against them but this means there are still problems to iron out to make me Formless like mother’s spearmanship. Right, there should not be any active skills in mother’s arts. Should I try to ditch or incorporate Tremor Stomp into Ethereal Form Arts? But that would mean Stalactite Sunder is also one of the skills I need to tear down or modify.’

Ebony tried his strengthened control for Frigid Distorted Refraction but it did not help at all. Whatever senses the Ants used, sight was not what they depended on.

‘I got over excited by the numbers again. I’m completely out of balance. Arsenal of Will and Ethereal Form Arts make me too strong, I can’t use both to their full potential. Fine-- silvershim is getting into my system, I’ll forget about Domain’s buff and focus on levelling Ethereal for now.’

Ebony Flickered into the air, it was a little dimmer here because he was away from the indoor sports hall-looking battlefield. He caught his breath, feeling a little bad about the cheating. These Ants can’t fly even at the ranks of an Emperor but they weren’t fully out of options. They could jump and with enough of them jumping, they could fill up the entire airspace without anywhere for him to dodge.

‘Okay, silvershim’s stamina drain is kinda crazy. It even deals muscular damage that makes stamina recovery even harder. That would take away my ability to fight on for weeks. It could drop to days at the rate I’m getting poisoned. Freezing is not affecting it and sonic attacks aren’t removing them either. No hallucinations though.’ Ebony bumped up the mutated Silversonic Munchers' threat level up, putting them under the Apex Apes and Jetfins' estimated potential threat in water and above the Jetfins in the air.

“Is that not enough to catch them?” Ebony spoke out loud to himself while pointing at the Ants with frozen legs, mandibles and feelers.

“It is, but you looked like you were beginning to have fun. You know I can just eat them up into my mask without you beating them into submission don’t you?”

“...You can teleport all of them away huh.” As much as he’d like to complain about the needless work, he got the part of the data he was here for.

“Teleport is always the wrong choice of word. Elementary my dear brother. Oh well, I just built an anthill for them in my wor--mask. They will surely like it, a little bit of training and they’ll be producing silvershim for me in no time.”

Ebony thought he grew fast but Kong Jing’s exponential increase in spatial magic fluency was off the charts. He watched as tens if not hundreds of thousands of ants fell weightlessly into a deep, dark --nowhere. He couldn’t see where they fell but the rectangular block of darkness swept through the barren underground and swallowed every landbound creature except the earth itself.

‘Calculation results…not strong enough to guarantee a wife.’ Ebony did not get dejected and took Dusk back. It could lift itself off the ground with the load reduction modifications and gravity manipulation but the mana cost was not friendly.