Ebony's Fable

“This area will do.” Ebony had some help from his unseen spectator to find a different spot. Even his spectator couldn’t see where the portals were but there was a rather obvious split in subspecies until a certain distance where they started to mix.

All the Tetramyths did without any targets around was stand still, like him but their feelers twitched more often than he moved in still meditation. To be fair, they were constantly walking or running forward because of how many of their kind they had to replace at the front every second. Ebony wondered if the ants knew maths. They must have, to determine that this death count was worth whatever they were doing.

“Stop. You’ve been summoned for dinner.”

“...That’s too bad. Are you all at the fortress?” Ebony replanted Dusk and patted her. His spectator commented that Ants exposed to his mana were less hungry and aggressive. They stayed still for a fraction longer before deciding he was food. A sign that his Fortification did make those exposed to his mana calm down.

“Yes, come back within twenty minutes. 133 km west for fewer spells and arrows flying around. A couple hundred more if you're coming back directly.”

“Great, you’ve come around and used the metric system. That’s enough time to park Dusk here, I’ll polish up some new instructions and she’ll tell me the data I want after dinner.” Ebony nodded at his successful brainwashing about the superiority of the metric system.

“Don’t get too engrossed in your toys and make her whatcha call it? Hangry? I can hear her belly grumble if that means anything to you.”

“Grumble? That’s bad news but I guess she must have had a good workout.” He repelled the frozen ants away and cleared up space around Dusk.

“Hey, push the pillows to the side and freeze them behind a wall, don't get them dirty.” Ebony was right at the end of the tiled floor, he didn’t want any interference even if Dusk wouldn’t be consumed. He aimed the door away from the Empire’s fortress and let it open again.

“Not more than 5 Models, I’ll create a few more for you but don’t use your stock of Will. You’re entirely created of compressed mana and you don’t have the limitations of a weak body. You won’t feel any mental dissonance either. You should be indestructible, I’ve tested. Coagulated Mana Repository or mana density in general is multiplicative even with Domains. So on top of Arsenal of Will’s multiplier, you have 6550% from my mana density on top of my Fortifications.” The Arcanite Cortex Formicidae broke through the wall of frozen ants that built up and slowed down from the increased weight on their legs.

Ebony had never hit Dusk but he had a feeling that nothing he did could put a scratch on his baby. As long as his calculations weren’t wrong, Dusk easily had 2470 times the effect of strengthening on top of his Intelligence and 2470 was not in percentage, that would be 247,000%. However, he was wrong about these percentages many times before due to his misunderstanding of how effects stack.

Like how he used to estimate his speed. He assumed speed was directly proportional to Agility and thought he was a lot faster than he actually was. ‘Ah the good naive days.’

Dusk’s leaves rustled and a root shot to wrap his ankle when he was done imbuing the tests that he wanted her to conduct.

“Don’t worry, even if you can’t hurt them they can’t hurt you either. I won’t be away for long and only a few hours' journey away. Play the piano if you want to call me, even if I’m out of range or can’t hear you over the explosions Sister Jing should be able to hear it.” The tree didn’t loosen up that much but he was able to feel his blood flow to his feet again.

‘Hmm, this is my Will so…am I that clingy?’

“We’ll eat dinner here next time, I’ll bring it up later. Thank you, now be good and get to work. Remember not to drop those plums, we haven’t filled it up with any fire yet.”

Ebony had ten minutes to cover the distance that had taken him a couple of hours before so he had to use his optimised Arsenal to push his Augmentation and Firm Path. Using such a strong version of the repulsion tunnel that was technically a cannon made it a lot harder for him to put a stop to his speed so he estimated a safe distance for him to slow down.

He just so happened to Flicker into the path of a lance-sized arrow. Fortunately, it swerved to the side thanks to his repulsion membrane. His mind was not fast enough to cast a spell that could match these projectile speeds.

‘The fortress is larger than Fifth Tide’s city. Where would they be?’

“Sister Jing, guide me.” Ebony tried to make use of the lighting but the constant fire blast here and explosion there made it hard on the eyes when one was in the air. As for mana or vibrational sense, that was even more of a mess.

‘That’s Hector. He’s about to---now that’s a black beam of annihilation. Quite a punch. Is that still a mega panch or did he change it? I want to call it impressive but the tiled floor just absorbs that thing. 6 elements compacted into a ball and punched out like a laser beam, always cool to see.’ Ebony was certain that he couldn't cast anything half as destructive when he was a Master.

He also suspected the presence of more than 6 elements. There was no saying that Hector only had control over 6 elements.

Ebony waved over but Hector was a little too busy to spot him. And too far.

“You know you could just ask me to get you here?”

“I know.” He wanted to Mental Map out the surroundings.

“I doubt it, stop using mana then I’ll get you over.” It was easier for the space mage to exert any form of control or effects onto his body when he wasn’t bathing himself in it.

Barely a moment later, he was flying above the fortress. There was no barrier activated and Ants were kept far from the walls. Navin was somewhere in the fortress city. He should be.

The Noble-led armies and soldiers were organised. They circled the fortress city and had a rotation going on.

Some didn’t look like they were part of the army amongst the knights but not many. Most unrelated people fought further away from the army. They didn’t want to get taken in as collateral damage from one of the Army’s barrages.

“Outside?”

“I can’t bring you in, we have to walk in.”

Ebony walked through the open gates. It was triple-gated with the first gate fully opened for large mechanical machinery. Dwarven weapons such as cannons and even something similar with a cart mounted with gatling guns. At least, that was what they looked like. Smaller doors were installed on the other two gates that required them to write down their entry record.

He simply put himself as a freelancer with the Quester crystal that was kept somewhere on him while Kong Jing put herself as ‘Null Horizon’ and used her aura as an identification. He also had to inject his mana into a crystal orb to register his entry.

‘This is for Navin’s barrier effects to work on us. Oops, I guess that means he can curse anyone within the fort. Or within Tidal. I’m going to assume Navin’s curses are stronger than Koawe just because Koawe, like all Elves, is taking their own sweet time and sitting at Grandmaster.’ Ebony felt his poisoned hands getting healed by foreign mana a moment after he registered his mana.

“Is Silvershim a poison, I didn’t get any resistance even though it’s strong.” Without the capability of spatial movement, they took a speedy walk through the streets with outdoor repair smiths and cooks.

‘Oh hey, I can put a model here to repair and train Inscripted.’ Ebony did not have the time or desire to personally sit here to train his repair and forging skills. He conjured an invisible Model and made it only capable of repair and runic work together with defensive and sealing skills. It was also capable of speaking a few preprogrammed sentences to explain its limited capabilities and that he was not a proper smith.

He charged ten spheres of ice that contained mana as its battery for runic inscription and overriding an equipment’s imbued energy and let it go. It walked away and tried to find an open spot.

“Silvershim has self-regenerative properties and it’s also a silver and mental element ingredient, it’s always harder to build natural resistance against multi-element poisons.” Kong Jing explained while eyeing the ant parts being passed around amongst the smiths.

“Mental is an element?”

“We just call it that, you can build mental resistance after all.”

“I don’t have that.”

“Neither do I or little Xin. We have strong genes, not much gets past our base resistance so we can’t build it up any stronger. Then there are our masks, providing first and foremost, soul protection, then mind and the weakest of them all, physical protection.”

They didn’t go into any fancy building. The space mage led him to a large canopy tent where the chef was barbecuing ant legs and boiling a head with root vegetables in her portable kitchen. It was no surprise, they were hunters and eating their hunt was the greatest respect to life that they could give.

‘Smells like shellfish, its shell is getting red like prawns or scorpions.’

“They were so weak you didn’t need fire magic?” Ebony asked while stealing a bite of sliced meat. He swallowed it down after realising it hadn't been seasoned.

“Not all, I left this bunch for eating. The ones with charred flesh and exoskeletons are with Sister Jing.”

“I needed compost and fertiliser, they can be used in potions too so the charring is no issue. The ones turned to ashes can’t be used though.”

“I didn’t waste that much, I adjusted my output.”

Ebony’s fists were healed but he did a thorough washing before he helped set the table.

‘Ting’

He silenced the bell ring before it told him anything. It was time for dinner.

“Needs to be more heavily seasoned.” Ning Xin wasn’t in combat mode with her black hair tied up into a ponytail. She wasn’t even wearing her mantle or bodysuit and only had her scale jacket under her clothes. She could summon her suit onto herself within a fraction of a second.

“Maybe you should keep your suit on,” Ebony suggested after noticing how many eyes were on her. They were in an open area with many such cooks, outdoor drinking bars and eateries. Her demanding presence aside, her figure wasn’t hidden without her suit and it added up to her attracting a lot of attention.

To be fair, the majority of the women within his mana perception were attracting attention. He understood, they were much better to look at compared to sweaty stinky, caked-up with blood men.

“There’s no danger.” She lifted her trusty wok to the table and poured its contents onto the serving plate.

“There are strong people here. I saw who I assumed the Dwarven Archduke was. We can probably beat him or at least, he can’t harm us. Didn’t see any Elves in my direction. On second thoughts, he might not have been the Archduke and just some Dwarven Noble.” Ebony shifted the serving dish aside for the large pot of stew.

“You’re not making a strong point. I saw the Elves, they can move around individually like us. Strong. Not just the Archduke or Archduchess, I might not beat some of the other Nobility. A lot of Kings and practically all with peak or maxed fortifications.” From the oven came stuffed peppers, baked potatoes and Ant casserole. Cooked ant flesh looked like crab meat.

“Navin’s Lord family is here too, if their growth progression is anything like Hector Mallory then they could be dangerous.” Ebony saw a few barrier mages in passing but he didn’t stay long enough to observe their skillset. Ning Xin turned the flames up to complete a stir fry, the last dish of the meal.

“The beastmen would be the least of our worries. They are just better warriors than humans but that’s all. The Foxes could use illusion magic but I think they’re nothing special.” Ebony estimated that she wouldn’t take long and scooped up fluffy white rice for 3 while she talked the beastmen down.

Hector was busy and Wilson was missing in action. Actually, they were missing in action while the old man was probably in action.

“Freelancers?” Ebony wiped his hands and pulled the seat for the chef.

‘Ting’

‘Again? Dusk is working hard.’ Ebony had to manually silence the mental bell as it wasn’t muted when he wasn’t in mortal danger.

“Haven’t seen anyone noteworthy. You?” She plated the last dish, to add variety it was chicken stir fry with mushrooms. Another round of handwashing later, she took her seat with thanks.

“I didn’t see any either.”

“Can we eat? I need to replenish sustenance for the mental workout.” The third wheel hurried.

“Taste like crustaceans, more crab-like than prawn.” Ebony took a chunky bite of the stuffed peppers.

“Their flesh and muscle tissues remind me of them too so I used similar preparation techniques. It’s a bit too metal-ly, I wasn’t about to remove them completely.” The chef started from the soup.

“It’s not that bad. But I don’t think multiple types should be mixed in a soup. They are too different in metal content.” He got to the soup.

“I disagree. Their distinct metal taste can be used to enhance each other with the right spices.”

“Can’t you two, I don’t know, talk about normal things during meal times?”

“We’re talking about food while eating. This is as normal as normal can be. Okay, but what spices are you going to use?”

“Like you, I experiment.”

They didn’t leave the crafter out when the conversation tipped towards methods of removing high metal concentration from the flesh. The chef wasn’t disheartened by the fact that it was almost impossible to separate them for the higher quality flesh from Kings with purely physical or mundane cooking techniques.

It required alchemic solutions and even then, they needed to be catered to the individual Ant. On the bright side, there were usually cooking equivalent ingredients and techniques that paralleled alchemy when it came to dealing with organic ingredients.

The obvious solution that Kong Jing came up with is to make a personal blend of herbs and spices catered to every type of monster or flesh type.

‘Ting’

“Put out the sound silencing.”

“You can’t read minds can you?”

“What? No, I want to ask for more ant flesh and for opinions while I experiment. Sister Jing can you make me an oven that can withstand higher temperatures? The ant flesh in the casserole was undercooked. My oven was about to melt before the meat even changed colour.”

“Certainly my dear little Xin. Coincidentally, we’re so deep in there’s Epic-ranked Deepearth all around us. It’s surprisingly cool for somewhere so deep, the Granite Halls know their stuff.” Kong Jing gave a rare praise for something that wasn't made by her.

“Gravity is different outside the tiled area so be careful when you shift out. About 8 times but it varies quite a lot, some areas were only 2 times stronger.”

“It’s okay, I’m used to fighting in gravity shifts thanks to you. Are they constant?”

“Constant in different spaces so only location matters but I haven’t checked it over time so I’m not sure if it shifts at different times.”

“It does, slowly. As in megaannum slow. Different kinds of natural resources are affecting gravity but thanks to their uniqueness, it’s hard to tell if stronger or weaker gravity means good stuff buried there. Pro tip if you’re in the wilds and there’s a drastically different gravity strength chances are, there's something good buried around that area. Unless it’s artificially regulated gravity by a spell or construction. ”

“What’s mag-anum?” The chef was back to a semi-combat state as her body temperature rose, she sanitized her hands and wore her apron and sanitized them again.

“Megaannum, a million years. You’re not going back to hunting?” He assumed her combat state was her hunger for combat kicking her physical hunger down.

“Of course not, I overused mana so I have a little headache and I need to fill up. Right, don’t hide your mana from me. The mana regeneration boost I’m getting from your essence is substantial.”

“I suppose you’re practising cooking while you’re recovering mana. I can stay and help for some time, maybe be your personal scribe for recipes and notes.” Ebony extended his overflowing essence to her.

“That’s great now put the sound barrier down.”

“Anyone hungry bring me ingredients, I’ll be cooking. No guarantee of taste. I’m going to need a bigger stove.” The chef didn’t need him to be her personal amplifier to spread her voice out.

‘She wanted to open a restaurant didn’t she? Let’s use this as training, I’ll give her a few waiters it shouldn’t take much Will to make Models that can’t fight. I bet sister Jing has tables and utensils sitting around somewhere.’

‘Ting’

‘Oh keep quiet you. Dusk is working hard, that’s the eighth skill level up for Frostweave Vital Constriction since dinner started.’ Ebony nodded to the fact that range doesn’t matter and he was receiving experience from his spell and pet tree.