Ebony's Fable

There were few complaints from the public, be they smiths or other fighters. Plenty of Ant flesh was being circulated and they didn’t mind sharing spices or seasonings if it meant a proper chef was cooking for them. Of the many professions that came down here, it was rarer to find a chef.

Ning Xin might not be the best chef around but not everyone has access to decent food in the current situation.

Ebony had Kong Jing’s help to ‘summon’ a bunch of tables and chairs. They didn’t provide utensils. Like an outdoor camp, he had a couple of ice sculpture servers that scooped soup and all the other dishes onto other people's bowls that they brought themselves. It wasn’t exactly restaurant-like but that was hard to do with hundreds of people and counting. The scent of food was attracting hungry packs of combatants.

Another group of Models were handling ingredient donations and checking for food spoilage or contamination before carrying them over to the 2 combined canopy tent makeshift kitchen.

‘Her mana’s about half full, I should go check on Dusk now. I’ll spend another minute coding a Model that can scribe her recipes and personal notes with some bodyguard capabilities. Oddly, Will has exactly ten times the range of my mana’s reach. Glacial Model is the only skill that increases Will’s range but it’s always relative to my mana sense’s range. Range is going to be useful for controlling mini-mes and Dusk which, not surprisingly has the range boost effect from the Glacial Model skill, I should try to refine that since taking a Fortification for range doesn’t seem worthwhile.’ Ebony said goodbye and made sure that Ning Xin was disturbed out of her ‘zone’ while mumbling cooking jargon.

“Sister Jing, watch after her. There might be troublemakers.” Ebony already had to deal with combatants yelling and getting physical with smiths and enchanters that ‘shamelessly’ sat to eat when they didn’t give any ingredients or seasonings.

However, he was a little surprised that his mana’s soothing effect was as strong as it was. As long as he diluted it to a hundredth of his maximum density, people wouldn’t be alarmed by his mana. There was too much essence about and they wouldn’t be alarmed even if only diluted it to a fiftieth of max density. Even then, it was good enough to reduce people's tendency to get violent or agitated noticeably.

“Huh, oh. Of course.” The craftswoman stared into space for another moment before she acknowledged his words.

“You’ve been zoning out the entire time.”

“I’m dealing with the Silvershim and Arcanite Wraithsteel Ants. Getting them to settle down is more trouble than I expected. I’m out of space so don’t expect me to do the same thing again. Just shout for help if you’re dying or whenever you plan to share that idea of yours with me.”

Ebony didn’t question her about her personal ‘space.’ He didn’t see the Wraithsteel variants so he didn’t know what about them attracted Kong Jing’s attention.

“Yes, I’ll go consolidate the data Dusk got and I’ll ask you if it's feasible if it’s feasible on my end.” Ebony dropped a whisper to the chef telling her he was going to get to work before he walked through the eatery and was about to pass by the last table.

“Stop there ice mage.” A 2.2 metre tall Elf stepped through the crowd eating ant leg skewers. The man looked similar to the Frost Elves. Androgynous with long hair but sharper ears and with pale white skin instead of bluish. He had luscious blond-green hair and a constant frown while patting his robe off the physical contact he just received by pushing through the chatty crowd lining up for a seat.

“Walk. I’ll listen.” Ebony did not slow his steps down, if someone wanted to tell him something they should follow his schedule.

“I told you to stop!”

Ebony sensed a foreign mana near his legs and glanced down. ‘The tiles here prevent casting so he’s conjuring wooden roots instead of manipulating existing trees. Not that there are any tree roots under this. Surely casting magic on a stranger with a single sentence is not normal. But he’s good, he’s casting less than a metre away from my body. Better than Village Chief Orren but Orren is only a Master.’

He let the roots entangle him but his gait and momentum moved on uninterrupted, tearing the roots that wrapped around his ankles in the next second.

“Follow if you have something to say. I have places to be.” He mentally tilted his head when his mana sense saw the Elf stumble on nothing when he pulled on the roots. ‘His mind-body connection is so strong that his spell moving is enough to make him stumble? I suppose there are both advantages and disadvantages to that.’

Ebony recognised that Elves were less affected by foreign mana so he didn’t hold back with his overflowing essence on the stranger. It would be nice to check what effects his soothing mana was like at normal density and volume.

“Insolent bugger, so you’re one of those hybrid warriors. And here I thought I would be speaking with a respectable human mage for once. I told you to stop, do you know who I am?” A wooden prison spawned and caged him, blocking light out.

“No.” Ebony began to let his compressed mana leak out a little since it was interesting to see how much it would take for Elf’s to be affected and what would constitute ‘soothing’. So far, getting people to calm down and increase their mana regeneration seemed to be the two most obvious effects. It also worked in tandem with his Will’s increase in compulsion.

When he had the thought of calming someone else down and extended his Will-filled mana to them, it strengthened the effects of his mana based on his will.

The wooden onion-bulb-shaped prison bent out and burst open as he kept his gait constant. However, he needed Arsenal of Will to help him walk out and had his gravity repulsion push a hole open for him to continue walking at the same pace.

This was a first for him, his gravity magic was comparatively weak against opponents of the same level. Even without skill evolutions, a simple domain was enough to overpower a casual spell by an Elf.

‘I’m not in a rush to check on Dusk, should I ask him for a spar? He seems like he won’t have an issue getting serious. I thought Elves were supposed to be less prone to violence. Maybe it's just this particular person.’

“Is that all?” Ebony realised that it was not every day that he got to spar with an Elven mage. Now that he had a better hang of a real Domain, he wanted to know what would happen if he were within another person’s Domain. Could he still summon his? Are both mage’s Domains weakened? Are both Domains in full effect?

‘Wrong tone, this sounds like I’m picking a fight. Hmm,that is indeed the case here. Nothing wrong then.’ Ebony came to a stop and turned. “Actually, my schedule just freed up. Hit me.”

“Wh?”

“Hurry up, I’m worried about my pet tree. Hit me.” Ebony was notified of Arsenal of Will Domain’s first level-up. Less than 4 hours for a level in a skill over 600 was a lot better than the 8 levels in a level 450ish skill.

“Tch, not just a hybrid but a brain-dead lunat-” The Elf violently plummeted to the ground. Biting his tongue, he almost sliced his tongue short.

‘Let’s see…level 412. But unlike Orren and his party, this guy is on a battlefield not a safe village so he might not be as old. He can’t stand within my Arsenal of Will strengthened magnified gravity? Right, they don’t have good body enhancement magic but they have a good passive that strengthens their body with the mana in the body. Like me, just less connected. Wasted a few seconds, why be violent if he’s so weak? I don’t understand.

How long can I keep him here if I walk away? The further I go, the more mana costly. Hmm, if Will is all that’s needed and I can cast a second Domain with both me and Dusk existing at the same time, can’t I cast a third? I’ll imbue a tiny amount of Will in a ball of ice, making it only capable of slowing things down with ice, vibrations, gravity and sealing…no that doesn’t work, a ball of ice can’t act as a core, I know that already. Never mind then, I don’t have that much Will to spare to create another tree.’

“Okay okay, I get it Dusk. I’m coming already no need to rush me with another skill level.” Ebony smiled and left the Elf who didn’t want to cut to the chase alone.

Once he got pass all the gates, he Flickered away to find Dusk.

‘I should have expected this.’ Ebony did not find a tree where he should have. He found a dome of frozen ant bodies. Three of his Models were pushing out frozen bodies and launching them into the distance but they did not have a program as to how hard they should toss bodies away and they were practically launching cannon balls that shatter on impact into the distance.

The gap that opens up is constantly refilled but the Ants never got far.

‘They should be intelligent right? I don’t see that. Maybe because no Emperors are directing them. They are quite attracted to Dusk but not any more than any moving object at the moment. It’s hard to tell if they see Dusk as a living creature thanks to my vitality, mana, Will or all of the above.’ Ebony realised that he was the stupid one, the ants recognised Dusk as a threat and were trying to remove her.

‘Dusk is thinner? She lost 2 layers of scaled bark…that’s a lot of mana loss. The mana requirement is too high. There are so many Kings here. Strong enough to break through the lousy sealing till 30 metres away from Dusk. So she’s farming them for sealing magic levels since they keep breaking free.’ The outer layer occupied more surface area than the inner, losing 2 layers of bark was an immense mana cost. Days of mana regeneration since they were all fully compressed.

Since he regenerated roughly 3.5 million points over mana in an hour and a little under 100 million points of mana in a 28-hour day. The outer 2 layers of bark were roughly equivalent to more than half a billion points of his mana. Dusk was his best mana capacity skill. As long as he could carry around a 15-metre tall and 8-metre wide tree.

It also meant the battery within Dusk was already empty. Ebony needed to optimise Dusk’s mana usage. She might be using too much power for trivial things.

Ebony walked past the bear-sized Ant that broke free only to be encased in ice when a burning petal fell on its head the next moment. Dusk had vomited the piano back out for him and he took a seat.

“Alright, give me the data.” Ebony reached forward and touched Dusk’s bark to retrieve the vibrational and gravitational data. It was how Dusk contained memory just like his Models. It had Calculated Hunch and could do the math as well.

He didn’t leave Dusk alone for long but he took a few minutes to analyse the data he received.

‘It can work, they regenerate mana.’ Ebony didn’t bother with the piano and stood up.

“Sister Jing.” He let his voice out of Dusk’s control.

“I’m listening.” It took a second before she replied.

“You can make anything right?”

“If I know the logic of its construct.”

“You should be familiar with what I want made.”

“What is it? I’m kinda busy.”

“Can you come here? I want to seal out the sound.”

“Haa, troublesome little brother. I told you I’m busy. Oh, so this is the effect of your Domain? Interesting, I still don’t understand how you can use this Will thing. It’s impressive.” Kong Jing’s feet came in and were shifted back in his view but it was her spatial compression that was hindered. The space mage was only about to come about a hundred metres away from Dusk. She might not be using her full magical strength but that was a win in his books.

Dusk was maintaining a 150-metre radius domain, with the strength of the domain weakening the further away it was from her main body. It was far more mana-efficient this way.

The tree recognised who he recognised as friendlies and didn’t exert pressure or aggression against the space mage.

“Alright speak, this better be interesting. I’m preparing to evolve you know.”

Ebony had Dusk strengthen the vibrational stabilisation so his voice didn’t escape then he stated what he wanted.

“HAHAHAHA, you’re crazy. Yes, I can do that. But you’re asking for a God to smite you. Use their kin’s brain as organic matter for you to make an artificial brain to source your pet tree’s mana? And use your mana’s calming effect to increase its mana regeneration?”

“Are the Kings not enough?”

“What, are you asking me to use lower quality materials when there are better options right in front of us? They will know. And they will kill us both. I’m going to need to call for backup if we’re serious about this little project. Heh, making another brain for my next evolution…”

“We? I guess you’re on board.”

“You said the one with the fastest regeneration is the Allochrome Devorants at an estimated 2% of their Wisdom? I can make it half-mechanical to increase its base regeneration. That would allow me to make more complicated runic formulas.”

“Just an estimation based on what I think their Wisdom stat is. Their race is not exactly attuned to mana and the Arcanite only absorbs and dispels but does not use it effectively. Organic is good, I can seal it up and boost its healing so it won’t die and it can regenerate mana even faster if I manage to make my sealing skill boost mana regeneration. See, creatures are better alive than dead.”

“Hello, I have a farm and I don’t kill to level like you do. And I’m not crazy. Remember the underground tomb, I traded its information and location with my clan because it’s outside my jurisdiction. That’s why you meat-heads die young. Xeng blood indeed.”

“That’s why you left? I thought you simply got everything you wanted.”

“I did and I didn’t. That place was left behind by some Dwarves’ ancestors, not from Elva mind you. The homunculi are too advanced, I can’t remove or kill them. I’m guessing it’s some alchemic-focused group of Dwarves. That giant tombstone that absorbs 600 lives for natural potential? Just a hoax, barely efficient for people. A failed experiment. The Dwarf that banked on abandoned technology couldn’t be more stupid. It's used for homunculi or monsters that have very similar genetic makeup not unique people with different Classes, Sub-Classes, Profession and an entire lifetime of skill acquisition.”

“So there are really strong homunculi deeper?” Ebony and Ning Xin left since there was nothing much for them underground other than going deeper. The entrance to the depths were in all the golem factories and they had a bad feeling about those back then.

“Dangerous might be more fitting, the area of effect topaz magic of the purple ones was already ridiculous. Did you know further below, there’s a black one that can use combination magic and mass laminar enchantment with each other as an area of effect? Utterly impossible to get anything so I might as well sell the information. Damn geezers played our findings down because it was useless for most of them.”

Ebony couldn’t be bothered to ask what she got out of the information. She already helped him with plenty of things from the upgraded robe to his mobile house and Dusk’s giga battery without asking anything from him. He was more interested in finding out what the combination magic was like and what mass laminar enchantment was.

“So you think this plan is on the same level of danger?”

“Same level? You’re comparing an abandoned factory with harvesting the brains of a distant kin of a God. Sure, we can see from their behaviour that Kings and below are monsters that only follow orders and their instincts that only know how to differentiate prey from resources but kin is kin.”

“I’m not killing them. Look, the Vitality stat works in wondrous ways, especially in tandem with racial or Physique traits. Most monster’s physiques make it such that they die very slowly as long as they have enough vitality, meaning losing blood or a body part wouldn’t lead to immediate death. In the case of these so-called divine ants, they have impressive Vitality. They don’t die even with the loss of a head. Thanks to their insect brain, they don’t go into panic when their heads disconnect. Meaning their mana regeneration stays mostly constant. Even more impressively, I can compress their brain and they still won’t die immediately. With a little optimization with my Sealing magic that boosts their vitality, I’m just putting their lives to full use. And bam, we can still use the rest of its body. No need to bury it. No waste and full of respect for life.”

“...You have gone off the rails little brother, but I can’t say that when I run a farm. It won’t work. Their instincts will fight back and we won’t smoothly extract mana.”

“Watch.” Ebony walked over to an ant being suppressed by a Model hugging it and constantly burst, freezing the poor thing. He dismissed the Model on the level 520 ant and put his hand on its head before gently pushing his mana past its physical and magical forms.

“See, it’s not attacking me anymore. All it takes is soothing mana, compelling Will and concentrated power of mana and Will to calm it down. I imbued the thought of ‘safe and full, time to rest’ into my mana and what do you know, its affected by the same train of thought.”

“Ebony. That is too much power. Stay grounded. As human as you can be. You’re overriding a creature's individuality. Didn’t you say you learnt an eye for an eye, I thought you don’t provoke creatures unprovoked.”

“You’re right.” Ebony released the exposure of his mana to the ant and stopped Dusk from holding the creature down. It chomped on him the moment it got its chance. Dusk protected him with two walls of ice that conjured out of thin air, “Is this what you call unprovoked? They want me as tribute as a mana battery, a mana source. I’m not going out to hunt them as you did with the silvershim, I’m just parking here and they are coming for me. This is an eye for an eye.”

Ebony stared straight into the masked craftswoman’s exposed eyes, causing her to remain silent still.

“I worry.” In a rare case of seriousness, Kong Jing pats his shoulder.

“I’ll be fine. There’s barely any level of threat down here.” Ebony replied straightforwardly.

“No, with your mindset, how are we supposed to get the best materials? Do I have to wait till a Saint comes for you?”

“I’m not the crazy one Sister Jing, it’s you. I thought you were referring to the Emperors. Do you want me dead so badly?”

“Come on, that’s just a joke. We’ll leave it at that, I think I’ll have to look for Yvette or her husband to discuss some things.”

“What things?”

“Xeng de--support.”

“Poor ants.”