Ebony's Fable

Ebony’s observation led him to believe that the main source of her current powers to be; one, the swap between two states. Two, her third Core Skill. He was unsure what it was, but it was likely something to do with her body, or more specifically her Constitution.

He highly suspected that like him, she refined her Physique the natural way.

Just hours ago, he saw her take a mandible bite on her torso. As devastated as he was when he saw that from a distance, Perpetual Tranquility Spring barely shook as he didn’t have time to be shocked at the speeds that the exchange was going.

He saw her body split in half but her torso where the bite had been, burst into flames.

If he wasn’t seeing things, she turned her physical body into pure elemental flames for a moment and rejoined before materialising back into physical form. However, the distance then made him doubt his eyes.

He had no such spell. How would one even turn a physical body into mana or an element?

He wasn’t a Model or a clone, and he tried to file up those fighting methods his clones used because his main body couldn’t use those tactics without a great deal of weakened flesh and bones for a period.

Then, there were the two of her Core Skill he was aware about.

Rampaging Immortal’s Pulse vastly increased her stats, especially Vitality.

And Transmutative Heart, like having improved in some form by now.

It converted the energies in her body from one to another.

Immortal’s Pulse gave her vast amounts of Vitality and Stamina and Transmutative Heart should be able to convert them into mana. The last he heard, she could mainly convert mana and stamina into vitality with some inefficiency but that was years ago. It would explain her rise in sustainability.

The last Core Skill was probably a skill that scaled for Constitution. It was the only explanation for how her body would be able to withstand her first Core Skill which, only limit's were the integrity of her body.

Putting aside her other linear improvements in utility but exponential improvements in pure power since he believed he could match that when he had his third Core Skill or if they were in his Domain with Dusk as his battery pack.

No, if Dusk was his battery pack then he would win a duel any day. He could shield himself and there was little she could do to melt through, she might do better than the Necrochitins outside purely due to her elements but he doubted months' worth of mana would be melted through.

However, that was no duel. He needed to completely beat her in direct combat or there would be no point.

The reason for her accomplishments in war, he suspected her mask had opened up and started growing properly.

Like Kong Jing whose mask had abilities, Ning Xin’s seem to finally do more than just store mana. It even had a physical appearance change. A thick dark red vertical line cut the left and right perfectly in half. One with the feather and one without. He had seen the white side turn fully red and the other fully black while the feather would shine bright on the black background.

As for what the appearance change meant, he didn’t know. He hadn’t found out what the capabilities of her mask were.

They were usually apart during the pest clean up and still had plenty of details they didn’t expose to each other. Swordplay was the bulk of their shared conditioning time. It was during these exchanges that both of them gauged each other.

She probably noticed his Ethereal Form Art to some degree even though they did swordplay. They were just that perceptive in battle.

She should also have noticed that in terms of battle instincts, combat positioning and timing, he left her far behind. Otherwise, with her superior swordplay and base power and speed they shouldn’t have anywhere close to an even match. Compared with the steampunk ‘young master’ her swordplay and battle instinct were greater if that was a consolation prize.

But she was predictable and he understood her Sword Art too well, even after the modifications she made over time. She was on her way to tier 5 since she had a book to follow but that was a long road.

Ning Xin had the method for tier 6 Conditioning methods, but she needed to alter them to fit her combat style. He had up to tier 5 in his memory, his mother closed the book before he saw the tier 6 version.

The tier 5 version he had was called ‘Neutronic Frame’ and the tier 6 was ‘Monolithic ch-something’ Unlike Ning Xin’s with proper explanation, all he had to go on from was stars pointing to his body. He did not decipher what that meant. The diagram couldn't mean tossing a star on his body. There was no surviving that with just a physical body.

They needed resources and equipment, a training room was required. One that can exert pressure and strain them.

A plum grew on one of Dusk’s branches. It sucked its leaves and petals back so that the Necrochitins couldn’t chomp them off. The plum was out of place and alerted munchers and tacklers. The leg pokers gently touched the surface of the ice plum but noticed the plum didn’t even budge or sway on its thin stem.

“You may begin once you recover.” Ebony timed Dusk not to cast vortex too early, it would be a waste of mana.

Habitually, he continued to work on Marsh’s Grove Conduit. He was skipping steps, he wanted the tier 3 version from the get-go. As expected, his understanding of mana chassis made him unable to swallow the skill book completely but he didn’t need heavy trial and error.

Xin filled the bomb shelter with crates, unpacking to look for snacks as she was not satisfied with a cup of mana melded blood.

“Move your leg.” She filled up the comfy space and made it cramped in moments.

“Hold this.” Ebony’s mind stayed focused but his body moved to hold the paper package.

“And this.” His hands were full and he had to bite onto the neck of a jar of sesame oil.

“Found it! Let go, and chew on this instead.”

He let the bottle go and bit into the succulent strip of bacon that retained heat and taste as if it was freshly cooked. She held onto the tupperwares and started packing again, freeing up his hands and leg space.

Chewing, he ignored her completely as his mouth kept filling up with bacon while he was messing around with his mana chassis and moving the energy within. If coagulated mana was his ‘marsh’ then he needed a grove to contain and disperse.

However, he was making it a point to keep it as a separate skill. The more diverse a skill, the harder it was to evolve. If Repository were to do even more things, it would be troublesome in the long run. He wasn’t exactly desperate for skill slots at the moment. If he kept it separate, it was easier to refine and make both do what they do better.

“I’m ready.” A blast of heat blew on his face and her scarlet hair tickled his nose.

“You may begin.” He informed both Xin and Dusk.

Black blood conjured and flowed through Dusk, towards the plum that hung outside. Electric sparks zapped within them to brighten the blood which had a dark red glow every so often. The sparks of electricity contained fires hot enough to vaporise Common and Uncommon iron with ease.

But the stream of blood didn’t boil over and quietly transported them to the plum where a growing vortex was swallowing every drop. The shell and flesh of the ‘plum’ had denser Domain fortifications and a weave of gravity to prevent its collapse from the vortex.

The gentle stream burst into a raging torrent as her hair continued to react in response to her agitation.

He tapped her shoulder to prevent her from going too deep into this state. Any deeper and she might attack him once again, he did not want a repeat of the situation last month where she almost sliced him up like an ingredient. Fortunately, he had been near Dusk and mana wasn’t a problem but he was an instant away from reacting in time. Even his Will had trouble acting fast enough.

Dusk was able to calculate how much a plum could withstand before growing a second plum to take in the excess. Ebony nodded his head at the fruits of his labour, creating Dusk and maintaining it all this while.

In many ways, it was already superior to some Magic Towers.

Ebony’s eye twitched when the fifth fruit was formed. ‘Since when did she have so much mana? What’s the conversion rate for her life force to mana? Did she dump all her stats into Vitality since all her other stats could be grown according to her Core Skill based on Vitality?’

He was well aware that Dusk’s consumption rate was increasing fast since it had to maintain 5 Gravity Quelling Vortexes at the same time.

Dusk’s branches shrunk to support the mana consumption.

He quickly worked Calculated Hunch to estimate if Dusk could survive the explosion. If his gravity manipulation was better, Dusk could be unscathed but it wasn’t good enough even within his Domain.

‘It would take damage but the bomb shelter won’t feel a thing…except heat. Hopefully, the freelancers won’t die in the meantime.’

“Xin. After the release, I will go out. You stay here. I will bring us to safety.” The Necrochitins furiously tried to crush the plums to no avail.

“...Can’t we work together?” The sixth plum formed and the Necrochitins started to put distance instead of attacking.

“I will focus on running, if you engage them I can’t retrieve you. Moving Dusk would take most of me.There are too many of them. They beat us at the number game, both stats and individuals.”

Ebony pushed her shoulders and got her seated, he needed to act fast.

He stole Dusk’s mana and made sure he stayed connected through his domain.

‘Should’ve tried to refine Flicker further.’

This was an explosive that would laugh at thermonuclear weapons with it’s effects but not where they were. Ebony was out of range of the Granite Hall’s flooring but well within the range of the Elven Matriarchy’s ‘Manifestation of Natural Preservation’

It was another one of the most ridiculous spells Ebony had heard of but he only knew of a tiny bit of the spell’s effect. Cast by 34 Kings and the Matriarch herself as a legitimate Emperor over level 750. Humans would struggle with combination magic between 3 people. The Elves truly were the race with the greatest number of elites. They weren’t all fighters, but they were all magic users.

As the name of the spell suggests, it preserved nature. A spell of stabilisation.

Everything natural was harder to destroy. Such as the air, moisture and earth.

Shockwaves were forcefully suppressed at least 200 times weaker.

It prevented Elva’s underground battlefield from collapsing on themselves.

Without the suppression, he estimated that their bomb’s direct fireball effect could reach at least 20 km radius and he did not know how far the thermal radiation would go. And this was using data from a previous bombing. The range was effectively powered by repulsion and not just the accelerated decompression of fire.

The current limitation for a single plum was the structure of the fruit, it couldn’t only contain a vortex of partial strength and that limited the amount of blood and fire mana it could carry.

He triple-checked the surroundings but no one was around. Even going so far as to have Dusk shout an announcement about the imminent bombing.

After all, he had to multiply the effects by 6 of the dangerous fruits hanging on Dusk.

The suppression helped prevent mass destruction and fallout but it also helped his targets as he would hit far less of them.

4 dozen Necrochitin Emperors surrounded him, they’ve already got their weaker kin to retreat after learning how useless they were against both of them. He wondered just how large their Powerhouse was.

He locked onto 6 and cast Torrent Path on them, the range of effects was going to be small and they’d already backed off but he hoped to get as many of them as he could.

While that was going on, he stripped his robe and Dusk stored it. He didn’t need the single boot either. He took a look at Icicle but let it rest on the hanger Dusk made for it.

“Won’t be long.” He reassured the black-haired lady and slipped into the liquid-like surface, not about to allow any gaps to open.

Ice Mana Decree - Ability to move and shape Ice Elemental Mana at will using minimal amounts of mana. Ice Mana moves however you intend with 300 + 5.0% accuracy and precision per level. Chances of helping you by their own inclination increased by a static 10% depending on the intent of your decree.

Classification: Ice magic

Despite the 5.0% level scaling, there was heavy debate if it’s tier 3 or 4 which sounded dumb to him when the scaling was universally used to differentiate skill tiers. That aside, the mana consumption was noticeably reduced. It helped with the reduction in mana use for all his ice magic if he didn’t take into account the skill evolutions.

As if stepping out of a puddle, his body was wrapped in thick scale armour before he surfaced to the vaporising heat.

Past the bomb shelter, 6 of the plums all landed without an issue. Most of the Necrochitins couldn’t use magic and the strength of their magic body depended on what parts they were made of. So the 6 targets he picked were all non-arcanite cortex sub-species.

The explosive range and fragmentations of his plum that vapourised moments after the release of Gravity Quelling Vortex had been suppressed from dozens of kilometres to dozens of metres. But it didn’t suppress the winds and flames that blew out.

Without any eye gaps in his helmet, he Flickered upwards and away. The entire region he was in would be in flames so there was no reason to keep his eye out. He didn’t even bother letting light in and refracted it away, that would just blind him further.

Without any notification, he knew that they didn’t kill a single ant.

‘Bad day.’ Ebony’s Flicker smashed him into something hard, probably a flying Necrochitin.

His body ricocheted to the side but he managed to serve and kicked a mana platform before he touched down.

Dipping into Dusk’s pool of mana, he vastly increased his Domain in one direction. Clipping onto the edge of his Domain, a point in space was designated for Torrent Path. The tree that only got heavier reduced its weight but it wasn’t able to rocket away.

“I’m not letting you run away this time, Cold One.”

Ebony gently allowed light to enter his ice helmet but it was still filled with black flames. Relying on his mana perception, he leapt back to Dusk.

“Let’s see who melts first, Cold One.” The talkative Saintess was helping him locate the kin that it was coming from.

He didn’t hesitate to propel towards the voice and hammered away. Building up Ethereal Fluid Blitz as fast and early as he could. Unexpectedly, he heard and felt ‘squishing’ as fluids splattered onto him.

‘Carapace or exoskeleton melted. A deep layer of flesh too. Only 2 of them held Dusk down…the others are more damaged, half a second before 4 reinforcements returned from where they ran. Uncertain when the others lying would start moving.’ Ebony did not let the failed attempt at building momentum and quickly readjusted.

His goal was to slap away the mandible chomping on Dusk. Ducking, he uppercut the one he just punched and leaned forward into a Flicker. Quake Kicking the other pair of mandibles released Dusk.

“You’ve already melted.” Ebony felt his tree rocket away and he quickly leapt into the same path.

The Saintess likely didn’t understand how much damage her Kin took because his feet literally cut through the mandibles before the ‘quake’ effect could even take place and his body flew past his target after slicing the body part that barely held itself together.

Ebony’s scale armour was vapourising fast even with his Domain buff and he wasn't unharmed underneath the layers that healed itself with his mana.

His mind shook from impact as those further away from the point of explosion charged upstream and rammed Dusk out of Torrent Path’s stream. His vision also cleared thanks to the Manifestation of Natural Preservation.

‘Barely moved three kilometres. This is going to take longer than I imagined.’ Dusk vastly reduced its’ Domain size again. If it was going to be a slog of an escape, they needed all the mana he saved up.