Ebony's Fable

“******! ******!”

Hearing shouts in the middle of the night, Ebony quickly woke the girl up. She shook the grogginess off and started shouting back excitedly when she heard the calls. If he had to guess, it was whoever was looking for her. There was only a single voice and it was pretty deep so Ebony assumed it was a male Frost Elf. The footsteps trudging through the snow came close and he was clearly surprised by Ebony’s presence.

[Ice Archer Lvl ??]

“****** **** ********* *** *****”

Wariness in the man’s voice when he saw Ebony. The moon was up and Ebony could still make out that the man was talking to him, not just because he was pointed at with a nocked bow of course. Ebony wondered up to what level could he Identify, though he was certain he wouldn’t be able to fight back anyway.

“** *** *** ****** ***” The little Frost Elf evidently explained things since he put the bow down and even bowed apologetically. There was no change in Ebony’s expression throughout the exchange even with an arrow pointed at him, Ebony didn’t really blame the elf for being wary with him being so suspicious anyway.

“You wouldn’t happen to have the communication gem that Gen had, do you?” Ebony asked without much hope. Standing closer, he could see that stories depicting elves being handsome and beautiful weren’t exaggerated. The Frost Elf had clean and sharp facial features, a slender body wearing medieval-looking leather armour with a bow and quiver of arrows on his back.

He seemed more stunned than surprised when he found out Ebony doesn’t speak their language so humans and elves should logically speak the same language here. The elves spoke to each other for a while before they started moving along. The archer shot an arrow into the sky that burst into shards of ice. A signal of sorts maybe?

The young girl pulled Ebony along as the man guided them through the forest, unbothered by the darkness. Since they weren’t hostile and the man even apologised to Ebony, the chances of them throwing him in an underground dungeon or prison to interrogate him seemed low.

Ebony was trying to get to the village anyway so he obviously followed without resistance. 30 minutes of walking later Ebony could see light in the distance, reaching not long after.

It was a large village based on its size, wooden walls about 7-8 metres tall surrounded them. There were 2 more [Ice Archer]s whose levels he couldn’t Identify standing guard at the wooden gate. The Frost Elf guiding him called out to them after they finished chit-chatting, giving Ebony looks from time to time as they were let through.

Their guide was likely a guard too, from the same set of leather armour they were wearing to their familiarity with each other. Bringing them into what he guessed was the guardhouse or office. No underground dungeon, just another 2 Frost Elves.

[Master Tailor Lvl ???]

[Master Crofter Lvl ???]

‘Ting’ ‘Generic Skill Identify Level up 11 → 12’

‘Everyone’s high level around here. The lady tailor went up to hug the young girl while the slender man just patted her head. Parents, Ebony assumed. All the Frost Elves so far had light blue skin, white hair and were tall and slender but they looked remarkably alike so no surprise there.

Only noticing Ebony after the scolding they gave her. Giving the young girl another chance to reexplain her story. Ebony was pulled along after they thanked the guards and left the guardhouse.

Wooden houses and cabins filled the streets and they arrived at one of the bigger cabins in the area. With a large yard and garden which was likely the field or croft of the male Frost Elf. There was a wooden sign with the logo of a coat or robe at the front door.

It was an awkward night and honestly, Ebony almost thought he preferred being back out in the forest. That was before he was shown the bath, ice-cold just the way he liked them. No longer as cold as it should feel with his increased resistance. They even clothed him in the softest, most comfortable set of clothes he’d ever worn. As expected of a level ??? tailor.

Bowing deeply and thanking them to show his gratitude even if they couldn’t understand him when he was given a guest room, bed and all. It wasn’t the first time Ebony had given the wrong impression because of his dead facial expressions so, seeing how bowing was also a thing here he presumed it wasn’t considered rude to them.

Ebony was filled with questions but he had no way to ask anyway so he just collapsed onto the soft soft bed.

❅❅❅

“Hello?” A soft voice rang.

“...” Ebony sat up from lying down, looking fresher than before.

“You’re awake! Good Morning.” The young girl from the night earlier had a cheerful tone to it, even mentally.

“...Good Morning. You had that communication crystal thing after all.” Ebony replied, seeing a similar light purple gem on the necklace the young elf was wearing.

“Father borrowed it from old man Nat earlier this morning. Thank you for saving me last night. I am Clovis. You are?”

“Ebony, no problem. I couldn’t just walk away when a young girl like you screamed for help and cried to sleep.”

“I..I am a BOY! And I didn't scr...scream for help, or cry...” Clovis mentally exclaimed, getting quieter towards the end, embarrassed.

“...I see, sorry about that Clovis.” Ebony wasn’t surprised with how both men and women Frost Elves looked so stunning. Children had softer features anyway and it wasn’t uncommon to mistake a young boy for a young girl right?

“N..No it's okay. But why don’t you speak Elcrian? What language were you speaking? And why were you in the forest in the first place? You are classless too. Humans don’t frequently come out this way, much less classless. Your clothes are weird too, even mother has never seen anything like that. Where are you from?” Clovis barraged Ebony with questions.

‘Talkative.’ was the only word that came to mind.

“I don’t know. I don’t remember anything before I woke up in the forest a few days ago.” Half lying, Ebony feigned memory loss as it was the best way to explain not even understanding the language. Clovis didn’t even catch on that Ebony knew about the communication gem.

He could also ask all his questions even if they were common sense here and it wouldn’t be as suspicious as he could blame that all on memory loss.

The questions and answers went on for a while before Clovis said he was running out of mana. Identifying the necklace gave him a bunch of question marks until he Identified it after Clovis told him it was a Mental Thought Imagery Translator Transceiver and explained its functions. Mouthful.

[Mental Thought Imagery Translator Transceiver (Uncommon) - Send conceptual mental thoughts and images to another entity within 5 metres by injecting mana and specifying a target to mentally link to. Consumes 3MP/Min]

Borrowing it from Clovis, Ebony tried injecting mana into it and it was easier than he thought. Perhaps too trusting, but Clovis easily believed the memory loss shtick. It turned into a lecture instead of a question and answer with Ebony using his mana to supply the necklace.

❅❅❅

Ebony was on Elcra where the majority of the races speak Elcrian, though some may have kept to their traditional languages. Races namely, Human, Elves, Dwarves and Beastmen with Foxmen, Wolfmen and Lizardmen being the bulk of them.

This Frost Elf village was called Arcta, lying on the outskirts of Hoarfrost Glade, the forest they were in. Not so much a town, just a large village. Other races rarely come here due to the environment. They had the same 4 seasons and it was currently, according to Clovis, one of the hotter summers they had which Ebony could only be thankful for or he would have frozen to death by now.

All the races share something in common and it was that they are only able to gain skills, classes, stats and whatnot after they turned exactly 15 years of age. Before turning 15, one was as normal as he was before coming here. No notifications, no skills, nothing. The difference was that they had mana and the ability to use it but most wouldn’t be able to do much with it without their mana pool growing till a reasonable size and the talent to sense and manipulate their own mana.

No other races could stand living in Hoarfrost Glade classless for long as they can’t take the cold temperatures. It was home to the Frost Elves since their natural cold resistance was high.

There wasn’t much here either, produce was low, they didn’t have much variety to the crops they grow even with farmers being a class with skills to increase yield or quality. They procure meat by hunting monsters, the most common being the frostfang rabbits, hoarfrost boars, deer and more. The foxes don’t taste good and some of the fox beastmen may be offended by it or so Clovis says. The wolfmen on the hand couldn’t care less about eating wolves themselves. They didn’t see each other as the same race or species at all.

It was quite a revelation that the currency used here was in the form of not coins, notes or some rare metal but Mana. It was a power source for almost everything. To be more accurate it was mana ores. It was hard to tell by seeing this village but technology is supposedly pretty advanced. Maybe not scientifically but magically. Even home appliances like lights and cooking stoves run on mana.

Ebony was thinking about inflation when everybody can produce mana, wouldn’t levelling and adding stats to the Wisdom stat just make higher level people much richer than those who didn’t. Clovis did address this issue he brought up which, while true to a certain extent, didn’t change things much on the larger scale.

All the races had different base stats when reaching the age of 15.

Dwarves had higher Strength and Constitution stat but below average Intelligence and Wisdom.

Beastmen differ from one another but mostly had higher Vitality, Strength, Endurance and Perception but they had the lowest Intelligence and Wisdom stat out of the 4 major races with the exception of the Foxmen who were the exact opposite.

Elves have the lowest physical stats but also have high Perception and the highest Intelligence and Wisdom.

Humans were the oddball with average stats overall, weaker than Dwarves and Beastmen and dumber than elves basically. Humans had the biggest population size by a long shot and according to Clovis it was weird that few humans always seem to have some that have either really high physical stat or really high magical ones, standing out from the other humans. Most humans lean towards physical stat too though. Whereas, such cases were incredibly rare amongst the other races where their natural stats hardly differ from one another.

There were unknown numbers, possibly an infinite number of classes but they were roughly categorised as combat classes, production or crafting classes, and support classes. Combat classes are the most popular as in any world where strength does the talking and it's even more prevalent when every individual can level and gain power. That, and monsters were a real threat.

Dungeons are a thing here and dungeon breaks have destroyed cities many times over history so strong people are always in demand. Almost every Beastmen with the exception of the foxes and most Dwarves combat class holders are warriors, with their natural talent lying in physical skills. Capitalising on their strength, a large portion of the stats they gain go to their physical stat as they would not use mana to fight. If they added their precious stats to a stat they are not able to utilise fully in battle would be foolish as their lives were on the line.

Most combat Elves were either Archers or Mages or both, either with hybrid classes or with their sub-class. Human mages were pretty uncommon but not exactly rare either. For these mages who focus on their magical stats they tend to save their mana to actually use in battle and couldn’t just spend it wishy washy. It's still true that mages are the richest lot due to their higher mana regeneration they just spend the most as well. Just thinking that every magic spell used in combat was throwing money at your enemies... sounds fun. Here’s 500 bucks in your face! have another thousand up your ass!

Mana is used everywhere and is a power source that doesn’t drop in value. Whereas, a reason for not using coins was that metals were better used to make weapons or armour and other building materials. Many crafters and support classes also require mana to do whatever their class was about.

[Mana Ore (Common) - Solidified mana (1000/1000)]

Clovis showed Ebony a small 2cm transparent crystal dipyramid or was it a trigonal dipyramid? Whatever the shape was called it was like a battery that absorbs one’s excess mana when placed onto what Clovis called the Myriad Bracelet.

Ebony understood it as like the smartphone of this world. Literally everyone wears one of these myriad bracelets, it was a thick bracelet or perhaps wide was the word. It has multiple slots in the same shape as the mana ore where one could be slotted in to absorb one excess mana. There were all sorts of gems made into the same shape with many different applications.

There was even one called a Callstone which was basically making a phone call, the range and mana consumption was based on the quality though. The number of other Callstone it could link up to is quite limited as well.

Another interesting fact Ebony learned was what happens to your regeneration when your HP, SP or MP is full. It leaks out as overflowing essence. Essence was simply the combination of all 3, stamina to a lesser extent. Much easier to visualise than Gen abstract explanation.

Mana ores are mined, resized and shaped into its current form as a standard form so every appliance or machine, etc. can use the same mana ore as a battery. Placing 1 or 2 on their myriad bracelet is the norm so that no mana was wasted when they were full on MP, especially when they fell asleep.

The myriad bracelet was the one facilitating the movement of mana, depending on the quality of the bracelet the mana transfer efficiency differs too. One with 70-75% mana efficiency was considered decent.

Clovis was the hyperactive type and seemed excited about explaining any and everything.

Like how the myriad bracelet was made by history’s greatest inventor, a human called Zenin roughly 1200 years ago who was apparently still alive by turning himself half golem to extend his lifespan. To be fair to Clovis, these stories were indeed interesting to Ebony, it let him get a glimpse of what Elcra had to offer.

Ebony was right that the days were longer as 28 hours made a day, 14 hours for both day and night. 60 seconds still makes a minute and 60 minutes still makes an hour. 7 days a week, 4 weeks a month with exactly 28 days every month and 14 months in a year or 392 days. It wasn’t too hard to wrap his head around.

Summer and winter lasted for 4 months each while spring and autumn lasted 3. It was easy to tell when the seasons change as the moon changes colour as well. The current summer moon was white. Come autumn it would turn light orange and slowly darken and turn red by the end of autumn. Darkening red till light completely goes out by the middle of winter with the moon being black, making winter travel during the night extremely dangerous. The moon gradually brightens to a dark purple, getting lighter and lighter till summer comes round again.

Oh how Ebony looked forward to seeing all the different sights the seasons will bring to a single place.

❅❅❅

Ebony returned the necklace when his mana was running low, Clovis’s colourful expressions were the complete opposite of Ebony’s. Turning excited to stunned silent to jumping around excited, running out of the room shouting what Ebony guessed either meant mother or father.

It was bright out now and Ebony could truly see that elves’ beauty wasn’t exaggerated at all, he couldn’t be blamed for thinking Clovis was a girl.

Used to Clovis’s antics, his mother just nodded along and patted his head. Taking the necklace off him and putting it on herself. The necklace could be considered an antique or relic as it was a singular slot myriad bracelet in a sense.

“Hello, young human, I’m Roya Thoya, this child’s mother. Once again, we are truly grateful you have saved our foolish son. Thank you.” Roya spoke out like Clovis but it was also translated and sent to him mentally. Unlike Ebony who just kept his mouth shut the whole time when communicating telepathically. She bowed and pushed Clovis to do the same to which Ebony returned the bow to be polite.

“Greetings, I am Ebony Rime. I didn’t do much, I was lost in the area and couldn’t ignore a scream much less ignore a young child in danger after I’ve seen it. Rather, thank you for your hospitality. The bath was great, these are the most comfortable set of clothes I have worn and I hadn't rested so well for quite a while.” Ebony replied with his own gratitude. Being polite was only natural to someone who’d helped you was what he had always been taught. Besides, praising a tailors clothes would never go wrong right?

“...It’s the least we could do. Would you like to join us for breakfast?” Roya asked.

“That would be wonderful.” Ebony replied.

Ebony ate with Clovis and Roya. Clovis’s father, Halvis, had already ate and was tending to his field.

Breakfast was bread, cream stew and fruit salad. The bread was cold, dry and hard but perfect with soup, the stew was thick and filled with white, green and black vegetables with hoarfrost boar meat. The white ones were carrots and green was, as always, broccoli, the black tubers tasted exactly like potatoes while boar was the tastiest pork he had.

The servings were huge, apparently lunch wasn’t a thing here. They ate 2 meals a day, breakfast and dinner but had much larger portion sizes.

“Wait! You can’t eat that.” Roya stopped Ebony when he reached for the fruit salad with slices of blue fruits.

“Oh. I’m sorry.” Ebony pulled his hands back.

“No, you misunderstood, those are frost plums. We Frost Elves could eat them normally but without high cold resistance or Constitution stat it wouldn’t just freeze humans tongue off if you manage to get it to your stomach you may even freeze to death over time.” Roya explained, glad she stopped Ebony on time.

“...Did you say plums?”

“Ye..yes, why do you ask?” Roya sounded confused by how serious Ebony sounded compared to his already stoic voice.

“It’ll be fine. I won’t freeze.” Ebony strongly stated, taking a slice with his wooden fork shoving it in. His natural cold resistance increased by 50% and with Sheer Cold Resistance at lvl 26 increasing his cold resistance by another 65%. Even if it still freezes his tongue off it was a risk Ebony was willing to take. They say durian, mango, papaya or mangosteen was the king/queen of fruits. Then to Ebony plums were the emperor, no, the god of fruits. All hail the mighty plums. Even their flowers were Ebony’s favourite.

It had a texture like frozen canned peaches and tasted sweet first then sour. Cooling. Not anywhere close to freezing one’s tongue off or freezing one from inside out. ‘New favourite, need more.’

“Ah..are you okay?” Roya’s concerned look brought Ebony back.

“Yes, the meal was delicious. As were the frost plums. Thank you.” Ebony gave his sincere compliments.

“As long as you are okay. Thank you for the compliment, I will cook for you anytime.” They may be called Frost Elves but those he had met so far were all warm people.

Clovis added on but without the long named gem necklacehe had no idea what he said.

“...Roya. I have a favour to ask of you.” Ebony said.

❅❅❅

Ebony wanted to find someone who could teach him Elcrian, an inn or somewhere he could stay for a while and perhaps a job where he could earn his keep. He didn’t want to bother Clovis’s family any further.

His plans were rendered moot though. First of all there were no inns, since hardly anyone else came. There just wasn’t a need to run an inn, though there were more empty houses around than Ebony thought was necessary. Secondly, no one really needed a classless human for any job if he didn’t have the related skills needed. Even cleaning jobs have skill level requirements, if they really manage to find a job it would mostly pay peanuts.

What more a single day worth of food actually costs 500 to 800 mana, food supplies were low here with their crop yield being low and they don’t have any domesticated farm animals or monsters. Hunting was their only meat source, which made meat expensive. Most of the elves also have quite some of the stats gained from levelling put into wisdom. Combat, production or support, every Frost Elf can use ice magic, so mana was valued less here compared to other races and food cost a few times more than other towns and cities.

Well, a quick mental calculation told Ebony that if he didn’t spend mana anywhere else he could actually still feed himself. 21.75 MP/hour and 28 hours a day he made a little more than 600 mana a day. But he wanted to quickly train his magic up so he couldn’t bear to spend his mana this way, it wouldn’t be enough even if he needed less food and he could just go vegan. He also didn’t have a myriad bracelet or any mana ores.

Most importantly Roya was insistent on ‘not letting their son’s saviour live somewhere else when he could stay with them.’ Ebony couldn’t dissuade her otherwise but he himself was insistent on not taking advantage of their hospitality. They managed to come to a compromise and this was where Clovis came in.

Clovis was surprisingly already 16 years old and was trying to get a scholar type class. He even had what they called a tier 2 skill of the skill Teaching called Educate. Clovis needed not just things to educate but also someone to educate to level the skill so they happily offered to have Clovis teach Ebony Elcrian. There were few kids his age around so it was hard to train his skill.

Ebony wanted to pay them when he was able to but Roya argued that people pay others to help them level certain skills up so they broke even here where Ebony would get to learn the language and Clovis can level his skill.

As for his rent and food, Clovis apparently mentioned Ebony having more mana than himself when operating the telepathy gem. This shocked Roya more than Ebony having amnesia or not knowing the language.

Roya was actually expecting another baby and was looking for some help with her work. Ebony was suspicious his help was needed for her work, chores and housework he could understand but after the talk on skill and skill level requirements no way could he help an unknown level tailor with her work.

The nearest town to Arcta was south-east of here and a merchant comes every 3~5 months to trade. Roya still had quite a few custom orders that she hadn’t finished and the merchant was going to return in about 1 to 2 months. Due to the hotter summer they were having, she has also been receiving a lot of orders from their neighbourhood for what they called a frostsilk blanket or curtain that apparently keeps them cool while sleeping or lowers the temperature in their house slightly.

“Ebony, you made this by weaving threads made of ice and layering them didn’t you?” Roya said, pointing towards the shoulder belt Ebony made out of ice. Not sure how she knew that, it just looked like a block of ice from outside.

“Yes, why do you ask?”

“Well the design is… horrible but the workmanship is not bad for a classless human. What's more it's made of pure ice mana manipulation and no other tailoring skill used to make it. The villagers are badgering me for the blankets and curtains but there’s too much for me to handle alone with the orders that I have to finish soon. They don’t require rare or high skill levels and I’ll teach you Mana Weaving.”

Unable to refuse their insistence and kindness, Ebony was going to stay at their house while learning the language and helping at least 4 hours a day with the blankets and curtains. He couldn’t help with Halvis’s work and they wouldn’t let him do anymore than that either, wanting him to save his mana and energy for training his own skills to get a class soon.

He was going to stay till the merchant arrived and see if he could somehow hitchhike to the nearest town, Plainston. Nearest wasn't remotely near and they were convinced Ebony couldn’t make the journey on foot.

It was going to be slow living and a lot of learning for awhile. Ebony couldn’t wait to travel and see what Elcra had to offer but there was no rush. He had to prepare, he needed to know more about classes, skills, stats and much more. Things were going really well, he was lucky Frost Elves weren’t hostile, lucky he saved Clovis instead of staying hidden, even luckier that Clovis was knowledgeable and most of all, lucky they were warm and nice people.

He may have been brought here unknowingly. Almost killed by a passing boar. Chased by a wolf pup. Almost freezing to death after being somewhat forced to drink potentially fatal sap. But it wasn’t so bad, Ebony liked this world. Gen and the Ice Crystal Turtles helped him, Clovis and his family were gentle and warm people even to a suspicious stranger of a different race. Both knowing there just wasn’t anything they could have gained from him.

‘At least for now.’ Ebony humoured himself.