"You really got a stamina-related skill?" Ebony asked as they returned from the training rooms under the Quest Hall, he made reservations for their routine training for both the morning and the evening since it didn't really cost much even for the most durable ones.
"All thanks to you, it's called 'regulated breath', it actually increases efficiency in oxygen supply which goes perfectly with my core skill. The effects on my stamina consumption aren't so obvious for now."
"Have you gotten it to be able to move to your class?"
"I doubt it, I'll probably have to choose it during my evolution."
"During? Choose?"
"You don't know?" Scarlet was visibly confused at his lack of knowledge.
"Mmm."
"I'm not sure if I can explain it well. You can already see the evolution prompts with multiple combinations of some of your generic skills that would merge and change your class, sub-class or profession right?"
"Mmm." He replied. There were indeed a few different routes he could go with, he just never bothered with them much since he wasn't planning on evolving yet. Usually pushing the prompts aside once they popped up since they were disturbing his mind.
"Hector should know it too since he's aware of the benefits of a combined or complete evolution. It's mostly subconscious for most Imperials who evolve their class, sub-class and profession separately but everyone is known to 'decide' or 'guide' their evolution towards a certain direction. We tend to have more control over that if we undergo the 'complete' evolution, the degree of freedom isn't much but its much better than having little to no control."
"So...we will be able to 'push' skills that we want into one of our classes?" He made an educated guess.
"Only if it's compatible in some way, if it is only slightly compatible there's a high chance of mutation if you force it to be taken in. You would have a much harder time squeezing more generic skills in if you do that. We believe that increasing our natural potential increases this 'quota' or degree of freedom. After a couple of generations, it's mostly proven true but since we don't evolve without increasing our natural potential more than a few times it's hard to compare with those that never got much natural potential." It was clear to him that she was referring to the Xengs when she said 'we'.
"Is that all? You should just assume I'm clueless about all this."
"I heard there's some degree of control over the mutation and evolution of your skills but I'm not too sure about that."
"I see. On another note, why do your movements seem suppressed? Hmm...it feels more like you left the openings I've shown alone more than a few times. No, more like a little sluggishness in your movements."
"Ugh. My mind can't keep up, no way 215 Intelligence can keep up with tens of thousands of Agility. Although I have Sheer mental acceleration, it's not nearly enough as it's just a tier 2 generic skill. I can still barely keep up with my body in battles like how you do, instinct." She casually brushed off a useful-sounding skill even though it was tier 2.
"Sheer mental acceleration?" He just had to ask.
"I picked the skill up myself, similar to my core skill where I can move my heart muscles at will. I thought I could do the same with my brain. I'm not sure how I even managed to do it actually, perhaps I sort of brainwashed myself thinking it was possible I imagined my brain to 'pump'. I'm not good at explaining... It's passive but I haven't refined it to be able to increase my speed of thought or mental processing and casting based on my Intelligence so it's still a base percentage. I also 'excite' the tiny bit of lightning mana in my head which helps a little but I don't have a skill for that yet. Don't you have a similar skill to be able to mentally process the speed of our battles?" Scarlet had so much control over her body that was beyond human.
"I don't. It's okay I roughly understand what you're trying to say. You really need to be careful when you play with lightning mana in your head."
Scarlet tried to elaborate on how she manually accelerates her mental processing.
"...It's okay. I don't think it'll work for me like how I don't have regulated breath." Ebony doesn't even think in battle.
Although magic was done using his mind, he was starting to not require conscious thought and it was more accurate to call it his magical muscles at work rather than 'thinking'. More often than not, he would mess up in battle when he started to have random thoughts and get into a tough spot.
As for regulated breath, she explained that it was 'controlled' breathing to match her body's movements but he doesn't even actively control his breathing.
Scarlet was mostly manual control while he ran on autopilot.
"You have all your bases covered...endurance, intelligence and you don't seem to have issues with constitution either..." She was quite jealous of Ebony. Power wasn't much of a problem since many skills work to increase that, she was slowly covering the usual problems that stats cannot overcome.
"About constitution, I'm not sure if you can learn it but I made a skill called Reinforced Mana Chassis." Ebony then went on to explain how it was due to his physique that he managed to create the skill.
"Yeah, I don't think I can even attempt to learn that. But, it's a good idea..." She thought about how the basis of Ebony's power, strength, speed and toughness can mostly be summed up by one word 'compression'.
"So how have you been able to cope with your new strength and speed."
"Moss...I mean my mutated physique. You can tell right?"
"Your heart." Ebony's senses weren't so dull he couldn't hear the difference when her heart gets worrisomely loud as she uses her core skill. One could feel the vibrations coming from her when standing within 5 to 10 metres of her when her core skill was turned up high. She was practically a human bass. That wasn't the biggest difference, it was that her heart wasn't beating as fast anymore, it was beating slower but way harder.
"Mm. Other than the ability to draw energy from drinking blood, the main mutation was my heart. It only enlarged a little but it is supposedly 50% stronger than my base constitution suggests! Even my veins and arteries are strengthened along with it. Too bad I'm left with more issues like insufficient blood and oxygen in my body."
Scarlet seemed to face more and more issues with further strengthening herself instead of removing weaknesses fast enough. She constantly faced physical limits pulling her down.
"Oh, I get it. You're going to attempt to refine or mutate your physique even further with blood manipulation. Only being able to manipulate your own blood is more than enough to do so. You're going to try to compress your blood right?" It was possible to compress water mana, ice mana and whatnot, there wasn't any reason why it wasn't possible for blood mana.
"I'm not sure if my body would produce enough blood but I have higher base health regeneration than normal and I have to start somewhere. Must be nice to get started on your magic body so early."
"What magic body? Reinforced mana chassis?"
"You don't know what magic body is either?" Scarlet rubbed her temples. 'Is he acting dumb?'
❅❅❅
Having a semblance of normal life again, Ebony was watering the flowers he planted outside.
There shouldn’t be any issue with planting flowers on rented land.
All training or sparring had to be done underground with barriers up so he decided to just use the yard as a garden.
Other than just reading, writing and training. He also cooked for himself, walked around the city, took care of his small garden and of course, moon gazing. Too bad he didn’t find any tea being sold here. The closest coffee equivalent was called hata, it was naturally sweeter than he liked.
He found the most lacking part of his skill set to be his gravity and sound magic at the moment. He found out which taverns had bards performing at which time and invited Scarlet out on a date to go listen.
She actually agreed and also drank a little. Not hiding her lips from the world. Although, no one but Ebony dared to look anyway. He might have stared them down with his mana leaking out.
Ebony never let her drink or touch any alcohol after the first time. She was even weaker of a drinker than Sister Jing. Being weak to alcohol was one thing. Drawing her swords or smashing her mug into some stranger’s head was another.
Well, she was really cute when drunk so maybe he’ll like to see her drunk again.
Other than pubs and taverns, there were performances throughout the city too. There were quite an obvious cultural differences in the music they played. The string instruments were similar but the type of music they had was not quite what he had heard before.
Like folk music meets classical meet jazz. It was pleasant too.
Ebony’s repertoire increased.
Other than just touring and listening to their music, he also played around with other sound magic ideas that he had but didn’t have a chance to try out.
Clapping both his hands together while Sonic Overlay was cast caused quite an intense shockwave that might stun one. Although not exactly a mental attack, the sound can scare or even pop an eardrum or two. He’ll have to run actual tests to know the effects it had on others or on monsters.
Ebony placed his forge in the unused room and restarted his practice of forging rings. The previous Durable Steel Ring of Featherweight Ice Blast was given to Hector before he left the city with Mallory. The ring seemed a little lacklustre to give to Scarlet.
The reduction in gravity was useless for him because he could do better with just gravity manipulation alone. As for the ice blast spell, it was even more useless.
Hector then gave it to Mallory since he couldn’t use the ice blast spell if he wore the ring under his gauntlets.
It was quite a lousy piece of equipment to them honestly.
Other than rings and runes, Ebony had his side project.
Moulding durability runes onto wooden planks and stone bricks. The materials were not hard to obtain, there was a surplus from merchants that brought in huge quantities for the city's expansion.
After enough practice till he was satisfied with the quality, he mass produced them in his free time. He was really interested in his mobile home idea.
Scarlet always brought food and they ate all their meals together.
They only had light spars without too much magic going on when they went to the duelling grounds. The barriers here couldn’t withstand their battles. Even though it should be able to withstand some Master ranked battles.
Ebony had gotten the hang of Scarlet’s likes and dislikes in food. There was not much she disliked but she preferred sweet and savoury compared to bitter. She also had quite the appetite for what he would call guilt foods.
He didn’t always want to be on the receiving side so he made some snacks for her from time to time. She fell in love with potato chips. He just had to slice some potatoes thinly, deep fry and salt them a little.
Finally, she had let him stay in the kitchen. Ebony’s special bowl of potato chips, fries, spicy chicken cubes and a side of popcorn drizzled with caramel became Scarlet’s weak point. She was crazy about them.
Ebony on the other hand loved her pan fried dumplings.
Both of them were fattened up back to normal in a few days. Scarlet also lost quite some weight after all.
He put some of his blood into a glass bottle and left it on Scarlet’s door but she ultimately found him to have her drink it under his supervision in one of the training rooms under the Quest Hall so that she didn’t destroy anything.
She really didn’t lose control other than constantly wanting to attack him for more blood. Her condition got better and better after some time.
After a week, he realised there was a small problem. He had always been wearing the same few sets of clothes when he went out. That might not look good. He also noticed Scarlet wearing the same few sets of casual clothes.
He bought all the types of fabric he could find and conjured a sculpture of himself as a mannequin.
One of his ice sculptures was busy writing the knowledge he wanted to pen down, so he could free some time to do other stuff.
His days were always busy.
❅❅❅
Before he knew it, a full month passed.
It was already longer than the estimated 5 weeks Mark gave but Ebony received a call from a haggard voice.
If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Mark just reached Teld.
Ebony went to fetch him near the city gates.
Mark had opted to sleep in his forge room rather than stay at an inn after he mentioned that he had a rented house.
The dirty and smelly man was not let into his house, Ebony sent him to some random public bathhouse. The moment Mark was done and they reached the forge, he fell asleep on the floor.
His journey must have been tiring.
Hector and Mallory weren't back yet but Mark needed rest anyway. Ebony still gave them a call and informed them of Mark’s arrival.
His front yard could now be called a bonafide garden. Flowers were starting to bloom even though it was winter. He had adjusted all the necessary conditions with the help of runes.
Mark has levelled quite a lot.
Ebony heard the rough average for levelling speed for an active freelancer was a level every month or so to once a year from the 100s to 150s. Only getting slower as one level.
Those that go dungeon diving level much faster, a year or 2 was enough to go from 100 to 150 if they were appropriately levelled and one had the strength to go against anything slightly higher than themselves.
That was a huge difference in speed and why dungeons were popular.
After that, levelling by fighting anything at one’s own level was just very slow. Even active dungeon clearers don’t level often.
Scarlet explained that people like them usually didn’t have trouble levelling.
‘People like them’ didn’t sound nice but it was a compliment. All they needed was to find a good dungeon and they would soar through the levels.
It was more important for them to focus on their skills and technique.
Undisturbed as usual. Ebony returned to watching his sculptures attempt Treading Stride and decapitate each other. They moved more smoothly but considering they were powered by his Intelligence, they were too slow and weak to be of any help against anything that he would have trouble against.
He had a lot of chances to let his mana pool fill up and force his Mana Chassis to strengthen. His gravity and sound magic had stood to gain as well.
Ebony felt ready.
Ready to take the next step.
❅❅❅
“Heyo! How’re you doing, my cute little girl?”
“Grandma!” Scarlet ran and hugged the shorter lady.
It had been long and her grandma never came even after she knowingly sent her to the blood realm. She didn’t blame her grandma, it was merely to allow her to grow stronger.
Scarlet wouldn’t let her tight hug go. Softening the teasing old lady’s heart who hugged back. She decided not to tease her about her and Ebony for today.
“Aii! My legs are getting sore, young lady.”
Scarlet reluctantly let go after a five minute hug.
“I missed you too.” her grandma said.
“Is his blood working?”
Scarlet wasn’t so surprised that her grandma knew so much. Now that her grandma mentioned, perhaps Ebony’s very presence was why she let her go into such a dangerous place.
Her grandma seemed to have the future all within her grasp but Scarlet knew that wasn’t true.
“...Yes. I don’t have the urge to slaughter anymore.” Scarlet answered as naturally as possible.
Getting a head pat from the shorter lady warmed her up.
“Alright, listen up. I won’t stay for long.”
Scarlet rarely heard her grandma’s serious tone.
“Don’t dally after your evolution. Something big’s gonna happen soon and you need to quickly get stronger to reap the benefits. It’ll be so big there’s no way you wouldn’t know what’s happening. You can tell that to the boy too. I’ll be leaving Elcra shortly so you won’t be able to contact me for some time. And no, I can’t tell you why…take care, my cute little girl.”
The old lady left as quickly as she came after saying her piece.
2 houses down.
Ebony who was manipulating the planet’s gravity mana into Icicle to attract a piece of rock towards the greatsword to sort of ‘fish’ the rock and then slash it down heard a whisper in his ears.
“Better protect her well little rascal.”
He looked up and around but no one was within his range of senses.
Yet he didn’t forget whose voice it belonged to.
Finding out that Kong Jing was Scarlet’s cousin and the old lady was her grandaunt let him conclude that she was Scarlet’s grandmother.
“I will.” Ebony replied to no one in particular. Bowing where he thought he heard the voice from.
❅❅❅
Hector and Mallory should’ve been really close to Teld as they arrived in two days.
Unknown as to what they were doing in this period of time but they were not travel-weary and everyone was ready on the third day after Mark arrived.
The level 172 Master Fire Mage seemed a little out of place in their party of level 100 Journeyman.
Ebony and Scarlet both made sure they had a ton of rations because going hungry was not pleasant.
Mark had thought he was rich but seeing all 4 of the journeymen have spatial storages made him think twice. His bag was indeed expanded but only by some new space mage. It could hold about 30% more than its size suggests and not look flat like the journeymen on his new party.
The Xeng’s presence shocked him. Hector’s class gave him another shock and there really was a healer.
Mark had a bad impression of the healer that was wearing a dress and going out into the field. Worse, a dungeon. Then again, she was a healer that wasn’t going to fight and she was the most valuable member in the party. She had better be as good a healer as she was a pretty face.
Back to the Xeng that Ebony introduced as Scarlet.
Mark was a little scared of the woman. The scarce fire mana in the air seemed to tremble before her and the fire mana in his spear seemed to be trying to hide deeper into its body.
Scarlet on the other hand noticed Mark’s unusually high body temperature and for Ebony to say good things about his capabilities had a positive impression of Mark. He must be a pretty talented fire... A hint of surprise appeared in her eyes when she first met and Appraised the man, she didn't think that she would get the chance to see a fire wizard on Elcra. Elcra was extremely mage dominant and wizards are practically non-existent here to her knowledge. Not to mention, a wizard carrying a spear as a weapon. She would be lying if she wasn't interested in his capabilities.
Tets and greetings exchanged, they left for Ordina.
Ebony already took all his stuff out of the rented house. He had hoped the flowers would survive with his runes that would care for them but it really depended on the next owner.
Ordina wasn’t that far for them. Much further from Teld to Ordina than Plainston to Ordina but still within a day’s reach even with his previous speed.
Back into the first floor of Ordina.
It was to be noted that Ordina was anything but ordinary. Usually, dungeons had a single tone. Meaning to say, the environment or type of dungeon usually stays constant throughout the floors like the desert floors.
Ordina was more diverse in this sense but no two dungeons are the same so it was not that surprising either.
It had been roughly 4 years since they had last been here. The current date being 22.11.5536 on the Empiric calendar.
Time passed so fast. It hadn’t even felt that long.
The grassland plains of the first floor had expanded by more than 30% since the day it officially opened in terms of area according to the records. The Quest Hall really worked hard to keep such information up.
That was pretty fast of an expansion, it is expected to be fully recovered in less than 2 decades and is estimated to be twice as large.
The Kobolds and Geoats are all in the high 80s now.
Ebony led them to the same entrance they took to the second floor. While it expanded, the layout was the same.
On the second floor which was the forest, they took their first break after the rushed travel.
Ebony went to find or rather, let himself be found by the Forest Weavers and collected their webs keeping them in a bottle made of ice because he forgot to get some glass or crystal bottles.
He tried not to kill them, just freezing them where they were and walking away. This dungeon shouldn’t have any risk of a dungeon break anytime soon with how many people are constantly killing its monsters.
It was hard to tell if the spiders, kobolds or leopards were any stronger than they were from years back. They should be and they were but the difference was small enough to Ebony that he couldn’t tell.
Although it was winter outside the dungeon, the dungeon’s temperature was as high as it always had been. The increase in gravity was the same while the sensitive Ebony could tell the mana density was a little higher than it had been.
Mark needed some time to get used to the increase in gravity.
Mallory seemed fine on her floating barrier. Her ability to fly stunned Mark, even Scarlet was visibly impressed by that so it was no surprise most people would be shocked.
Ebony’s glowing from his weakened enhancement kept him sufficiently cool.
None of them wanted to waste any more time on the lower floors and continued the charge upwards.
It was night time when they were on the huge mountain range that got even wider and taller.
Scarlet cooked for the party but still ate within her tent.
Mallory’s tent was larger than most, at least it wasn’t extravagantly decorated.
❅❅❅
Ebony discussed runes with Mark and Hector, who didn’t know much about it and got bored after listening in for an hour. He was clearly trying to listen but he didn’t know enough to stay interested. It was mostly Mark talking, asking questions or bringing up issues that had been noted down from his experiments. There wasn't much Ebony could help with practical rune work because Mark was far beyond him on that point.
They didn’t have to worry about mass destruction in the dungeon but Mark was not up for a spar. Mark had vastly accelerated levelling through his new research and creations together with the increase in funding.
The recent trip to Teld was his first field experience in years. It had been rough.
Watching his new party members spar was enough to persuade him not to spar with the young geniuses. So full of talent. He guessed that he wouldn’t have much of an advantage even with his 70 levels and one evolution above them.
He could see himself handling Scarlet and Ebony well enough as long as he had mana left in his equipment. The fire from Scarlet could empower him and the cold ice and mist from Ebony could similarly empower him. At the cost of higher stamina consumption against Ebony.
Mark saw little chance he had against the quadra elemental mage who could use more than 4 elements as enhancement magic. The sheer amount of power he had was too much for Mark to overcome.
He wouldn’t even have the chance to fight back. As long as he didn't have the chance to prepare himself of course.
Also, the healer. The healer wasn’t some helpless young lady. Wonderful.
A party could hope for no better healer. One that can protect and handle themselves.
Only sleeping for as long as was necessary and quickly moving off after meals.
No complacency among the young talents was even better. They didn’t take their strength for granted. Equipment was maintained, lookouts were carried out seriously and although they didn’t look like they noticed the monsters around them they were always quick to react the moment anything chose to attack.
The dungeon was smart enough to ignore them after a few attempts.
Mark made the right choice in coming along.
Ebony gave him a curious ring that reduced gravity on him. Gravity elemental runes!
He couldn’t spot a single rune on the ring, only the small mana ore on it.
How did he craft it?
There was not enough time to ask for now. He was in a dungeon. Anything can happen at any time.
❅❅❅
The shortcut from 4th to 8th floor was still here and no longer a secret. The largest mountaintop was similarly covered by a massive horde but they easily dived into the horde and passed them without getting hit. They were prepared for the fog and Mallory just encased them in a mobile barrier as they entered the shortcut.
Though the walkway was wider than it used to be, there were people fighting the Earthen Topaz Golems and they had to wait before they could pass them by. Those that could use this shortcut must have the ability to bypass a huge number of those bears, kobolds and leopards and also a counter for the fog so they were all of a certain strength or resourcefulness.
Trying to take another's target was rude and they might be seen as hostile and want to steal their earthen topaz. It was crowded and not really a shortcut if they had to stop and wait every time a party was ahead of them.
Still better than climbing from the fourth to the eighth floor which would take more effort.
The walkway shortcut also had the Earthen-Topaz Core Golem that acted as the deterrent to many more parties as it was very strong compared to others of its own level.
Once again, they didn’t run at full speed because Ebony had to be considerate of the others' stamina.
Only reaching the desert 3 days later since the walkway lengthened by a lot as well.
It was either hotter than he remembered or he got weaker to the heat. The second was ruled out because he worked with a forge long enough to know it wasn’t true.
It wasn’t enough to harm him or make him sweat when he had Frostblaze Augmentation on low. But, it was enough for him to feel the heat through his enhancement.
Mallory didn’t like it either. She complained as she used a handkerchief to wipe the sweat off her forehead.
Hector didn’t look that bothered by heat like he remembered and Ebony didn’t even have to look at Scarlet to know that she was doing more than fine.
Mark on the other hand seemed more energetic and…at ease. It was clear that day that he had been upstrung since the trip began. The others might not have noticed or be able to tell but, it was very obvious in Ebony’s senses.
Now, his steps were lighter. Wasn’t looking left and right as much. Wasn’t flinching at every little sound from their surroundings.
Like Ebony, Scarlet also noticed something different about Mark. The temperature around him was lower and his own body temperature was significantly higher than normal. She didn’t sense any fire mana or even mana at work.
Getting more and more intrigued at his capabilities that managed to earn Ebony’s respects.
Mark hadn’t even taken part in getting rid of the pests that sent themselves here as it was not even worth any of their efforts.
The eighth floor was way larger than they remembered and even Ebony’s Mental Map didn’t help too much without landmarks. The sand dunes more or less changed in shape and size.
They had no choice but to explore and search for a way up again.
The Quest Hall might have mapped out the place already but they thought it would defeat the purpose of dungeon diving if they already knew everything and maps wouldn’t be reliable when the dungeon could reconfigure its layout at will and Ordina wasn’t complete yet. Though, that rarely happens.
Hence, it was another day of leisurely slapping wolves aside, pulverising Arrowtail scorpions to mush and roasting some large worms.