Ebony was fishing with many Frost Elves, their Guardian Beast apparently loved fish. Due to its size, they were going to another fishing area in the icy region. The fishes were bigger according to them, tastier too.
Orren the village chief was here as well while his wife and party remained as Arcta’s protector. Korben the guardian was doing the dangerous job of escorting a pregnant beast through a vast distance and wasn’t around.
It was pretty far away but they had a safe trip and massive haul. Orren was crazier than he thought, the man stripped and went for a swim with a single rope. With no ice mana found on the fish he dragged out, Ebony could only assume that no magic was used.
They weren’t bothered by the cold, sure. But the giant fishes could swallow them whole and manoeuvre the waters better than any land creature could without dedicated training.
The 4-day trip ended joyfully as everyone made it home safely.
“I’m home.” Ebony said after he opened the door..
‘Oh. I said home.’ He came to a stop.
Not meditating was so fresh. Even the casual interaction with the older men, while he was fishing, was so different from usual.
Why the fish there were so much bigger despite many of them being the same species and sometimes even the same level. Why are the monsters' habits so different? Why was there so little snow in the Icy region? Why was there so much snow in the Chilly? What’s the environment like in the deepest region? What kind of monsters were they deep in Hoarfrost Glade?
Ebony pestered them.
Fortunately for them, he could only keep that state for an hour or two a day before he gave up. He couldn’t withstand the strain from the statics in his mind. Although he had an impressive stat in Wisdom, it was the first time he opened his mind to take in the world as it is.
He still didn’t like it and was only going to attempt going one whole day without meditation once.
Although he stopped meditating for less than 2 hours a day, he spent hours cleansing everything completely. Only when his mind was blank and white could he fall asleep.
Once, he wondered if doing so defeated the purpose of stopping his meditation but it wasn’t like he was erasing his memories or his experience, just putting them aside like his daily life so he kept it up.
The chefs seemed happy at the rare fishes, many of which were new to him as well.
They returned just on time as the entire village was alerted by multiple immense auras of overflowing essence.
One that made any non Frost Elf shake in their boots.
Ning Xin almost dropped Kiva which angered her but she didn’t drop the baby so he turned his attention to the ridiculous auras that disappeared soon after, leaving 2. She tried to move but the surroundings seemed to be frozen and she wasn’t about to break herself free because Kiva was in her arms.
She continued feeding Kiva, when she was done the entire family left to welcome the awaited guardian.
It was still being surrounded by all the children and most adults since none of them who hadn’t been to the other village had seen their Guardian Beast before.
It probably wasn’t a big creature as Ebony wasn’t able to put his eyes on the beast to see it’s form. He could tell once he was in range. It was smaller than some wolfmen or lizardmen. A bear.
He put Clovis on his shoulders and ran to the small bear that was getting surrounded by children.
It wasn’t just a bear. It was a ball of fur.
The small bear had a big tummy and appeared exhausted to which Korben had to disperse the crowds to get some fresh air for the prengnant creature.
The bear was going to stay near the Lasil family as they are the ones who would take care of her birth.
[Frigid Polardusk Ursidae Lvl ???]
He couldn’t believe his eyes and it was not because of the red colour Identify came up with. “She’s so cute.” He just had to have his meditation down and he was heard by all. Everyone was thinking the same thing and didn’t say anything about his statement.
The bear was likely two ranks above Gen and the second time he Identified anything red, the first and was the Frostblaze Amur Maple Tree itself. Although it wasn’t a direct indicator of its strength, he had never seen anything or anyone at whatever level it was at. Excluding the fake level Ning Xin’s grandma showed.
Korben was very respectful to the bear but the bear herself seemed at a loss at the tiny Frost Elves surrounding her. She didn’t dare to put her paws on any of them. She would probably turn anything she touched to atomic dust.
Ebony was eyeing the necklace she wore, there was a purple gem embedded.
“Come on, I need your help to move Miss Guardian's bed over to the Lasil house.” Roya pulled them back home.
The bed was just an empty bean bag. Roya had been spending a lot of time and the materials she had had been beyond her, causing her sleepless nights. She was complaining to him and Ning Xin about how the cloth she was provided couldn’t be seeped through with her mana. The village had a senior tailor but apparently wasn't suited for making the bed for reasons they didn't share.
He didn’t get to try to work on the cloth as they didn’t have spares for him to practise on. He didn’t know the material even though he had prior access to Kong Jing’s library as it was the latest alchemic cloth from a royal alchemist. Koawe exchanged or bought it with his services.
She took weeks just to sew them together seamlessly, the internal filling was stored with Korben as they didn’t want anyone getting close to it. It was supposedly dangerous to all of them including the adult Frost Elves so there was no chance they were bringing it to a house with a baby.
Roya dragged the empty bean bag across the floor as her face turned a darker shade of blue. Ebony grabbed it from her and lifted the cloth over his shoulder, carrying it out. Ning Xin ran out after him.
“What was that about some girl being cute?”
"The Guardian Beast…Kiva is cute too right?”
“...Right.”
“I can bring this myself.” The cloth wasn’t that heavy for him. For a material so tough, it was considerably light.
“You’re not getting away from me on the streets.”
“Stop, I’m not going to get kidnapped in this village.”
“It’s not about a kidnapping. It’s about a fox!”
“What fox? You want to eat fox for dinner?”
“Not that fox. A sly fox.”
“Are you talking about Palom?”
“So you know what I’m talking about.” She snatched the bean bag from him and sped up before he could reply.
They returned immediately after dropping it off. The bear was asleep from exhaustion and they didn’t get the chance to introduce each other.
“Ancient. That’s the limit for natural creatures on Elcra.”
“Due to the Worldcore rank you told me about?”
“Mmm.”
“But even the ‘Emperor’ is not Emperor Class.”
“That’s just on the surface. There should be a couple around but this ‘Emperor’ is still supposedly the strongest. The others found a way out of Elcra so that they can advance further and faster.”
“How? What are the ways out?”
“The brute force method is through space magic. The method most commonly used is through a World Dungeon. These gates connect multiple worlds so you could just find a different exit in the dungeon. They act as a link so that’s where most visitors from other worlds come from unless a large group comes directly with space magic. The last one I’m aware of is through certain realms. Travel by realm is the fastest since it's a direct spatial connection.”
“How about directly flying over?”
“...I’m not sure about that. Should be possible, I think. Might take decades of travel though.”
Their conversation turned towards their new skill ideas, she was practising blood magic and asking for fresh ideas. It was a good stopping point, they should fill up their skill slots before going for mass levelling.
Ning Xin only had one Class skill slot left unlike him so she really wanted to get her Sub-Class moving along. She wasn’t really planning to fling spells around even though she had the mana for it now but her close combat usage for wind and lightning was already doing what she envisioned it to do. Other than strengthening what she had, she was going to increase her mid to long-range capabilities with them.
These days, she has been attempting to blend her mana into food. She got a tummy ache eating her own mana which didn’t make sense so she was being very careful with it.
It would be nice to have food enhancing them temporarily but they wouldn’t rely on it for now.
“Can you manipulate your stamina yet?” He got curious.
She shook her head. It appeared that neither of them could manipulate stamina directly yet.
Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.
“Hmm. I might be starting to grasp it. Probably because I regenerate so much of it.”
The higher tier conditioning utilised stamina manipulation and would be the only thing stopping both of them from advancing in their conditioning methods for the physical body in future. Ning Xin had the advantage of knowledge from her mother but she couldn’t use the higher tier exercise not just because it wasn’t relevant but she couldn’t manipulate stamina. They were confident of getting tier 4 Conditioning though.
Then again her training was mostly life force manipulation with mana manipulation being second.
‘That memory…doesn’t seem to include notes on stamina manipulation.’
Ebony recalled his sudden memory of reading the book on conditioning when he was 7. Although he already diverted from them, he could use it as a good reference.
Tier 3 - Unrelenting Statue, it may or may not be his mother’s own conditioning but that didn’t matter. It was probably focused on all types of resistance.
The accompanying footwork ‘Treading Flash’ was something that he had been trying to obtain as well. He didn’t have to improve the gentleness or lightness of the footwork, it was about pure speed. Since his body weight was immense he had no choice but to put even more focus on gentleness so that the skill would evolve and not simply mutate, just silencing them with sound magic wasn’t decent enough.
Honestly, he skipped Treading Flash and went directly to the tier 4 Phantom Flash due to his Waning Presence and how he naturally silenced the sound of his movement with sound magic. He was confident enough to say that he wasn’t able to have the stated effects. They won't be able to do that if they couldn’t manipulate stamina and as a ‘Master’ although it was possible to have tier 4 skills just getting their core skill to that tier is an achievement.
Ning Xin had been incorporating his footwork, she was faster now and was confident of mutating her movement skill. He did tell her about all his movement skills since it would be an asset to her and she understood the skill better than him. It helped him understand better too. She also had a footwork handed down to her and she was refinining her tier 3 movement skill at a fast pace. Both of them were trying to substitute the need for stamina with mana or life force but they didn't see much result.
Although he used gravity magic to make his physical training more effective he didn’t see how it would help improve the conditioning on a fundamental scale.
“Can you teach me life force manipulation again? I want to compress life force so that when I use the runic body spell I’m creating I can incorporate vitality so that my body can withstand the strength of my mana.”
“Of course. Explain how you manipulate your flames to me again in exchange.” She was referring to how the small flames that flow away from his greatsword and even his body end up as plum flower petals. He was using it as control practice but it had been too eye-catching for her.
They had a good flow of conversation, Ebony advocated improving and expanding their entire skillset before the next dungeon clears. They would be able to go to stronger dungeons and level as quickly as the dungeons spawns anyway.
“We need somewhere to train…” Ning Xin pondered. She couldn’t flex her fire magic here.
“How far along are you with Gorpede’s blood?”
“Almost 3 quarters. Heheh, I got 3 full levels’ worth of stats. I’m getting less and less though.”
“...That’s unfair. Are you sure you are not affected by instinct or whatever’s in the essence?”
“Don’t worry, I’m being extra careful or I wouldn’t take so long. I won’t demonise myself.”
“Then when you finish we can just visit Na and train in secret there. We’re going to donate our essence since we don’t need targets that often, he wouldn’t lose anything.”
“That’s a good idea!”
They could pay their debts back for the Natural Potential and Ebony actually wanted to strengthen Na. Just for fun and for themselves. Having a dungeon friend seemed immensely helpful in his opinion. Ordina was so close that they should’ve gone there daily to begin with. It would hardly take half an hour to get there and be escorted to a hidden room inside. They didn’t necessarily have to travel to the top floor for training.
They left immediately to discuss it with Na.
Na was no longer mad at them for taking so much from him. He was thankful to Ning Xin for teaching him how to grow as a dungeon.
He stopped trying to expand in terms of the number of floors. Na wanted to become a world dungeon but not even Ning Xin was aware of how one was created so she could only tell it how to best extract essence.
Na made it easier for people to get to the thirteenth floor and made it more habitable in that area. The population inside him at any one point in time has increased by quite a bit. He was able to reduce the loss of essence on expanding and used the excess to strengthen all his creatures.
He listened to their advice to let people kill weak but high-level creatures while he saved the energy to strengthen a small group of ‘elites’ that he should try to let survive as long as possible. So far, he himself had been destroyed fewer times despite the stronger and stronger parties. Not many can destroy him and whenever they do, they don’t earn much as he only leaves his body and equipment.
The material he and his golems were made off were already specialities of this region but haven’t been fully explored based on their properties. It wasn’t the most durable and the rareness of topaz made it a nice shiny rock but the demand for it wasn’t so high.
“We’re here to apologise for taking so much of your energy. We just need a tougher hidden room and we would probably spend a lot of time here.”
“I welcome you. My meals.” Na’s smile wasn’t as stiff and his Golem form was smoother now. It resembles humans the most, a bulky one.
They all laughed at that.
The first few floors had too many people so they picked the walkway to create a hidden room where they can access. After informing Na the size they wanted, they went back for dinner.
It wasn’t that troublesome of a journey to and fro since they could practise their poor ability with flight.
He didn’t expect to see Navin at the village gate with Koawe when they got back.
He was invited to have dinner with their family and Ning Xin’s shoulder nudge got him to accept the invitation. They didn’t talk business during dinner but Navin called him out for a private conversation outside.
“Ebony, I know this may come off as random but would you be interested to join the fleet to Tova in 2 months.”
“That is random. Why? I’m guessing you’re sending an attacking or scouting force there. Do you not have enough manpower?”
“Manpower is always a problem. The elite knights and soldiers have to protect our borders and I can’t send anyone but elites over. It’s not an attacking or scouting force, it’s a rescue force. My seers have detected a huge gathering of Trolls near Tova’s coast and we lost contact with multiple bases.”
“There’s a high chance of death and you don’t want to lose your soldiers so you’re getting freelancers?”
“There aren’t many freelancers who would send themselves to death even if I pay an extravagant price. There are some but freelancers care about themselves, when push comes to shove they would prioritise their lives over an Imperial command. They don’t have that strong sense of loyalty to the Empire.”
“I’m no different. And I don’t really need mana ores.” Ebony didn’t see how it was his business.
“I know. It’s a…personal request, from my wife and I. Our great-grandchild is there and we couldn’t contact him for some time. We would be more than happy if we could go but Tova is far and I am unable to leave the Empire for too long. I heard you are his party member for some time, thank you for being his friend.”
“Hector?”
“Yes. He was a lonely child, due to his condition at birth he was always gloomy but he got energetic soon after he recovered.”
“Sure.” Ebony accepted as if it was a simple request.
“...He made a good friend. That’s good. Of course, I was simply asking if you were interested in going. Welser.” Navin called.
A well dressed old man appeared beside Navin as if he popped out from nowhere. Ebony was able to tell he just moved from outside his range to right in front of him almost instantly. As expected, he wasn’t able to Identify the old man. There was no information popping up.
“Hello, you’re the one who was standing outside of the Guardian’s room beside the stone mage right?” Ebony saw the old man and recognised the figure and aura immediately. Although the old man had been invisible at that time, he was able to sense his gravitational form. The old man didn’t make a move to save them and now he owed the Tuffock trio because of that.
“Indeed, my apologies that I did not make a move. I had deemed it unnecessary to show myself. I am rather surprised that you knew I was there all along.” Welser didn’t hide his slight surprise that Ebony knew about him all along.
“I couldn’t see you but you were not hidden from gravity. I can’t sense either of you through mana perception either. Very interesting.” Ebony had always been pretty open with his abilities to some extent.
“I see! I give my thanks for enlightening me.” Welser had the typical ‘feel’ of a professional butler but he was clearly more dangerous than a simple butler.
“Welser has been Hector’s bodyguard and instructor since he was a young child. I understand you are an ice mage, ice magic is effective and useful against Trolls which is why I asked if you were interested to begin with. I don’t want to send young talent to their deaths so Welser here will evaluate whether you can protect yourself. Though from what he told me, you are more than capable of doing so.”
“Before that. Let me say that I’m interested in joining the rescue force but on my own terms. By that, we may not follow whoever’s command either.” Ebony originally accepted just because.
No real reason, but he finally started thinking and he thought that it was a good chance to try fighting Trolls for one. Looking for Hector would be more of his priority rather than saving Imperial soldiers but that would probably be synonymous if Hector was a soldier. He didn’t think he would leave people to die if he could stop it either.
Although it was none of his business there was another reason, the large number of Trolls was experience.
‘Hmm. I wonder if they are all so savage, was I really thinking of slaughter?’ Now that he practised shutting meditation off, he was beginning to think he truly wasn’t ‘human’.
“We?”
“Ni…Scarlet. We move together and I bet she’s interested.” Ebony knew the stories that Trolls were strong warriors. He had no doubt that she was interested in fighting them.
“...Then forget I asked. It’s too dangerous to move on your own, I won’t allow children to be so reckless outside my reach.”
Ebony remained silent, trying to think of something to say but nothing came to mind. Welser dismissed himself and Navin changed the topic to his life in Arcta and how he came about being so close to the village based on what he had heard from Koawe.
The Barrier King seemed like a different person, he was chatty. No, perhaps it was Ebony’s change in perspective.
“How bad is the Troll situation?” He changed the topic again.
“I’ll be honest. I don’t know. I shouldn’t be telling you this but you are an asset to the Empire and Yvette told me to be nice…Our seers are, I wouldn’t say incompetent but nothing is ever determined and things don’t always go according to plan. Scarlet’s grandmother informed us that something changed over at Tova but we don’t know what. The scout force that Hector was part of was in charge of reinforcing the units over at Tova but focused on information gathering but we can’t contact any of them right now.”
“Surely if you send the strongest forces like yourself you can easily wipe out the masses.” Ebony understood that power difference was immense between individuals, it wouldn’t be much of a war if one side overpowers the other. He didn’t understand war tactics, that was certain but in his mind, they could just send the King and a small elite group to wipe out numbers as fast as possible then leave whenever the stronger Trolls come out. Essentially guerilla tactics.
Since this generation of the Royals was supposedly a lot stronger he didn’t see the issue. He was too naive.
“The Trolls can do the same and as annoying as it is, their shamans know whenever I and many of the King Classed make a move so they would just move their generals accordingly. And as I’ve said. I can’t launch an attack myself, Elva is targeted by more than just Trolls.”
“...Being a king sounds horribly troublesome and restrictive.”
“Exactly.”
“What about the Emperor guy?”
“Emperor guy huh. That guy is too busy training two of his apprentices and we don’t know where he is. I mean, we know which dungeon he is in but not his current location inside. He would show up if something big happens but that’s it.”
Koawe was smiling at them from the side.
“Junior brother, it has been awhile since I’ve seen you so relaxed. Ebony’s overflowing essence must have gotten to you too.” Koawe commented.
“...That’s right. It is just relaxing around you. I have to thank you for that.” Navin stretched and wanted to rest.
“You’re welcome.” Ebony tried to put his best smile on but nothing happened as his facial muscles didn't move so he got Everlasting Tranquillity back on.
‘Conversation is different from usual. I really wonder if it's a good idea to practise turning meditation off.’ Ebony walked as slowly as he could back to the Thoya’s.
The moon was on display and he managed to clear his mind before he returned.