Gen came to a stop and Ebony assumed they were under the Frostblaze Amur forest.
Ebony hasn’t succeeded but the little critters were already familiar with him and they knew they could get meat by playing along. The Seal meat seemed to be beneficial to them and they levelled fast just by ageing and naturally absorbing ambient essence.
Gen went offline to continue getting Ful to wake up when he saw that Ebony wasn’t succeeding anytime soon.
Ebony stretched his body and did his daily training. He remembered to squeeze in one meal a day despite the relatively low expenditure of energy. Most of his time was spent on attempting to ‘seal’ the little creatures that almost went over level 100 in 2 short days.
A few of them did attack him but he gave them a head rub and they were obedient soon enough. The little fox was the one that avoided him the most and didn’t eat the meat he gave them. He gave it space and didn’t practise on it. The fox tried to escape but the snow dome was tougher than a steel one.
Ton and family came and he greeted them before they went to sleep. The couple were level 180 while the little ones were around 40. They were normal races like humans and didn’t level with time. It was considerably fast since they didn’t hunt much. Ton and Sei attempted to make some weird noises, he guessed that they were learning the language. Their throats and tongues must have gotten more flexible and the fact that they evolved meant that they already fully removed the world’s essence from their bodies and gained a Class.
The turtles gave each other a snow scrub to wipe off dried blood after nudging their children to sleep. The little ones didn’t grow much in size but he could sense a deep mana reserve. They had an Olympic pool-size reserve, about the same as the average level 150 artillery mage who supposedly had a tier 2 mana capacity skill. Ton and Sei had pools more vast than a Grandmaster mage. Gen was empty so he couldn’t tell, every bit was sent to Ful. Gen similarly fought and drove the giant with a minuscule amount of mana.
‘I should get my mana expansion to a Profession skill…’ He had less maximum mana than Ton and Sei by a fair bit. Actually, he had less than the average artillery mage despite his high Wisdom stat. He found it odd that he couldn’t make the capacity skill with just mana, it always turns into experience for mana compression rather than capacity increase. Preservation Bubble was a generic, tier 1, life force-based skill. It was quite limited. Levelling was slow, refinements didn’t add much and it was difficult to evolve with his lousy control over life force.
Ful finally woke up a little after the turtle family returned but panicked in the same manner, the blast of whitish flames trembled and splattered around the place, almost killing most of them present. The old turtle put the spirit back to sleep.
Ebony got back to practice. Even with the Fortifications to his ice magic, his pure mana was a bit too strong. He found the ratio of 12.8% mana and the rest ice elemental mana to be suitable at the moment. With a small amount, the critters wouldn’t be able to break free unless they used force. They could move within the mixture of mana but they were trapped for some reason. He wasn’t increasing density to a ridiculous degree so he found it magical.
“Don’t patronise me, try to break out.” He told the toad.
He guessed right, the toad acted as if it couldn’t escape. Its head drooped down after it hopped out with relative ease. He gave it a pat and continued to play around. He was quite sure of the ratios, any more ice and he would just freeze them in ice. Any less ice and they wouldn’t be stuck at all. Mana didn’t give much physical resistance and they could move around without issue. It wouldn’t be much of a seal if they could walk in and out of the spell.
The mixture of ice and non-elemental mana had a resin-like structure inside and the outer casing was just clear ice. The critters couldn’t breathe inside, unlike Gen’s when he had no trouble…’Did I need to breathe when I got sealed?’
He looked over at Ning Xin, her chest wasn’t rising or dropping and her mask made it impossible to tell if she was breathing or not. Just then, the feather on her mask brightened with fire mana. He felt excitement rising but she stayed still for as long as he stared.
‘How did she survive having her heart pierced anyway, the spearhead was pretty big.’ Ebony tried to get his mind off her unwaking self.
By his estimation, her heart should’ve been split if it didn't pop. He doubted her vitality was so high she could survive without a heart for those minutes, hours even. Without a heart, she must have depended on blood magic and her mask’s lousy healing. She wasn’t able to cast magic unconscious but he could believe her trained instincts would do whatever it could to keep herself alive. That shouldn’t have been enough. She couldn’t have used her core skill to enhance her healing speed without a heart or at least not anywhere near full capacity.
He propped it up to her mask being better than he blamed it for or that her physique improved her vitality more than he assumed.
Ebony continued playing with the critters. He baited them with food and was about to run out of seal meat. Checking the fridge in his trailer, he scavaged some more food.
Ful finally woke up and was calm the next morning.
“Morning Ful, thanks for saving us. Sorry for bringing someone else here.”
“She’s more welcome here than you think.”
“Is she now?”
“I didn’t hear your calls, it's thanks to her we found you. Fate is playful, for once, I’m thankful I didn’t die along with Rue…See…you shouldn’t have given up on living, it’s all worthwhile. She’s still alive…” Ful’s flames flickered and splattered again.
“Woah woah, don’t go crying and fainting on me. Everything’s fine. So, how is it thanks to Xin?”
“She was called here and I was alerted.”
‘She was called…I knew her intuition wasn’t so strong, it's almost like foresight rather than intuition if she really knew where Gen and Ful were.’ He had been confused about how sure she was about which direction to run in. Perhaps her intuition trusted the call.
“Who called her? I’m pretty sure you don’t know each other.” Ebony was less interested in the ‘how’. He sensed no vibration or calls.
“I don’t know her? She’s our dear sister.”
“...She doesn’t look like a turtle, tree or spirit to me.” Ebony never connected the points. He didn’t know Ning Xin’s physique name, just the main effects.
Pin-drop silence would be present if it weren’t for the playful critters biting and slamming large ice shards at each other. He gave those that were naughtier and tried to eat each other a furious head rub so they mostly gave up on eating each other at this point.
“Is that supposed to be a joke?” The remnant tree spirit broke the silence.
“Yes. As expected, you can tell I’m joking.” Ebony was proud that someone other than Ning Xin understood that he was making a joke.
“I’ve told you about our sister.” Ful, like Gen was wide awake. There were no signs of weakness or exhaustion they used to have.
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“The sun-eating phoenix.” He wouldn’t forget the colourful story he was told.
“That’s right.”
“She’s human. As far as I’m aware.” Ebony held back from saying that Ning Xin doesn’t look like a phoenix either. The sight of her with flaming wings popped up in his mind.
“I know. But she’s accepted by our sister’s heartblood essence.”
“And…that’s enough for her to be considered your sister?”
“Of course not, I wasn't talking about that human there. Phoenixes don’t die that easily. Even if they do, they have the uncanny ability to revive as long as their heartblood essence that holds the core of their soul is still around. The portion Rue kept resonated with this human, that’s how I found her.”
“Scarlet. Her name is Scarlet.”
“Is…is that so? Fate really is mysterious…to even have the same name…Anyhow, keep your mana in check. I can sense your unease and it’s not what you think.”
“What did you think I was thinking?” Ful might be the only other person who could sense his unease.
“You’re probably thinking something along the lines of my sister’s soul taking over…Scarlet’s body or something. Nothing of that sort. A proud creature like the phoenix will desire no other body than their own, using a measly human’s would be degrading to her. No offence.”
“I was actually imagining that she would turn into a phoenix but yeah, that’s about what I was worried about.”
“Don’t worry, she wouldn’t know how to do that even if she could. She died, and the spear saint’s attacks are nearly impossible to heal from. Even if she is reborn she won’t have the memories that she had. There is no sign of any revival but that’s obviously the case, she consumed just a smidgen of heartblood essence. If our sister manages to be reborn, she can simply form a new body for herself with some of her heartblood essence. Scarlet over here will just lose a small portion of it. The newborn can grow the small portion back to her initial size in time.”
“As long as she’s not in harm’s way.” Ebony believed Ful for the moment, he had no reason to doubt the suicidal tree. At least he was more at ease.
“Surely not, she would be protected with all of the natural instincts remaining in our sister’s essence so that it can be reborn safely.”
‘Ah? Is that why her intuition skill was levelling so fast, she has a phoenix’s natural instincts working together with her own instincts?’ Ebony guessed.
Intuition wasn’t something he could train with a teacher telling him what to do. He initially had no idea how she was levelling the skill on a near-daily basis before. Ful hadn’t finished speaking so he continued to listen.
“She needs a compatible host that can nurture its heartblood essence enough to harbour the awakening of her soul. It is surprising, no matter how small a portion Scarlet consumed, it is quite impressive that she wasn’t burned to death or just eaten in return. She must be very compatible, extreme fire mana affinity is rare but it’s usually because of the intense gluttony that makes one consume themselves even before the essence could that makes it so hard to find someone compatible.”
“Is that why you didn’t keep all of your sister’s…core?”
“She split it up herself, bursting it apart so that she could find someone compatible faster. The Spear Saint was in a rush and wouldn’t waste time searching the entire planet for small fragments. I know the location of a few large fragments. Her resting spot is one. Under the sea, I think a volcano range formed thousands of years ago when Rue still went for diving trips. There are probably a few pieces there.”
“That’s cool and all but neither of us is good at swimming or fighting underwater. You want us to gather her fragments?”
“Not really, just ask your Scarlet. It’s beneficial for her and she probably felt the inherent desire to want to piece herself back. The heartblood essence is alive in a sense, it would naturally want to gather and as the current hmm, carrier? Host? She likely sensed the desire as well.”
Ebony didn’t point out ‘your Scarlet,’ Ful was likely finding it troublesome to address Ning Xin by the same name the phoenix had.
“Since you’re awake and peppy, would you like to teach your descendant some flame manipulation tips or even spells?” Ebony got shameless, he was taking his chances at squeezing everything he could. How can he run away from a couple of hundred ultra-high-spec fishes 2 evolutions above him?
Ebony had put some time and effort into trying to go back into the realistic mental simulations but he couldn’t. The fight with Lucas seemed to be the only trigger so far and he couldn’t go back into the same state to see if he could replicate his escape and see what he could have done better. Should he have stood his ground instead of running as Koawe suggested?
He was already in an overdraft state at that point in time, there was no chance he could have stood his ground. Not against so many ultra-fish. That close to the sea, to the ground to water and earth magic specialists wouldn’t do them any good. Getting away from water was the best move then.
After reaching Hoarfrost Glades, especially the icy region he should’ve more options.
“Just fight with Gen and come up with your own spells. I can see how far you’ve come in terms of manipulation. Oh well, maybe just a clone of his.” Ful replied.
“I think I’ve matured past fighting his clones.”
“I don't think so.” Gen rebutted.
The snow dome’s floor, ceiling and walls bubbled. With a familiar fish shaping in moments. Hundreds of them surrounded the airspace around the progeniturtle. The only difference was that there were no wings flapping at supersonic speeds, they were swimming in the air as if they were in water.
“I see that you have trouble protecting someone, if a single snowflake lands on your beloved’s seal trust me, it’ll go through,” Gen added snarkily.
“...If you’re trying to anger me, you’re doing a fantastic job.” Ebony didn’t know what happened to Gen or even himself. He reacted to provocation a lot easier now.
Gen truly showed him the immense difference between them. Every single clone was controlled manually through manipulation. The turtle didn’t cheat with Will to make the clones move by themselves like he did. In the past, he fought the turtle’s ice clones but Gen was the Glacial Snow Crystal Turtle whose speciality lies in snow magic.
“I’ll be nice, you look like you can barely handle one.”
The jetfin swam as naturally as any fish. Coming from the front it aimed at him or perhaps behind him. He wasn’t about to test how serious Gen was. Repulsion was cast on Xin’s seal before anything else. She was covered in a sphere of ice with another layer of repulsion. No matter what, he couldn’t touch Gen’s snow.
He made a greatsword out of ice and cast Frost Edge over it before flickering forward. Without cramps, he felt more weightless than ever. Clearly catching Gen off guard, his weapon swept through the fish from to the tail. Sadly, no blade exited and all he was left with was a sword handle that was breaking apart. Once again, he only had one arm working.
He had to rely on vibrations and repulsion to hit the snowfish. Without any hesitation, he kicked the white fish before it turned to face him. It caused a ten cm deep indentation, the body part that splattered didn’t touch his body. He barely Flickered away from the tail swipe in time. A clone made of mana didn’t fear damage, it could attack regardless of injuries.
A small ranged flood of his Will set up a radius that barely took half a second for a few icy legs to form and Tremor Stomped on the creature of snow. In that half a second, he had to force the snow sculpture to remain still. The clone’s outer surface trembled like the latest bass as he made sure the turtle understood it shouldn’t move. A few dozen kicks was all it took to crumble his opponent.
“You sure have gotten speedy. Your movements look very similar to the dimensional kappas.” Ful commented.
“Dimensional kappas?” He questioned.
“Have you seen them, I believe some offspring were left here to propagate. Similar to Ton and Sei, they are born similar to a monster so it takes them time and effort to remove the world’s essence from their bodies. They are nomads so their offspring are quickly left to their own devices.”
“I’ve seen one, teacher Ka. Taught me a little on footwork but I had similar footwork to begin with.” He didn’t know the kappas were dimensional kappas but he was pretty sure they were referring to the same breed or species of kappas.
“We’re not quite done here.” Gen interrupted.
The tree spirit ignored the interruption and talked about how many of the higher-level Kappas were merchants. Their creator, the Life Grafter often used the services of these Kappas who had strange things found during their travels. They only barter and don’t accept normal currency so it was always smart to keep unique items on themselves. But they were cautious and only traded with people who were introduced by another one of their patrons so Ebony would have no hope of trading with them even if he had unique items on him.
He couldn’t really give Ful much of his attention, as Gen was taking up most of it. “It’s nice that I don’t have to decompress my mana now.” The turtle showed off, still as relaxed as always. Ebony Flickered towards the caster, the most obvious solution to stopping the other clones.