‘He didn’t even chase me…should’ve kicked him once or twice.’ Ebony lamented.
He learned to be more spiteful from the Jetfins. The vengeful fish’s lesson would’ve discouraged him from hunting them down, it was too bad they tasted so good.
‘Next is Cielfast City. That’s a bit far, I’ll get sister Jing to teleport me there. No. An eye for an eye, I need to learn how to seal them without hurting them. Those lightning gunmen were so weak I might kill them by accident and they only massaged me for a bit, I’ll just let a Model kick them around a bit. I wonder what the boss who paid for my kidnap looks like? Alright, I'll go after I get the hang of sealing magic. Mr Kidnapper is more troublesome, Xin could melt herself out and Mr Kidnapper appears completely unaffected by the heat she can produce. At least my ice is more heat resistant but I doubt I can kidnap him and keep him sealed for…7 months and 4 days any time soon.’ Ebony kicked off another conjured platform. He tried to mark his mana on the man but he had no such skills, any leftover mana would be found out immediately.
‘Xin never mentioned the opportunity to gain benefits for a while, I guess we have more time before that opportunity. I don’t really want to fight the Trolls anymore though…where should we go to train afterwards? Levelling normally would take too long, we need somewhere dangerous but not so much that we have to fight monsters since we already know how to improve our skills. Ah, I’ll just think about it after helping Gen and letting him evolve. Maybe he can pluck out that sword from Ful after his evolution so I’m not needed for that anymore. Ful seems to have a purpose in staying alive now that Xin appeared as some sort of descendant or host for the phoenix to revive. I really hope there’s no body overtaking nonsense.’
Ebony decided not to worry about the Heartblood Essence of the Solar-blooded phoenix. Ning Xin had way better Intuition and she could decide for herself on her course of action.
His calves and thighs were too strained and he had to slow down on his return trip. Night fell before he made it back to the field hospital. Perhaps thanks to the sashimi feast, the gluttonous chef was still asleep. Mark and Kong Jing were also asleep.
‘Time for some actual rest?’ He was alerted by ice mana nearby, a bit surprised to find 2 of the Glacial Models that he left behind. He didn’t expect to find them still working. Most of them got destroyed or were fighting outside the walls, these guys must be those he left to help gather the injured. Maybe they were out of range when he Willed the rest to go out to fight.
He went to check on his Models, there were still people being carried in and hobbling out and healers working full time. Ebony started conjuring more Glacial Models to facilitate the movement of patients.
“Why don’t you take a break, your mana’s thinned out. There aren’t any in critical condition now.” He advised Mallory.
She actually listened and took a seat, “I could really use some hata…”
“Coffee? I have some.”
Ebony had some from Hata town but they were in bean form and he didn’t know how to make coffee from its bean form. ‘Roast it and then boil it?’
He took it out before Mallory subtly swiped her hair. His arm moved and grabbed a black-clothed wrist. ‘What the, I didn’t sense anyone until he tried to grab the pouch of beans…is this the Crown Princess’s royal guards? They can hide disruptions of gravity? Darkness magic, much stronger than Ayla’s. Remnant aura behind Mallory, so she was around the entire time.’
“Sorry, I moved reflexively. Amazing stealth, I didn’t know you were here behind Mallory the whole time.” He apologised for grabbing the lady’s wrist, at least he knew not to grab her hand. He couldn’t get any information from Appraising her.
“Make us both a cup.” Mallory was always mindful of her bearings and appearance.
“I don’t recommend consuming caffeine in the middle of the night.” He preferred tea.
“Caffeine? In any case, I’m not sleeping tonight. An occasional indulgence is permitted.”
‘She’s recovering mana pretty quickly…so she has some kind of meditation-type skill that doesn’t require her to stop moving or have most of her attention cut off. Does she not have side effects of overdraft or is her skill significantly different from mine?’ Ebony was quite happy to improve his ability to sense another person’s current mana pool. It didn’t work on people who could conceal their aura and essence. Like Gen, Navin or even the lady who just appeared out of nowhere.
She was eyeing him warily the entire time as she crushed the coffee beans into powder. The coffee or hata beans here were very concentrated depending on their quality but just crushing them wasn’t what he expected. No matter, he let the guard? Maid? do her thing.
“Can I see that?”
It might be occupational sickness but he manipulated his arm onto the table for her. It was interesting to see what she could sense from or through the frozen seal. The Princess seemed more intrigued by observing his arm than drinking her coffee.
Ebony sent his mana out to check for other royal guards to see if he could find them. He was not subtle and the lady who made coffee was alerted. He could see her but not sense her, it was good to know that he should not be overly dependent on his mana sense or he had to improve it further. Fortunately, once he flooded the area with his own mana he was far more sensitive to movement. He would know if anything moved.
‘There’s a few odd drafts of wind on the ceiling and 2 people right behind that door. Are they a threat to me? I don’t know, they hide their auras too well so I should assume they are stronger or at least strong enough to be a problem. Xin’s Intuition would be great here, seeing how she’s still asleep these guys can hide their intentions just as well.’
“So? What’s the verdict?” He asked the healer.
“I can speed up your recovery. I’ve always wanted to ask, can I get an in-depth inspection of your constitution? You’re not exactly fully human right?”
“Sure, heal me. What would this inspection entail?” A chance to see how one of the most talented healers would heal an injury to his mana chassis? He would take it any day of the week.
“Some of your blood would be good…better yet, your flesh and bones too.”
“Okay, would a finger suffice?” An ice knife formed in his palms. The reaction from those hiding exposed them even more. Another look at the lady who stood there, acting calm gave him more information. It was disappointing, it appeared like it was their clothes that had darkness enchantment and not their personal magic. ‘Must be because I told Navin’s butler about hiding their gravity signature. They came up with a solution pretty quickly.’
“Why’re you compressing your mana so much, it’s almost blinding…” Mallory commented.
“The knife would shatter.” He replied with the most obvious answer, even a normal steel knife would snap.
“If you don’t mind, I’ll do it. You won’t feel a thing.”
“Mmm, go ahead.” He’d liked to see how she was going to remove his finger. Only to be surprised by her skilful sharp barrier slicing through his skin, fat, muscle, nerves and bones. There was no pain as she healed the finger stump as she sliced it. Although his regeneration was pretty fast, her mana caressed the cut stump and regrew the finger just like a Troll would.
‘That can’t be arcane, even my blood was refilled.’ He was confident of his own body scan and he was pretty sure he was fully healed, no weakness whatsoever.
She cast a healing spell on his frozen arm that supposedly heals over time. He couldn’t feel anything so he took her word for it.
“How’s Hector doing?” He was slightly worried, they hadn’t had a proper conversation since meeting up again.
“His body’s a mess. I don’t know what’s going on with him, I can’t believe he’s able to move.”
“That bad?”
“His physique is completely different. Far more drastic a difference than yours but still more similar to a human than you.” Mallory spouted a contradictory statement.
“It must be all the different elements running through his body, even though it's only an evolution from Journeyman to Master his body must have changed drastically to handle the opposing strains of multiple elements.” He made a wild guess.
“My thoughts exactly, there aren't any written examples and it would be great if he continued to sleep so that I can…heal him.” Mallory kept his finger in an ornamental wooden box.
“Don’t go too far with your ‘healing’, you don’t want to make him sleep forever.” It felt odd to see his finger kept as a specimen.
“Unfortunately, he’s too energetic, he'll wake up soon enough.”
They sipped coffee quietly for a minute. The coffee brewer was so tense even he could sense it. ‘Why’s she so tense? Is it her first time as a guard?’
“Mallory, can I ask something? Just curious,” He signalled that he could silence their conversation but these espionage-like guards probably had the ability to eavesdrop. He could speak without opening his mouth or moving his lips and even Mallory could do so since she was the better manipulator of mana. Ebony felt that there was no chance Mallory didn’t have mana vibration. He just couldn’t be sure if they had the ability to listen to a thread of vibrating mana and understand what was being transferred without being on the receiving end of the message.
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“Go ahead.” She waved aside the attempts to keep the conversation private.
“Where’s the Imperial Army? The bulk of them,”
“Where’s this coming from?
“I’ve been here for some months and heard the soldiers talk. Few of them are from Tidal. They are from cities nearby, maybe newer batches came from further but small difference. I know Tidal is closer to First to Third Tide and the battlefield there is much wider and larger. I also know the population of Tidal is easily in the billions, with the Imperial Army boasting at least dozens of millions if not hundreds. Here, I don’t know the numbers but definitely not even a million. Although I’m not told the full story and Fifth Tide is supposedly under the Frost Elves' protection, it’s obvious they don’t have the numbers to protect an entire city. I don’t see how it was a good idea to leave it all to them, regardless of how the Empire regards the importance of Fifth Tide. Actually, I’ve seen Fourth Tide as well. They might have more soldiers but they are also understaffed compared to the Trolls. Finally, where is Navin or even the Dwarven Archduke that was initially here in this city ?” Ebony imagined that there was no better person to ask than the Crown Princess herself. She had to raise her hand to stop her guards from moving when he called the King by name but he wasn’t worried about them now that he knew where they were.
“Do you know about the sewer issue?”
“That thing from months ago? Are there still sewer problems in different cities?”
“That’s right, a large portion of the Imperial Army is split up and sent down every city and town’s sewers. The problem is, they still haven’t found the issue. Tidal has the largest and deepest sewers so the investigation is still running but the Capital never faced any sewer issues to begin with. No amount of soldiers sent to scour the entirety of the sewers found an issue. The holes found in other cities didn’t lead to any monster den.”
“That’s worrisome how?”
“Because there’s completely no more monsters found underground. Vermin Paradise should have a plethora of monster species underground but they’ve been wiped out as deep as the army traversed, no monster was found. Because of the war, some abandoned dungeons were calculated to have a dungeon break and were monitored. Those cities had readied their defences to tackle a horde but the scouts stated that the creatures disappeared before they made it within the cities’ range. The scouts didn’t see how the monsters disappeared since they didn’t dare stay close to the horde.”
“So? You don’t have to tell me if it’s some national secret. I would like to keep my head.” No one in the city could take his head so easily but he wouldn’t get overconfident. The Minor Generals were not a big threat, Cap Dwarf had strong defences but relatively weaker offence and speed. Mallory might actually pose the greatest threat with how easily she chopped his finger off. Excluding the leaders of the Frost Elves and Trolls currently fighting.
“It’s just my hypothesis since not even I’m told. One, some high-level dungeon underground had an outbreak and these monsters died after they slowly lost essence but they killed off a lot of wild monsters before dying. This is a poor guess, there’s too little destruction if that was the case. Two, some intelligent aberrants are running wild. This is a bit of a stretch considering they are rare and the problem is happening throughout the continent. Three, my personal favourite, Elcra, is under attack by some foreigners. I have a few otherworldly associates who disappeared a few months back, they probably knew about this attack. Of course, they might just have returned to their homeworld without informing anyone.”
“You have associates from other worlds?” Ebony would ask her to add 1 to that number but he didn’t bother commenting.
“Of course, there are quite a few in Tidal. Some to make use of appropriately levelled dungeons, others just to stay for the protection of being hard to kill within the city. There are many researchers and crafters who are studying if equal quality materials like iron from different worlds have the same properties. Our Major General’s armour materials are bought from a more advanced world.”
“I didn’t think Elcra had already evolved trade and commerce with other worlds.”
“Only on a small scale at the moment. Not even all the Archdukes have contacts with them.”
“Alright, mighty Princess. Any other hypotheses I should know about?” Ebony could tell that a defensive battle was everything Navin had hoped for. With his barriers, the Tides didn’t require a huge number of soldiers. The Trolls weren't even on the Empire’s mind anymore, just a pain in the butt. ‘Maybe the other Tides don’t have soldiers out front, they can just hide behind their barrier and depend on defensive towers.’
“I would like to know the full picture too but I’m just a young Princess too weak in their eyes, I would ask Lucas but he probably doesn’t know much. I doubt the Emperor told him much.” Mallory shrugged.
“If you’re weak then weak little me will have to go into hiding.” Ning Xin was stirring awake, he would probably have to eat again even though he wasn’t hungry in the slightest.
Since the swordswoman fell asleep while in ‘battle mode’ she didn’t act groggy but alert. Kong Jing had been sitting beside her but it didn’t surprise her much. Mark’s sprawled-out body on the floor probably surprised her more because he smelled horrible, along with the stench throughout the field hospital.
In a moment of hunger, she must have forgotten the awkwardness between the two of them and asked what he wanted for breakfast.
“Something light please.” He replied.
“Mmm.” She eyed the invisible people immediately. ‘Does she have a better perception than me, no way. Was I just unalert?’
The sun hadn't even risen but the glutton didn’t look at the time to decide when to eat.
“My turn to ask questions,” Mallory continued.
“Go ahead.”
“Where did you learn the guardian knights’ technique from?”
“What? Guardian knights? Are you talking about that emperor’s personal knight group? What technique are you referring to?”
“The way you use mana vibrations, it’s how the guardian knights do. There’s a course on penetrative and impact mana for warriors in Tidal Academy as well. Not many pass the course but it has a good reputation. Mages care more about their elemental magic and warriors just can’t move their mana with as much finesse during quick-paced combat.”
“My skill, Sonic Intrusion? You mean there are warriors who use sound magic?”
“Not sound magic. Just sending shockwaves of mana through their attacks and the defensive options of stabilising their own mana. I also took the same course, I only learnt your so-called sound magic after meeting you.”
“Isn’t Mana Vibration manipulation just the manipulation skill for sound magic? There’s no sound mana manipulation as far as I’m aware. I believe you’re even more aware of that than I am. Your barrier and healing are both arcane just like sound. I bet there’s no healing mana or barrier mana manipulation since they aren’t naturally occurring elements. It’s news to me that the guardian knights use the same technique. I just came up with it when I was wondering what magic I could do without elemental affinity for.”
“You just came up with a technique that the guardian knight uses on a whim. I see. And yes, my healing is arcane but there are many elemental healing and barrier spells.”
“I wouldn’t say, on a whim, it just felt right. Using it to talk was just training my control over mana. What can I do to make my ice shield be considered barrier magic?” Ebony questioned.
“I doubt you need to. We have limited Fortifications, I doubt you want a barrier fortification in your limited slots. And if you don’t have a fortification for it, there’s no reason to desire your skill to have an additional classification. If you really want to, you can ask the King to find someone to teach you. I’m not sure if anyone in the family uses ice magic so don’t keep your hopes up.” Mallory stated the obvious. It slipped his mind that the only reason to have magic under multiple classifications was that fortifications aimed to buff such skills.
“Right, Fortifications…no harm learning it for my future fortifications. But you’re right, I don’t think I’ll ever have space for that. About that, are there any courses on domain spells? Mine’s kinda deformed for some reason.” Ebony rather left his fortification to strengthen his meditation and ice magic.
“...No, there are only 2 professors that are domain mages and they mostly do their own research and give lectures from time to time. They are both Elves, King-classed and they are relatively new to their status as Fourth-Order mages. I’m going to assume your ‘domain’ is just a strong area of effect spell that strengthens most of your magic but not exactly strong enough to put you in complete control.”
“Yes, the Frost Elves could still manipulate ice within my spell. I completely forgot that you measured a mage’s skill by Orders. Does Fourth Order mean the ability to cast a domain?” It was not a topic that came up in conversations often.
“Half and half. It’s mostly the ability to use Will. Are you aware that Third-Order equates to the ability to control elements with words or strong thoughts and emotions? Fourth is just the higher version regarding control without mana.” Mallory finished her coffee and her guard and maid refilled her cup.
“So I’m somewhere in-between, I’m also figuring out this Will problem. I think it’s not accurate to say without mana since mana is still necessary.” It appeared to Ebony that the hidden guards didn’t believe him.
“Because you conjure your own elements, if you are surrounded by ice mana a Fourth-Order mage should be able to use ambient ice mana without consuming their own mana. Actually, that’s how most mages fight just that they utilise their own mana to exert control instead of Will. There are very few exceptions like you who only use conjured mana since you were a Journeyman. It’s the smarter choice, most mages don’t have fortifications to their mana because they keep using ambient elements.”
“I’m glad I followed the Frost Elves’ tips.”
Breakfast arrived rather quickly. He had a chawanmushi-style steamed egg bowl and so did Mallory. The rest of the table was filled with flatbread that was sliced in half and opened to stuff with the various fillings that included sausages, stir-fried potatoes like a hash brown, the main diced poultry with tomatoes in a green sauce and a few different choices of additional sauces.
There were sliced fruits on the side as well. He ate with both masked ladies and the Crown Princess. He couldn’t resist having at least one of the ‘sandwiches’ but the Crown Princess didn’t eat much, less than a normal female human should. She commented on how much Ning Xin ate and that conversion didn’t go anywhere.
“Oh right, you Yvette’s granddaughter?” Kong Jing spoke with her mouth full.
“Great granddaughter,” Mallory replied. Ebony was wondering how old Yvette was, to his knowledge the Royal couple was under 200 years old at best. They took over as King and Queen around 80 to 90 years ago during or before the previous war with the Trolls.
Navin sure had transformed the entire continent in less than a century. It told him that all the Royals and Archduke noble families could get King-Classed within a century. Otherwise, he believed that somewhere along the lines, someone gave birth at a younger age or level. ‘Are Mallory and Hector’s parents also King-ranked? Or Grandmaster? Grandmaster seems more plausible.’
“Same thing, anyway here’s a message. Little Xin, rascal, it's for you too,” Kong Jing caught all their attention. A message, it seemed like there was only one person it could be from.
“She contacted you!?” Ning Xin was clearly not happy that she wasn’t contacted.
“Nope, someone I don’t know sent me a dream message. I don’t know when it was sent since I haven’t fallen asleep for weeks.” Kong Jing stuffed the Egyptian-like breakfast into her mouth. She doesn’t eat for days at a time so her hunger was expected.
“What’s the message?” The Crown Princess was not aware why she had a message but she assumed that it was for the Queen and not her.
“I don’t know what the context was but she said ‘under 2 years’,” As usual, Kong Jing was a messy eater.
“That’s tight.” Ebony understood the gist of the message and the time limit.
The chawanmushi bowl was heavenly and it increased health regeneration by 2% for 2 hours. ‘Must be the mushrooms.’ Her cooking experiments were bearing fruits. They cleared the table quickly with the Crown Princess lecturing about table manners to the other ladies at the table.