“Does your race grow so much after every evolution?” Ebony asked Ful. Gen’s igloo was gone and in its place was a turtle whose shell had grown at least half as big. Only a week has passed since the first swimming lesson and three weeks have passed since Gen started evolving.
Throughout the process, he was intrigued that Gen’s aura or overflowing essence kept getting weaker. Today, he couldn’t sense any overflowing essence anymore.
Ton and Sei used to be at the size that he could ride and they would still have space on their shells for one or two more people. Now, they could easily fit 5 of him.
Gen was even bigger but the Progeniturtle was another beast altogether having a width of hundreds of metres.
“Generally but none would grow as big as Rue unless they trained or ate something weird. Our wife was smaller than us by a noticeable margin.”
“I see.” Ebony noticed something about Ful’s words but didn’t ponder on it.
“Scarlet’s calling you.”
“Okay, thanks for informing me.” Callstones and mana threads couldn’t penetrate the snow dome and the tree spirit was the medium for communication.
There was no urgency in its words but he rushed as fast as Ton could go after checking his equipment.
“You called?”
“The Kobolds, I ran out to scout and found their territory. I think they’ll attack the forest soon. They hold quite a large area as far as I can tell and their population is high. I didn’t trust the stealth skill enough and felt danger so I left it at that.”
“Your basis for them attacking?”
“They sent multiple groups over the past week and none returned. I don’t need good instincts to know they are planning to come. They probably see us as intruders in their territory.”
“What do you want to do?”
“Launch an attack first.”
“I don’t agree. Gen mentioned that they are practically protecting us from other dangers. Not to mention, I can’t fight right now. I can’t kill them without augmentation and they seem like more than you can handle alone.”
“...Fine, but I can feel them getting angsty. If a few more groups don’t return they might send those I can’t handle while protecting the forest.” She couldn’t exactly let the invaders go free since they might just call for more backup and it wasn’t easy to protect a whole forest while fighting creatures tough enough to require earth-shaking strength. She wasn’t even able to use fire magic as long as they were within the forest.
The only silver lining was that she managed to mix fire mana within her lighting recently. It caused less damage to the surroundings but could still cause deforestation. He saw her unleash a red flash at a target when they were underground and it was honestly pretty cool to see. When he got hit by it on purpose, he felt great potential in the spell. The hot lightning was hard to dodge, and if contacted the lightning would spread across the body leaving tracks of searing fire.
“I’ll see what I can do.”
‘Should I sacrifice a few Models to cast Frigid Refraction on the entire forest? No, the forest isn’t big but it’ll take too much and not worth the loss of defensive capabilities.’ Ebony only had thirty Models roaming about. It was slightly over his limit so some of them weren’t moving at their best state. He treated it as a practice to increase his limit.
He had about eight more spares that were just stores of mana but they were backup for when some got destroyed or damaged and had to be repaired. He only had so much time and mana to spare back in Arcta and didn’t have time to make more after he lost most of it in Fifth Tide. Not to mention the mana that he charged the trailer, robe and what he fed Icicle.
Frigid Refraction wouldn’t be able to fool the Kobolds either. These were creatures that hunted ice creatures daily. Even if, by some miracle, they couldn’t sense ice magic they must have their ways. His flimsy skill didn’t make him invisible after all.
“I’ll go scout.” Ebony might as well make use of his better stealth abilites.
“Wait. What's your plan? I don’t like it.”
“I have not said anything.”
“I can feel it. You’re going to do something stupid and it won't go the way you expect. Tell me.”
“I was going to find other creatures. Those that Gen said could kill us with ease.”
“And then?”
“Lead them to the Kobolds. You said there were a lot of them and some that felt more dangerous. If this is their territory, they would be busy protecting it if something else finds trouble with them.”
“And you’re sure they won’t find you more delicious than a bunch of bony kobolds.”
“Uhm.”
“Haa. How about you just imbue a new will or command to your models for now? We just need to buy time and we’re not exactly under attack yet.”
“What do you want them to do?”
“They guard the edges of the forest, make them push or keep invaders at bay and then call out loud so I know where they are. If we’re outside the forest I can use a little fire enhancement and I don’t have to worry about moving too fast and uprooting trees.”
“There’s some maple sap on your collar…you drank it?” He changed the subject because he couldn’t help but notice the concentrated ice mana on her.
“uh…Sei invited me to have some. I was going to make ice cream with it later. It’s nice and cool with a hint of sweetness.”
As expected, common and uncommon sap wouldn’t freeze her throat. Even if it does, she might not care. Her cold resistance had been levelling even with her armour and mantle on. This deep in the glades, it was far colder than where Arcta was. He had no point of reference but he guessed it was around negative 120℃ to negative 150℃. It was a relatively wide range since he really couldn’t make a better guess. The air was considerably moist only within the Frostblaze Amur Maple forest but right outside, it was hard to breathe.
It didn’t hinder Xin but he was sure she breathed it in and conditioned her lungs to it just to get used to it. It was a good sign to him that she didn’t rely on that mask all the time. Other than breathing, ice would gather on one’s skin within minutes and even seconds if there’s wind. She always returned in a thick coating of ice.
“Alright, I'll go about one by one. We just have to buy time anyway.” The maple trees didn’t go beyond ten kilometres in any direction.
That was well within the range of his Will but they had to stand guard since he couldn’t personally perceive threats so far away. It would take a few minutes to renew the instructions he had for them and allow them to use different types of abilities. For once, it was fun calculating how much mana they should use and what magic to avoid using. Keeping them from defending without destroying the environment was not easy either.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
‘Having Gen’s clones would be nice but I guess even that’s out of the picture. Seems like evolving truly is when one is most vulnerable. How long would we take in the next few attempts?’
‘I could actually mould a mana absorption rune but that would take away from the forest and Ful in return. The mana conversion from the entire forest is more than my own. As expected, trees have far greater regeneration. At least these trees. Hmm, maybe not regeneration but absorption and purification or conversion. Is age the only factor to increase the rarity of these trees or do trees evolve too?’
Ebony’s current perception of mana and the ice element allowed him to learn a lot more about the Frostblaze Amur Maple trees. The forest consists mostly of Common trees at the edges, Uncommon trees in the middle and a few Rare ones near the entrance of the dome or centre of the forest.
The trees didn’t spawn or grow at the start. It took a very long time before the forest appeared. From what he knew, it was about the time the Progeniturtle supposedly died. He never believed that the turtle was dead despite what Ful told him. The tree spirit referred to themselves as one creature. Its attempts to treat itself as a separate creature were easy to see through.
The progeniturtle's corpse doesn't rot and the tree on its shell isn’t dead. The tree was the one that got stabbed but the turtle who won was dead? He didn’t buy the story even with how naive and gullible he was. He could believe that the tree was dying. Magic tree, magic sword. Damage was weird.
Perhaps they were lucky or the Kobolds had other things to do but no attack came during the instructions renewable for his Glacial Models. Limiting the fire mage’s flames also made things easier for his Models so it wasn’t fully detrimental that she was held back.
‘Their legs are the same as my new one but they still explode if they use Phantom’s Flicker. 30% of my maximum output is about their limit. I really want to test out Stalwart Foundation on myself but that’s a waste of mana right now.’ He could only tell that the Kobolds could still damage his new and improved Models but not outright break them in one or two hits. That was a win in his books since ice shatters even with vibration stabilisation.
Sharp attacks were the best. He made his Model gauge to some extent if they would be split in half or not. If they deemed that they would be cut, they would allow themselves to be cut. Then they just had to piece themselves back together with a small mana cost. However, this function was a work in progress. The Models and his own calculations weren’t good enough to imbue such predictive capabilities.
“I could physically carve some traps outside but I’m not as fluent with environmental rune placement and if I want them to last I’ll still have to imbue some mana into the ground or whatever I carve the runes on. Xin, let’s skip swimming today. I want to experiment.”
“Mmm. Then, can you take watch today? I’ll come up as fast as I can if anything happens.”
“Sure but stick with me a little longer. I’m planning to place small areas of magnified gravity or vibrational explosives. So you should take note and make use of it.” He had made rings with similar runes before but it might not translate if he were to physically carve the rune. If someone kicked or moved the soil, would the rune effects disappear?
It was likely. So he was placing more trust in land mines. Vibrational runes that absorb ambient mana and explode the moment a certain weight is placed on them. The only problem was he didn’t know how to set off the reaction. All his rings and runes depended on the wearer’s mana to command.
This was why he wanted Mark’s personal notes. The runic fire mage-wizard was good at using the environment to his advantage. Lack of mana was basically what Mark learned to work around his whole life.
“Okay.”
He grabbed her waist and Flicker a distance away before taking a relaxed walk. They were a forest within a forest. Outside the Frostblaze Amur Maple forest, the trees were closer together and were bigger.
‘Lots of cover, the Kobolds make use of these trees against aerial threats. Large land creatures will have a hard time moving.’ Ebony punched the nearest tree explosively but there was no sound. He managed to break the layer of ice and bark creating a finger-deep indent. The trees were tougher than he expected. Standing at least 100 metres tall and 10 metres thick made these trees an asset.
[Verglas Sequoia]
‘A Rare quality tree with no levels or Appraise doesn’t tell me. Verglas, might be where Na’s energy came from but…this deep in the Glades? The dungeon’s formation’s range didn’t reach so far.’ The species of the tree wasn’t completely new to him and even the size was almost similar to what one could find on earth.
“So? There’s little free space on the ground, how are you going to place runes that can be erased easily?”
“I’m trying to figure that out.”
She let him think as they took a leisurely walk. It was nice that there wasn’t much snow to hinder them.
“How about using that?”
“Rocks? Good idea, I can carve into it and they won’t be erased too easily. Then I just have to hide them under some dirt and they’ll work as landmines.”
“You can’t use mana but I can, I have been sitting on full mana for some time and can spare some from my mask or mantle.”
“Good idea, I’ll add a fire mana capacity rune within the vibrational circle. But the whole circle will be disrupted and I still need to include the absorption rune…” He mumbled to himself and she didn’t disturb his thought process.
“OH! I’ve seen that mushroom in a book!”
At least, she didn’t disturb him until she found food.
“It’s poisonous but delicious. I’ll go gather some.”
‘This won’t be powerful enough to do any damage unless they absorb mana for two days. The rock is Uncommon and can handle quite a bit of mana. My best absorption rune isn’t fast enough but the ambient mana is more than enough. First thing first, I need to adjust the circle to include a fire capacity rune and connect it with the vibrational rune. As for the set-off condition, I believe I can use the pressure sensor in that trap section that I didn’t study much on.’
Runes were pretty fun if he knew what he was doing.
Ebony knew what he was doing. Somewhat.
He got a working circle pretty quickly, carving instead of moulding with mana took time and a few attempts but he had good hand precision and finger dexterity. Once a bunch of them were ready, the fire mage just had to charge them up and she was free to return. With fire mana, she could sense it once she was nearby and wouldn’t step on them.
After scouting and locating an entire village of them, he left quietly and placed his makeshift mines at random positions. Some weren’t even in the direction of their forest. But there was more than one camp. The kobolds didn’t build structures but they did gather leaves and had beds. They didn’t cook their food and only ate raw meat but they were picky and were good at cleaning flesh off the bones to fashion bones as weapons. They sucked on frozen branches for water which was an interesting sight.
Ebony still couldn’t tell if his shared stealth skill was working or not but he was silent and knew how to stay out of sight. They didn’t have better eyesight than him and the large trees helped.
‘That’s more kobolds than I expected. Where are we? This forest is huge.’ He sped up his scout and realised just how wide the forest was. Gen’s forest was parked at one corner of the Kobold territory which was probably a clearing. It was practically a Kobold kingdom here with some monsters running free.
Their average levels were the same as the first batch of intruders. All Kobolds were at that level range except the smaller, younger ones. He didn’t get close enough to check the leaders’ strength.
Each camp has about a hundred or two and there were dozens of camps spread out in the area. He didn’t even stray far from their temporary base.
He returned and patrolled the maple forest twice before the sun rose. The scouting and trap setting was uneventful but took most of the night. Going back underground for breakfast and some sparring. He shifted most of the mana in his robe into the trailer’s power source just in case he had to surface to fight an extended battle.
‘Gen’s aura is starting to get weaker. So that’s what happens when our own energy is broken down for evolution and why we wake up weakened and drained of essence. I wonder if there’s any case of people dying from their evolution process excluding external influence.’
No longer skipping a meal or swimming sessions, he went up to set up alarm and detection runes with as little mana as he could. Behind the sword woman's back, he went and disguised himself in animal fur and attacked multiple kobold camps at the rear and far away from their base. He didn’t kill any of them and simply harassed them. Saving mana made it too difficult to kill any of them and he honestly didn’t like harassing them either.
These guys didn’t have any hostility against him. They also didn’t outright destroy the maple trees. However, they were preparing themselves to take over by force despite days of being gatekept by Ning Xin. Having the trees long-term was probably beneficial for them and these monsters could tell.
The turtle family might not be able to conjure flames of frost but he didn’t doubt that every one of them had their physiques refined and bodies strengthened over decades and centuries. The young trees suited the young turtles.
For once, Ebony’s plans did not go awry.
The Kobold camps were spooked. They didn’t chat with members from other camps as often and were standing guard day and night in case a flitting shadow came to attack them. They didn’t fear the attacker since no one died and he was forced to break an arm or leg as fast as he could before disappearing.
Breaking their limbs wasn’t that hard if he caught them off guard. He gathered that they needed some time to reinforce themselves with vitality and mana. Honestly, he didn’t feel good about it but when he came to check on the kobolds that he injured he saw that they mostly healed in under a day. That made him feel much better, he felt like he was training them.
Breaking bones while training was extremely reasonable. Natural for kids 6 and over. Or was it 8?