Ebony was slow but he noticed the Berg Mammoths' deadly weakness. Stamina conservation.
With a couple of evolutions and physique changes under his belt, he knew that energy had to come from somewhere. There was a limit to energy efficiency and there was no such thing as limitless energy. He would know better than most with how high his Constitution was. He still had to eat and drink.
The higher all his other stats rose, the more energy it took to pull off stronger movements. Mental or physical. Hence, all creatures had to consume food or energy in one way or another. He didn’t know if monsters could feed off ambient essence since that was how they grew but the fact that monsters hunt and eat each other told him that ambient essence was not sufficient as sustenance to most creatures.
Colossal creatures would have colossal energy output from taking a single step. Maybe even breathing would take a diabolical amount of energy. Thus, most of them remain sitting. He was just not worth the effort and that might be why they didn’t bother with Ning Xin. Even their energy-dense bodies didn’t attract much attention because tiny humans could not feed more than one or two of them.
When he stopped running or resisting, the Berg Mammoths stopped as well. Other than snacking on the birds they carry, he didn’t see them hunt. There simply weren’t many monsters that could fill the gaps of their teeth.
Ebony guessed that they were the type that hunted and ate a few times a year and hibernated the rest of it. Waking up out of schedule must not be something they had to do often. This wasn’t rare for many monsters in the Glades so he should’ve thought of it first.
‘I should figure this stealth skill out to slip away.’ Ebony couldn’t come up with another reasonable method of escape. He did not bet on their reluctance to kill him.
Regardless, he still had to pull the moving mountain range further. Far enough that they would have to take days to get back to where the maple forest was. If he was lucky, they wouldn’t want to waste the energy to move. That would give him a few more days of peace. They only moved because they were sure Gen wasn’t capable of moving. But the Berg Mammoths weren't intelligent enough and simply chased him thanks to his aura.
That, or they knew they weren’t able to force Ful out either way.
Ebony stood up and dug a hole big enough to store a few Glacial Models. He entered and started to stuff a few Models with liquid mana that would combust inside them. It was a long shot but he hoped they would be a good distraction for his escape attempt.
The Berg Mammoths left him alone and he even called Ning Xin without interruption. She didn’t sound worried and was apparently busy having a field day with the Mammoth corpse. The amur maple forest was back out which meant he brought the Mammoths out of range.
“Keep the fur intact please.” He knew it was unnecessary to ask but the Mammoth's fur, tusk, bones and even skin were probably amazing material. Her Processing or chef skills must be profiting.
Ebony didn’t know if he should be surprised that the stamina-conserving mammoths didn’t cannibalise. He might have met too many cannibalistic creatures and assumed most monsters would not care.
In terms of size, the Berg Mammoths had to be the biggest creature but in terms of volume, it might not be bigger than the centipede that Navin the Barrier King killed. That insect was also measured in kilometres and might give the two leader Mammoths a run for their money.
Their bomb damaged the Mammoth’s brain and that was how she managed to kill it so fast. These Mammoths had surprisingly weak regeneration and couldn’t stay alive for long with her melting and slicing apart its brain. Her only lament was not being able to cook its brains in a dish.
‘I can make the Models almost fully transparent but not the flames. I’ll leave them in liquid mana form in their blood vessels and try to imbue my will to combust at the right time.’ Ebony examined his sculpture from every angle. There was a glint of reflection from many angles but he could not remove it completely.
They were extremely dense and he found it impressive that he could even make it translucent. The liquid within didn’t have to flow but once it was converted to ice mana the reflections of light would be visible. Ebony didn’t have a method to refract light the way he wanted in liquid.
Ebony did not realise that the Berg Mammoths took turns watching him while he was in the hole he dug. Minutes and hours passed as the pressure of being guarded by so many strong colossi pounded Frigid Refraction’s skill level.
He released a trickle of his mana through the entrance of his cave. Whether it appeased the Berg Mammoths or not, he didn’t know. But they left him to his own devices.
‘Need a lamp. Never mind, I’ll just carve a light rune on the walls.’ He was too lazy to look for a lamp to shine on his Glacial Models to see how compression affects the reflection of light within the Models themselves. There was the angle of light to take into account. He hasn’t gotten to the point where he could make instantaneous changes to the formation of ice to stay invisible or translucent on the move.
As inhuman as his training had been, stealth had not been a strong point of focus. It helped that he could instinctively sense gazes for movement prediction.
‘I don’t have to take the angle of light into account. I have to take the eyesight and peripheral view of my Model from my opponents' point of view into account. That makes things simpler. If they are focused on my Model, I just have to move it at the same pace their eyes are following and I won’t have to adjust the ice mana in real time to stay transparent. Hmm…this only works if one pair of eyes are on them. The computational power required from me isn’t that high but it's near useless if there’s more than one opponent.’ Ebony activated dim lights from different positions in the cave to inspect his Model.
Ebony did the best he could with the limited time he had. He had to settle for a mostly translucent and sometimes transparent Model with some shiny liquid mana within. It only shined from certain angles because of the ice shell. The next step was to cast it over himself and check if he could completely refract light away from him and hide his physical form.
If he was right, the Mammoth had a terrible perception of mana. Relatively speaking.
‘I will still look like a blur thanks to the colour of my robes and skin. I need to make them spray snow clouds to hide myself.’ Ebony could create a mist but he would just be a moving cloud of mist unless he could fill up a space that exceeded the size of a few hundred Mammoths and that wasn’t happening.
It wasn’t impossible if he decompressed most of his mana but it would take too long and defeat the purpose of a speedy escape. At the same time, it would be simple for the Mammoths to blow his icy mist aside.
Despite his desire to make use of a stealth skill of unknown tier, he made no progress at using a skill that wasn’t his own. He was certain it wasn’t currently active and was relieved to find out that Waning Presence was still working and even benefited from the shared skill.
After he was satisfied with his experiments, he climbed back out to check the time. He was getting good at estimating the time based on solar or lunar positioning.
It was deep into the night when he climbed out. He spent a lot more time than he expected.
He made sure to get into the right state of mind before he imbued five of his buried Glacial Models. They were using ice shovels to dig a path elsewhere to a better position and act as bait. He had to be careful with his instructions as they would be out of his range of control when he carried out his escape.
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“Another cup of tea I guess. Maybe some toast.” Ebony took out a cast iron skillet and made a portable stove on a conjured plate of ice. He couldn’t be bothered to find wood and the melting of ice took so little mana he could barely notice.
He had bread, butter and cheese but it was harder to heat his skillet than he assumed. He was lucky Ning Xin was so particular that the quality of the cast iron skillet was pretty good or it wouldn’t have liked the drastic temperature change.
Ultimately, he was proud of the grilled cheese toast he made. He didn’t have a good influence and toast wasn’t enough so he fried up some bacon and sausages. It went well with the salad and his chef’s new salad dressing was sour and refreshing.
His breath frosted over his toast and his tea almost froze within seconds but he ignored that and enjoyed his meal in peace. He recovered the vast expenditure for making five fully compressed Glacial Models quickly but not before the sun rose.
By then, he pretty much confirmed that they didn’t like to move and squander energy.
“Come on, time for a morning run.” He acted as their alarm clock and used sound magic to get his voice across the entire mountain range.
Ebony gave those sleeping Berg Mammoths a Tremor Stomp on their ice caps as he Flickered around and dashed off towards the sea again. If he imbued his Glacial Models correctly, they should follow after him and attract attention when he chooses to slip away. Five was not many compared to how many Mammoths there were but these energy-saving creatures won’t split up at all.
It was inefficient when one took into account their habits but he couldn’t be bothered to point that out. It was either their leaders’ orders or just in their nature to stay as a pack. Prioritised above energy conservation.
He gave them some fanfare to attract the leaders and show them that he had value by filling the skies with decompressed flaming maple leaves. He practised forming maple leaves instead of plum petals and blossoms the night before. It was easier and less complicated and he didn’t put much effort into editing it since he doubted the Mammoths cared about the shape.
They fell for it hook, line, and sinker.
Perhaps his obedience for the past two nights made them think he gave in. The Berg Mammoths didn’t use aggressive tactics anymore and simply sucked in the burning leaves through their trunks as they grazed after him. He eased off his speed and hurried when he saw that, he could use the burst of speed and energy to slip away later on.
He allowed a tunnel of gravity to drag him as he tossed out the thinnest flaming leaves he could to feed as many of them as possible. They even began to tussle their trunks against each other to snatch the treat up.
Although it was obvious they were dissatisfied with the thin mana and the lack of supply, they didn’t attack him. Even with all his regeneration, he could barely feed a few of them. He wasn’t desperate or urgent enough to dip into his mana pool for such an easy job.
His conjuration speed left much to be desired despite the ease of conjuring the bait. Tens of thousands of leaves could be vacuumed with a single deep breath. He had no choice but to spread it out as much as he could to give other Mammoths a chance.
‘Hmm, if this is their intelligence level is it possible to tame them?’ Ebony quickly recalled the power of numbers that the Troll Tamer had.
‘I’ll think about it again when I can overpower the biggest Berg Mammoth.’ He put the thought aside temporarily. He had no such experience and wasn’t particularly well-versed in taming or domesticating animals. The biggest problem was the two leaders but there were plenty of issues to tackle if he wanted to tame a creature.
Ebony liked his chances. All thanks to the fact that he had what they wanted and they were reluctant to kill him. Or so it appeared to him.
He casually led them north. It was the most leisure he had been in this region of the Glades. Since he was constantly chaperoned by multiple layers of bodyguards that stayed ahead of him. He didn’t see a single creature and guessed that the reason the Glades had patches of barren icelands was that it was once used as a bed for the family of Berg Mammoths.
These areas of wastelands seemed huge to him before but not anymore. The continent of Elva kept getting smaller for him. It was hard for him to believe that people took months and maybe even years to travel from one end to another.
He felt like he could do a marathon and go from one end to the other in under three weeks if no monsters or magical atmosphere were interrupting his run. Four weeks was a better estimate since he couldn’t use Phantom’s Flicker for two weeks straight. His stamina regeneration also starts to taper off after a week of intense physical activity and drops drastically after ten days. Although, ten days had been his previous data set. It might have changed slightly after his Physique refinement.
Sadly, people and mounts were lazy. They only walked or marched quick when they were travelling from one town or city to another.
“What if we get attacked when we’re tired?” They all say.
The only people who were like him in this regard were the Runners. They delivered parcels on the double. When he was walking around in Tidal, he saw them zipping through the streets and roads at admirable speeds. Getting tossed into prison and walking out after didn’t impress him as much as the Runners.
Having read a few history books, he knew that Navin taking over as the King made massive changes for the Empire as a whole but it was a bit disappointing he couldn’t or didn’t do anything to some nobles. He was taught not to trust history books the most so he never put much faith in the information found in history books. They were useful as reference but how so, he never found out.
‘Then again, I did send that guy flying into a building…’ Ebony recalled that he fell into a trance and felt bad for hurting that noble. He didn’t ponder on that any longer since he couldn’t even remember that noble house’s name. He probably never even heard of their name if he forgot about it.
The thinning of ambient mana alerted him that he was getting nearer. His call with Ning Xin got cut off and relinked a few times. “What’s that noise?” He stayed still and tried to maintain a stable connection when he heard flesh tearing and screams.
“The kobolds are getting attacked. Let me see.” She went silent for a few seconds, “ah, it's a pair of elks. Call me once you get somewhere safe.” He was almost deafened from the shockwaves that she transmitted over before the link cut off.
They were already prepared for an unstable call so it wasn’t that hard to guess that he wasn’t in a safe location. The Berg Mammoths seemed to agree. Ahead of him were the pyramidal Mammoths who blocked the horizon. Completely denying him from going further.
He was a bit uncomfortable that so many of them kept ahead of him at all times. Even taking into account he was just floating at a brisk pace. Size has its perks.
Just then, an explosion of flames burst out within their back ranks at multiple points. The Berg Mammoths had been so focused on eating his bait and forming a wall that they didn’t prepare a response against his bombs. Passing it onto his Models had been the right idea. He Flickered and transited into an armoured robe of translucency.
His Models weren’t expert diggers and didn’t carve an entire path behind them so he had to stay above ground. They simply hid underground until he baited the Mammoths away and followed them from a distance. He rather hide from sight using their large bodies than stay high in the sky with nothing blocking him out of sight.
Ebony almost couldn’t believe how easy it was to break free from their encirclement. A lot of them pushed ahead to build the pyramidal wall and left their back ranks emptier.
‘Holy…’ He reached their rear with few Mammoths around and had his Flicker fail as his ankles buckled. He caught his fall with his hands but he was forced in that position, unable to straighten his back.
‘Is it some form of revenge when I said they had weak regeneration.’ He glanced around but none of the Mammoths beelined towards him.
‘They haven’t spotted me so they flooded the area but it should be costly and they are dipping into their lifeforce.’ Ebony didn’t think the Berg Mammoth’s regeneration exceeded that of the strongest Trolls. Not even the strongest aura of the Trolls could force his legs to buckle. Hence, he guessed they pulled out their life force to envelop the area to find him after suppressing him.
He was lucky he was used to heavy overflowing vitality from Ning Xin and the large groups of Trolls he faced not too long ago.
Ebony struggled to straighten his back while the Berg Mammoths swept their trunks gently across the surface of the ground. Flimsy attempts to Flicker away from their mine sweeping motion were made and he was so close to coming into contact with them several occurrences.
‘Don’t get tricked, there's no weight pushing me down.’ He told himself that. However, that simply wasn’t true. Overflowing essence had a physical form. When it was thick enough, vitality or mana, both manifested physically. He just couldn’t see vitality with his naked eye and neither could his mana sense perceive it.
They didn’t figure out why multiple moving humanoids were releasing the same flames but they just enjoyed the fact that there was more food to share. Ebony just had to manoeuvre out of his predicament where a couple of dozen cadres of the Mammoth clan were sweeping for him.
Thanks to their large size and huge gap under their bodies, he managed to escape detection despite moving at speeds synonymous with a crawl. Each Flicker brought him less than a kilometre and a single step didn’t even bring him out from under a Mammoth’s belly. He still chose to go under them as it was the easiest way to stay hidden from the other’s line of sight.
By the time they noticed something wasn’t quite right with their food supplier, he had long gone out of the mountain range.