Ebony followed Laika into the closest side building and an empty classroom. The training field was just right outside the window. There were barriers in place but the location was anything but safe. Perhaps it was just easier for instructors to show live demonstrations while the students remained within the room.

“Please wait a moment while I get the latest test papers.” Laika shook her head as she left the room.

“Hey big bro! What level are you?” The boy who cried for unfairness propped his head over the window sill.

Ebony found the seats and tables to be adult-sized and took a seat after carefully adjusting gravity. The instant he heard a light creak, he just ‘sat’ on his air chair. A basic isometric exercise.

“Three hundred.” He replied candidly.

“That’s the same as Miss Raika!” A chubby young girl with shoulder-length hair that was raised in the air thanks to static exclaimed.

“Hmpm! My father’s level 331.” The same loud boy crossed his arms.

“Mine’s 352!”

“How old are you.” Ebony estimated them to be ten or twelve at best.

“I’m turning eight in a couple of days.” They were unperturbed by his lack of tone.

“I’m nine! The second eldest. How old are you big bro? You’re three hundred so you must be pretty old. Are you a hundred and fifty years old like Miss Raika? Or not… Mother says Miss Raika’s very young and not many reached three hundred at such a young age other than nobles.” Ebony felt like he was in another country as the children here were all yellow or blond-haired. It was usually a rare colour to spot but not in a school meant to gather them.

‘Hundred and fifty years old is young? A human Master should have a lifespan of 350 to 400 years so, I guess she has plenty of time. No idea how close she is to evolution but…to think she’s six times older than me. How should I respond…’

“Don’t be disrespectful!” Raika did a hand chop on the girl’s head, “Mr Ebony here is a Grandmaster unlike me.”

“Were you serious when you said you were a Fourth-Order Mage? I thought there were only three humans that were Fourth-Order Mages, old fogeys at that. The rest are Elves.”

Ebony conjured a palm-sized figurine of himself on the window sill and had it poke the boy who leaned his sweaty arms on it.

“Cold!”

“You really are an ice mage!”

He conjured another figurine to spar with the ice toothpicks in their arms. Gradually, he filled a few desks with mini squads of tiny Models fighting each other. Some used unarmed combat, others' swordsmen, even archers and mages were present.

The magic tricks entertained the children and had them in cheers but Raika’s jaw dropped at the display. The Journeymen teenagers were too busy target practising to watch the performance.

Young human children hadn’t had their mana pools fully developed and they had quite a limited practice duration. Ebony lacked that, hence his first few skills took an unreasonable amount of mana compared to mages with proper training from childhood.

The same could be said for warriors with enhancement spells. They were forced to refine their skills to use as little mana as possible to extend the duration they could remain at peak state.

“Are you controlling all of them at the same time? How? Every individual figure is making drastically different moves…”

Laika re-entered the room with a stack of papers and saw the performance. Or maybe the frozen little toothpicks, arrows and splotches of ice.

Ebony waved the models away and they dispersed into frozen plum flowers out the window for the children to catch. Not a single inch of ice remained on the wooden desks.

“Kids. Raika. It’s lesson time isn’t it?”

“Run!”

The children dashed back to the field screaming that the monster headmistress was coming after them.

Laika put her hands on her hips and shook her head. She seemed content.

“See you around.” Raika held a flower in her palms and jogged after her students.

“This is the usual test, there’s also a practical test but I’ve already seen your lightning spells and manipulation and I won’t waste a senior mage’s time with that.”

“I’m no senior, I'm not even thirty.”

Laika chuckled, “You have an hour.” She placed the test papers down in front of him. Finding herself a seat, she stared outside.

‘Let’s see what kind of questions schools here ask.’

* What is mana?

‘What? They ask such advanced questions? I underestimated their education levels.’ Ebony got into his groove and tried his best to answer the questions. Some were basics of magic like what elements were there and the common strengths and weaknesses of each element. Math questions about mana usage and recovery times didn’t even take a second for him. Then it moved on to more lightning-focused questions.

Ebony was particularly stumped by the question, ‘Is the speed of conjured lightning the same as natural lightning?’

He believed the answer to be a simple no. Unless the caster was particularly strong or adept with it. However, he didn’t even know what the speed of natural lightning was in this world.

Time was tight, he had to be succinct with some answers. His speed writing helped a lot. Time breezed by.

“A simple answer like mana is an energy that mages use to manipulate the natural elements would have sufficed. Senior.” Laika shook her head at the three-page answer he wrote.

“Is that so.” He might have misunderstood the requirements.

The zapping of lightning and thunder continued to echo in the room while the headmistress read over his answers on the spot.

“Your take on lightning magic and magic in general is very unique. Are you really self-taught?”

“No, I had guidance for lightning magic. But I took a different direction since body enhancement wasn't what I was looking for at that time.” Ebony glanced out to see the children holding lightning mana spheres.

Those spheres were ores but ones that were crafted to be suitable for staves. They were half the size of a human head. From the lightning mana purity, they were all Common quality and from the densities he sensed, they were almost emptied.

Intrigued, he guessed that the metal stretch right outside the training field with empty bowls built in were chargers. The kids ran up and placed the spheres in the balls and as he assumed, lightning mana started refilling the spheres.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

“Lightning body enhancement?” Laika frowned.

“You don’t have to guess, she didn’t learn from any academy you can find either. At least when it comes to lightning, she’s completely self-taught. Did I pass.”

“With flying colours. But for this question, could you explain what you mean here?” She pointed at one of the sheets he handed over.

Ebony took a look, it was a question about how ambient mana densities and the general environment would affect a mage’s spell-casting abilities.

He had an academic discussion with Laika who was very helpful when it came to the basics of lightning. They learnt from each other that different elements face different difficulties in high mana-dense areas. Lightning magic did not feel any harder to cast in mana-dense environments but they started to move slower, as if impeded by a thick fluid. However, they tend to remain on a target longer once contacted.

Ice on the other hand had difficulty being conjured or formed in such environments, they were harder to manipulate but they gained a slightly tougher structure. It was good to know that there were advantages and disadvantages. It would be useful to know how every other element is affected.

It was well into noon before he left the Piercing Tempest Academy and went on his way to other Academies.

He was sadly completely rejected. Most Academies didn’t teach Grandmasters part-time courses or full-time as a matter of fact. Ebony hadn’t seen a single King classed instructor or headmaster. He knew of a few, from hearsay.

For example, the Academy that taught rogues that inflicted all kinds of statuses like poison, burns and all that. The director was supposedly a powerful King now. But he or she was old and retired. There were a couple more famous Academies but none of them suited what he was looking for.

As much as he felt like starting from the bottom, it didn’t extend to Warrior schools or any martial arts schooling. He might have a flimsy foundation for magical knowledge but close combat was out of the question. He wasn’t gonna waste his time with…inept warriors and martial artists.

Going home for dinner, he picked up a few additional dishes from taverns they’d skipped since he walked quite a long way on his school hopping. There were plenty more he would apply to over the coming week.

He cocked his head when he bumped into Ning Xin at their doorway.

“You just got back?” He was expecting to find her in a messy kitchen.

“Actually, I haven’t finished shopping. But I got hungry and it was almost dinner time.” Ning Xin had her long hair untied, too lazy now that Kiva didn’t play with it.

“Need any help?”

“Could you wash and peel some vegetables for me?”

“Mmm.”

A measly six hours of training didn’t get them hungry even after a whole day but they had a large spread for dinner. Mostly experimental dishes as she got inspired.

“Any success?” She asked while they were cleaning up. Trying her best not to let her disappointment in her experimental dishes show in her body language.

“One accepted me. I’ll start next week.”

“You’re going to continue going around enrolling?”

“In those that interest me, yes. What are your plans?”

“I’ll continue shopping tomorrow, there are so many ingredients I’ve never even heard of. Monster meat, crossbred animals, vegetables, herbs and spices, they're all new to me.”

“I want to visit Yvette, rather, to see how Muse is doing.” Ebony proposed. He didn’t forget that the girl fainted after she tried to ‘heal’ him. He was under the impression that it was thanks to her that he could the weird Roar skill.

“Sure, we can go send our greetings that we’re here as well. How about in three days?”

“That works.” It gave them time to settle down.

A casual hour of light exchange of blows to digest later, she returned to making new sauces and marinating meat for their next meals.

Ebony tended to his garden. He got the soil ready over the past few days and had the seeds that he wanted to grow. He didn’t forget to leave a portion of the garden for edible herbs but the main purpose of the garden wasn’t for farming or food. He was in the midst of trying every tea leaf he could find so the garden wasn’t going to become a tea plantation any time soon.

The garden was going to be the experimental grounds for his new skill. Arsenal of Will Domain.

He hasn’t been playing around without making progress. It was helpful that the skill was quite intuitive. He was aware of what it could and could not do after making some specific attempts.

Ebony wasn’t able to make a Glacial Model into a separate arsenal but that didn’t mean he couldn’t use something else. The little tests he conducted back in Arcta allowed him to narrow down some of the requirements for it.

Firstly, it was easier if the separate arsenal or central core was not moving. Not including if he were to use his own body as the centre of his domain. Hence, something stationary would be ideal.

Secondly, size. Although the Glacial Model is a one-to-one copy of his body, trial and error told him that a larger body of ice was more receptive to holding what’s known as consolidated Will.

Finally, the last thing he managed to boil down was that even shape matters. He didn’t know why and he hadn’t even managed to come up with any possible reasons. After all, he could cast it on himself; he didn't see why a human sculpture of the same shape wasn’t as suitable.

The bad thing about being too intuitive was that he was burdened with more unanswered questions while still achieving what he meant to do.

Conjuring a ball of ice in the middle of the garden, he morphed it into as many shapes as he could think of while consolidating Will. He used up about a quarter of his Will and gently placed it against the morphing ball that continued to expand and gain mass.

Sooner or later, he would find a suitable size and shape.

‘It’s an arsenal, about a vault. Doesn’t work. A military barrack? Nope. Weapon store? Even worse. Forget it, I’ll just have to try whatever comes to mind first.’

He formed humans that he knew.

Then Frost Elves.

Turtles.

Tree…

‘It’s slipping in. A tree worked. Hmm, they said Will leaves residues and they grow and strengthen their domain by recasting or maintaining it by feeding Will. I got it, I bet the Elves use trees as well. A symbol of growth maybe. Let's try a seed…too small. Whelp, I’ll see how large the seed has to be before it accepts consolidated Will.’ Ebony didn’t expect to find purchase so quickly. He had fully expected to spend weeks and even months to figure something out.

The garden was indeed an experimental ground but he didn’t start with the idea of planting a domain. He just wanted an outdoor space where he could put something stationary.

‘I’m quite stupid, I knew it should be stationary but I formed mobile creatures.’

Ebony subconsciously formed a plum pit with a seed within. When he added mass to it till it got to the size of a watermelon, the consolidated Will he gathered finally slipped in. This Will took two entire minutes for him to gather.

He understood the importance of enforcing instructions to Will. He took it as programming a code, the more ironed out it was, the more complex and precise the Will he gathered and imbued would be. Since he wasn’t in the middle of a fight, he had plenty of time to be meticulous.

Whatever took in this Will would be able to cast all his spells, identify hostile intent, create Models with as much strength as he would have himself. There were some differences since a seed or a tree had no use for movement skills but the Model’s the Domain casts would need the information.

Ebony dug a hole and planted the pit.

As he dictated, the pit that had a shell that could survive Earth’s bombs and missiles with ease cracked open and sprouted. Was there a purpose for not conjuring a tree to begin with and starting from a seed? He didn’t know, he was just doing it for fun.

Mentally, it felt like the time he mass-refined all his spells into one woven form. He extended strings and branches to the limits of his range. That may be the reason why this form was more suitable instead of the fact that a tree was the perfect shape. During that spell refinement, he did conjure a tree to drop petals that burned.

He watched as the seed grew into a sapling about a metre tall and ten centimetres wide before it stopped. He didn’t manipulate it to do that, it was shaping itself already.

‘It stopped…Oh I see, I kept the preference of using fully compressed mana so it doesn’t want to decompress if it isn’t in what it considers urgent.’ Ebony fed the sapling more mana.

It was interesting to see a skill work on itself without any further involvement from him. It might be the subconscious form that his consolidated Will took upon.

The more mana he fed, the larger the sapling grew. It quickly overtook his height until it was three metres tall.

‘No leaves or flowers. It’s not growing anymore even with mana. Ah, it’s large enough to contain more Will. Nice, I’ll use everything I have.’ Ebony wasn’t about to stop now that he saw such explosive progress.

“Xin, I’m going to use all my Will and mana.” He opened the front door and reported his momentary vulnerability.

“Okay!” There was no need to yell from the kitchen since they could hear each other just fine but she must have forgotten about their superhuman senses.

“Let’s get you all grown up.” He caressed his pet tree.