“Xin, I brought dessert. There’s this tea that raises clarity for two hours and it’s gentle on the stomach. And one that aids digestion that you might like.” Ebony patted Dusk before entering the house.
“Sorry to intrude.” Mallory waved to him from the dining table where he could almost always find the glutton.
Four ladies were fiddling with something on the dining table and it wasn’t food. He noticed that the dining table had been substituted with a thick heavy table.
“Yo!” Athena raised her head from the contraption on the table and greeted him.
“Hey, Athena and Mallory. You’re both free.”
“I’m going down with ya, so don’t leave me behind. You also didn’t tell me you were comfy with the elling damn royals” Athena was speaking more casually than he remembered her to be.
“How dare the two of you hide that the problem is the Tetramyths!? Do you know how big this is!? I can’t believe how lucky we are!” Kong Jing yelled at him without looking away from the mechanical sphere that was split open on the table.
“Hey, kiddo.”
Ebony turned to the sofa to find an old man eating the hot and spicy potato chips he saved for movie night. Hector was chomping on fried poultry beside the old man.
“You’re here too, Commander Wil.” Ebony greeted the old man with a tet.
His old militia leader was in his living room like nobody’s business. Stronger than ever with the aura he was exuding but no one bat an eye to the heavy vitality. Commander Wilson, the founder of the Bludgeon Academy didn’t have a head full of white hair any more. Time seemed to have reversed for the old man who looked like a man in his fifties instead of eighties. The man was still short and scrawny though.
The physical change was an obvious indicator of an evolution or a huge physique refinement. It was likely the first, it just felt like it.
“Are we leaving soon?” Ebony saw the line-up and assumed it was time to get to pest removal.
“I’m just here for a visit,” Mallory replied while holding tools up with her barriers.
“I was dragged here,” Hector responded and coincidentally watched the movie whose actors Ebony recently met.
“When these kids came to meet me, I caught the scent of your mana on them and here I am tagging along. Hahaha from some dingy old trolls to some kind of divine ants huh.” Commander Wil licked his fingers clean of the spice powered on his chips.
“Hey, my love was on a walk buying out restaurants’ inventory when she smelled me in the vicinity and we ate together. I can’t deny her when she invited me for dinner.” Athena ‘shyly’ put a hand on her cheek and wrapped her other around Ning Xin’s arm. They were a lot closer than he recalled.
“So what are you working on?”
“I needed some extra hands or this old thing would land a curse on me.” Kong Jing replied.
“Don’t worry, we volunteered.” Mallory addressed what Ebony was going to bring up.
“Why would you?” The reply only confused Ebony more. Why would they volunteer to mess around with a machine that had an unknown curse activation mechanism?
“It's rude to pry into ladies' business.” Athena returned to holding a cable that she was handed. They were all just holding a cable other than the craftswoman,
“You’re in my house, using my dining space.” They weren’t doing this sorcery in private, he assumed it wasn’t a private matter.
“It’s not nice to push a lady to tell you what they don’t want to say.” Mallory quipped.
“What?”
“Don’t bother Ebony, they’re temporarily brainwashed. Can I try that plum wine you’ve been talking about?” Hector probably knew what he was talking about and wasn’t worried so it was probably a joke. Ebony was rather proud he noticed it was a joke and didn’t ask why he wasn’t doing anything about the brainwashing.
“I can crack one open but I can’t guarantee the taste.” Ebony walked to the magic cabinet that was chilled and had its humidity controlled to get a jar of his plum wine. Most of them were being stored underground and some were in his trailer. He had some lying around at a lot of places.
“HAHA! I get to try new alcohol, today’s a good day.” Commander already made himself at home with his legs on the sofa.
Ebony also served the desserts he got to his guests. He was already pondering on how he was going to clean up the furniture after they left.
“Yes! I’m done.” Kong Jing exclaimed. “Hold that end tightly, let me add some safety nets.”
He saw Mallory’s elegant poise break for a second when Kong Jing started wielding her magic and moulding runes. It was an odd and unique mana manipulation technique where she made a mini compression of space to send her mana everywhere she wanted it to be. Her runic formulas could only be copied by another space mage with the same or greater level of control as the flow of mana literally required spatial crossing abilities.
No normal mind could comprehend her runes even if she gave them her formulas. Hence, it took her some effort to explain and dumb down her formulas for him to get started.
“Don’t move your hands, I’ll make a direct protection to send any lash back elsewhere if it fails.”
The movie ended and the memory lighter was playing the next memory light slotted in its holder.
“Alright, are you ready?” Kong Jing finished in less than a minute.
The women nodded, risking their safety for something.
Kong Jing flipped a mechanical switch that made the machine clonk and glows as it absorbed mana from the ore placed within.
Ebony closed his eyes when a flash of light blasted from the machine and bathed everyone in the house.
“Fu-wah! This plum wine is not too shabby for mundane alcohol! It’s just a little light in flavour.” Commander Wilson acted as if he wasn’t just flashbanged by a ray of white light.
‘I couldn’t even react to that.’ Ebony lamented that he hadn’t even been fast enough to cover his eyes, much less protect the woman who was shot at point blank.
“Did it work?” Athena muttered.
The women were all unphased and unharmed.
“I think so.” Ning Xin looked at the back of her hands and at the other people who held the cable as well.
“I’ll run some body checks.” Mallory proposed and got to work.
Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.
“You can let go now.” Kong Jing let go and kept the contraption with a snap of her fingers when they let go of the cable at the same time.
“What was supposed to happen?” Ebony couldn’t spot any difference between both his sight and his mana perception.
“It’s a physical anti-ageing beam so that we can retain our appearance longer. I’ve heard of it but I never thought it was real.”
“Why in the world is an anti-ageing device made with curses?”
“Don’t ask, this is a woman’s world. There are some insidious people out there.” Mallory closed her eyes while she inspected herself internally.
“Then why do you need something like that?” Hector replied, he also didn’t understand their thought process for taking the risk.
“Oh come on, have some tact. Beauty is akin to a woman’s power. We won’t stay young forever.” Athena rudely retorted to the Prince.
“There would be an uprising for this piece of equipment if it’s made known that the Royals or some noble family have it,” Mallory added on with a little hyperbole.
“Sister Jing, how many of such items do you have?” First, an industrial mana compressor people would kill and conduct corporate espionage. Then a machine to create magical power sources and batteries for large-scale defensive towers that skipped the necessity of finding a natural mana ore big enough. Something supposedly more technologically advanced than whatever knowledge she possesses.
Now an ageing resistance device that women would cause an uprising for. Ebony did not fully support their reliance on a device. Natural development was great as it was and mature appearances like madam Wilcox was still more than beautiful enough but his definition of beauty was obviously different from everyone else's.
“Not enough.”
“On this topic, have you made the lifespan measurement tool?” Now that he was getting further and further removed from the human race, he was curious about how much time he had.
“That was what I was attempting to do these few days and this was an experiment in that direction.”
“It-it didn’t work. Nothing happened.” Mallory reported while hiding her downcast expectations.
While the women were disappointed to hear that, Ebony was happy to hear them fail. Natural was good.
They checked each other but the craftswoman wasn’t even phased by the failure, as if she expected it. Because she burst into laughter and retreated to her forge.
‘Oh, it's a joke.’
The woman who got played like a fiddle was rather furious except for Ning Xin who was looking at him.
‘Did she sense my glee when they failed?’ Ebony got back to eating chips and tasting his wine while noting down the men’s opinions of his concoction in his notebook. This version is a little too sweet for all of their liking but the women who took a sip thought the sweetness was perfect.
A 5-litre jar didn’t survive long against a group of superhuman bodies.
The scrumptious dinner went well with Athena getting acquainted with the Royals and all of them learning more about Commander Wilson who’d like to be called Wil since he wasn’t part of the Imperial Army.
After living in Tidal for some time, Ebony faced the reality that brewing recipes were a more closely guarded secret than common skills and even spells.
“Unc-Emperor Oplot will be returning in two days. He’ll pass through the main street to the Palace. You can watch the parade if you’d like.” The Crown Princess held herself together despite the rosy cheeks.
“Mmm.” Rather than the parade, he just wanted to sense what the strongest man on the planet was like. A King-ranked individual that was called the strongest when the Elves’ Matriaches, an actual Emperor, were present.
With Wil walking the Royals back, their slight tipsiness shouldn’t matter. Athena was as sober as the men and simply left before Ebony could walk her home.
Kong Jing who had skipped dinner, climbed out of the basement, “hey, I succeeded. Want to test how old you can get? Don’t blame me if it’s wrong, I tested it on some monsters and it seems rather precise based on what I know of their lifespans.”
“Where and when did you get time to test your new product, less than a few hours old, monsters to test on,” Ebony stated.
“Right here.” Kong Jing tapped her mask.
“I see.” He had no response for learning something new about those masks. “So how do I use it?”
“Just stab yourself with this needle, make sure it gets blood and bone.” Kong Jing handed him a large metallic and purple crystal syringe with a sharp needle.
“Then it’ll read my genetic make-up and estimate my lifespan?”
“Probably whatever that means.”
“It won’t break?”
“Who do you think made that?”
Ebony grabbed the syringe and stabbed his arm with it. The needle slid into his flesh with ease, completely bypassing his physical toughness. Then he felt the syringe suck up his blood and bone dust that the needle scraped.
“Pull it out.”
After it filled up, he just had to wait for the results.
“Ten thousand?” He read the digits that showed up on the panel attached to the syringe body.
“Uhm, let me check that real quick.” Kong Jing took her contraption away and said she would get back to him.
There must have been a mistake somewhere. As a Grandmaster, Humans had a lifespan from 500 to 600 years and Elves had anywhere from 1250 to 1500. Beastmen differed based on their subspecies but generally didn’t exceed that of Humans by much while Dwarves had roughly 800 to 1000 years.
She disinfected the syringe with a white solution and stabbed herself with it. The wait had been a lot shorter and her lifespan seemed to be 422. An estimate of 80 years less than a Human.
Then she was...swallowed in a whirlpool and disappeared from her spot. After ten minutes while they cleared the table up, the space mage returned.
“It’s working but your measurements are inaccurate.”
“Figured out the problem?”
“Yes, I didn't make it to measure anything above ten thousand. Give me a day.”
“Are you sure? You have four hundred and I have more than ten thousand?”
“I wouldn’t be surprised, you’re partially mana. Mana takes far longer to deteriorate than flesh and blood.”
“Let me try.” Ning Xin was a little tipsy, it should be impossible with the mundane alcohol they drank that didn’t have any special organisms that aged and consumed mana to increase its magical alcoholic content. “Urgh, please help me. It feels like it’ll hurt.”
Unlike Ebony, she did not have the tendency to hurt herself. She rolled her sleeves up and Kong Jing injected her forearm with it.
The wait was even shorter.
“288? Why?” Ebony had some level of trust that the contraption worked hence, he was a little shocked.
‘Doesn’t she have the physique of a phoenix or some copy of it? How can her lifespan be half that of a normal person?’
The two ladies barely reacted to the number.
“Well, we are relatively short-lived. Believe it or not, this is higher than the generations before us.”
“My Core Skill, I had a feeling I was shortening my life when I overuse it.”
“I see.” Ebony came to terms with it immediately, his mind took logical leaps as usual.
“You’re not worried anymore?”
“It just means we have to evolve more. Evolve faster. I bet there are plenty of natural treasures that increase lifespan. People die.” The numbers tricked him a little but it didn’t feel real to him that they had lives longer than 80 to 100 years. It technically didn’t make much of a difference as long as they kept evolving, kept refining their physiques.
Ebony took Icicle and wiped it down with water. The poor sword might not last long. It did get more durable after the constant breaking and repairing against Gao’larg but he knew it wasn’t keeping up.
“Get some sleep, I’ll be with Dusk.” Ebony took his robe and Icicle and sat them inside Dusk.
“Why are you taking another jar of wine?”
“Hmm? To drink.”
“Alone?”
“As usual.”
“Maybe tea but no I don’t like it if it’s alcohol.”
“So.”
“I’ll allow it if you let me drink with you.”
“Mmm.”
They moved a screen and memory light player over to the small capsule bomb shelter in Dusk. She brought over her tiger plushie that he won for her in the past. After filling the place up with cushions and making a small space for the snacks, they relaxed and snacked on freshly fried fries while playing a movie they’d been saving.
‘This feels stronger than ever.’ Ebony felt like the plum wine was heavier than any alcohol he’d had. The dark enclosed space made him feel every one of her breaths more clearly than usual.
Ning Xin probably fell asleep around the time their snacks ran out and he was beginning to feel drowsy, additional thanks to the movie about martial artists surpassing their masters. He managed to drift into sleep even though it wasn’t his scheduled time to sleep.