Ebony used all his interview skills to talk to the high-ranking knight. They got a commander who dealt with logistics to speak to him. As someone who understood his worth, he pushed for a bigger paycheck. Not compassionate about the Empire’s financial situation at all.
He was only asking for Purples. As rare and high-value they were, it wasn’t the highest-value mana ore that Elva could mine. That was for Reds or Ancient-ranked mana ores. Reds were extremely scarce for Elva. There wasn’t a proper natural deposit for them. They were small lumps found occasionally in large and deep Purple, Epic mana ore deposits.
The core of the Empire’s magic towers were made of a small quantity of Reds.
‘When sister Jing comes back I’ll borrow her power source-making machine again. No rush, I haven’t filled up Dusk’s power source by even a percent. 2 Purples a day is low compared to how much I’m regenerating for them but it's as high as I can get.’ Ebony left with a contract he was satisfied with.
He was allocated a nice open area for Dusk to regrow and even had a nice two-storey house being built by stone and earth mages. Working conditions were fantastic even though he had to work 28 hours a day. oh…Dusk had to work, he just had to be present for his aura.
He created a model without Will and restructured the Tolerant Stalwart Foundation runic formula through trial and error. He tried to move his Mana Chassis over but that was not something he was capable of. It would be akin to cutting his own body part out but permanent.
Battle Hymn’s improvement relied on his understanding of music and how it affected people more so than how mana affected people’s strength. It wasn’t something he could improve just because he wanted to. His musical talents were not found anywhere so he could only search in the dark.
His gravity magic got stronger than he could control so he worked on control instead of refining its power.
All of his skills were being worked on in terms of mana efficiency. Throwing mana at the problem to increase power was not feasible right now so he could only take steps towards increasing efficiency like most humans.
Dusk was the core of Arsenal of Will Domain, but it didn’t require spreading out his Domain at every moment. Ebony made it such that it only maintains the smallest area possible. Because they were within the Fortress, Dusk couldn't regenerate mana through his absorption and conversion runes because the Fortress absorbed every bit of excess. Hence, he had to maintain Dusk at its minimum output using his regeneration. It limited how much he could charge it along with the usage required to cast Battle Hymn for tens of thousands of people.
Two days later.
“Aren’t you going out to hunt?” Ebony looked at Ning Xin in confusion. She should’ve gotten the itch to move by now.
“I have skills to refine outside of combat too you know. And I’m still hungry, burnt too much energy on that giant.” The girl munched on fried bite-sized chicken while lying on her side and watching one of the movies that they’d already watched.
Ebony didn’t think much of it and went out to talk to the knights who looked for him.
“That’s right, use the balls of your feet or toes and don’t land on your heels if you want to move light.” He commented on this group that was part of the elite squads he faced. He was already familiar with quite a few of them.
They were interested in Phantom’s Flicker since he devastated their mages and knights with it alone. Ebony was interested in their ability to mesh so many different people’s mana within their bodies and still fight properly together with their mana-efficient spells. It wasn’t something they could teach him but they could give tips on efficiency. He also didn’t need the tips on how to use multiple people’s mana.
These people didn’t initially call him Rejuvenator but most people did so they slowly picked it up. It was a practice not to share names or get too close with strangers. It was easier on the battlefield unless you were part of a group, squad or party. If you didn’t know someone’s name, it was easier to leave them behind.
“I know that but we can’t move the way you do, is it really not a skill using mana? We won’t pry too deep if that’s the case.”
“No, it’s a fully physical means. Contract your calf muscles in an instant. Ankle mobility is also key. When you can burst out all your muscles’ strength in an instant, you shouldn’t even need to take an actual step forward to move. Like a normal blink movement skill. Past that, you would barely need to move your ankles and need to tap the floor with your feet to burst forward. Even further past that, you should be able to concentrate the force of your feet over a larger surface instead of penetrating the floor, this decreases the impact on the floor.”
“...That sounds like a skill using mana.”
“No mana. Just practise.” Ebony saw the knights off but they stayed in his…yard and chatted with each other about movement techniques. Unable to believe Ebony’s words fully.
“Ex-excuse me…can we continue the discussion from yesterday…” A shy girl who wore a robe with a hood took the chance when the knights moved away and was pushed forward by other mage ladies. They were the hyperspecialised support mages.
“Of course. Show me what you managed.” Ebony asked the entire group of 12 who were all soft-spoken ladies. They were the scariest group.
Hector warned him that these people did not have any contact with many people until they were adults and began teamwork training. Before that, all they did was train day in and out according to their seniors' teachings.
They were not allowed contact with their family members, though a good portion of them were orphans from a young age.
They were scary because they could ‘buff’ a person to death. Just like Ebony.
Their support magic was too potent and most freelancers would die in seconds if they were ‘supported’ the wrong way.
Their Fortifications were required to be maxed out for Journeyman and Master but none maxed out for Grandmaster. They didn’t have the resources or the talent. Although they always try, most would get too old before getting close to the requirements and the Empire mostly scrapped the ambition for a couple more generations.
What was different was that they didn’t buff a person to death using compressed mana. Their compression skill, by his estimation, was at best a highly refined tier 2 version or a surprisingly low-level and poorly refined tier 3 version.
Mana compression usually requires a high Intelligence stat to maintain a hold on mana and keep it compressed together with a high Wisdom stat to keep the mana in that position throughout the spells’ duration. There were plenty of mental tricks to help compress mana further and he was the expert when it came to mana compression. The only problem was explaining in a different method than smashing mana inwards harder.
After his lessons, they got him to show them his conjuration of a mana sphere and firing it at a target. 12 complaints were shouted at him for the wasteful manoeuvre. Three of the more outspoken ones claimed that he should be able to produce 5 to 6 times more force from the mana bolt using the same amount of mana. ‘Claim’ was them scolding him.
Ebony sensed something behind him and these ladies quietened down immediately, putting distance between them immediately through sheer instinct.
Another week passed surprisingly monotonously thanks to how strong the Fortress’s barriers were.
“You’re not going to hunt today either?”
“...Are you chasing me out? Why? Do you not like me here?”
“I thought you didn’t want me to leave you behind.” Ebony felt an intense glare through her opaque mask but ignored it and the belly poking, he just tickled her back. Her sensitivity made her surprisingly weak to tickles.
“I’ll be going into deep meditation, I won’t need food.”
“You are always in deep meditation.”
“I mean a trance state. I don’t know how long I’ll be in there so take care of yourself. 7 of them would be around but I would be disconnected from everything including my clones and Dusk.” Ebony managed to make one clone after refilling Dusk. They would be insufficient as bodyguards against threats that could harm either of them but their quick feet or magic would help in many cases.
“What do trances even do? An epiphany of some sort?”
“I’ll be doing construction work on my chassis using the modified Elven technique of speeding their natural regeneration up. They semi-brainwash themselves to utilise the working principles of their mana regeneration and improve on it. I can directly reconstruct my chassis using their techniques of binding their mana chassis with itself. Since my constitution being made of mana chassis makes it harder, I was thinking I could use a burst of freezing on my chassis and let ‘muscle’ memory do its thing. Okay, it might be a stretch, I tried a small proportion as a test. I healed back to normal after I let go of the freezing and mental hold over my chassis. But I believe it’ll be like training a new muscle, since the Elves could do it, I should be able to do it too.
“Another large physique refinement or mutation? But you don’t have the help of any high energy source, it’s going to take a long time. Didn’t you say the book mentioned taking a century to do it normally?”
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
“That’s a misconception. It’s just the number of attempts that take them a century. I can do that faster in my trance state. How much faster…is about how much faster I regenerate mana compared to a human. Right, you can leave easy-to-eat food beside me. I would probably be able to eat in my trance once I start to lack the calories.”
Ebony believed that he perfectly modified the skill, the tier 3 version. He just needed to incorporate it into his body. Although he hoped it would give him a direct Physique change, it was more likely to be a passive skill. The original skill book had excerpts on passive skills and physique refinements. They were believed to be closely related but chances are, it would take a pure external energy source to permanently change their Physique or it would just be a matter of long periods that only long-lived species like the Elves could experiment and theorise with.
There was something he didn’t mention to Ning Xin and it was that the number of attempts he required was going to be hundreds if not thousands of times more than the writer of the book. He could only blame it on how resilient his body and mana chassis were.
Fortunately, he wasn’t as lazy as the Elves who proposed 5 cycles a day and estimated success between 80 to 120 years. On average, that was 196,000 attempts or training cycles. He saw it no different from doing a set amount of push-ups for years to train a certain group of muscles.
It might be far more complicated than a push-up but Ebony wasn’t deterred by repetition.
A Great Mage, Master-ranked mage was estimated to take almost an hour per cycle because it was a mentally straining exercise so he couldn’t blame them for not overdoing it. A freshly evolved Grand Mage could easily triple that speed.
Even if Elves were used as the standard, he didn’t think he was any worse than them when it came to mana manipulation. High mental stats helped greatly and he wasn’t a fresh level 300 Grandmaster anymore.
He understood the recovery was necessary so 5 cycles a day wasn’t necessarily bad but it could be optimised.
What is a hundred million sets of ‘isometric’ training compared to life-and-death battle?
Anyone who asked Ebony or Ning Xin which would be more useful to grow stronger would get the same answer, both are required.
But that wasn’t the point. A hundred million or even a billion wouldn’t deter them.
How many times has he kicked?
How many times had Xin swung her sword?
Not enough.
“You’re not going to wake up until you’re done? Not even during recovery periods?”
“I’ll use the recovery periods to work on my mental simulation skill, I might be able to create it with my current stats.” Ebony thought that the reason people were limited to skills that were 1 or 2 tiers above their evolutionary stage was due to stat or body and mind limitations. Technique could only go so far. It wasn’t often that he willingly went into a trance state, he might as well make full use of it.
Since he had to stay put to charge up Dusk be it Will or mana, he saw this as a perfect use of his time. His clones could return and recharge themself using Dusk as the mana charging port so experience wasn’t an issue.
“Am I a distraction?” Xin's expressionless mask couldn't hide her intense glare.
“You’ve always been one, ever since we’ve met.”
“I see.” She looked down back to her chopping board with a slab of Brick Fauna, a type of underground plant.
As a man who's learnt the art of social interaction, he knew her dejected look was her misunderstanding his words despite the truth in them.
“You’re also a source of my strength.”
With the tips of her hair burning up, and her terrible acting as if she wasn’t affected when she was literally having tiny hops in her feet he knew he dissolved the misunderstanding since she could tell truths from lies.
“Your favourite pan fried pork dumplings with water chestnuts. Eat up.”
He even got a treat. Pork was getting scarce even with their large storage of food.
Before long, they might be eating rations or unseasoned tetramyth flesh.
‘Hold on, why does this feel like the cultivation novels’ closed door cultivation...nah, I’m still doing stuff and I’ll sit against Dusk where everyone can see.’ Ebony shook his head at the realisation and did his body stretches.
‘Should I try to programme myself to move my body while in a trance? I don’t want to lose any conditioning levels for not moving too long. Forget it, tier 4 doesn’t drop in levels for a long time. I should focus.’
Ebony said his goodbyes, crossed his legs and sat against Dusk.
A moment passed, ‘since when was it so hard to fall into a trance?’
At this point, he realised that he didn’t have a completely clear mind.
‘Mandate user, after me for some reason. Steam-punk-looking fellas, after Xin, but space user changed targets to me. He can’t make a move on us, I think it’s the same reason the Saint Tetramyths aren’t coming through the portal. Whatever. Problem is we, I, am being suppressed. To hide here. I can’t even walk through the streets of Tidal in peace. Down here, the Tetramyths are beginning to target us. Now I can’t even freely walk the grounds outside the Fortress without eyes on me. Hmm. I am irritated by the invisible cages that imprison me. Good to know.’
Ebony pinpointed the cloudiness that infected his mind with ease.
He found it funny.
Getting stronger was the way to being more free. To move and do as he wished.
To do so, they searched for stronger opponents to surpass and the stronger they got, the more obvious it was that there were so many individuals stronger than them. Rather than finding more people weaker than them as they grew stronger which was true but also not at the same time. Their view and perspective widened.
It was also the same group of people that caused him to be hiding. Imprisoned by invisible bars.
‘That’s okay, they are just the next hurdle to overcome.’
And so, Ebony fell into the trance that he desired.
When he opened his eyes, he found himself in a place human minds couldn’t imagine.
‘This is new. Not just my thoughts are in my head but I feel like my body is in my mind. It looks the same, so whatever.’ Ebony was in his mental space.
There was no colour around him. Everything was transparent as far as the eye can see. A ‘clear’ mind meant something completely different to him. He was used to this scene so he didn’t find anything out of place but he had been warned by his father that out of everything he was, this wasn’t normal.
He cannot imagine how peeking into his mind would make a creature insane after they’ve been in here long enough. Thankfully, it wasn’t like anyone was peeking into his mind.
At the core of his mind, where his ‘body’ was currently standing were phantom outlines. There used to be a version of himself here, but he seemed to have taken over that version of himself and was moving in it instead of watching this place from a third-person view.
Another one of the invisible phantoms that he could feel but not see with the naked eye was his mother. The phantom kicked a small version of him that was lying on the ground and sent it flying against a metal board, breaking the kid’s chest.
This was a good memory, it was imprinted into him.
It was after this moment in time that his mother started taking him seriously but he didn’t reminisce right now.
To his left, was a huge frame that the current Ebony almost matched in height. His father playing chess with a computer and reading a book on human psychology. The phantom looked to the ground and picked up young Ebony to place on his lap and rub young Ebony’s head. ‘Come, we’ll continue mental arithmetic from yesterday.’
He didn’t have any special memories with his father, only relaxed ones that were fully…mechanical. Efficiency and practicality, that was how their time was spent together.
‘What do you want to eat for dinner?’
The last phantom was a new addition.
The rest of the invisible clutter was him training. Sparring. Hunting. Hunted.
That was the entirety of his life.
Plain, directionless and ambitionless.
Learning that was all to him as a person was rather pathetic.
Perhaps all he wanted was a simple life. With moments of excitement every so often when he is finally able to freely travel and see what life has to offer. Maybe he could find something to live for. Maybe, he already found what reason he had to live for and it was all present.
“I just want to be unfettered. Not ambitious at all.” Ebony convinced himself and stepped away from the core of his mental space.
There was quite a distance of phantoms of him training but he was in his mental space he could be as fast as he could think. He found that there were quite a few new additions, not related to fighting. They were gardening, tea drinking, eating and playing around. The new individual was present in many such scenes. Not a single scene were they fighting or training together, all were peaceful and warm memories that contained nothing special, just daily interactions.
He didn’t expect to see a version of Dusk here but didn’t think much about it.
“Now that I appear to be physically here…they have colour.” Commenting on that, Ebony reached the edge of the core of his mind. There was a bubble he had to cross, he could phase right through but the bubble was incredibly thick, far thicker than he last recalled. Although he perceived time differently within his mind, he didn’t expect to take so long to exit this space and out to the next layer or thought.
“That must have been three whole weeks! I am loud here. How long is that outside? Whatever, I don’t want to disconnect to find out. In the past, this meant about 1.2 seconds. Assuming I’m faster than before, less than a second passed outside.” Ebony heard his voice echo throughout his mental space whenever he thought.
“This is getting boring. I can see why Elves think so little of long time periods.” Ebony pulled his body away from the bubble of his core in a space of no colour, not white, not black but an endless transparency for a decade.
“Is it the Lunar Bio Clock? Even though there is a lag, I think I know how long has passed outside. About two minutes. So I am faster than before. Roughly 1 month to 1 second. This makes me feel mentally old. This place sure got a lot bigger. Am I going to take centuries to get to the outermost layer if I move normally? Okay, enough sightseeing. I shouldn’t waste any more time.” He could obviously appear wherever he wanted within his mind.
“Plant races are the peak race when it comes to life force and mana regeneration. Outside of elementals and other types of mana-beings, whatever those could be. That’s why Elves have such a close relation to some plants.
It’s also why the Marsh’s Grove conduit uses the image of a grove of trees to expedite the expulsion of mana and the deconstruction of crystalized mana from what they call the Marsh. My repository is the same with coagulated mana that is hard to utilise but I want to keep them that way, there is a reason for their hardy but stable form. Such as interference from other spells, mages or special equipment.
But as someone with the dormant genetics of a mana-being, I don’t need to copy them because it wouldn’t work the same way for me anyway.
Haha, let's see if this would work as I imagined.
Time for the age of industrialisation, my poor, inefficient mana chassis!
When I’m done with you, you powerhouses of the creature, me, shall be proper modern factories. Damn, it sounds stupid when I’m listening to my voice echo.” Ebony took inspiration from mitochondria, the power of science and the industrial revolution.