Hours later.
The kind guard returned with another two bricks. He also had gained permission to wield the jar of water that he nervously fed Ebony with.
Water was a luxury and he was even more polite with Ebony after realising that this prisoner had been given such luxury.
“Thank you. Y-”
“Sorry, I got to go attend to some time-sensitive duties!”
Ebony did not trick the kind guard to feed him more than he was allocated. So far, all of them were very obedient and maybe scared of Gearhart. He didn’t want to get the nice people who were just doing their jobs in trouble.
‘One brick is about 800 calories. Enough to survive if all prisoners do is sit around. If I sit around all day, not using any mental or physical strength my current resting metabolism requires only 1000 calories. Not unimaginably far from a normal human even with the Constitution stat so high. It increased after I rebuilt my physique, increased my muscle and bone density. I’m 600 kilos of muscle and bone together with all the other stats including strength and intelligence increase my energy requirements. I’d say I’m already magically energy efficient.’
In his free time, Ebony did a bit of calculations. The numbers skyrocketed if he exercised and fought but higher quality monster meat was also more energy-dense. If he were to be fed 3 bricks a day, he would be able to begin healing.
‘I need to stay melted, the more they feed me the faster I can start healing.’
Ebony didn’t have any visitors and had nothing to do so he stayed connected with the clones in range and continued his attempts to contact Dusk, Ten and Eleven.
Since Fourteen couldn’t enter the prison to help him scout and map out escape routes, he had the clone explore the Gearhart estates and the entire island on the volcano they were on. He also gave Fourteen a project to work on, a stealth rune to add to his Stalwart formula together with observing and understanding aether and the differences it had with mana.
Two Cinderashian days later, he had a visitor.
A healer that used aether was led and protected by the same leader who denied him pants together with two other men who held his already chained arms and legs down while their esteemed healer worked on his molten flesh.
After 60 hours of immense patience on the guards’ end, the healer gave up. The esteemed healer was very well guarded and like him, had water to drink. The healer even had a servant to wipe his sweat.
“His make-up is too different but that aside, he is not healing. His effective constitution is in the hundreds of thousands, please get another healer.” Ebony memorised the soft voice.
‘He’s probably wrong about the effective constitution. My mana chassis is basically empty, how can my effective constitution be that high? Do they not know I’m a mana being and I’m not fully physical? That shouldn’t be, Ezekiel guy and the Saint should know. A secret? That would make sense. They don’t want anyone to know.’
‘You misunderstood. Aether healers are not as rare as healers on Elcra and they follow a universal standard for classifying healing difficulty in terms of ‘effective constitution’. I listened in on one of the healer’s lectures. This takes into account base stats, racial baseline, physique, fortification, passive skills and more. Resistance to healing is also taken into account. They also classify how good a healer is depending on what level of effective constitution they can heal. Don’t be misled by the numbers.’ Seventeen voiced in his mindspace.
‘You’re back in range? That was fast.’ Ebony replied to Seventeen.
‘I had to reroute, it was too dangerous and hot where I was going and I don’t dare waste mana till you can recover and recharge me. Right, charge me with Will.’
During the connection, he received all of Seventeen’s latest memories and mental mapping. There was a city not far away at the base of a volcano a few volcanoes away. It was a small city with barely a few million in population. Although Seventeen said it was dangerous, the only danger he faced in his travel was heat. They were close to the home of a Saint, what could be more dangerous in the surroundings?
All Cinderashian spoke Gia.
Seventeen could stay to study more about the city but he also found information about the surrounding towns and cities which he wanted to check out before deciding where to settle and gather information. With no immediate way of leaving the planet, Seventeen was also mapping and looking for a good place to hide.
They had quite a lot of confidence in hiding because of how unperceptive these Cinderashians were with mana. The average citizen's level in the city that Seventeen found were too high since they were a city that purely served the Gearhart. Direct servants and their families so to speak. It was why healer lectures and classes were being carried out nearby.
However, Seventeen still managed to walk in and out of the city. They were practically blind to mana but Seventeen also kept a good distance away from strong people out of caution so they couldn’t confirm how good or poor these aether user’s perception was.
Seventeen got on with his travel and was out of range soon enough.
Ebony was not bored enough to watch Fourteen constantly and worked on his healing and Will skills while his visitors saw themselves out. “Look at me, loosing flesh. My race requires a lot of food.”
His taunts did not work and his meals were still the same amount of dry bricks, which surprisingly was 4 bricks every 30 hours. Although they had longer days, Cinderashians seemed to follow a day and night clock not unlike Elcra. People still slept when the sun was out.
Twelve Elcrain days later, Ebony climbed out of his mindspace.
A drop of coagulated mana had gathered in his body. The exhaustion debuffs were all gone while the hunger debuff was almost all gone.
But his mana regeneration had begun to exceed the drain from all the chains on him. It might be obvious to his captors that he was healing because his output had been increasing but as long as they didn’t come and put another chain on him, they wouldn’t know how much his regeneration exceeded their absorption.
Without any physical exertion, all his sustenance could go to mana regeneration.
‘I should hasten it. Using even my flesh’s remaining energy contents to make myself even more dead. When I have enough coagulated mana, Mireloom Chassis Engine can start again and my regeneration would increase further. They might finally feed me more if they see me dying and I can speed up more.’ Ebony did not fear the physical weakness he was aiming to get back. As long as his mana chassis was fine, physical injury didn’t scare him much.
His body also kept life force regeneration at a minimum because his Will decided that all his energy should go to mana regeneration. The more he figured out the things he could do with Will, the more impressive Will seemed.
Instead of another healer, Ebony’s next visitor was someone with the same degree of aura as the man who didn’t dare to share his name. The Telepath, Elijah was present too.
“This is the creature you couldn’t see through Elijah?”
“...Yes, Guru.”
‘Emperor mind mage…am I in serious trouble?’ Ebony quickly hopped into his mindspace. He didn’t dare to take the latest visitor lightly.
Like he assumed, the ‘Guru’ already invaded his mind and was at the edge of his inner layers that divided peripheral and conscious thoughts with memories.
The Guru didn’t pause upon entry like Elijah and his apprentices did. He even brought Elijah’s mind along.
‘This looks bad.’
“It looks bad huh? Creature, what is your name?”
Ebony fell into a trance to shut his mind up, surprising the Guru when there was no reply in his mind.
“Tier 4 meditation. No wonder this boy can’t go far. Let’s see how far you can hide your thoughts from me.” The Guru was a short dark-skinned man with a grey-orange beard, moustache and long brows combed his beard to the side with one hand and placed his other hand on the invisible barrier that separated the layers of thought. He was also bald but had his eyes closed from the start.
Ebony felt the invasion like a needle in his head, moving himself in, the Guru already stepped into where some of his memories were sitting. He was moving faster than the speed of sound within Ebony’s mind until the pressure from passive defences stopped the Guru. Here lies his procedural and semantic memories but they were not unlike his outer layers. Everything was colourless and seemingly invisible.
‘Hot damn, that was intense. I see, so natural mental defences are thicker the closer it is and this stops mental attacks. That’s why it’s harder for mental magic to affect people, even weak defences.’
“That is correct.”
The Guru finally opened his eyes, clearly shocked when he saw what Ebony’s inner mind looked like. The strong Telepath only peeked for a few seconds before he closed his eyes and anchored himself with a bead of sweat rolling down his brows. The Guru left Elijah somewhere in the inner layers where Elijah was trying to anchor himself before getting lost as his apprentices did.
“I am impressed. This is more than what I was expecting. But this is enough, you can’t hide from me here, can you? Let me ask you, what is your name?”
“Do you think I can’t control what I’m thinking?”
“I will know if it’s the truth or not. I am Guru Cogs Pwit”
“You can call me Ebony.” He chose to reply but he did feel that he was being guided or encouraged to speak.
“Good, Ebony. Why did you attack Lord Gearhart’s son?”
“To defend myself. To find my companion. To get what I want. To show some fangs. To spite helplessness.”
“...All true. What grudges do you have with the Gearharts or the Cinderashians?”
“...”
“Hmm, too vague? What grudges do you have with Saint Gearhart?”
“...”
“What grudges do you have with Saint Gearhart’s son?”
“...Stop. There is no reply because I think nothing of them. No grudges.”
“Truth. Suffice to say, I am surprised. Seems like I need to take some time to understand you. Don’t think that invisible memories mean I can’t do anything.” The Guru waved his hands and to Ebony's surprised, coloured the surroundings.
Like wet paint, colour spread through his mind. Tranquility got to work removing the background noise but the colour only spread faster as the Guru forced his mind to show itself to both parties.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Ebony’s first reaction after finding out that Perpetual Tranquillity Spring can fight back was to teleport himself back to where the outer edge of the inner memories was. It was the latest memories including his clones’ existence. He did not want the Guru or Cinderashians to find out he had clones running about their planet. Just because their individuals couldn’t spot his clones at the moment didn’t mean they couldn’t if they put their minds and resources into it.
In the city of servants, talking about other worlds was common and part of daily conversation. Other than servants, there were a bunch of other races too. Though mostly fire and heat-attuned races. It was also a hub for trade.
If spatial travel was not as rare or difficult for the Cinderashians as he imagined, Ebony would be in trouble if they asked for help from people who knew how to handle mana.
Without his clones, he would feel imprisoned and he would not like to see a hunt down for his clones that already had a time limit on their lifespans.
Fortunately, this Guru was strong and went into his memories from a few years ago instead of recent memories.
The Guru was currently watching Ebony fight the Tetramyths with Dusk. He did not attempt to question and converse anymore, only watching his memories while walking deeper into his mind.
The present location of his mindspace had overlapping memories of the battlefield. Many battles happened at the same time but the Guru was used to it and wasn’t bothered by the multiple threads of thought appearing.
For the next mental year, the Guru continued to walk backwards and observe his memories. Ebony was a little concerned that his skills were all exposed but his resistance stopped a hundred metres away from the Guru. Although the range of the Guru’s sight was impeded by him, all the Guru had to do was push on and his mental ripple made him watch and see what he wanted to.
Throughout the years of memories that the Guru walked back on, the dark-skinned man slowed down and started showing difficulty. Unsure if the Guru was lucky or unlucky but the portion of memories that he was seeing were all battle and training-related.
There were no memories about him or the people around him. After all, memories weren’t just parked and segregated chronologically.
‘I need to plan for battles assuming they know everything I’m capable of in battle now.’
“You monster. How many battles have you gone through? Is fighting all you know? Do you not have a life outside of battle and training?” The Guru got more scared the more scenes he saw. Even an experienced Telepath like him did not expect to see nothing but battle for years.
The Guru might have hoped for a reply from his mind but he was able to keep his mind silent and still, even here. It made the strong Telepath continue on his path to older memories. He was already viewing the memories faster than a 1 to 1 time scale so it didn’t take long before he reached the battle section of Ebony’s first year on Elcra.
The Guru made no attempts to hide his shock at the speeds that Ebony had taken to get to his current strength. Sadly, Ebony wasn’t able to hide Ning Xin’s strength as she was part of many of his training memories.
Ebony was still as calm as ever. Even without his active pressure, his natural mental defences only got thicker the deeper the Guru invaded. Now, the Guru couldn’t see further than ten metres and would need a lot more effort if he wanted to watch more. The sweat on the Guru’s bald head was proof that staying here was beginning to be a strain on him.
“So you’re going to continue.” Ebony’s mental voice directly talked to him instead of thinking in first person.
“Of course. You are unclassed. And I have been diverging my routes to get away from this battle section, I should be able to learn more about you as a person soon.”
“If you say so.”
The Guru’s hand phased through the Hoarfrost Wolf Pup that chased him when he just arrived on Elcra. Then he found himself looking at a very different scene. They were no longer on Elcra and it didn’t take long for the Guru to realise the vast change in perspective and surroundings despite him not skipping any memories in this section.
Unfortunately for the Guru, he continued to see Ebony exercising.
In a home gym.
Running marathons.
Outdoor camping.
Tackling wildlife.
Weighted underwater fish fighting.
Getting tackled by wildlife.
There was little difference except the obvious difference in technology, fashion, environment and language. The Guru likely didn’t know what was being said.
However, as the Guru said. The scenes were changing. There were more voices, more talking. They were divulging from just training and fighting memories.
Ebony didn’t know how to feel when he noticed where he was. He felt exposed. This was where memories were stored in order. Complete ones, with all interactions as recalled by him.
“Finally. I’m on the complete chronological track. So that’s your family, I was beginning to think you were born from a stone-cold rock. Now that I see your parents…I suppose I wasn’t far off the mark. This woman-”
“Shut up.”
“Hit a sore spot huh. Good. Now I learn. You can start speaking or you can just watch in silence. Doesn’t matter. When I get to your core, there is nothing you can hide from me.”
“Convince me again when your legs are working fine. You can’t go much further. All you see are memories. You know nothing.”
“That is true. These may be false memories you are showing me for all I know. Unless I get to your core. As for whether or not I can enter the core of your mindspace. We’ll see won’t we?”
The Guru gulped moments after their short conversation. Both of them watched as his mother swung a wet towel at 14-year-old Ebony, catching his forearm and elbow before she twisted and pulled him to the ground. The friction held his arm in place and his mother’s wrist spun and dislocated his elbows. Young Ebony tried to spin his body in the same direction but had his spine stepped on.
The 14-year-old dragged his dislocated arm to pull his mother closer to the ground before grabbing the wet towel with his free hand. Twisting his hip to let the foot slip, he broke free from the lock at the cost of friction burns from the hard boot with all her weight on.
The Guru walked on and on before he finally noticed a huge pair of eyes in the ‘sky’. It wasn’t Ebony who was still watching from afar.
This was his memory of his mother’s pair of eyes as she watched him after beating him down. That pair of stone-cold eyes scared the Guru but it represented the immense warmth that his mother showed Ebony.
“Son, stand up.”
“Son, keep moving.”
“Son, what can you do now.”
“Son, you are fragile. Learn how to avoid getting broken.”
“So you’ve lost again, now how will you avoid the same mistakes.”
“Son, what are you going to do.”
“Son, how can you…”
“Son, w-”
The Guru sat down, exhausted even though all he did was walk and observe. He might not understand the language but it seemed like a Telepath of his skill had his ways of understanding unknown words in some manner.
Of course, he didn’t just see battles. The Guru saw everything in between. From sleeping, eating, excreting. All of his studying. Playing chess with his father. Playing Concentration with thousands of cards. Playing other weird mental games. Memorising details. Testing his observational skills. Interactions with his father were more quiet. Most of the time, they just sat around each other in silence and played their games and mental tests together. Testing his physical abilities throughout the years. Even his young public school days were exposed.
All of his interactions with people. Everything.
Ebony did not feel uncomfortable knowing that someone else found out about his past. He didn’t think it was that big of a deal. There was the point that the Guru didn’t know English.
To be fair, there wasn’t much for the Guru to see. It was still at least 70% meditation, training or studying.
“Huh, interesting. So you think both your parents are dead? Why? I don’t see any evidence of that in your memories, just sudden disappearance.”
“...”
“Thick mental defences…You are so young? Not even 30 standard years?” The Guru suddenly realised that the volume of memories wasn’t nearly as much as he was expecting.
“If a standard year isn’t far from the year I’m familiar with, then yes.”
“I see. I would never have believed it if I didn’t see how you were raised.” The Guru smiled wryly.
“I was raised perfectly. Do not bring that tone up with me, I will take it as an insult.” Ebony might have gotten a little sensitive with the Guru’s constant probing with mental skills and questioning over time.
“I didn't mean it that way. Then let’s see how long this kind of lifestyle goes back, I’m nearing your core little boy.” The Guru tried to touch 4-year-old Ebony but his attempts failed once more.
‘Is he trying to change my memories when he physically touches them? He failed every time…good.’
“Another core memory.” The Guru chatted with Ebony for the thousandth time during his memory lane walk. Every question was a subtle mental attack. He was able to spot and sense whenever he reached one of the memories that was deeply ingrained in Ebony. For example, when he was 15 years old and left behind after the ‘Trial’.
“I remember this very clearly,” Ebony replied the Guru.
“Hahh, more training is it?” The Guru shook his head when he saw the woods with the toddler him and his mother.
“No. I was too young to train my body and they were worried my bones and muscles wouldn’t grow properly. You should know, this is the game, Hunt or be Hunted. At least, it was one of the first few games I’ve played.” Ebony fondly looked upon this scene.
“So why is this particular game memorable?”
“My mother only started taking me seriously after this day. It was after this that she wasn’t just glazing over me and what you see as a pair of emotionlessly cold eyes became a pair of warm eyes to me. She started to think that I’m her son from this point.”
“Ho.”
The toddler ran past a few thick trunks. His short limbs were anything but clumsy. In the game of hunt or be hunted, it was all about running and hiding. It might have been when he first learned the basics of stealth and camouflage. There would usually be a dog or some other animal on his tail but this time was special. It was one of the first few rounds of this game he played and the hunter was his mother.
Obviously, she wasn’t trying to kill him. This wasn’t their first ‘game’ so he didn’t cry. It was not a fond experience to have someone who cared for him day and night suddenly chase him down and hit him.
‘I was so naive. I believed I was normal even after going to school and studying.’ These thoughts didn’t shout out loud in his mind. Ebony had memories going back before he was 1 year old. Throughout his younger years, he was told innumerable times that his body was fragile so he had to train. Then there was meditation, something he learned before he exercised his body.
He trusted everything he was told. Of course, he would. It didn’t help that he started meditation at the age of 2. After a few of these Hunt or be Hunted games, he began to stay in meditation on the move.
‘The only thing that doesn’t add up is my physical ability. I compared myself with normal humans, I was indeed normal other than stamina. Why? How? I know that’s not true, but my physical stats of an unclassed seemed to match that understanding of ‘normal’. Weird.’
“What is she saying here?” The Guru questioned when his mother ran after him with a 10-second head start. His mother kicked him into a standing log, his side torso landed hard against it. She was an expert in bodily control and understood his toddler body better than he did. The logs were artificially placed and part of his future training equipment.
“They will tear you apart. You must also stand up as fast as you can. Get into as advantageous of a position as you can. Never delay. The human body is terribly fragile, weak and pathetic. But it can adapt. If you want to survive, you will stay in motion. You need to train. Till your body becomes something you can rely on. Something that can protect itself even if you are knocked out. Something that never fails you. My son must grow up strong.” His mother drove another kick into the toddler’s chest.
“Stand up. When you’re being hunted down, predators will not wait half a second like I do.” Half a second went by, the toddler barely had the chance to rub his chest.
Instead, the toddler used the time to look up at his mother.
“Mother. Why are you waiting half a second if you want me to grow strong?”
As far as he could recall, this was the first visible change in expression he saw from his stone-cold expression mother. Ebony was a facially expressive person compared to his mother. He got one of the biggest and most memorable beat down this day.
“Pride. She is looking at you with pride. How enviable but yet, after what I’ve seen, not at all. So this is when she started to ramp up your intense childhood.” The Guru nodded to himself.
At this point, Ebony no longer understood why the Guru continued to watch his older memories. He didn’t understand the language and the older the memories, the hazier they were. Especially those before he was 1.
It was thanks to his high-tier meditation that they even managed to get to the current memories. A week after he was born.
Ebony was surprised. It sounded like gibberish and the memories here were foggy but he heard Gia. That perked the Guru up and also made Ebony panic a little for remembering something so old at the same time as someone hearing it for the first time.
“Ebony. Your name shall be Ebony. Son of Shi Wu and Gelidon ‘O Arcturus Rime. Ebony Rime Wumu.” His father raised him up into the air and named him.
“No need.” Short and curt, his mother didn’t specify what she was referring to.
‘So that’s my name in Gia. I totally forgot about the Wumu part. It’s not even in my status. Shi, it is one of the Xeng three great clans alongside Ning. So they told me their real names from the start. I just never knew Gia.’
“Ri--me? Rime? That’s not- that’s not possible. Shi Wu…Rime. You are--” Ebony felt the Guru crumble on his feet.
Not fading away, but directly tearing his mindspace floor open to jump out.
‘Now that’s a huge lead if I ever get one. But his reaction is concerning.’ Ebony teleported to his core, still extremely far away from the moment of his birth. Contacting Fourteen, would be much faster than going back out to his immobile body.
‘Fourteen, watch the Guru closely.’ Ebony patched his mindspace back up, removing colour and making sure no marks were left over before getting back into his body.