“Lord Gearhart would never let you off.”
Ebony was once again impressed because Mr Guru didn’t even take a minute to get his bearings after waking up. As if he wasn’t disorientated at all by the great change that happened.
“Is that supposed to be a joke? You say that as if he was letting me off by boxing me up.” Ebony never knew Mr Guru was one for jokes.
“Even if you wanted to escape, did you need to go so far?” Mr Guru didn’t attack him or try to leave his mindspace.
“Tell me, how else am I supposed to break out of an indestructible cell by my standards. Get past laser beams that could scare any Emperor or horde of them away. Get out of this island with so many Boiler Knights where any one of them could slice me up. Get a Saint not to kill me instantly. I need to scare him. That is one of the basics of surviving stronger monsters. Scaring them off. I need to be a threat. I am not, so I needed a way.”
“...what are the Bellicose Savants and Boiler Knights doing?”
“Are you thinking out loud? Your mind has slackened. There are not many Bellicose Savants around the Gearhart estate to begin with. Most of them are training and those operational are working elsewhere. As for the Boiler Knights, I’m not sure but I bet they prioritised protecting Gearhart’s family members. Not that I would touch any of them. Call them hostages, just like how you are keeping Xin hostage.”
“This…is criminal by universal standards.”
“Oh I see. I have to be a criminal to be free from imprisonment and free from threats to people I hold dear and myself? You are getting funnier Mr Guru, did you sleep for too long?”
“Don’t be so overconfident, you have me to thank for their inaction. If I didn’t keep your existence a secret and had to spread some lies about an ice and heat-eating monster, the Boiler knights would have come for you and ended your escape plan before it begun. Why have you woken me up? I would probably die here after…a long time. Letting me go is foolish.”
“I need you to tell Gearhart not to chase me anymore.” This was just part of the reason, he had no way to trap Mr Guru here once he got far enough from the Telepath's body.
“I would tell him everything you’ve shown me, everything you are capable of. And we will strike again. Do you really believe we won’t kill you? You are just one person, Lord Gearhart has planets worth of resources. You think too highly of yourself, we don’t even need to send a Boiler Knight.” As a proud Cinderashian, his aggressive nature didn’t falter at all.
“Haha. I did my homework. You Cinderashians are strong warriors, very strong. I don't understand why your physical strength is so much higher than normal. And also thanks to your harsh conditions. Sadly, you are poor. Your race has aether. It can’t be made into mana without an extremely low conversion efficiency. That includes your natural resources such as your volcanoes. Although it produces a lot of energy, how much can be converted into useful currency? Do you know how much money, ah, mana I have made Gearhart?”
“Irrelevant.”
“I make him 2.8 billion of my mana a standard day. And, my mana has to be reprocessed. It has the purity of above a universal Blue and natural density almost the same due to my Fortification or so I’m currently spying on your facilities’ testing equipment right now. After processing, it has to be diluted. Giving you even more. If we were on Elcra, this isn’t much. Many mana ore mines would have that much, although mining them out at that rate would be questionable without sufficient manpower or machinery. Why would Saint Gearhart not kill me? Because this number has only been increasing day after day, week after week. I am living, not a resource mine. I am inexhaustible. 6 years. He has mined me for over 6 years, over 4 trillion points of my mana. Oh, 7 after conversion? 7 trillion. Do you think he would cut down this tree after tasting its fruits?”
Ebony didn’t bother saying that he could reach 4.2 billion a day if he had sound magic. The longer Seventeen surveyed the lands and people, the more they realised how poor this world was. There was nothing left to mine other than the dungeons and it wasn’t enough for their food, research, weapon production, or soldier training. Even if they had other planets with mana ore veins, the cost to operate the extraction, transport and all the required expenses were too high. All he needed was food and water, no hassle, transport, manpower required and no risk.
Partway through his sentence, Twenty-Six managed to get some information on his pure mana to universal mana ore standards.
Cinderash was stuck in place when it came to the development of national power and to a degree, individual power.
Mr Guru was speechless, aware of their poverty. As aggressive as his words were, he did not expect to hear the numbers coming out of Ebony’s thoughts.
“I can hear you thinking. It’s funny, I’m no mind reader but you and probably Gearhart right now must be thinking you should let me run free, then catch and lock me up again. Once I’ve grown more. So confident. I am disappointed that I haven't shown myself to be a threat big enough. Next time, I will do worse. Since you’ll tell him everything, make sure you tell him that. What am I capable of, will he test me? I am interested to find out to what lengths I’m willing to go as well but I won’t push to find out unless pushed. We’re here, you can wake up to your body. Sunken, more so than mine.” Ebony with his strengthened mental defences let Mr Guru's already fading 'body' out.
Mr Guru’s real body was in a terrible condition, going out would weaken him further.
“We shattered the connection pillar, you can be removed now.”
“I have all the natural resources we collected over the years in this leather bag. With food. This portal is stable, spatial equipment of this size should go through.” Twelve said while Flickering beside the island. They were still being shot at.
“Give me a minute, we’re still trying to take the Pyrothernite out.” Twenty-Seven reported.
“Gearhart’s family is getting troops to chase us down. Aegis, how much further?” Fourteen, deeper on the island, noticed straight away.
“Without the island, you can get over in two hours. With, it would take days. It looks like your cell doesn’t interact with gravity magic, great.” Part of Aegis is parked in a Node under the portal to Teheil.
“We’ll dip the moment the Pyrothernite is out. Toss my cell into the portal, repel the island back where we came from. This cell would collapse once I’m over there. Regardless of who follows me, you guys stay and take care.” He couldn’t bring his clones over to Teheil, even if he had a storage container for them they would dissipate the moment they left the confines of their storage. At least that was Ten and Eleven’s experience.
He was actually only half sure his cell wouldn’t be a problem because it ran on mana. But he still had a plan b if the cell still didn’t want to let him out.
“Didn’t we send you all our memories?”
“What are you on about?” Ebony might have missed out on what they were referring to having sat in his bottoms for way too long.
“We will hibernate once you leave. Even if we lose our bodies, we can send our Will to one of the Nodes and sleep. Aegis already prepared new bodies for us. We can all get back into action, more than half the populated cities are within our range. They can’t catch us.”
“You can basically teleport. Cool.” Ebony nodded, he knew it but he couldn’t achieve the same thing. Although there was a few seconds delay, his clones were extremely hard to catch with the Will Nodes connecting them throughout a large portion of the continent.
A single body of theirs was a lot of mana as they were compressed to the limit so he doubted they managed to prepare enough for each of them without him. Ambient absorption was pathetic in that regard and might not even give them enough to live daily to fight against the heat if it wasn’t for Aegis acting as a support and charger.
Twenty-Six and Twenty-Seven were having a hard time as security had finally reacted. The eight clones flying outside the island were torn apart bit by bit. Fourteen and Twenty-Four hurried back to regroup after unattaching his cell from the four pillars. The pillars were tough but the durability of most metals or concrete no matter the quality of materials was not a challenge for the deep-freezing and sonic vibrations combo unless they were specifically made to counter ice or cold.
Ebony sat in his cell without any light while feeling himself run in Fourteen and Twenty-Four’s shoes with the pillars as the grip on his cell. As a precaution, they were wearing physical gloves they prepared in case their bodies were to be absorbed.
It was high risk but using a trusted face and voice of a messenger to send a message from Gearhart to trick Ezekiel away for a short moment worked better than he'd expected. It must have taken his clones a lot of observation to find a convincing line. "We didn't have to lie, there is really someone calling him. We made one of our teachers call him over."
Ebony decided to better look through the memories they sent him once they had the time
‘It’s going too smoothly. I have to thank them for not knowing I am trapped here.’ Ebony wouldn’t have been able to escape if that wasn’t the case. It was part of why he didn’t fight harder to prevent himself from getting trapped. He bore the risk of Gearhart and Mr Guru loosening their lips at any point in time. Mr Guru was trapped in with him so that was one less issue.
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If it was public knowledge that he was a prisoner, he would’ve attempted escapes long ago.
Although they didn’t know about a secret prisoner, Gearhart’s servants and subjects didn’t sit on their butts when something huge happened. A large portion of the people on the island were non-combants from butlers and maids to gardeners to personal tailors and smiths. Prison wardens and guards were capable of fighting but they didn’t know what to do when faced with inertia and the movement of the ground they stood on.
Cinderashian’s greatest weakness was their Perception. Other than Kings, Emperors, Gearhart’s and other Saints' direct lineage the rest could forget about sensing mana and aether. Technology helped but his clones could dodge most Grandmasters that had to rely on a sensor to pick them out. Of the combatants, not many were outfitted for flight.
They couldn’t even fly because they couldn’t conjure or manipulate aether well enough.
Yet, his clones were getting beaten up. They were only staying together since they could separate and decompress the mana they consisted of as they wished.
“I got it.” Twenty-Seven kicked the claws holding fist-sized Pyrothernite Source Stone under the island. Nothing happened since the island already disconnected from the lava it was touching. The Source Stone did nothing but make his clones colder by absorbing all the heat around them.
Mostly melted, 4 of his clones ran away by sending their Wills away before Twenty-Seven succeeded.
Jumping down the hole they created under the island’s mana production facility, Aegis took a minute to reverse the huge torrent of gravity mana while they dropped out of the path.
Completely exposing all of them in an open wildland with Bellicose Savants leaping out and chasing them from wherever they landed.
The Bellicose Savants activated their stamina-heavy movement skills along with a silly-looking pair of boots and the back of their upper metal armour that propelled them forward with fire. They were keeping up with Aegis’s Torrent Path and his clones’ Flicker. They focused all the gravity mana on the path that led him towards the portal and the path that pushed the island away so the Bellicose Savants ran after them in zero-gravity conditions. It slightly helped them but it benefitted Ebony more.
“Their guns are very accurate, they can shoot on the run, they can account for the gravity and have crazy range. We’re taking shots for nothing. How many of us do we need to make it there?” Fifteen complained. They were melting down from a barrage of molten blasts. The rays of red and orange didn’t even need to touch them for them to be hurt by it. No matter how heat resistant, they were still made of ice.
They might not know what or who was in the cell but they changed their aim to Fourteen and Twenty-Four, determined that the cell was the clones’ target. Sadly, they were unwilling to take a shot at the cell to break Ebony free.
Most portals were situated in the middle of nowhere with a small outpost of people operating them. It was not unlike how Ebony first appeared in a forest. Space magic was interrupted by the presence of people, buildings and many man-made objects. Most portals were affected by the same issue.
Cinderash merely bought the service, not the technology or the creation of the portal itself. The makers and sellers didn’t spread their advantage of spatial transportation so much. It was one of the measures of how advanced a civilization or planet was. The best and strongest had portals within their cities with little to no transportation error rate or limit to the spatial equipment that one could bring over.
Despite Fifteen’s complaint, all of them continued to escort his cell away, even going so far as to use his cell as a shield. As expected his cell was scratch-free, giving the Savants more guts to increase their firepower.
Within minutes, Seventeen faded away as he lost the mana that made up his body. “Good luck, you’re not too far away. Should be fine.”
“Already ran simulations, we’ll reach before they catch up.” Ebony gave Seventeen a mental wave, he was 'teleporting' through the Will Relay Nodes.
“Aegis, clear the portal.” Twelve ordered.
“Already sealed every personnel taking care of the gate. The cost for opening a portal is sky-high and their reserves can’t keep it open for long so I’ll wait for you to get close. Security is pretty much non-existent for this gate. It’s supposed to lead to enemy territory or something. We never found out much about the situation on the other side but we know Cinderashians aren’t completely in charge over there.” Aegis transmitted.
By the time he got to the barren land with a ten-metre tall and twenty-metre wide stone gate, Twelve and Fifteen were the only ones carrying his cell.
“Oh…I didn’t take into account activation time.” Aegis told them over the link.
“Seriously? Well, you’re on your own now.” Fifteen evaporated into steam.
“Hmm..they stopped firing. Looks like they’re not keen on destroying an expensive portal gateway. Oh well, goodbye.” Twelve dipped away after the pillar dropped where Fifteen disappeared.
With none of his clones by his side Ebony spoke to his dear cell, “look you’re not even sending my mana anywhere, you can release me now.”
“No! Go back quietly and I won’t revoke your toilet rights for a year!” A young girl’s voice threatened.
“That’s a punishment for yourself too. Come on, once we get past this portal you will have a hard time surviving.” Ebony knew this ‘right’ came because the spirit didn’t want unhygienic waste within her.
“It is my duty to contain you.”
“It was also your duty to send all my mana away, don’t think I forgot you secretly ate the chassis I fed you.”
“That’s!” The spirit had no rebuttal for a moment, “that never happened.”
“Oh yeah? Letting me go never happened either. Those guys destroyed your body and let me escape.”
“Lies! They can’t harm me at all.”
“I didn’t want to hurt you, but I don’t have time for this.”
Ebony did not try persuasion anymore when the portal activated. Aegis gave the pillars around his cell a push with ice arms, it had the greatest mental range at the cost of more mana and heavier consumption of Will but he was still capable of being Ebony's arms and legs.
“Not going anywhere!”
Ebony tumbled around a few times and was hit by the nauseating sensation of long-distance spatial travel.
‘At least they are persistent.’ Ebony could feel the minor vibrations from the cell. The Savants had caught up to him in the nick of time and were attaching themselves onto his jail.
It took minutes before his vibrational and gravitational senses that were significantly trapped within the confines of his settled and his light vertigo dissipated. Before that, Ebony instantly felt a different force grabbing and pulling his excess mana away. His cell couldn’t fight back against the pull as her mana was similarly stolen away at breakneck speeds.
The spirit’s scream of pain was rather concerning and pitiful.
“Come on, decrease your size and latch onto me. That should still be considered containing me and doing your duty.” Ebony pacified the tormented spirit that was having the life sucked out of her. She shouldn’t be killed just by having her mana drained since she had a physical body but having her mana drained so forcefully would be a new experience for this spirit. It was no different from sucking the vitality out of organic creatures.
“There is someone inside, isn’t there?” Ebony heard a different voice. Needless to say, it was a Bellicose Savant that had been chasing him. They didn’t even know what was inside the metal box yet they chased him down all the way through a portal.
“I don’t know how you did it, but your road ends here. Hmm, why isn’t anyone posted here?”
“Did they abandon their post? Never mind that where are those blue arms? No more huh? We’ll have to carry this back.”
‘There’s 4 of them who followed me here. Aegis alone won’t be able to stop them from bringing me back, I’ll have to stop them here.’ From their speech, he had to assume the portal hasn't been closed yet.
“Spirit. I will blow you up if you don’t let me go now and you’ll feel two types of pain today.” Ebony prepared the fire in his lungs, he hadn’t used a single one of their bombs. He was slightly underprepared since his coagulated mana was still being broken down and dragged away but at a slow rate. If he waited too long, he wouldn’t have any mana to activate the bombs he brought with him in his lungs.
The spirit’s agonising scream got louder and louder within his ears and it slightly bothered him when her voice got weaker at audible speeds. She did not relent for some time and Ebony was fully about to blow themselves apart when he felt the cell being lifted off the ground again.
“Noo! No more! I-I am still doing my duty! You are trapped, you hear me!”
Ebony fell onto his arms and knees when the cell turned to fluid and reformed around his right wrist as a black, thick and orange glowing bangle.
The Savants all looked at him when they felt the loss in weight on their shoulders with a large pillar on them.
“Greetings.” Ebony snorted at the portal gateway, propelling the bomb he kept for years inside his lungs. The Savants were caught off guard but one of them unsheathed and sliced at his bomb the moment it trailed past them.
Smashing up the shell, it unleashed the burning contents with as much explosive force as it had. Blinding all of them with black and purple flames. Ebony had Torrent Path pull the bag that Aegis tossed together with them into his hands.
‘Elements aren’t immediately suppressed or absorbed. Convenient, but the explosive has weakened terribly. It didn’t even give me a burn, the Savants would be unharmed. How long till my exhaustion stat debuff goes away…’
“Hey spirit, stop draining my stamina. If I die, you failed your duty.”
Ebony’s trembling muscles managed a flimsy Flicker to the edge of the small room he was in. The portal on Cinderash’s side wasn’t kept within a building so this was unexpected.
The scale of the explosion that he expected never came as the flames were suppressed by something. He knew the phenomena but seeing it was different from hearing and learning about it.
The cushioning.
Magic simply didn’t work as usual here, be it aether or mana.
The boundaries of what kind of magic the cushioning suppressed was questionable but this weird force somehow detected what was natural and what wasn’t.
Ebony’s mana senses weren't taken away but there wasn’t any ambient mana in the surroundings to sense. However, he wasn’t just any mage. Gravity mana was still present and he could perceive through the blood and flames that were getting suppressed that he managed to put a crack on the stone gateway. That was enough to shut the thing off.
“DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU JUST DID!?”
‘Hmm, where are the doors in this building.’ Ebony let the silly question go over his mind as he stretched his dying muscles. He knew exactly how his clones packed his bag, so he smoothly retrieved dried jerky from the side pouch and jammed it down his throat along with water while the angry Savants pat the black flames off their leather get-up.