Ebony liked Teheil’s cushioning force. Despite fighting their hardest, they barely made small craters around their sparring ground. Back on Elcra, a hill or many of them would have been removed.
‘If I expanded my Will and used weakened magic, I would have about a 3.3% chance of beating Steelbreaker.’ Ebony got the data he needed for simulations after an hour of sparring. He was excluding tiring her out or escaping. His Will was too weak to fully get a hold of his mana and magic against Teheil. With the same knowledge, it was possible that better Domain mages were present on Teheil and could still use magic.
If both he and his opponent weren’t restricted in any way he was confident of beating her 1 in 3 battles to the death holding nothing back and only because she hadn’t fully incorporated the benefits of Phantom’s Flicker throughout her body. She had been too focused on the footwork and he gave her credit for her ability to adapt his skills and technique but he doubted she had the resistance against ice and cold much less his flames.
Even if he couldn’t get through a person’s magic body, area of effect magic would do the job and many organic creatures were weak to extreme chill.
With first-hand information, he dedicated a tenth of his mental processing power to Accelerated Corporeal-Illusory Battleforge to raise his chances against Stealbreaker. Her weapon-breaking techniques did significant damage to his bones whenever they clashed and it overpowered his vibrational stabilisation of his body and his passives or his chances of outlasting her would have been higher. With that much mental processing, he could run over a dozen simulations at ten times the speed.
‘She didn’t show me all her techniques and skills, I’ll toss some random elements into my simulations. I haven’t fully figured out the 4 armed techniques either, her’s is too complicated so I can’t tell if it’s tier 5 or 6 equivalent.’ Ebony accepted the herbal mixture she had someone bring to him and downed the bitter concoction without batting an eye. Since he had good perception, the internal scan showed him the herbal mixture didn't do anything to heal him.
“Thank you for the spar. I learned a lot.” Ebony sounded his gratitude before walking away and going back to his job.
‘Now that I confirmed that Xin is around, I should start looking into how to leave Teheil even if I don't want to leave immediately. The best way to get back to Elcra would be to find a working portal that Teheil doesn’t seal and hopefully to the sector’s space station. I should be able to find my way back to Elcra from there.'
Ebony already learned all the Cinderashian techniques that he was interested in. The other two human races didn’t show him anything he found particularly interesting. The 8 limbed Ferroquads were alright but he couldn’t use those techniques other than potentially letting his clones incorporate them into their ethereal arts.
He gained a few levels despite the lack of killing. He proved his hypothesis that to level his Class, he had to do what the Class was meant for. For his third Core Skill, he had long set it during his imprisonment.
It was not his Unique Skill.
Sitting at his third Core Skill slot was Accelerated Corporeal-Illusory Battleforge. Skill descriptions aside, he was certain that the skill gave him a passive increase in mental processing power. It helped all sorts of spell-casting formation and even Will manipulation speed. This had been crucial for him to make progress in the Mireloom Chassis Engine and reduce its mental energy consumption.
His control over his Domain and clone improved quickly after he made Battleforge into his third Core Skill but the most obvious would be his control over gravity magic. It has always been the most mentally taxing element to use.
Ebony’s learning speed increased. His Will can be gathered, react and move over distances faster. His physical reaction speed marginally increased since the skill hasn’t gotten an evolution or a mutation.
All in all, he fit the trinity of core skills with his first giving endurance, his second giving power, defence and utility and the third giving him the ability to use his Domain augmentation properly, the mental speed to cope with all augmentation that his Domain could provide.
Since his body kept reacting and protecting himself through predictions passively, it took him a long time to realise that he needed the mental speed to keep up with the power that he could potentially produce. If he didn’t mentally knock himself out when he tried a full power Domain buffed augmentation, he might never have thought he was lacking mental power.
‘I’ll probably reach level 500 in two or three months. Some of my skills are in the midst of evolving but I already have most of them at tier 4 during the past month. Their refinement rates are all high, averaging at 1200% base increment other than those low incremental skills in the 0.1% range. I don’t have to delay evolution for decades after reaching level 500. Conditioning is the one lagging behind the greatest since I sat on my ass for too long.’
Ebony was optimistic about his rate of growth but there were still some self-goals he set for himself before evolving. Such as evolving Conditioning to tier 5 but he wasn’t sure if he could do that without proper training equipment. Self-training simply doesn’t put enough pressure on his body and neither did fighting cut it.
He aimed for his Core Skill to evolve once more. That was his current focus, another Core Development. Like Gen and Ful suggest, he might already have been doing that the whole time and the gradual process simply didn’t elicit a notification.
Cold unerring martial execution.
Heavy aural and physical suppression.
Not simply mana, but Will mastery.
He was comfortable with them all.
With Icicle, it was less of a weapon and more of a longer sharper arm which was good. He was comfortable enough with it for it to be less of a burden and an advantageous weapon to wield with its disadvantages hidden by proper technique. Since Ethereal Form Arts shouldn’t have a form to begin with, working with different types of weapons should not impede him and he was almost there.
It was progress that made him happy, excited even. Talent could be overcome and caught up to.
Humming a Ferroquad folk song he wondered what he would say when he met Xin for the first time in years. He didn’t realise time was passing him as easily as when he was trapped. Almost forgetting his prison cell was still attached to his wrist. He was fortunate the spirit was young or it would have been far less flexible and harder to trick to partially release him.
Dozens of days passed as he aimlessly followed Steelbreaker’s army around Central. With just a single Emperor, they were more like petty thieves than actual assault armies. Hitting other races’ army logistics and cargo envoys. Especially for weapons since Ferroquad craft was terrible in comparison but human armour didn’t fit their bodies. They fought more natives
It was late at night, not that there were day and night cycles out in the open on Teheil. The Raizers were sleeping and Ebony was moving like clockwork, engraving new wagons to carry the loot. The humans were here for materials and resources in general, Ferroquad for food and land while the Cinderashians wanted everything. He didn’t mind helping with reappropriating food from the humans. They were rich and food wasn’t a problem for them.
‘She’s here! Hmm? Is that her?’ At the edges of his mental reach, Ebony sensed who he was looking for.
Leading a team of twenty natives was a masked woman. However, he noticed shoulder-length hair instead of knee-length or longer. Two familiar swords were on her but no mantle or cape or even clothes from his gravitational senses. She would never shorten her hair so drastically from what he knew about her but it had been many years and she might have felt like changing hairstyles for all he knew.
It was almost amazing that she kept that kind of hair even throughout the times when she was chucked into a cave of bloody spiders or a mountain range of heat-eating bats so he was slightly surprised that was no longer the case.
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‘Huh, she’s speaking their language too?’ With too much time on his hands, he picked up another boot to engrave while setting a distance from where Xin was and using his internal clock to measure her speed.
Gravitational perception wasn’t able to sense the cushioning so he couldn’t tell if she tore through it with pure force so that it didn’t affect her or if she was using lustregrass powder or something else the Natives used. He wasn’t even sure if she was running under the effects of cushioning to save energy since she wasn’t like him and couldn’t just waste vast amounts of energy on movement alone. But he was pretty sure she wasn’t moving like him and avoiding the cushioning force on him by lightly fading and weaving through the layers of cushioning.
Speed was weird. In the past, doubling his Strength and Agility easily doubled his speed but it quickly changed after they were around mid-level Masters. 1000 Strength and Agility didn’t make a person 100 times faster than 10 Strength and Agility even comparing with oneself and taking away skill effects.
The faster one got, the harder it was to get even faster.
It was all about skills but the percentage scaling never matched reality with numerous factors impeding one.
Ebony did a small test under the effects of cushioning and no mana augmentation. Just his physical stats and the Running skill put him at a pathetic speed not even as fast as sound was in air. Perhaps he could have reached that speed without the level 3 cushioning currently on him. With Phantom’s Flicker, that completely changes. Mach 5 wasn’t a problem or strain on him and this was pure physical strength and stamina usage.
If he had to give it a number, Phantom’s Flicker allowed him to reduce the effects of cushioning by about 2 levels of Teheil’s resident’s standards. A rough gauge was that level 1 cushioning would make a Master feel like he was moving a hundred metres underwater. Level 2 would make a Grandmaster feel the same but a Grandmaster under the effects of level 1 cushioning will only feel like they were a couple of metres in the water.
In Central Teheil, level 3 cushioning was average and most barren lands outside the Golden Fields had this level of cushioning. In the Golden Fields, the average was level 4 cushioning but 5 was common too. Fighting inside the Golden Fields was very difficult and he understood it as a self-protection system that the planet had for its important resources.
Level 5 cushioning was enough to make Grandmasters walk like Journeymen and breathing was a chore. The natives' territory was hidden behind a border or a curtain of level 7 cushioning. That was enough to put Kings to the floor and they might have to crawl out if they were particularly weak Kings.
Although they managed to standardise some kind of system for the strength of cushioning, it was still a force that fluctuated. The region they were staying in might have increased or decreased cushioning at any time and they had no way to predict it.
Ning Xin was running towards their general location along with the small group of natives, roughly at Mach 3 so he was sure they were in a rush because that was a waste of energy. Phantom’s Flicker could be considered stamina-intensive. Her group should be pretty strong to make that speed out to be some kind of jog.
They would reach him in seven minutes, the Ferroquads would notice them in four minutes and the Cinderashian camp two hundred kilometres away from him would notice the small group in three minutes.
He wondered if she knew about his presence or was here for another reason.
He didn’t have to wonder for long because their path led to the Raizers.
Ebony gave Steelbreaker a warning in advance with a stream of Will-infused sound magic to make sure his mana didn’t dissipate before his spell reached her ears. The strength of the cushioning was proportional to the strength of its drain on mana and weakening of spell effects or so he experienced so far.
The Ferroquads off duty were woken up and took positions as fast as they could before the native squad came and broke past the guards all gung-ho. Steelbreaker, her captains and other veterans were ready to meet the small squad in battle but they didn’t expect Xin's presence on the other team.
Xin yelled over the Ferroquad’s warcries in the Native language and her team covered her while she scanned the Ferroquad camp before leaving her mask facing in his direction.
‘So she is here for me, cool.’ Ebony didn’t even raise his head and continued to hammer his coagulated mana through a path he was moulding on the boot.
“Careful!” Steelbreaker’s scream reached his ears. It was meant for him.
She wasn’t able to stop the group of natives that stacked bestial claw strikes upon her.
“So you’re the Spirit Blesser. We don’t need you strengthening our enemies.” Xin spoke Gia and charged at him with a sword thrust.
“...” Speechless, Ebony caught the sword tip aimed at his eyeball without letting it move an inch forward.
The aggressor was stunned, not expecting a support class to catch her blade.
“Why is that strike so weak? Why…who are you? Scorchie and Scorchy, how could you?” Ebony was befuddled by the attack. He was so shocked he had a visible frown and his mind raced and came to the only conclusion he could. Someone so indecisive couldn’t be Ning Xin. The attack held back power and lacked the overpowering and fierce intent for an attack.
The twin longswords' red sheen whimpered and flickered in hue at his words.
The next thing the woman did proved his conclusion. The red shoulder-length-haired woman jumped back at his voice, leaving Schochy in his palms.
Something welled up in his chest.
As a professional people watcher, he would know what it was in hindsight but it was not time for emotional analysis.
He was furious.
“Let that body go now and I’ll leave your fate up to her. Don’t taint her body with your weakness any longer.” Ebony pushed his stunned bodyguards away from the deadly claw strikes they were about to receive from the masked woman’s entourage.
Ebony could see past the mask but somehow, his gut told him that the woman smirked. She raised her shoulders and hands to express that further. “Or what, are you going to harm me?”
He answered her with a Flicker and Quake kick to her belly.
The masked woman’s instinct locked and made her heart explode with vitality, blocking his kick with her one sword and attempting to snatch the other sword back. Despite her acceleration, trying to wrestle a weapon out of his hands wasn’t an easy task.
When she failed and was tossed another longsword by one of the natives that followed her, there wasn’t a doubt in mind that this person was trampling on Xin’s pride as a swordswoman.
‘I should fix that before she augments herself further.’ Ebony eyed Xin’s body top down. No matter what, his opponent had one of the best bodies for pure physical brawn and perfect for Teheil. As long as she ‘broke’ the cushioning, it would be like they weren’t affected by it and he was sure she could do that in the current intensity of cushioning because he could if he used peak momentum Stalactite Sunder.
The fighting instincts of her body seemed to take over as the woman charged at him with another sword thrust.
He stepped to the side, letting the scorching hot blade cut his shirt and skin with a raised arm and open coat. Moving in, he trapped her arm in his coat where he already pulled his arm out. Using her momentum, he smoothly exited his coat and Flickered a Quake kick at her second sword that reacted to his odd movements. The resistance from the parry pushed him around to give the back of her head an elbow strike.
She ducked and he straightened his elbows to adjust her collar, forcefully dragging down to the second sleeve. With one of her arms slid in and his fingers gripped onto his coat he had some control over her. Tussling at very close range where she can’t use her sword’s reach out was in his favour. It always was, it didn’t matter if she evolved her swordsmanship to tier 5 or even 6.
It took a few seconds of tussling as she got stronger before he managed to finesse the coat onto her.
“I see how it is.” Xin’s exasperated voice was all he could hear past the screaming behind them. Steelbreaker and her captains did not outnumber the number of native elites. They tried attaching groups of Grandmasters to tackle a native but the weaker members were getting heavy injuries quickly.
The same could be said for the triplet of natives who were doing their best to prevent Steelbreaker from helping the others. The Ferroquads had no ranged soldiers, they couldn’t support their allies and captains in any way when they weren’t in direct combat.
The natives moved savagely and fought more like wolves than humans with claws.
“Mmm. This is going to be painful for me.” Ebony completed his warm-up.
He had been sitting on his butt for years but this lady’s body had been fighting all the time. Their exchange already told him enough about how much she had improved. He didn’t care to answer the lady’s ‘knowing’ expression, as if it wasn’t already obvious that he cared for the original owner of the body.
The woman cracked the grey force like broken custard, the cracks in the grey light were free from the cushioning force.
Ebony took the blast of sharp power to his shoulder before he jumped back with the force she gave him. Half of his shirt exploded on contact and a splash of blood decorated his chest and white shirt. There was no one else who could give him momentum faster.
Icicle continued to sit on his back. Resting in his hands was the Scorchy, who for the first time didn’t burn his hands on touch. Likely half asleep and out of mana just like his cell's spirit.
‘How could I forget I had this?’ Ebony recalled he had the toughest material on his body in the form of his prison bracelet. He just took a wound for no reason other than dramatic effect but he figured this was useful to trick his opponent.
He was going to have her walk him to their hidden land.