“Good morning. You can continue sleeping.” Ebony didn’t feel threatened by his old prison cell.
Even if it had a functioning spirit, was made of Legendary-quality material by a Saint smith, it was not connected to any source. He was quite confident he could saturate the cell and have free mana for himself with time, although her capacity was probably sky-high. The only problem was that the spirit could adapt, learn and grow, it could break down his coagulated mana far better than Teheil could as long as it had time.
The unfolding pieces of metal struggled to cover his forearm but it was only a matter of time before it recovered once they left Teheil further behind.
Ebony gave the bracelet a hard flick with reverberations and chimed a lullaby to echo throughout the metal. It didn’t work and the growth of unfolding hexagons with orange outlines didn’t slow down so he pulled out more forceful measures, one he was sure would work. Reverberating the Pseudo-Imitation Roar, the spirit screamed out in pain from the soul attack.
Of course, no passenger could hear it as it was screaming in his head.
‘It worked better than I assumed.’ This was a skill he rarely used but it was his backup for escaping his cell. He didn’t expect the metal bracelet to obediently reduce its size and shape back to normal. The image of a young girl quivered in the corner of his mind, trying to make him feel bad for hurting her. She soon fell asleep again but her drain on his mana did not disappear, just a smidgen to feed and heal herself.
Out of all the skills he had, this was one that Mr Guru might not have found out about. Weirdly enough considering he read so much of his memories. Because he knew Ebony could stun people but thought it was just a sound and aura attack. It was an aura attack but also a soul attack, so he felt it would work on the baby spirit. Holding back the use of this skill and trapping Mr Guru within his mindspace took time.
Other than that, his frostflame skills were also lacking use. He had other areas to use his limited mana on.
Entity Evanescence was still with him, but it hadn't been activated for years. Those Mandate user’s mandates should have some sort of range that likely didn’t span worlds but the skill still stubbornly stuck on him.
Phantasmal Shade Sovereign Art - Elusive and unperceivable to those who see but not feel. No blocks, no escape. Adapting to change in battle faster than changes can find you, leave but a shade of your art in your wake. Poise and grace increase by 2500% + 25.0% per level. Strength and Agility while tracing the Phantasmal Shade increases by 1500% + 25.0% per level. Traces of your mana intensifies Phantasmal Shade by 100% + 1.0% per level.
Poise and grace seem to override flexibility, balance, stability and deftness but they should mean the same thing. The Strength and Agility base buff was not high compared to weapon arts that Cinderashians have but it was great compared with other hand-to-hand combat arts.
In comparison, his Tier 4 Ethereal Arctic Rivertide Art had been refined to have a base Strength and speed buff of 1800%. At their current stats, agility was closer to having the effect of allowing him to control his strength at a certain speed. It helps both the dexterity of limbs and the precision of muscular control. Weapons were all for power and the differences between what he could do with mere limbs were reaching the limits at high tiers.
It was disappointing that his excessive use of clones did not evolve his cloning skill. The ice part was okay but he might not understand the ‘clone’ part of the skill as well as he’d imagine. It may even be the other way around.
Ebony’s Domain, for once, was held back by his weak traits. As long as his Will wasn’t strong enough, he couldn’t improve it any further. It had little to do with efficiency like it was with muscle output or mental strength output that he had in spades. A budding Domain was already something people usually had from Emperor or a talented King onwards.
Gravity and Sound mana manipulation both evolved. Control of the cube was now possible. The rest of his Sub-Class skills hit a sort of wall that didn’t shake no matter how hard he tried changing or improving them. They only levelled without significant improvement.
His Profession skill Runic Mana Shaping was beyond his proficiency with runes.
Runic Mana Shaping - Shape raw mana with or without any physical materials with mana manipulation. Shaping runic procedures into or on an entity with increasing efficiency and accuracy. Increases familiarity with repeated mana pathways and their effectiveness by 800% + 10.0% per level. Increases fine control over mana by 1000% + 10.0% per level.
Having used and experimented with runes for years, he understood what the skill did better now. Effectiveness was useless beyond a certain point. If a runic formula can convert 1 mana to 3 strength, he might achieve 1 to 2.5 after moulding or shaping it into an object. After re-moulding the formula a couple dozen times, he might get the runes to be at full effect but it would never have the effect greater than 1 to 3.
Ebony’s current skill level and tier made it such that every formula he knew could be shaped at full effectiveness in one try, only slightly affected by the material he was trying to shape. However, this shouldn’t be a problem once he got back to Dusk with the hibernating clones who had been studying and researching.
As far as he was aware, they should have managed to take advantage of Dusk and hibernated without dissipating. However, it’s been so long that Dusk should only have the residual Will remaining. Even if it trapped all the clones' memories, it was hard to say if they were ‘alive’.
The skill Appraise has levelled significantly thanks to the many advanced and high-level individuals he had been faced with in the past decade.
Heat resistance evolved after he literally melted into a pool of flesh and bones during his earlier days on Cinderash. Unsurprisingly, even with the sulphur in the air, Ebony was unable to get poisoned so his poison resistance didn’t budge.
Advanced Mana Tracking was a pleasant surprise. All the blind work he and his clones did mutate his old physical footprint tracking. The skill made him more sensitive to fainter traces of foreign mana, more specifically, mana with a bit of life in it. So he could tell when a creature left prints. It was the active version of his passive mana perception with no real special ability but a good support skill nonetheless.
It appeared that his high-speed motions classified the resistance he faced as a wind attack and he was able to train Wind Resistance naturally without putting much thought into it.
He practised lightning magic within his body quite a lot during his time on Teheil to see if there was any way he could boost his reflexes. Another body augmentation so to speak. Of course, the spells he used on himself were not augmentation and they weren’t even strong enough to train his resistance by much.
Ebony’s current maximum mana capacity was a surprise to him. It was rare that two skills with the same effect did not multiply. Preservation Bubble’s increase in mana capacity did not stack with Mireloom’s. Preservation Bubble increased its pool size by 263,488 points while Mireloom increased it by 5,325,235. Both worked on his base after including Conditioning before they were added instead of one skill coming into effect before a second scaled it up.
It must have been the completely different working principles. Preservation Bubble acted externally by a film of vitality, it had zero relations with his mana chassis and was just a larger container. Ebony saw it as an obsolete skill now. He just had to take one good punch and all the stored mana would scatter from the opening. It was very unreliable and his strength and control over Vitality is laughable in comparison to Xin or his mana control.
100 of his stats went to Agility and the rest to Intelligence, excluding the Profession stats that all went into Wisdom.
The biggest changes had to be his core skill evolution, Unique Skill completion and massive improvements to both of his masteries that were the foundations of his close combat abilities.
There were still items on his agenda before his next evolution but he had a feeling it wouldn’t take nearly as long if he wasn’t interrupted. Using the items they got from their trip for their Physique. Developing his Core. Or maybe even hunting an excessively high-level monster, it felt possible if he planned the hunt right.
He was able to feel the limits of his Sub-Class and Profession skills and had first-hand experience understanding the desire for Natural potential. Even his Class skills felt like they hit a wall. Core Skills were the only exception where he couldn’t feel any sort of limit at the moment.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
When Ebony felt Teheil’s grasp on him disappear, the pilot or some employee announced that it was safe to stand and walk around. It took less than half an hour, making him wonder why the trip would take 2 days. A lady two seats down the row stood up and headed for the module on the left side. The top of the module had a small screen showing numbers in Gia. The cabin they were cramped in had one of these modules on the front left and right.
The ‘module’ was just a square green screen on the wall and he saw that all the lady and the man on the right did was put their palms to the screen before they had their eyes closed. Nothing showed up on the green screen.
Patiently waiting, he looked through the menu but he didn’t recognise any of the dish names. There were descriptors and he decided to try a tail steak with what sounded like a vegetable. It should be from a gator of some kind. Xin woke up not long after he looked at the menu her body told her it was close to mealtime. She had a hard time because they couldn’t choose one of everything.
Sadly, they did not earn enough money to pay for anything they wanted.
She decided on a dish called Saffron Cauldron and he guessed that it was due to the longest list of ingredients.
Their food came before their turn on the module. He indeed got a tail steak with a purple-coloured asparagus. The steak came with scales around the flesh and the bone was left in the middle. The meat was dark green in colour but the smell of food wafting through the cabin was irresistibly good. It made his stomach grumble.
‘A skill that makes fragrance illicit hunger?’ The dramatic effect made Ebony certain that magic, skill or Fortifications were at play here.
He was probably right when he dug into the food that only made him more hungry.
‘Ting’ ‘Consumed Tailed Mecistop, efficiency of learning tail-related skills increased by 312% for 4 hours. Tail is invigorated by 355% for 2 hours. Active tail skills have 567% reduced stamina consumption for 8 hours. Marginally increase scale hardness permanently.’
The effect was impressive, although useless for him. He did feel his lower spine heat up a little but ultimately did nothing. It was very different from stat increasing foods that Xin made. Apparently, scaled-tailed races whose physiques were below a certain degree of strength could permanently strengthen their tail with this dish.
Out of her combat state, Xin ate slowly. She had been disappointed when the black cauldron-designed bowl came out and was served on the foldable table they had. The meal was a colourful seafood paella but the serving size was smaller than his steak. Even then, she devoured it down to nothing in minutes.
She only had praise for the dish other than the serving size meant for a child. The announcer wasn’t kidding when they said their chef was a professional. He had a bite of her dish and she had a bite of the tail steak he had. With his taste buds back, he had to say that these were the best dishes he’d ever had.
The smell of food from the slow eaters in the cabin made Xin extremely uncomfortable. She was about to tear out his biceps with how hard she was grabbing him to control herself.
The passengers might not be able to see her stare behind the mask but they could feel her glare. There were many familiar faces around. Some were his customers, others were Xin’s and many were just strong people they’d challenged before. Only people strong or rich enough had the money to travel back and forth more often.
As far as he was aware, the Ferroquads and Cinderash both had to buy this company’s or group’s services when it came to leaving Teheil but the merchants weren’t silly enough to put them all on the same vehicle. Though Veillarans were allies or subordinates to the Mirellans, none of them were on the shuttle.
“I’ve heard you two didn’t come here by choice, first time going to our station?” A friendly merchant lady with jewellery on her hands, neck and face chatted them up. Skinny but tall, she had black wavy tattoos that ran down from her right cheek down under her tight-fitting clothes. She was the biggest farming vehicle merchant on Teheil and someone Ebony had conversed with on multiple occasions. It was far from the only product she dealt with but it was the one he knew of.
She had good eyes for items and was the one who appraised and verified his rune work. In her harsh words, she would never use his crafted work if she wasn’t on Teheil. None of the equipment they brought that used mana or runes worked, so she had spent quite a lot of money to find out why his runes worked.
Unsurprisingly, she managed to get her hands on his mana and found people who could study it. So she knew why his items worked but didn’t spread that knowledge. Since then, she tried to stay in contact with him but he didn’t have an Eidolon Nexus account and she didn’t have a callstone. And it wasn’t like callstones worked at the distances of planets.
“It is, what do we have to look out for?” Xin leaned away from the lady who stood beside their seat.
“The two of you aren’t Mirellans, that much is clear to me. Let’s see…conquered space spans not quite infinitely but for us, we just have to know our sector and galactic region. Currently, no God has placed claims on our region and neither has one been assigned by the Nebula Watch.
But every sector is technically the property of one or more Demi-Gods and they collectively own and manage the region. Even amongst them, there is a clear hierarchy. Every sector’s station has a Demi-God managing it. Some do their job, others have their hands off. It is not uncommon for them to live on the station and the one we’re going to is one of these and there is a no fighting rule in place. So as long as you don’t make silly mistakes, you are safe. As far as I’m aware, our sector no longer has any idiots or daredevils.”
“There’s no taboo on what we say about them?” Ebony questioned. The merchant was speaking quite lightly on the topic of Demi-Gods.
“...It would be smart not to talk about them once we’re on the station. In any case, our sector is diverse. From technological-focused worlds to mage-focused, to warriors, to beastly races to wizards. The station has hundreds of different cultural meshing. The marketplace would be the one I can share about the best. Individual-owned stalls are usually from young worlds. They tend to have the most unique items and have affordable prices but their quality is usually below average. Proper stores are world-owned and they are more reliable. The developed and rich worlds have an entire street filled with their world’s members opening their stores. While the richest worlds own part of the station. The strongest and richest individuals own homes in the residential sector, they are usually higher beings or their offspring. I suggest you stay far away from them. They might be worth the trouble for a merchant like me but I won’t want any dealings with them if I were you.”
“What do you want from us?” Xin might not have strong intuition in her current state but she had been suspicious of this merchant from day one.
“Your contacts. Both of you are strong and although you did business, I’m sure it isn’t your occupation. I can be your broker, for a fee of course.”
“We’ll think about it.” He replied cordially.
“Of course,” She smiled, “Ah, that’s my turn.” The lady heard the soft ringing and looked at the module’s number. Despite being King-ranked, she had 4 Emperor ranked bodyguards by her side. They did not partake in Teheil’s battle and were purely the rich merchant’s bodyguards.
Two of them donned sleek sci-fi-looking mecha suits or exoskeletons. The other two wore clothing or armour similar to the Mirellans. Plated clothing for mobility appeared to be Mirellan’s choice of armour. The exoskeleton wasn’t something he saw other Mirellans wearing.
In any case, all four of them hated it when their boss stepped anywhere close to Xin or him. They were quite cowardly for bodyguards and they’ve never even fought. Xin could feel their wariness and he could sense their bodies tensing.
Before the short exchange ended, Ebony noticed his mana pool filling up completely. It started to self-compress and reinforce his Constitution. His body slowly warmed up as the compression of mana within his body continued. Teheil was honestly quite an impressive worldcore, he should have regenerated his mana pool of five million in a minute by his current regeneration but it took the time of a meal and a light conversation. So despite the ejection shuttle getting out of Teheil, his mana was still being absorbed.
Thinking he could let his body re-acclimate to mana, he didn’t use Resonant Battle Hymn to speed up his regeneration further.
While he was getting stronger, everyone else in the cabin got exponentially more threatening. The Mirellans might depend on technology more so than individual technique but they were still a race of mana-using humans. And they sure were stronger than Elcrains. Ebony would be hard-pressed to find a room full of Kings on Elcra but in this cabin, the two of them were the only Grandmasters.
He lost the speed advantage that the cushioning gave him. Lost the advantage of being the only one capable of using mana while the passengers regained usage of their weapons, armour, augmentations and more.
Still, Ebony was comfortable knowing that he could cast a small range Domain indefinitely. The Emperors on board who weren’t bogged down were not opponents he could beat even with his Domain but he was confident they weren’t an immediate threat to his life and he might even be able to freeze them over time. It wasn’t like anyone here could outlast his energy source. With the cube present, people without flight capabilities were even less of a problem. Assuming they can get through his gravity repulsion, Tempestuous Lull Pelt was backed by the cube and his Domain.
All of a sudden, red lights blared the cabin and alarms went off, “please stay calm and get back to your seats. A couple of void wasps have been detected. They will be dispatched without issue. ”
The people on the module were rudely kicked out and the assistant, Leqor ushered the calm passengers back to their seats. With the shuttle completely shutting his mana sense off, he could only watch how confident the passengers were that nothing was going to happen to them.
They were right to think so because their alarms quickly went off and a bored announcer told them the threat was dealt with within the next minute.
The passengers who got more comfortable as their mana returned got more chatty with fellow passengers.
He was beside the wall but the person beside Xin was very chatty and quickly got everyone around her to disperse, her target swapped to Xin very soon. It was another merchant lady who was here to buy Teheil materials directly. She knew who the two of them were but neither of them recognised her. For Ebony, that meant she only arrived on Teheil for a short while and was already leaving.
“Oh, if it’s your first time going to the station then you’ll first meet with the Nebula Watch. You can’t enter a station without having your threat level classified and documented by them.”
“Is that so? What do we have to do?” Xin asked. She was quite amiable in her recovery state.
It was not news to Ebony who had his clones find out as much about the world as it could. He didn’t know much about the Nebula Watch but he knew that they were the ones that took care of order. They were the ones that stopped extremely dangerous people from acting on Worlds that they did not have permission to act on. He didn’t need to know more to understand that the Nebula Watch could do that and restrain even the Kin of Tetramyth from personally invading Elcra because of one thing.
Power.