Ebony gave his legs a massage before standing up and was back to normal while Kong Tian pumped himself up for raising in ranks by 2 spots. The greater space mage was ranked in the two hundreds taking almost 25 minutes longer than Ebony did.
This stone pillar showed him all 21 Clan names and there was a clear division of their physical finesse. There were other guest names but very few beat the Xengs and not a single one was in the top 100.
Both of them stepped past the purple line and he felt all his powers return. His sensation of mana, his body’s toughness from compressed mana, his mind’s clarity, thinking speed and processing power. The pain in his body from over burdening his weak muscles faded away and he healed from the cuts and bruises immediately. His chassis's factory whirled back alive.
“That was very fun and nostalgic. Can we use this place any time?”
“I would hardly call it fun but yes, you can attempt it as many times as you want.”
“Is the environment static?”
“It changes, I believe it would take 500 years before the exact same pattern of trash would flow down the river. Or the exact same placement of traps is reset. Even though no one’s attempting it now, it’s still cycling through. Except for traps that need to be tripped, some are just timed traps.”
“No wonder I don’t know how some of those traps were triggered…I thought maybe there was a laser-detected trap I triggered. Timer-based traps huh…” He might have been over-optimistic about beating his own time.
“This is the Shi Clan village.” Kong Tian waved his hands to present the quaint village.
“There are even fewer buildings than the Ning Clan.” He noted about a dozen buildings, though more spaced out. There were no ponds at every house, but each house was bigger. And not made of wooden materials. Each one was unique, either made of stone or metal. However, durability and foundational stability seemed to be key to these buildings, rather than the beauty or decor.
“That’s bec-”
“You’re here. Ah, Kong boy. How’s it going with the Ning girl?”
The people here were invisible to his senses, every single one of them. He didn’t know when a woman as tall as him just popped up in between the two of them. The face he saw made him pause for a long moment.
“Gr- ah, not so well. We went on a trip to the blood realm recently but, nothing happened…”
“Let me give you a tip with the Nings, get her riled up and show off your manly side during that time or they won’t bother with people. Come’ere, here’s a candied grape. You can go along and woo her, not too clingy but always be around and catch any opportunities.” The aged voice pulled out a stick of 5 candied grapes and pushed it into Kong Tian’s hand before pushing him out.
Ebony looked at the unmasked Xeng and she looked at him with a slightly hunched back. Her plain old grey dress had the emblem of a turtle or tortoise.
“Your name is Ebony? Look at you, I have to tell my descendants that they lost to your first try…Do you know who I am?” The woman didn’t have her eyes open.
“Are you my aunt? You look just like my mother, maybe a little older.” Ebony noticed the slight wrinkles on her face. He knew he had an aunt but nothing about her, not even a name. He was never told anything but the existence of an aunt and it never mattered to him.
“You’re finally here. Shi Wu’s son. Good. Good. Come, I made some food f-” The woman spoke like she was an old lady, which she probably was. She thoughtlessly grabbed his wrist, preparing to pull him somewhere.
Ebony gulped, looking at his wrist. His hand landed on the ground with a wet splash but that was the least of the problems when his entire arm was ripped out of his shoulder.
‘I’m pretty sure my compressed mana is back to enhance my constitution.’ Even without active augmentation, his bones shouldn’t have gotten crushed to the point they twisted off from a grip. It happened so smoothly and quickly that the pain hadn’t sunk in yet.
Horrified, the woman fumbled and tried to place the arm back but didn’t dare to touch him anymore. “I’m sorry! Why are you so fragile!? Doctor…no we don’t have doctors. What do I do?”
“It’s fine.” Ebony took his arm back and reconnected it before blasting his life force back into them, there was no period of weakness this way. “See.” He clenched his fingers to show that his wrist was fully healed.
“Ah! How could I forget...I’m sorry I didn’t mean to do that...are you hurt?”
“Don’t worry about it. Before we move on, may I ask about where my mother is?”
“...Come to my house.”
Ebony did not expect to visit a temple. Boundless Serenity Geyser had been allowing him to take in the quick changes without much reaction, though it would’ve been similar even if he didn’t have the skill. Be it travelling in space or through multiple planets, or meeting the Xengs so suddenly. Things were happening fast if he didn’t consider how a decade had passed in the meantime.
Taking off his shoes, he realised his new clothes self repaired from the ripping. Led to a seating almost Japanese style with cushions on the floor and a short table, they had the view of bright verdant grasslands beside the village. The field of flowers was a bit weird since the flowers were made of rock or metal, it dulled the colours a little.
The privacy settings of the building were obviously very high since the magic perception of any element was not allowed.
“First of all, I have to confirm. Do you know who your parents are?” The woman sat with one leg propped up and hugged to her chest while she boiled tea by vibrating mana in the pot on the table to heat the water.
“Ah, here.” He brought out the fruits he got for them, “I know my mother by Amelia Stone, Shi Wu. My father, can I say his name?” He didn’t have to worry about Eidolon Hex. Even if the spirit said it wasn’t able to hear what was said in the outside world, it was generally believed that it was truly unable to eavesdrop. Because many people of high power and status use Eidolon, the God of Knowledge wouldn’t dare let Eidolon be able to hear and see everything their portable module was connected to. And the God of Just's words that Eidolon had no such ability was trusted by all.
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In any case, he didn’t think the Xengs would care and if they did, they would’ve asked him to put his Myriad Bracelet away.
“Amelia Stone, what a lazy choice of name. Say the name, why not? If that’s what it takes for them to show themselves. Ohh, we can’t wait to welcome those bastards. Look at that, all 52 of us are listening. Ah look who came back home, all 53 of us are waiting to see if they'll come.” She poured him a cup of tea and it slid across the table. Ebony tried not to think about who she was referring to. Probably the other Xengs.
“Matthew Rime or Gelidon ‘O Arcturus Rime.”
“Haha, see. Those cowards don’t even dare show their shadow. How I wish just calling their name was enough for them to come. What else do you know?” She looked up in the sky above the verdant backyard. Perhaps her eyesight was good enough to see out to space or some other methods of perception.
“I was born on Earth, but my parents weren’t from there. The name Rime sounds troublesome. My mother is a spearwoman likely using gravity magic. My father is likely some kind of mana-based sub-human race.”
“So you don’t know much. That’s about right. Where should I start…let’s begin with you appearing here out of nowhere. When I heard that the Ning descendant found a possible half, you don’t know how happy I was. I’m sorry I took so long to drive Xiaoya back to this region. Should I keep this short or do you want to know all the details?”
“I have time for storytelling.”
“Alright.” She snapped her fingers and the fruits were sliced into pieces, plated nicely for them with a metal pick stabbed in them. “Then I’ll begin some of Xeng’s history. Just whatever’s necessary for you to understand who your mother is.”
He had never chased after news of his parents but now that he was here, there was no better time to find out about where they are. What happened to them?
“The First. She was from Earth, just like us second generation. No, she is not the daughter of some strong race that went to Earth. A bonafide human from Earth. I do not know what time period she’s from but she claims to have been born around the time swords were invented at her geographical location. Some kind of freak accident or maybe she was pulled along with a person from this dimension, but she arrived on Elcra. According to her claims, back then, the highest-level monster was not even 100. She got a class, ruled the continent. And then got stuck at level 100. Unhappy, she sliced space open in a dungeon and got herself out to a different place, believing that 100 was not the limit. Okay, all that isn’t that important. Pwah, I make good tea!”
‘Xin’s tea is better.’ Ebony drank the overcooked leaf juice without commenting.
“Anyway, she quickly cut her path to Emperor. That’s when she got a bit bored without opponents and learned how to cut open dimensions outside of flimsy dungeons. She found Earth and brought us Xengs here. Of course, she returned to Earth and found how much had changed. Her homeland was mostly gone, but her people and their descendants were easily found by her. Back there, her power was similarly mostly gone.
She learnt the language, told us tales of unlimited power and longevity and enticed us, the so-called second generation to come over. There were about a hundred of us. She believed if the cosmos had no opponent for her, then she only had her bloodline to rely on for a strong opponent. Dilute as the bloodline may be. She forced her power back, and cut the dimension to bring all of us to Elcra. That’s when Xienor was built.
However, we disappointed her with our original showings. Keeping her beliefs, she watched while we grew. We were often looked down upon, we looked a bit different from the residents of Elcra. We were always throwing ourselves into fights for the promised unlimited power and longevity and were thought to be barbarians. At a certain point, we made these masks especially for the women. Be it Elcra or Earth, women weren’t respected on the battlefield and our appearances were causing some problems in that regard. I digress.
It took a while but the majority of us were able to leave for better opportunities and reached Emperor ranked ourselves. A lot of us got married to each other, we weren’t blood-related after all. A lot of us passed away, too weak to meet our standards. My husband was a Duan, though he was also unable to accompany me to this age and our clan took my surname instead. Me, I left my sister behind, on Earth. She was just a baby, I couldn’t have brought her along. I wanted to know what happened to her so I requested the First to let me take a look.
I didn’t know about the time difference and that it wasn’t even a constant difference so I never had much hope but when I looked, hundreds of years later. I found her alive, barely a few years older than before. I don’t know how, but she remembered and recognised me despite how much I'd changed. We had no family, so I obviously brought her out. That’s who Shi Wu, your mother is. You follow?”
”Mmm.” It was simple enough to follow. This also confirmed his guesses that Xengs were Chinese or at least, had that descent.
“Oh, my husband wasn’t dead then, he wasn’t even my husband yet. I must be getting old, storytelling isn’t easy I tell ya. Let me digress once more, why are we so much stronger if we weren’t born of good genetics? That wasn’t always the case. Sure, we trained hard and we knew techniques unlike olden day humans of Elcra that didn’t even know how to level properly. But it is also due to the fact that The First has some kind of connection with us. I doubt it's just bloodline. But in any case, because she is strong. We are strong. Because she is a woman, Xeng women are often stronger than our male counterparts. When she evolved into a Saint, all of us benefitted. Our baseline traits were raised significantly. Since all of us trained in various skills and elements, we began to differentiate ourselves by clans rather than individuals.”
“I would like to ask what you mean by baseline traits.”
“Later boy later. Let me continue. We became worthier, refining our Physiques to heights that we couldn’t before. It snowballed since the stronger we got, the more resources we could claim with our strength. Still, we were never opponent-worthy for the First. We improved but she never stopped getting stronger either. That’s where Shi Wu came in. Stronger than any of us. More promise in combat than any of us. The First was waiting eagerly for her growth. She did grow, along with us second generation that she was also part of.” She crunched onto a juicy fruit with spikes as a shell.
‘oh…I’m talking to a second generation? Huh, that means I’m talking to a Saint.’ Ebony didn’t even realise who he was talking to.
“I’ll skip the exciting adventures she had, she had to play catch up to the rest of us who were already Emperor ranked. During that time, a lot of us were married and trying to have children but we realised our fertility rate was extremely low so no babies were born. Sorry, I’m digressing again. Anyway, during her adventures and training your father came into her life. Rime…that disgusting tribe.”
The room grew still but Ebony who had his mana perception leak a bit outside the temple could tell that the whole village if not entire floating island was quivering. The woman in front of him was protecting him from her leaking aura and emotions.
“Hmp, not your father of course. Right, you need to know about the Rime Tribe too. This is where you’re wrong, the Rimes are not sub-human. They are not humans at all. They do not even have physical bodies. Purebred mana beings. I'll skip the gossip, your father was the only decent one. He was quite the romantic man to turn that rock faced sister of mine to fall for him. The First blessed their marriage, she found a few Demi-Gods and they made a human body for your father. Then…”
Ebony didn’t eat any of the fruits and his storyteller also stopped munching or drinking. Both of them faced outside and looked out and kept silent for a long, long time.
“Saintess.”
“Call me Aunt Tao.”
“...”
“You don’t believe I’m your aunt?”
“I don’t know how to feel about this.”
“Fine…just auntie for now.” She looked a bit disappointed. Despite sharing such similar features, this aunt of his did not have his mother’s dead facial expressions. It was clear to him this was a different person.
“Auntie. My parents. They are both dead, aren’t they.” Ebony stated his thoughts. He had them for decades.
“They are.”
Ebony raised the heaviest cup of tea in his life and tipped it into his lips.
Only two people would know if the fluid on his outer garment was tea.
“Auntie, your tea is very bitter.”