Ebony's Fable

Ebony took a look at the papers Yharnu was packing. It was a pity, this wouldn't work for him.

It was revolutionary and could change the entire world, actually. This Yharnu was a genius in her own right.

He wondered how the children and descendants of people who used this Sigil all their lives would turn out. Would they be born with a higher baseline potential or a Physique that gave them more effective base stats?

Would they just level with a greater number of stats?

Anyway, Ebony did not think very highly of stat count. To the evolved races with high potential, stat count of baseline humans hardly mattered when a single point for them easily exceeds what baseline humans get by the dozens, hundreds or more.

What he didn't expect was how big an organization Lure was. The powers and growth progression of the Soul Angel and her three direct subordinates did make a lot of sense for their expansionist nature.

Souls were their strength and their resources; it was understandable. Elcra just so happened to be one of many, many targets.

Ebony didn't want to disturb Navin with this information right now. Their opponent was actually stronger than he expected.

Definitely stronger and more resourceful than the Power Demon. The ex-Elcrian was not limited to fully physical means and had well-trained control over mana and dispel.

Navin's barrier stood unbreakable to this Emperor; however, the warrior was banking on running Navin dry of mana. As long as he remained curse-immune, it seemed like Navin was out of offensive options. He used his barriers offensively, as arcane sharp blades, blunt impact, projectiles and a vanguard construct similar to a stickman drawn by a child, but they weren't able to harm the Emperor-ranked knight in the slightest.

Truewater and Koawe, as his support, played a bigger role in the offensive. They damn well conjured an ocean and froze most of it around them, including the area Ebony was sitting in, but he redirected the ice to a dome around them.

That was enough to block them out of sight for the rest of the people, but Ebony could watch as if nothing was in the way.

'Truewater has higher effective Intelligence than I do. Corrosive green water for physical defence. Mana-dissolving purple water to wash away or weaken a warrior's mana enhancements. Very deadly. Then that black water….hyper dense, high-pressure water is what he specialises in. Abyssal Surface Dweller huh.'

Truewater had a much deeper mana pool than everyone present. It easily matched the Elven Tower Head and the Painter of Animation. Besides the base Wisdom increment, it should compound a mana-capacity increment of 2 skills, maybe 3 if his baseline was lower than Ebony estimated. One water element, one pure arcane as far as he could tell. Perhaps one Abyss?

Ebony didn't know much, if anything, about the Abyss.

Ebony could do the same. Gravity will help him create a deeper mana capacity, better than the water element. He just needed time to make the spell and to incorporate it as part of his new magical organs, which he was designing for his lung slot. He honestly prioritised the gravity elemental augmentation over mana capacity, but his new method of spending mana explosively did require a bigger mana pool from him.

Was he supposed to conjure Sequester for 2 minutes and then rely just on regeneration to continue casting? What if he had more targets that he needed to inject with Sequester at the same time, and he wasn't able to drag the time to wait for his regeneration?

He would benefit from a huge mana pool, as with any mage.

Ebony believed the 2 Archmages and 1 Grandmage would win. Navin's reflexive mana of the Lord family was fast enough to cast barriers to protect his two allies and strong enough not to let anything through. Be it the physical kinetic force or the unknown mana effect.

As far as Ebony could tell, it was a Fortification for piercing and slashing physical attacks, and the mana heightened this effect further. It was compounding skills and fortifications. A proper build and not random, like the average Imperial freelancer King. A mishmash of skills that don't work together is something that cannot stay if you want to excel at anything.

The anti-curse specialist might be more than just anti-curse. There was a good chance he knew support magic. Ebony couldn't sense any mana thread from the caster to the Knight. If he did cast an enhancement spell on the fighter, it was the stored energy type and not channelled like most consistent buffs.

This meant it could run out much faster or dispel by some means more easily but the support mage would not be tracked down by the linkage of mana.

There should be another reason for the mage to be so close by if channelled mana was not necessary. Ebony assumed that he gave bursts of mana instead of channelling to keep the spell going. At the moment, no such recharge had been conducted, and Ebony hadn't even figured out if he was buffing the fighter in any way.

This Emperor should not have perfect Evolution.

Maybe around the same number of Fortification as a fully 'maxed' out Grandmaster, but a good number of 250%. In fact, it felt to Ebony like he had fewer Fortifications, as if he sacrificed the number of Fortifications to strengthen existing ones that fit the warrior style. That would make sense if one had a simple fighting style and would stand to benefit more by consolidating than spreading their potential thin.

In terms of stats, an Emperor would have them cheapened even further. A lot further.

Stats were already potential cheap to begin with, hence it wasn't as amazing as Yharun was hoping and why he was not impressed unless it could raise his, for example. But her Sigil's limit was low, it might not even work for an average Elven Grandmaster born between a pair of Kings. It suited her best because she had the Fortification for some kind of growth speed increment.

Rather perfect for someone without a genetic advantage. However, this Sigil's potential was unmistakable. If she could get it to work on highly evolved creatures, she might really be hunted down by higher beings.

Ebony almost questioned why she told him this so easily, by the looks of it she kept it a complete secret to herself till now. He cannot believe someone who developed something that can change a species don't know how to get protection from the right people. There was one obvious problem for specialising in growth speed. Other skills would lag behind.

That was the case for her, she developed this sigil for so long that she can't even utilise her combat spells properly.

Has she even fought anything or anyone for the past ten, twenty years?

Maybe all she needs is one big mana blast to make use of her 'superior' stats that would be overwhelmed by numerous races that evolved with a lump of potential.

Anyway, it was not like him to praise and look down on someone. He was already surprised at how much he was judging her. Was he looking down on people? Is arrogance starting to sink in?

'I really need someone strong to drown any growing seed of arrogance right now….' Ebony sipped on more tea and got back to reading his book.

Yharnu's Sigil books weren't on her, and she would find a safer space to write it down or record it for him by speech. These Sigil books didn't exist because she kept everything recorded in her mind with a memory skill. Interesting….these baseline humans needed a memory skill to remember stuff.

'I'm doing it again….this line of thought is harmful.' Ebony gulped the rest of the tea down when he kept thinking these people were 'baseline' human.

He looked at his wife, wondering if she had a solution.

She took a minute to bathe in his attention before giving him a suggestion, "They seem unsatisfied, you can ask them for a spar."

A few of these Kings, Yharnu included, had auras that only lost to Navin and Truewater by a little. Although aura doesn't mean much in a fight if they can't manipulate it to do anything, they should at least be good exercise.

But after looking at all of the angry and unhappy faces one by one….they lost the will to fight him. And he lost it too.

'I just met their auras with mine and they gave up, they can't give me a good exercise.'

Ebony decided that after the Ecstasy Lord, armoured trespasser were not a threat. Apa was retrieved and hopefully able to put back into his body. He might have to take a retreat like the Xengs do. Just silently training.

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At the moment, it didn't feel like any opponent couldn't be solved with Sequester. A bunch of mana and a bunch of Will.

His Will was holding him back, to be honest. Despite the capacity and regeneration increase, all 3 Coreflames utilise Will to an incredible degree.

In extension, all ice spells that require flames now require Will for he wasn't going to settle for less than his most potent flames. That meant reworking all these spells from his augmentation to blossoms. Plum bomb flames for Diametric could wait till Xin evolved, not exactly a priority but he could make a Sequester and Preservation plum bomb versions.

Gravity and curse brand augmentations were his current top priority for mental simulation research. Hyperlucid Atelier was cooking up possibilities at record speeds, but he kept meeting failure. With gravity, testing it in real life helped gather a lot more data because he didn't exactly understand gravity when his mana interacts with ambient, and how this gravity loss affects the environment. How it affect other magic bodies in the surrounding, so on and so forth.

As for curse branding, it's not like he didn't have any success. He had long had a working design. He just wasn't happy with it. Sub-par is all he could say about them. It took mana, it gave stat buffs. A lousy curse gives a lousy buff. That was just how it is, and his understanding of curses was less than that of a beginner curse mage, as far as he's concerned.

On the bright side, he figured out the exact runic symbols that cursed maximum mana regeneration and figured out how to control the percentages up to 0.5%. He tried it on his wife, the same runic formula reduced her mana regeneration by 17.5%. The area he was having more trouble with was buffing himself with this.

Curse runes didn't give beneficial effects by themselves. He was still figuring out how to siphon this energy into other runic symbols that would provide the support he wanted. It was round about, he could just make support runes directly absorbing his mana but curse runes were more potent and more efficient by a great deal.

Healing magic was not the only type of magic that was ineffective on him. Curses, poisons or most afflictions were less effective. Both beneficial and harmful. This also translated to support magic.

Xin's Inherited Stamp gave him more than 4 times lower stat buff compared to when he was a Grandmaster. Though it also reduced the life force drain on him. This was without active interference. His evolved body was purely more resistant to changes.

The irksome difference was another reason why the couple had been apart these days. It was slightly dangerous for him to be near his wife, physically connected kind of near. She was resistant and adapted to his mana but there was a limit. With how much she loved physical contact, they had to be apart.

"What are you not telling me?" Ebony asked after hearing the cheerful hum from his wife. She was making fresh sandwiches.

He took a double-take when he saw fish on the menu. The first time he got fish sandwiches, he summoned his wife from the Blood Realm somehow or other. Recalling the few times he had fish…something always happens.

"Why don't you guess?"

"Uncle Wu sent you fish?"

"Well, he did, but that's not why I'm in a good mood."

His checklist was small thanks to her simplicity. If food was crossed out, that left fight. Or him.

"How did you get back at the armoured fellow?"

"Aw, you're too good at guessing. Was it written on my face?"

"I find it hard to believe he retreated if nothing happened. If the three Frost Elves didn't do anything, you must have."

"I was experimenting with a blood ritual with Intent. He panicked when he was infected, and since he hadn't shown his face, I'm assuming his life force is still being drained right now."

'So that's why she doesn't think there's a good battle for me today, even if we find him, he's either at death's door leaking life force or weakened for the past months and hasn't recovered enough to gain confidence to show himself.'

"You don't think he removed the effect?"

"Foresight says he's still infected, and my Blood Halo hasn't returned. My Intent should still be ripping his bloodstream."

Ebony had her explain her ritual. It wasn't a new Skill yet, but she was fluent enough to get the technique to work. What she had massive findings with is the energy that she receives from the Altarbound Kin. It was no longer out of her control, and she could remove it if she wanted. That was a relief.

Even beneficial energies were not welcomed if it wasn't under their full control.

'I can't tell if it's spirit energy or some other energy. For distance not to matter, it shouldn't be qi or aether. Astral would make sense for the distance, but she would know if it's astral energy.' Spirit energy fits all the criteria. Distance mattered less to spirit energy. This energy could go to the Spirit Realm and pop through anywhere, taking a massive shortcut and not losing quantity or quality from travelling.

The Alterbound Kin were certainly 'spirited' in many ways.

Xin called it extremely weak and faint. It was hardly growing these days, and the improvement to herself was minuscule but endless. Her vague expression of the feeling was hard to read or simulate anything in her stead. If only he had it, he could help test things more scientifically. She did everything by instinct.

The weirdest thing?

It was that she supposedly got this energy from him as well. It was currently the most obvious stream to her but weaker than the Altarbound Kin's stream. Her perception of this energy wasn't good enough to quantify or individually pick out yet.

Other than the spells he was casting on her, such as Mantle of Reservation and a small amount of Sequester to hide her face and figure, he was not actively giving her any energy.

While he was going through the books one by one, the fight between the Soul Puppets and Elves was tilting towards the Soul Puppets.

The Painter of Animation was good. Very good at controlling wide areas with her painting all sorts of natural effects into existence. Giving life to inanimate objects and elements was her forte. But Ebony saw that the battle awareness of these animated lives left much to be desired.

The Soul Puppets had magic bodies strong enough, and they were not lacking physical ability. He couldn't sense it, but some of their attacks that hurt the Elves could not hurt any of her animation. That should be their soul attacks that couldn't hurt something without a soul.

These soul attacks were what tilted the battle in their favour. The items the elves wore that protect their souls were giving in, a battle of attrition where the Elves were getting weaker and the Soul Puppets had more than enough resources to continue, was an obvious trend that they were winning, even with their wooden bodies and inability to destroy the animated life forms.

To the Elves' credit, Tower Head had never let the two Emperor Soul Puppets close the distance throughout the battle. He was not just an academic sitting behind his desk. With battle awareness, timing and positioning of his spells putting him near the top of the mages Ebony knew.

Ebony considered timing and positioning to be superior to speed and power. It was how humans fought stronger creatures and won.

"Young man! This old lady would appreciate some help right about now."

'I was still studying the soul attacks, but oh well.' Ebony had his Will reach out. Unsurprisingly, he couldn't reconnect to the Soul Puppets at range.

'Passive defences are quite troublesome.' Fifteen spawned and Flickered towards the Soul Puppet. It was immediately targeted when it got in range. The Soul Puppets' aggressive counter was the physical contact they required.

Fifteen decoded the Will of Sequester before exploding into millions of pieces. It 'died' before it could send itself home, but Ebony had a copy of him, that split second didn't lose any memories Ebony was unaware of anyway. Fifteen would not remember this, he decided not to respawn this Number with the memory of this death.

The soul puppet had been the one to close the distance to Fifteen and not the other way around. They intercepted Fifteen's Flicker in the middle of their path.

Regardless, the mana he squeezed into that appeared sufficient.

This Sequester had a strong presence of Preservation, but it still did a lot of damage. Ebony had to work on Sequester that purely seals, but he wanted to focus on its offensive capabilities for now.

Ebony left the other one alone but was now able to mentally carry the frozen soul puppet towards him. With so much of his mana within, he'd already overrode its magic body.

'Not only is it not dead, I did less damage than expected.' Ebony saw the frozen soul puppet raise its arm at an alarming speed, but his hand was already placed in position to catch the sharpened wooden stake and double down on gravitational suppression. Although planted in the ground, the 'frozen' puppet could still struggle to climb out of the earthen crater.

He can't even freeze it completely.

'Very high base resistant to freezing and not just resistance to cold.'

Ebony edited the ice that was meant to freeze fleshy cells to target plant cells.

'These aren't like normal plant cells, highly genetically modified. Twisted, with their souls perhaps.' He could not effectively freeze them rock solid immediately. Practically using telekinesis and dragging the ice puppet back to him, he axe-kicked it under the heel of his boot. Gravitationally anchoring it and actively blasting mana into its system to keep it suppressed to slowly freeze it.

With another target for him to send mana over, he was more at ease and didn't have to worry about mana poisoning the people around him.

His book reading session continued.

"Stop posing and help me here!" Tower Head hollered. He had been shellshocked, afraid. He was probably aware that there was a possibility Ebony could now cast the same spell on him after the physical contact they had.

Ebony didn't think about it, but it did look like he was posing.

However, he had to keep his feet on the soul puppet's back to keep it gravitationally anchored. It was not nearly as easy as it looked. This puppet was still resisting.

The Elf was ignored.

The Painter of Animation couldn't watch for much longer before she pulled out another type of paint and spawned another meteor into existence. She sure loved her meteors. The fire element was extremely rare to see from the Elves, so her reliance on special paint to summon anything regarding fire was not unexpected.

The earthquake messed his gravitational rhythm up.

'Note to self, earth magic of immense proportion can shake control over gravity thanks to the movement of mass.'

As he didn't get any partial experience notification, he knew the puppet survived.