Ebony's Fable

"Ngghh. You're lying on my hair." Xin mumbled her annoyance.

"You tossed and turned all day." Not only had her hair regrown from her time on Teheil, she maintained it longer than she used to. It regrew so fast that it felt like she had regenerated it. Reaching past her knees when standing straight, her waterfall of hair was extremely voluminous; it probably took a significant percentage of her body mass at this point.

He was not lying on her hair. They were tangled up together.

"So it's my fault now?" She sat up unabashed to find that her nightwear had been kicked off at some point during her sleep. Only after a moment of thought did she pull the blanket to cover the front. "Don't think I don't know you like long hair, that's why I expedited their growth."

"Nonsense, you look great with shorter hair too." Getting up, he found that even his t-shirt was stripped off by the very active sleeper.

Tossing sports wear out for her and putting on his own, it was training time.

"I really want to evolve already…" Xin tried to catch her breath on the ground 6 hours later. Their specialised training field appeared to be more and more amazing.

Without it, Ebony can no longer Prime himself further without destroying the area. He was now depending on the training field with awesome functions. 'I should get some gear that can help with training outside of this field, too.'

"Mmm, let's settle it by today after breakfast."

"What? By today?"

"I really need an opponent…."

"Yo-you're just impatient I couldn't satisfy you at night aren't you…." She eyed him with watery eyes, "I waited half a year, and you can hardly wait a month."

"I didn't say that. Now go wash up, I'll start prepping the ingredients." She had picked up bad teasing habits from the Ning Clan, her grandmother specifically. He did not hate it.

"Join me…." Her hands clamped behind his neck and batted her eyes twice.

And so he did.

The outdoor trip was postponed for another week. His mana stockpile should be sufficient for his needs while the Will stockpile in Dusk left much to be desired, but it still gave him more confidence to finish the job and remove the few threats faster.

His wife had been binging on high-energy foods for days, so she was back in tip-top shape. Not his blood, though. She abstained from his blood until Ebony was confident his radiative mana did not harm her once it was out of his control. Though she did have a few vials of his mana-less blood to practice blood manipulation.

He was also the recipient of her learning some techniques while holding a book that her student gave her. It was cute how hard she tried to improve her ability to make him feel physical pleasure but that was also an awkward experience. Thankfully, they were past awkwardness. It helped that the book had techniques for him to test on her. With her shyness tripled, he didn't mind the awkwardness anymore.

'We're going to need a bigger washing machine and dryer.' Ebony put that on the chore list. They were going through clean sheets frequently.

Handling Dusk and reconfirming it had parts of the modification to the Domain to induce invisible threads with Sequester, he opened the door and called the hamster of a chewer, "Ready?"

Since they continued training every day, her energy intake needed to be constant. Still, she was currently saturated with energy. All this eating was supplying her mask with energy instead. Giving her capacity greater than 100% of her body and blood. She could technically keep eating and increase her stores of nutrients and energy.

A few hours of intense combat can wipe her stores clean. If she doesn't have any intense energy output, she doesn't have to eat for a very, very long time.

An advantage that Ebony didn't have to the same degree.

She rushed out and hopped on one foot, trying to put her boots on with a half-eaten burger in one hand. "Just eat," He lifted her up and placed her on the small bench at the door, right beside their weapon stand and put her boots on after stealing a bite of her burger.

After a reflexive but soft hammer fist to the head for stealing her food and firmly tied boots, they were ready to go.

A proper woven coat, not designed with many defensive runes, other than being made entirely out of threads 1/10,000th of Spine. The Giant's boots, which he got as a wedding gift, refitted themselves. Dusk on his back.

He still left Spine and his gravity cube at home. A few numbers stayed as they also cared for the garden. They were pretty much purely research and gardening Numbers. Without Dusk, they took over, increasing Spine's runic layering.

Closing the door behind him, he turned to the left and saw his wife with bright crimson hair and mesmerising eyes filled with bloodlust. "Dibs on the armoured fellow."

"I don't have to create a gravity tunnel for you."

"I can seduce you and deny your advances."

"You want a test of patience and self-control?"

"…Fineee, you can have a turn."

With one more victory over his wife in his books, he sat as a passenger on her hoverbike for the first time. He forgot about her while optimising the gravity spell for the hoverbike's movement. It had propulsion. Ebony had to make sure his spell didn't interrupt and could boost this propulsion. Either by pulling forward from the front or pushing from the back.

She swerved the vehicle and he tightened his hug around her waist from the sudden change in direction to avoid a tree. She also needed to get used to this movement speed with his spell.

'This bike is pretty fast…the fuel source is here.' Ebony touched the fuel source, where he felt a lump of mana within. His mana perception sensed something carved under the cover.

'Not symbols, words…looks Russian. I should've read more Russian texts.' With his memory and current ability, as long as he had sufficient text, he could decipher a simple language. He wasn't a huge linguist when he was on Earth, but he'd seen a few signboards in Russian, so he was relatively certain this was close to what he remembered. If he could confirm, he might have found himself another person who's from or been to Earth. There were simply too many languages in this universe to say for sure; it could just be an extremely similar variant.

Why has he seen Russian signboards? It was one of his training destinations, and there were also a handful of occasions on which he woke up in fighting rings with Russian people. Teenagers and adults alike. Well, that was history.

Speaking of fighting rings, surprisingly, almost none could be found on Elva. Likely because there were public arenas in every town and city, multiple of them. 'I can sign up my students as duelists, that should be a good experience, and they'll face all types of people.'

Ebony had considered how to look for their targets in Lacuna Expanse

Oplot and the Guardian Knights must have a map…he was disappointed to find that Oplot did not have a mapping skill, nor did he have wide range perception that scans landmass with incredible precision, down to the location of every plant. The people who went to Lacuna Expanse were also few.

The criteria were that they had to be strong enough to not be afraid of a wild Emperor-ranked monster, which already took out more than 99% of the Empire's population. The area directly through the portal wasn't that dangerous and used to be patrolled by the Guardian Knights not long ago.

Then, they had to have a wide range mapping skill.

Lastly, they have to share or sell the map information.

It boiled down to a total of 0 reliable maps of Lacuna Expanse. They did have the immediate vicinity mapped out, and the location of the allied Worldcores.

Ebony ruled out the Oreads and Nereids if they had been in trouble, the Elves and the Empire would've found out. Though there was still a chance these Lure people might be peacefully camping in this Worldcore, it seemed unlikely. With the stop of soul harvesting on Elcra, they were still offering souls. It had to come from somewhere, and the Lacuna Expanse was too vast.

It wasn't so much a 'plan' but the most straightforward method he could think of was baiting them out if he didn't want to waste time searching for them.

It shouldn't be too hard. They've already made waves when they destroyed one small group with the Angel's statue. That should have kept them on alert if the loss of the Demons didn't.

He was met with incredible progress from the Elves. It was almost intimidating how their forest's Domain had Will that strengthened so much. Almost enough to fully stop him from exerting Will into the physical plane, excluding Dusk, of course. They sensed the intrusion of a foreign Domain Core almost immediately.

'What slow reactions…ah, it's because this place is supported by….22 different Wills. Their individual response is also weakened, but that's how they strengthened this Domain so fast.' This was currently sufficient in defending the portal from the intrusion of the Angel's Will. As long as she doesn't get a sudden burst of offerings or decides that she didn't need offerings and wants to invest in this place. For now.

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'22 Kings. Must be from their main forest then.

Ebony didn't think their Wills would be so weak. For thousand or more years old foggiest, 2 dozen of them. This Domain couldn't even fully suppress his Will. There was no chance this can stop the Angel's, a tiny bit portion of Her Will was far greater than all of them combined. 'Oh, they secretly had another Emperor besides their Matriarch. Or did he come from outside for support?' He found the last person by eyesight and not Will perception. As for his mana's perception, it was practically blinded by this Domain.

It was a good effect to have. He might consider modifying his Will to achieve a similar purpose of blinding other mages' mana perception.

Yet. Both sides needed time, and they had home-ground advantage.

'I'll pick him up on the way back.' Ebony sensed that Tower Head Dawnweave was still around.

These old foggies, he knew a few of them. They were the ones who cast Manifestation of Natural Preservation for the battle with the Tetramyt. A few of them came from the fortress underground.

"You again…"

Ebony Flickered into the portal with his wife. He did not know they were up for conversation. Anyway, he wasn't turning back to listen to what they had to say. Chances were, they were going to say something insulting to them as Xengs or-if they were in a good mood, they would greet him 'politely' as one blessed by mana.

He stabbed Dusk into the floor a few hundred kilometres away from the portal. The Elves didn't bother or couldn't catch up.

Xin attempted to slice the Will around them like the Clay Demon did to his Domain. It took a few tries, but she figured out how to temporarily disconnect a space's Will. That brief moment let Dusk set up a small space of control. Ebony backed it up to stabilise it, and it didn't take long for him to expand the territory he had to 30 metres. Enough space to start growing a new Spine.

When the trunk was done, he hopped in with his wife. He didn't bring the power source; he left it with the main Spine. Previously, he had no test subject. The group of demons wasn't suitable so he hadn't tested the simple loosening of his mana to expose a target to it.

All he knew was that he had to have his myriad bracelet running at full speed if he didn't want to mana poison the very air.

Lacuna Expanse had higher mana densities. On average, it was 2 to 3 times greater than the area directly outside Tidal, the Capital. Nothing harmful to Grandmasters. Mana without purpose doesn't always hurt people. Sometimes it even benefits people by heightening mana perception for Unclassed, for example.

The Angel's Will was surprisingly accepting of ambient mana. Ebony's Domain pushes out ambient mana and actively suppresses hostile mana from leaving one's magic body. Perhaps it was more accurate to say it suppresses all foreign manas. He only made his wife a variable, but Dusk still could swap to suppressing too.

"Now we fatten you up to act as bait," Xin commented but she already pulled out fresh potato chips she made not long ago.

"Hmm, not really. That takes too long for them to come." He was planning to get her ready to evolve by the end of the day.

She cocked her head, unsure what he had in mind.

"They'll come when enough statues are destroyed. Come, mix our flames. I need to optimise my Coreflame."

Ebony grabbed her wrist and placed it on the inner trunk, and did the same. He started feeding Will to support Dusk in their new plum creation. There was no lack of mana here.

Dissatisfied they weren't making their plum bomb like they used to, she put her hands over his before she fed the growing Spine with her blood.

The soft and warm----scorching touch was just a plus that covered the minus,

Coreflame of Diametric Unity was made to handle the mixture of cold and hot flames, making them not fight and weaken each other. It was not optimised for blood and lightning. However, Xin's blood had always been the carrier of their energies for their plum bombs. This was solved by a Gravitational Vortex that consumed and compressed all.

"Go easy on me, you're sucking me dry."

He ignored the warm whisper in his ears.

Gravitational Vortex was a lot stronger than before, but his Wife had been eating a lot of high-energy foods and could still support a greater bomb.

He did not feel any pity for these lands.

The Animation was gone. The lands were back to dead grass, trees, and even the earth looked dead and dry.

The Soul Domain, as weak as it was, had already killed the surroundings.

'I'll have to set this off a lot further away from the portal.' He was slightly annoyed when he sensed the immediate limit to his spell. The lack of gravity mana.

Ebony quickly spawned tens of thousands of Scout Pigeons to extend their reach and drag more gravity mana over.

Next, he conjured as much compressed ice as possible. This alone generated….a pitiful amount of gravity mana. Not. It produced way more than it used to because he had so much mana he could fill the space of his mental reach with denser ice than the earth. Gravity mana's volume came from mass.

Surprised at the success, he flung the gigantic piece of ice up in the sky before conjuring even more ice for their mass and gravity mana. He rinsed and repeated till he saw that it was getting mentally cumbersome to carry so much ice. He let it rest, realising he had conjured literal mountains. And it already surrounded him.

Spine was in the middle of a valley. Dusk extended its Domain to cover these mountains, and Spine had grown to 50 metres tall. Spine was not suitable for speedy growth after a certain height. The layering of runes took precedence.

'I can still pack more into a single plum. Should I get my gravity cube over….' The stopgap measure was now decent compared to the unusable state before his evolution. Conjured ice just didn't give him sufficient mass in the pass.

Ebony sensed his mana pool.

If he wasn't using coreflames, this expenditure of mana wasn't enough to get him into a deficit.

"Look at that, our spell hasn't finished and my scout already found movement."

Right above his 50 metre Spine was a single plum connected by a thick cable.

It was black but glowing dark purple light. Filled with blood of immense energy, crushed into a growing vortex. Coreflames of Diametric Unity was working if only barely, keeping this spell immensely stable because Xin's spell was backed significantly weaker effective Intelligence. It was a quiet spell despite the great energies it was producing. Diametric Unity was directly conjured within until the gravity was too strong and Ebony had to conjure his flames and feed them through the same pipeline, into the stem of the plum.

It sucked the light out of this place, which explained why it was getting so dark around the plum.

Yet, there were no strong winds. All the energies were tightly packed and contained.

'Diametric Unity suppression works, there's no more pushing force due to the expansion of gases from the melting of ice. This reduces mana wastage from my ice melting or her flames being exhausted.' The only problem was how much Will this was consuming.

He felt that he could strengthen the energy limit a lot more if he had enough Will. Now, he reached his limit before his Wife was out of energy. This limit is how much Will he was regenerating to be able to upkeep the plum bomb as long as he'd like.

He was burning about 2.5 billion mana per second to hold onto this spell in a stable state. About 5 times greater than his mana regeneration rate with Resolves Cadenace working hard.

The expenditure was from the gravity control, and that was about it. He no longer requires a large amount of ice mana to constantly refresh the skin or shell of the plum, nor does he have to constantly feed flames that would fight and exhaust his wife's flames. It was many times more efficient as a spell now. Dusk or main Spine can actually carry a few, as long as his mana stores were sufficient.

Referring to one as filled up as the current one, Spine was already holding onto a few plums, but they weren't filled with nearly as much energy. They also needed to be activated by feeding his flames. They currently only store Xin's blood.

'Hmm….ah' Ebony used Hyperlucid Atelier and figured that they would eviscerate themselves if this blows up above their heads. Until he got this secondary Spine to normal levels, but that was impossible in a short time. He didn't even think transmuting would save his wife from being blown apart. He might survive. He could have his Domain protect him.

"Too strong?"

"I wouldn't say that….this isn't our limit. I'm just maintaining it." He could still move more gravity mana, his wife still had a sizable energy store. He only stopped since Diametric Unity was taking up his Will Regeneration. "How much mana did you feed?"

"I didn't keep track. Maybe….80 times my mana pool?"

"Only 80? You had about 400 times stored in your mask right?" Keeping 320 should be sufficient for her self-defence.

"Uhm…I was snacking when you were cleaning up. I had about 600 times my capacity." Her 'snacking' got her enough food to convert to 200 times her mana capacity compared to the last 'report' he got…two days ago.

He rubbed her head, there was nothing to be embarrassed about. As far as he was concerned, eating equalled training and regeneration of energy for her. In terms of capacity, she was more like the traditional mage. Extremely large stores but limited regeneration.

Ebony also relied on Dusk or his power source for this external mana capacity. Only, these weren't soul-bound to him like Xin's mask was.

'I need to check on our food stores, no, it's better if I just increase my order a few-fold.' Once she evolved, hopefully to be better at purifying mana and essence, he would feed her more of his blood. That should cause her capacity to fill up far faster than most food sources he could obtain.

It was a curious thought, could she technically exceed his mana regeneration if she ate something that was more energy-dense than his mana-filled blood? 'I'm pretty sure I saw uranium being sold somewhere…is Ancient-quality uranium safe to handle….no, is Ancient-quality uranium more energy dense than me?'

He was waiting for the fish to swim to the bait, so he might as well window shop.

As long as it wasn't Legendary-quality, something as ordinary as one of the elements on the periodic table was easy enough to source. Even within Hex alone. Any element that existed on Earth existed here after all.

After he placed his purchase, his thoughts rushed back to him, "did I just buy uranium…to feed my wife? Oh well, I'll just put it aside.' He told himself to keep the package as his 'study materials'.

'That does make me wonder if Earth's materials have a quality grade to them and if so, what rank would they be?' He was leaning towards Common and Inferior-quality based on the physical properties he was aware of. Iron and steel were easy enough to compare.

"They're taking so long we can watch an episode of 'The Misadventures Squad'"

"Sure," Ebony got as comfortable as he could with boots and made a pillow bed with their memorylight out to watch an action-comedy series. It had over four thousand episodes and had been ongoing for much too long. Each episode was easily 30 hours long, and it was more of a movie, but they watched these in fast forward. Their eyes and ears can easily capture everything, and it doesn't exactly ruin the moment if you can speed up your perception to the same degree.

The movement his Scout Pigeons sensed was them picking up others' perception, wherever they were camping, it was far away.

The movement that took more of his mental capacity was within the constrained space of their indoor theatre. Xin had decided that her favourite position for watching any shows was right in front of him. Her silent demand for a cuddle, while she hugged…constantly refilled her bucket of snacks from fried foods to finger food to cuts of steak, feeding him every so often and squeezing her back closer every time she found herself shifting away and freeing a hand to make sure his stayed wrapped around her.

Funnily enough, while he wasn't tired, he always felt a creepy sleepiness during these sessions. He felt that she was in the same boat. Perhaps the cold temperatures made it easy to fall asleep.

They weren't given the chance as a horse rider, a human shouted right outside the reach of his icy mountains.