Ebony's Fable

Overnight, waves were stirred as news of Oplot's disappearance and unconfirmed death was spread.

He got into a silent battle with a presence that killed every living creature around Lacuna Expanse's portal. Several towns closest to the World Dungeon become ghost towns in an instant as their souls are sucked up as collateral damage.

Ebony's network had no soul perception, but he could tell when all living creatures stopped moving and died on the spot. Oplot had been punched out of the portal, crashing into Entras, who tried to catch the fast-moving projectile. By nature of his evolutionary rank and individual survivability, Entras had been the only creature to survive when the faraway townspeople died.

Even then, he had to be covered in Oplot's golden light skill.

Then, Oplot flew up.

Ebony didn't know the full details, but he was fairly certain Oplot had done everything possible to keep the battle away from Elcra. Either leading the invisible figure out to sea, up in the air or all the way to space. He did not sense any mana fluctuations that would indicate that Oplot had left for a different Realm within the same space.

'Sophia was right after all, the harvesting is all extra. She just wants to take Oplot down and trouble the Celestial Wandering Monastery.' This was a battle amongst larger factions.

Elcra and the Empire were collateral damage. They were conveniently good to harvest for their quantity and even quality of souls that the Angel could gift her followers and underlings to strengthen or motivate them.

Unlike Entras, who didn't get a good look at the battle or the opponent. Ebony didn't fear for Oplot much. It wasn't as if he was fighting the actual Angel in the flesh….if she had a flesh body. As far as he could tell, the Monk's lineage and classes were more specialised in Soul and Spirit rather than his indestructible body which was the nature of the Monk's Physique.

Using Vent as an example, Oplot shouldn't have to fear a Saint that wasn't physically present. Except for one big problem, his opponent was an Angel. A messenger, a follower of a mighty God.

And it was none of Ebony's business….or so it should've been but the pesky presence actually scanned the entire continent and he felt something tug as his soul when Oplot had been punched out of Lacuna Expanse.

All of the Xengs present felt the scan. Yet few noticed that they were marked.

Ebony could feel the 'eyes' on him. The Angel seemed to like his soul. Seems to hunger for it.

Then They were attracted away by Oplot.

Ebony wasn't sure if Oplot died, but he knew when the soul presence returned the next day and the Empire's Emperor did not.

'Foreign Saints and above cannot personally target natural worldcores and their inhabitants, but Oplot is not Elcrian…and neither am I.' Ebony was not protected by the law.

Now that he learned about some general law, he knew that the Blood Saintess was truly exceptional as she whisked away Xin. No question asked. The Nebula Watch either didn't see it or acted as if they didn't see it because if there was one thing they were really good at, it was watching. Everything and anything.

They were so good at their job, Ebony still didn't know if they were watching him or not at this specific time.

'I suppose they have to be that good if they police higher beings.'

There was nothing he could do about being watched or marked by the Angel. Since there was no action from the Angel's side, he also didn't look for her other than to leave a mental note for himself that he was now within her scope of prey.

"This Angel did her homework. You don't have to worry about her any time soon." Veronica commented while wiping her sleeves down.

She so kindly patted his back and wiped his sleeves too.

'The soul presence is gone. She wiped away the soul marking?' "Thanks." Ebony had manners.

It seemed he had to thank the Xengs' reputation for once.

Yvette has been found, and Navin was pacified.

Hector was within his reach. Soundly asleep.

Apa's soul bead had been delivered to him by Scout Pigeon. Yvette had collected a few hundred of these soul beads by herself. Not all souls had been turned into beads so she sadly couldn't save everyone.

Other than Oplot's disappearance, everything fell back into safe silence. That man's well-being was not his place to care for.

Ebony can continue shutting in without any concern besides searching for Apa's body which had already been moved off-world. Maybe even sold.

That fleshy body was highly evolved, it was desirable by many parties for various reasons. However, Ebony put his money on Lure keeping the body. It was either in the captor's hands or internally transferred within the organisation. For some reason, he did not doubt that Sophia would trace it down for him before he could trace it himself.

That woman was truly more capable than he ever expected. If only her personal strength wasn't so weak, he would be more at ease giving her tasks that can attract the attention of dangerous people.

Although he could conjure a one-for-one replica for Apa, there was no way for Apex Ape to control the icy body. This soul bead wasn't one of his Will Relay Buffers and not everyone could just drag their soul or Will out to occupy a different body or object. Apa would have to continue sleeping.

There was still Kong Jing and Mark.

His wife informed him that they were targeted by some high Wizard society, but he couldn't find a single cell in him to worry about the safety of the space mage. She was safer than he ever could be with her space magic. Unlike the two of them, she was pure blooded and had the culmination of genetic superiority from birth. If anything, he feared for his academic acquaintance who is a 100% normal human dragged around by his teacher.

Then again, this 'normal' human had wizardry lineage for whatever unknown reason and was the Elcrian inventor and creator of runic fluid potions. A user of an area of effect spell that mimics a domain from the time he was a Master. Although their understanding of Domains was completely wrong in their younger naïve days, it was still an incredible feat that put him ahead of people who had pure power of Physique and skill tiers.

Hopefully, he did something about that awful spearmanship of his.

"Let's begin, Granny." Ebony welcomed Veronica.

"How dare you. Uncle."

"How are we going to do this?" He usually didn't ask.

Kick first talk later. This time felt different.

Something felt wrong about attacking this old lady and in-law of his.

"There will be no fight. I have nothing to teach a Shi in terms of close combat and even less to teach you about mana manipulation when I manipulate astral energy."

He cocked his head and waited for her cheeky smile to explain what she had in mind.

"I'm just going to beat your astral body and train your resistance. That's all."

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

So he signed up for a beating that he had no active resistance against?

That was fine too.

This would be similar, if not exactly the same as the Ning Saintess punching a Tier 6 mental resistance skill into him. Except he shouldn't be expecting the same level of finesse or power from an Emperor. Neither was this within his mind.

"What even is an astral body?" He might as well ask.

"Most entities have an astral body. Unlike a soul or spirit, they are not directly linked to you. An astral body, you can imagine it to be a shapeless ghost. For humans, their astral bodies usually attach to a star that exists in the astral realm. Generally, even if this 'star' gets damaged or destroyed, nothing would happen to you. Your so-called astral body would simply hop to a different, more suitable star, and some directly remakes the same star. Seers that depend on the astral realm for their divination read the light from stars that are a little ahead in the future.

Every streak of light a star could produce is a possibility. Some call the determined future that these lights show, ' fate'. That is a load of bull. I can change and affect these lights to only show a single one. Does that mean I can alter fate? Nonsense.

Anyway, a proper astral divination mage can damage you through your astral body, but they can't kill you. Even if say, I explode your astral body. It'll simply reform. You could say the astral form is immortal. Of course, this does not include astral races whose astral bodies are their real bodies."

"So I don't have to worry about some God poking my astral body." Ebony clarified.

"The God of the Astral Realm doesn't work that way. Don't worry about speaking of the Astral Realm God. They are not an Entity. They are a natural formation of laws. If another God that can meddle with the Astral Realm pokes your astral body, the same would happen to their astral body."

"Exceptions?"

"As you would expect, just be more powerful than the God of the Astral Realm within the Astral Realm, and you would be an exception. Well, don't worry about things you can't see or touch now. They similarly won't see or touch us."

"Understood. Do what needs to be done."

"Let me finish. At least ask why train if you have an immortal astral body like my cute and curious granddaughter."

"Immortal sounds bad for something I have no control over and even perception over. If you can change and affect astral bodies, and this extends to other astral mages. That just means I wouldn't even know when someone does something immutable to my astral body. A resistance training would mean you would train my astral body to the point where it is harder to be affected, harder to change."

"….You're a boring man."

It looks like he was spot on. Not surprisingly, that was the nature of pretty much all resistance-type skills.

Ebony immediately felt his strength disappear. There was no notification.

'Is this what regression feels like?' His mana took the brunt first. More likely, it was the first thing he noticed.

His mana purity reduced.

Range of perception shrunk.

His mind slowed down. Mental processes are decreasing.

Mireloom factories are crashing to a halt.

Then his body shrank.

Two minutes of interesting observation later, Ebony was on his back, naked. He kicked his feet in the air. Clutched his chubby fingers.

"Baa?" Ebony tried to speak.

"Ancestor didn't hold anything back. You still have a good mind and sense of self." The short lady, Veronica towered over him and cast a shadow that loomed over him

'I got baby-fied.' His mind hadn't been turned into a baby completely, but it was like time had turned back for him. 'About the mental abilities I had when I was a Master.'

That was enough for him to alter and learn how to use his baby form muscles. After accidentally dislocating his thumb, he kicked himself upright and he was walking within a minute.

"Wow. The Shi Clan are truly undefeatable with bodily control. I've never seen this happen." Veronica mused with unhidden awe.

Ebony internally tore the muscles in his throat and rewired them with pure physical control before massaging it with his stubby fingers. He was a lot more fragile than he expected to be able to internally tear muscles with muscular control alone. Then he vibrated a couple of strings of muscles. "Is this a common astral spell?"

'I can't use the same voice unless I have mana control but I have none right now.' Sadly, he wasn't perfect in his control. His voice came out soft and childish.

"Divination, astral and mental. I wouldn't say common, but perhaps a flesh and bone mage like young Yvette can do something similar but that wouldn't change your strength, just make you physically smaller. I doubt she can do this to you. Perhaps to lesser evolved people."

'It's not 'like' time has turned back for me. I really went back to my baby state, except my mind managed to resist the alterations to some degree.' Ebony lost all his evolutions, all his magic, all his inhuman stats.

Everything.

It was quiet. No more Will Relay Buffer

It was quiet. No more hyper processing power simulating all sorts of things.

It was quiet. No more feeling the wind, sensing the movement of every blade of grass within a thousand kilometres.

It was quiet. No longer seeing the flow of all birds' flight paths. Every Xeng's footwork, their very next steps.

It was quiet. No more sensing of every detail of every particle of ambient mana.

'Being a baby, ain't that bad.' Ebony stretched and moved his right hand down mid-stretch, blocking the viciously naughty poke from an older relative that aimed to humiliate his naked baby self.

Thankfully, she gave him leeway and didn't push her luck, wrapping him up in his giant clothes. Keeping his figure free from nature's sight.

'Interesting. I had mana perception even as a baby. But Earth didn't have any mana, hence undiscovered.' The question was, can he manipulate it?

So he tried.

With the mental processing powers he had as a Master and enough experience with manipulation, even his baby brain could juice him up sufficiently for a conversion of ambient mana to ice mana.

As for mana within his body, it was close to non-existent. He had mana chassis, but they were in a weird state. A seed form or something along those lines. Unusable.

It drained his baby brain but he managed to conjure pants and a set of shirt before he felt the lull of sleep.

'This baby brain can't make use of my mental processing powers for long.'

"You've surprised me once more….even magic?'

"It's taking some time for my astral resistance to level." He was still under the influence of the Ubiquitous Providence. He could still call up his status, though the contents changed to numbers smaller than the first time seeing his status all those years ago.

He had no class, no skills but all his Core Skills remained. They had their true levels, but he obviously couldn't power any of his Core Skills to their original power, and a Domain was completely impossible right now.

It was not a perfect turning back of time for him.

Some gaps slipped past whatever Veronica did to his astral body that connected to him. For example, his Physique didn't seem to be weakened to that of a normal human baby. He still had his Physique and all its benefits, just with a baby's stats. At this point, he didn't have any measurable capacity of Will, but he was beginning to feel his mana chassis vibrating, waking up faster than they should.

"I'm decreasing my output. You'll build resistance soon enough. Hmm, you'll grow back to your original in about 2 weeks. I have some things to do, I'll be back within the year." She left no room for conversation or questions, for she disappeared the instant she declared her next appointment.

Using the tough ambient mana, he created a pair of shoes and started dashing away to the village entrance with Uncle Wu yelling after him to make sure his baby ears and perception can hear him, "Where are you going! It's dangerous out there!"

"Precisely!" His softer voice came out painfully. This body of his had sensitive pain receptors, and his current version of meditation doesn't cut out pain, so he knew what was wrong.

It took him a whole damn hour to get to the gates and out of the village.

'Now even a journeyman will feel like an Emperor to me.'

"Granduncle! You're a walking treat now!"

Ebony didn't even notice anything, unable to see the unseen but a shadow cast over him once more. The Spirit Possession Emperor had his foot on air. "Your fearlessness would be the end of you. You're like a Dragon's egg with legs that walked out of their nest right now."

"Thanks." Ebony guessed that the moment he walked out the village gates, a spirit tried to eat him. He had no way to know for sure, without Will imbued mana for Mana Discern to scan for spirits, he was blind and deaf to them.

"What are you looking for?" The Spirit Possession Emperor questioned.

"A hunt." Then he added, "Only around the area." He did not want to go far, especially with his current self.

"You're crazy." The older man grimaced.

"Let's go." Ebony looked deep into the Spirit Possession Emperor's open eyes for the first time. He instinctively trusted the man not to end his puny life now. The man definitely had good senses, he dared to open his eyes now that Ebony lost his prior intimidation.

The fearless Spirit Possession Emperor sighed and picked him up by the collar before zipping away.

Ebony's instinct proved right.