Ebony's Fable

"Good pick." Ebony recognised the forest he was brought to immediately.

This was an area that Journeymen hunted for food for a local town. The nearest one to Xienor. At this range, Dusk could still perceive him and even take over his body again.

It had no special creatures with valuable materials, just a good abundance of wild vegetation.

An Elf lives in the nearby town and a diverse habitat of creatures due to the diverse vegetation. Well, it was like a nature park for hunting. A biome created for journeymen because fresh dungeons like Ordina had been getting rarer, so they needed areas where lower-level people could grow.

To be fair, 'nearby' was thousands of kilometres away. It wasn't like the Elf stayed near the Xengs because he liked to. There was a chance he was stationed here to report any suspicious movements but that was not important.

Ebony had some fun, but he had all his memories, and his mind was a little more capable than a baby's.

What troubled him the most would have to be his limited perception. He didn't know when a creature stalked him or was already locked onto him. His hearing was weak, and many of his senses were dulled.

The ambient mana was hundreds of times easier to manipulate outside Xienor, easing on his mental consumption.

All ten of his stubby fingers had icy wires wrapped around them now. This extended his perception reach when he set up wires attuned to his mental touch. Even without mana, the ambient mana would give him extended perception once he turned it into a wire under his mental control.

The monsters' superior stats didn't do much to help them when Ebony was always a few steps ahead. While they rammed through his wire traps with ease, he would drop down on them from a tree branch and land a kick on their heads. Ambient mana gathered at his feet and pulsing forth to generate a tiny shockwave.

Sound magic, not so strong in offence, was coming in clutch because it was the easiest to use to generate any sort of effect using ambient mana.

Clapping loudly at the bull-like creature's ears, he disoriented it and flung his body around the bull. Adding on the wires and tugging as hard as he can. The bull might have a lot of strength, but its weight remained like that of a normal bull. The branch used as a fulcrum easily supported the bull's weight.

He didn't know what level the bull was, but journeymen creatures weren't that smart. Once it was hung on a tree it was unable to move or defend itself. Easy pickings no matter its stat advantage.

He secured his sustenance for the rest of his youthful version. Except, preparing meals had been incredibly difficult.

Over the next week, his body grew up at an accelerated pace, and so did his powers return. The Spirit Possession Emperor brought him around the continent as a chauffeur. The man didn't ask any questions or even object to being used as transportation, just watching over him.

He spent most of his time in this large underground cavern with King-ranked spiders and studied their webbing tactics. By this time, he was back to teenager-sized and level 100 Master. The process of re-evolving felt like breaking out of a shell, without going through the evolution process.

At the end of two weeks, he returned to Xienor as a King once more. All the while, he was watching over his house through Dusk. He might not be able to control Will as a baby, but Dusk could connect to him all the same. Dusk was still alive, untouched by Veronica's astral change.

Opposite to the middle of a forbidden area that was Hoarfrost Glades, Xienor received no monster visitors. No matter what aura and essence were spilling out due to Xin's evolution. It couldn't be more silent and safe.

Truly, nothing too exciting remained outside even as a quickly growing baby. It wasn't like he didn't know most of the creatures and their movements by memory thanks to his continental network. Lower-level fights were less interesting in that no odd magic would come flying at him. Physical combat was not something new to him.

When he got back to Master ranked body, his stats surpassed even the toughest of Grandmasters since he could use a flimsy Domain, and his augmentations were off the charts as his mental capabilities recovered to his peak state.

With physical superiority, there simply wasn't any challenge from Elcrian monsters. At least, not within the vicinity. He didn't go far out so that he could return to Xienor at a moment's notice.

The astral resistance training did not stop after he got back to normal. He never turned into a baby again. He never felt sick, but he received all sorts of debuffs from decreased stats to reaching the bottom of his energy, exhausted to having his levels, skill tiers and evolutions reduced.

He had a feeling she could morph his astral body into whatever she wanted and have it translated to his real body. But she never did so.

That left him free time to disturb the Spirit Possession Emperor every single day.

'He's been pulling out new spirit combinations every day for the past three months.' Sparring with the Spirit Possession Emperor was never dull. After he returned from the Spirit Realm with Veronica, he was a whole' nother beast.

It was as if he brought his real powers along with him this time. That, or Veronica helped him in some fashion. Hence, his docile nature all of a sudden and even the 2-week babysitting.

Ebony's goal changed from defeating the man directly, to forcing the man to manifest his Domain into this physical plane. He supposedly had a Domain in the Spirit Realm. His rise in strength had Ebony believe that this Domain of his was now nearby.

If the man could manifest spirits with a physical form, he guessed that the same could be done for a Domain since a mage's Domains were Will-based. Pretty much anything was possible.

He was half convinced that the Possession Emperor had a limit of 8 concurrent spirits to possess him at the same time. 5 of them were constantly taken up by his 5 Core Beasts. That left him with a combination of 3 spirits to possess him.

It's been three months since they started their daily spars, Ebony catalogued at least 2 hundred thousand different spirits. Mostly Emperor ranked.

A few repeats or duplicates could enhance a certain ability.

For example, he could have 2 of the same race and type of spirits with the same skillset possessing him at the same time, and it would be improved beyond the power of a singular type. There was once, he used 3 King ranked spirits that had some type of future sense or precognition just to let his fighter Core Beast learn how Ebony sees movement paths. Then on, they covered the gap in understanding the flow of battle even without getting possessed by the 3 unknown spirits again.

The Core Beasts were all capable of learning.

The Spirit Possession Emperor ended up with a combination most effective against him, one stat-heavy Spirit to keep up with all of Ebony's Augmentation.

Instead of the elephant he'd seen, the Spirit Possession Emperor swapped out for a centipede-looking spirit. He determined that speed and agility were more suitable to deal with Ebony's combat style rather than pure power that can't hit anything.

The other 2 spirits used had slowly swapped to less directly powerful to more unknown in nature to catch him off guard. Most importantly, he swapped from mana-based to aether-based of all things. Using aether in ways Ebony had never seen on Cinderash because they didn't have many Aether Soccerers in the current generation of warrior-focused society.

Sorcery had a bigger logic jump compared to magic. Conforming less to the physics he was familiar with.

One day, he received a visitor. Yvette came to heal her descendant.

The mana poisoning Hector was facing was worse than ever before. Although she healed Hector up completely, he was still in a coma after her healing. Ebony didn't let her take him away, and she also felt that this place was probably safer.

Perhaps unluckily for the worried great-grandmother, but Hector woke up the day after she left in a hurry. She was a busy woman with many duties.

Hector woke up…rather quietly. He didn't make a fuss. Didn't even question where he was. "Ebony, I failed to protect anything….didn't I?"

"My wife's alive and well, Mallory is fine. I retrieved Apa's soul. You only failed to protect yourself."

"How far away from you am I now?"

"Don't look for my back, look ahead of me. You punched Demon Emperors into dust while Xin was suppressed, maybe just be the last one standing next time you do so." Ebony tried to praise him. He gave himself a pat on the back because he felt that his attempt at comforting was good.

"haha…."

"Rest."

"No, I've rested long enough." Hector hesitated before speaking his mind, "Can you...leave Apa's soul bead with me?"

"I think he wants to be with you more." Ebony handed Apa's soul bead over. He trusted Hector more than enough, even if the man was currently a little depressed by his weakness.

"I'll find his body."

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"Just stuff the bead into his mouth when you do. Some sort of resonance should occur, and the soul will return to its original body naturally." Ebony only knew this by hearsay.

Hector dashed away and fell flat on his face within ten paces. "Could I get something to eat before I leave?" He spoke with dirt in his mouth.

'Same as usual then.' Ebony felt relieved.

Relieved? It seems like the emotional attachment trait was getting him.

They had a meal together, and Hector quickly regained his cheerfulness. He didn't sound worried about his cousin travelling on her own. More so happy she got some freedom as she had always been tied down by her royal responsibilities ever since she shown childhood genius.

Ebony only cooked with Master ranked meat and below. Anything higher would be a waste of the ingredient's energy or so his personal chef decreed. She also stopped using Legendary-ranked ingredients because she realised just how much energy and properties normally cooking them would be lost with her current cooking and essence control skills.

His cooking was edible, nothing special other than following his wife's recipes.

Yet the meal had been the most flavour he had had since she started evolving.

Ebony patted Hector's back forcefully, as an Apex Ape would and sent him off. The last news he had was that Lacuna Expanse no longer had the Angel's presence, though some of Lure's operatives might still be in some corner of the World Dungeon. The land there was wider than the continent of Elva and there were plenty of hiding spots.

There were still no news of Oplot, but Yvette's return was good for the public's view on the Empire's security.

Ebony checked his status, skills had evolved, levels were gained, and stats were waiting to be allocated. The only stats that weren't unallocatable were Profession stats.

'Level 702, levelling has slowed down the past 2 levels.' Ebony checked the time. He still had over 2 months before the estimated 7 months that he was expecting. The last 48 levels wouldn't come as easily as they did.

606 points in Intelligence did more to strengthen him than 1414 points in Wisdom, all thanks to Resolve's Cadence and mana compression. With his Class giving him 25 stats per level and Sub-Class 20, he was expecting to ratio out 11,250 stat points by the time he hit level 750. His total stat count right now was 17276.

It would be 17756 by the time he reached 750 due to the Profession stat. Effectively, his total stat as a level 750 King would roughly be 63.35% higher than the level 500 version of him. This stat count and gain should be the same for every Elcrian, and most people in the Hex Region and more.

Or so it would be, if his baseline for stats hadn't been increased by a multiplier. Across his stats, most had a 9 times multiplier with Wisdom and Perception having 5 and 7, respectively. Every point in Strength is 9 times more valuable to him than to a baseline human.

Excluding Demons, Fiends, Monsters ectera. Demonisation was mainly for greater stats and would have a greater count, making levelling give them a more direct power up and also some skills that required demonisation to learn. Monsters have even greater stat gain, as they don't have the capacity to learn skills. All of the augmentation spells merely mimic the natural strength of monsters. Same Potential, different pathways to achieve the same result.

Ebony sent another Turtle Fort to Tova continent to replenish his Numbers, hopefully they could speed up the process.

They've pretty much left all dungeons Rare rank and under alone, and only went for Epic and Ancient-ranked dungeons. Very few were mazes or had special rules, because those dungeons probably died when Trolls didn't bother entering them.

Trolls only wanted to fight and hunt. Dungeons were a large food source for them, so dungeons that didn't' spawn monsters were of little value to them. These dungeons usually don't take back the spawn monsters' flesh or turn it back to essence either, probably due to the Troll's presence.

They needed a way to attract inhabitants. Flesh and meat was the way to keep Troll's interested.

Hence, his Numbers had as many dungeon monsters to slay as they wanted. Very few people were on this continent. Some were Imperial scouts and cartographers who were readying this area for some industrial purpose or possibly turning large Troll settlements into Cities should there be materials worth gathering. And there were a ton.

Trolls weren't advanced in crafting or tool creation, leaving this continent's raw materials in abundance.

Kings and some Grandmasters who are out here to get stronger with little competition for dungeons or wild game. Elva was saturated with hunters after all.

Tova had far more dungeons than Elcra did, but higher rarity dungeons were still sparse. The so-called space slimes were mostly gone, Oplot cleaned up his mess after the Trolls left to join their higher Troll overlords from a different Worldcore. The leftovers were baby slimes that couldn't really grow endlessly anymore, as they didn't have their main source of nutrients, the Trolls, to eat anymore.

Due to the lack of Will Relay Buffers out in the ocean, he did not have a live connection with his Numbers. The Turtle Fort he used to take back Elcrian cities was now a base of operations for his Numbers on Tova.

Today he received news of a certain halberd user, Mr Kidnapper who is supposedly active on Tova dungeon delving to level up and train. He could respect the consistent effort, rather than kidnapping children, the man was spending his time more productively. As for now, the Numbers started to keep track of his location and movements. Just in case his wife wanted a rematch.

Ebony yawned, he hadn't been able to sleep properly no matter how tired he got. It was quite a dilemma that something as simple as not having a nice hugging pillow could cause him to have an unrestful sleep.

Either way, he powered through the sleepiness and spent that time more productively. Bringing up the metal hammer in his hands, he hammered down another runic symbol into a sculpture of himself.

He was going to complete this runic curse branding by hook or by crook. Going so far as to develop a hammer technique that helps stabilise and solidify weird runes that had the nature of self-mutation due to all the different types of runic symbols he tried to force into a single formation. A territory of runic magic that he'd never faced before.

Every tap of his little hammer was sound magic, whacking the runes to behave.

When it hit six months since Xin's evolution started, blood had leaked out of her room through the gaps that should've been sealed, such as the door and window gaps. Over an entire week, Ebony stopped training when his Priming was not going up. His mind wasn't anywhere but the fact that literal black blood went from leaking out to gushing out of every corner of her room.

By the eighth day, the black blood started burning.

And Ebony let the house burn. Not touching or protecting anything with his mana, leaving her evolution uninterrupted by any foreign energies. Anyway, watching for a few seconds was enough for him to see that nothing within the house was getting harmed by the black flames. Whatever Xu Lu of the Xu Clan did, it was enough.

Except, the people, land, space and even their favourite lake were getting cooked.

It was more of an annoyance than anything else.

The Butcher had been nearby and used Intent to slice out this portion of space so that whatever was inside and outside didn't interact with each other, except Ebony stayed right outside the house, part of this sectioned area.

Sensing the Intent, he was pretty sure he could walk out with light to no injuries so he wasn't worried about it. The Intent was more towards making sure the energies inside didn't bother people and the environment outside this cube of space the Butcher cut out. There was a visible white line cubing this house.

"Don't touch the line, it'll fall apart easily." The Butcher warned before his curiosity had him touching the visible white slice.

He already had months of combat Priming, so this was also a good opportunity to focus on his runic branding endeavours.

The expedited hunting schedule had shown success as he reached level 750 before the 7-month deadline he set for himself.

'No point holding onto all these stat points, even if my Prime Rate drops, allocating it earlier will allow me to raise it back up faster.' Half a year of Priming allowed him to get a good gauge of the ratio of stats he needed this time around.

Intelligence was the base for his power. Be it magical firepower or physical augmentation. His base physical stats were pitiful compared to compressed mana, Domain-Will augmentations. Wisdom was required for Will, mana, and the integrity of all his mental processes, which meant the energy source for Intelligence and being able to run numerous spells at the same time.

Why does he need any physical stats except for Constitution?

There were too many reasons, such as his structural integrity being held up by more than just Constitution.

Augmenting Agility powered by Intelligence actually interacts with base Agility.

In any case, balance was still necessary. He couldn't just toss all his stats into Constitution, Intelligence and Wisdom. Not to mention, Endurance was very important. His body would need to hold up all the magical augmentations for a long period, or he would end up like Hector. He was prey to the same thing when he augmented himself to ice dust as well.

Unallocated stat points: 11,250

Strength: 1200 [x9 – 10,800]

Vitality: 1300 [x9 – 11,700]

Constitution: 1500 [x9 – 13,500]

Endurance: 1100 [x9 – 9,900]

Agility:1500 [x9 – 13,500]

Intelligence: 4256 [x9 – 38,304]

Wisdom:6100 [x5 – 30,500]

Perception:800 [x7 – 5,600]

Looking at the current state of his stats before he allocated 11,250 stat points, he noticed how his ratio was already skewed towards Intelligence, thanks to how his base Wisdom had always been higher than a baseline human to begin with, just that it went towards Will instead of mana.

From his Profession stats, he got a good gauge of how much Will is strengthened and improved per stat point in Wisdom, though it was likely a mix of both Wisdom and Intelligence affecting Will. Increasing Wisdom seems to make the functions of Will more efficient. Doing the same thing with Will with a higher Wisdom made it consume slightly less Will.

Capacity and regeneration were affected, but only barely. After a 1750-point increase in Wisdom from 250 levels in his Profession, his total Will had only increased from 6075 to 6079 or 0.21% of 1750 points. Perhaps even less, since this growth also included what his Numbers were providing him. To be fair, considering that it's only been half a year, this increase of 4 points in capacity in Will was actually incredibly fast.

Raising Wisdom will raise his future 'hard' capacity, as with mana. Even a thousand-year-old Elf had a mana capacity they couldn't grow beyond, either limited by their skill tier, 'talent' and less likely the Wisdom stat. As arrogant as he was, he merely felt confident that skill tier and 'talent' won't be his hard cap.

Then again, this would not be an issue for him till he was an Emperor. Then, he would face the challenge that the Xengs faced.

'Vitality, Constitution, Endurance, Intelligence and Wisdom. The others will have to take a dip.

Unallocated stat points: 0

Strength: 1950 [x9 – 17,550] + 750

Vitality: 2550 [x9 – 22,950] + 1250

Constitution: 3500 [x9 – 31,000] + 2000

Endurance: 2350 [x9 – 21,150] +1250

Agility: 2500 [x9 – 22,500] + 1000

Intelligence: 6256 [x9 – 56,304] + 2000

Wisdom: 8600 [x5 – 43,000] + 2500

Perception: 1300 [x7 – 9,100] +500

'Oh—I should've expected this.' Ebony felt his entire body drain on itself. He managed to stuff three of his wife's sustenance soup vials into his mouth before his addition of all his stats broke his body down for energy to change himself. It was his first time adding over ten thousand points in stats in one sitting.

Guess there was a reason not to leave stats unallocated after all.

Making himself comfortable against Spine, which had Dusk within it, he rested against it and thought it might be a good idea to keep tens of thousands of stats lying around if it could act as a sleeping pill.