Ebony's Fable

Ebony felt his body ache when he woke up, except his attention had to be drawn away.

'Hmm…what's happening?' He looked up and around him. The sky was filled with every Xeng he sensed and a few more than he never even knew were in the village, even with his prior perception.

"You're awake. Ebony of the Shi Clan, you're hereby prohibited from leaving Xienor onto Elcrian lands. You may opt to go out of Elcra or stay where you are." Cui, the hairdresser, took the lead and spoke for the rest of the villagers.

Instead of making a fuss or even asking questions, he checked himself first.

The dirt on the ground, Spine against his back. His clothes.

'Warped. My radiative mana is warping everything around me. Did I lose control in my sleep? Dusk, can you not control it?'

"I have been draining all your excess mana as fast as I could. All it did was increase the potency of the warping around our mana. You forgot to unlock more of my seals after your evolution. That should help increase my mana absorption rate from you, though that wouldn't change our current predicament."

He didn't have Kong Jing's power source with him. That was sent with Five to Teheil.

Ebony did not expect to hit Dusk, the staff's mana absorption limit already. He'd been using most of his mana during the training with the Spirit Possession Emperor, and he never really tested Dusk's absorption rate with Kong Jing's power source around.

Spine had grown even more. Dusk allocated even more Will to it to saturate the mana that Spine is made of.

With a pat, the twisted surface of Spine returned to normal. Undoing what the physical warping of his uncontrolled mana did.

But the ground and his shirt can't be repaired that easily.

He double checked that the house near him was unaffected. Xin was still evolving.

These people exaggerated so much, surrounding him like that when his mana regeneration merely doubled due to the increase in Wisdom.

Sure, it was uncontrolled for some reason.

Sure, Resolves Cadence was somehow blasting at full power that Dusk couldn't stop.

And sure, he was regenerating about 3,216,544,622 mana per second.

The very air was becoming mana-poisoned since Dusk couldn't absorb mana fast enough. His bracelet had long reached its absorption limit, and Spine absorbing his mana just made the mana density in the surrounding area thicker, causing more uncontrolled physical warping.

But for all of them to come out and watch him like a caged animal…they sure weren't very polite.

First off, he shut Resolve's Cadence off. That immediately caused his mana regeneration to dip incredibly low. To a natural breathing mana regeneration of a humble 4,255,142 per second. Resolve's Cadence refinement did not cause the jump from millions to billions. It was the evolution of his mana compression and capacity skill that made the multiplicative jump. Not to mention, the Physique Refinement that he felt good about.

The largest change of Physique Refinement that he did to his own body that did not rely on external ingredients was welcomed, and it felt good knowing that he didn't have to rely on Ful's sap or even greater materials from nature to impose a substantial change to himself.

The Skill and Physique could wait.

The villagers didn't move away even after he shut Resolve's Cadence off.

'Huh….they are not real. Oh.' Ebony realised where he was. What he was seeing.

"Hello? Is Ning Min there?" He was in a dream. But he didn't believe he could be caught in an illusive dream. It was too realistic, and he didn't think another mind mage could affect his mind so much after what the Ning Saintess did.

"You're as boring as cousin said." Ning Min, the Dream Mage. The Xeng's quake doctor for mental trauma appeared in this place. Presumably, within his very own mindspace, but it looked and felt nothing like his imagination.

"Hello to you too."

"Your wife's grandmother has a message for you."

Ebony nodded.

"The laws of Elcra will soon fall. Your little enemy has been watching and will come. Don't shame us and yourself again."

"Details?" He wasn't hoping for much. Knowing Veronica, there would not be details, or it would've already been shared.

"That's all she said. On my part, I believe every knowledgeable party on Elcra knows what's about to come. It's just a little sudden, I'm guessing some kind of higher intervention."

"Take me as ignorant." He declared unashamed.

"Have you seen level 1000 monsters on Elcra?" The Dream Mage was masked, but he couldn't make out any details from her mask. It was like a blur when he tried to look at it.

"Many." Amongst natural ones, Jetfins were probably the most abundant.

"What does that mean for the Worldcore?" She questioned once more.

"…The Worldcore can produce level 1000 Emperors. Peak Emperors. The Worldcore's 'law' may be referring to the Nebula Watch's protection of natural Worldcores, Ancient and under. If this is the law Veronica is referring to, then for it to fall could mean it's become under some higher being's 'lawful' purchase and takeover, or it's going to evolve. I'm going to assume it's the second since the first would've happened long ago if it could. Once this place becomes a Legendary Worldcore, Saints can come and go as they wish without any regard for the Nebula Watch."

"Who would be the first to come?"

"The Elves. The Spirits. Anyone who can cross over by the Realms can do it faster than physical movement. I don't recall making any enemies, but a Saint that would fit the bill would be Gearhart, and maybe the Nebulian Mandate users who seem to have so many Saint escapees. For Gearhart to come here fast, there is only Ezekiel for him to rely on."

"I don't know those two people, but sure, you must know better. I heard Mandates are exceptionally useless against you so you should be fine." Ning Min's figure got blurrier faster.

"Goodbye." Ebony tried to let her hear it, but she disappeared immediately after her sentence finished. Leaving as quickly as she came.

This place still didn't fall apart. 'Is this really a dream?'

Then he blinked and his blood flow sped up ever so slightly to his head.

Everything looked the same, but he was quite certain he woken up from his dream. Except…he was still surrounded, and the scene was exactly the same.

Was he ever in a dream?

"Senior Shi, would you like to join us?" Butcher Pang called out when he realised Ebony was just standing around silently.

'The part about locking me here was a dream then, but they are really all surrounding me.' The mind games were not fun. It was not an attack, nor was it harming any part of his mind. The brain was truly easy to fool no matter the resistance.

With enough truths, lies can easily be hidden.

"What is the occasion?" Ebony raised his body into the sky with mana.

"You don't know? Today is the first day of the new year, we're about to launch fireworks."

Ebony forgot that the Xengs celebrate the lunar new year every ten years. It seemed like today was not one of those days, just a random new year and not the decade one. Yet these people were bored and decided to set off fireworks anyway.

Of course, the so-called fireworks had to be introduced by some Xeng who returned to Earth and came back again.

Everyone tossed a perfunctory spell or blast of mana into another cube of space that someone cut out with Intent. The space within collapsed and reformed after someone tossed a space elemental orb into the cubed space.

Butcher Pang and someone he never sensed or seen in the village started to hand out white outlined cubes, just like the one he was inside, but much smaller. Unlike the one around his house, he could touch the white lines this small cube was made of.

It cut his hand, all the way to his bones. He had to use mana to hold it.

'Using Intent and a blade art to isolate a section of space, whatever damage pumped into it won't affect the outside world unless the damage exceeds this Intent's threshold. Once enough force is applied to overcome the threshold, it'll pop. Hence, individually designed fireworks.' He marvelled at the skill.

Ebony waved to the floating Butcher handing out personal fireworks containers, "Can I get one more for my wife?"

"I'll gift her one when she wakes up. It doesn't last long."

"Thank you."

Ebony took a plum bomb from Spine and released its contents into the cube. Even without an outer case of plum, the cubed partition of space didn't pop yet.

Looking closely, the cube wasn't just white lines. It was properly cubed up with very translucent flat surfaces of Intent-filled life force. Interestingly enough, it wasn't giving off the life force signature of Butcher Pang or the unknown person with him. It was a mixture of life forces.

'A myriad of life forces. All the hunts he killed, maybe.' Well, Butcher Pang did not have a massive volume of overflowing Vitality. Not even matching his Grandmaster wife's version, although it was much thicker. He sourced the energy elsewhere, almost like mages who use ambient mana for their spells.

Anyway, the creatures that the mixture of life force came from had to be impressively strong, as it was holding mana more tightly sealed than his current plum casing design could. Moreover, it was 6 sheets of life force mixture tied and sealed by the white lines holding it together.

The white lines were more amazing for holding these sheets of life force together. The sheets also had to be the same strength for the integrity of the explosive, which seems incredibly difficult to control if the energy came from different creatures. That might be why each cube cannot be sustained long, with or without constant Intent manipulation.

The creatures were probably killed or had their life force extracted freshly too. Once extracted from the creature, life force deteriorates. Same with cooking. Preservation magic and items probably helped.

After everyone was ready with a pulsing cube, Butcher Pang sliced a section of the sky with the stranger padding out the white lines with mana instead of life force. A Glass or some sort of Gem mage. Ebony wasn't sure. He couldn't Mana Discern the man, nor would he unless the other person allowed. There were friendlies in this village after all.

The rainbow and flashing lights were quite the sight and no environmental effects extended to the world they were in. Not a drop of mana escaped. It was purely scenery for the eyes, and none of his magical perception can sense anything beyond the transparent screens.

'A pity.' This sight didn't seem all that impressive without Xin sharing it with him.

At least blood wasn't flowing out of the house anymore.

She should be alive in there, right?

Ebony thought maybe a break was in order, and headed for the pond to do some fishing. When his feet were about to over the white line, "What do you think you're doing, Senior Shi? Do you think we were joking?" Cui's cold voice cut through.

Her words caused just about every Xeng present to wince from her Intent.

'It wasn't a dream?' Ebony was hardly bothered by the immense killing intent. As far as he was concerned, it wasn't directed at him. Just the forceful volume of it leaking through was greater than any singular creature he knew of.

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"You can't even control your mana. Once you exit, you'll destroy our gardens, damage our houses and kill many people towns away. Just be good and stay inside, or we can transfer you out of Elcra." One of the mages from the Yu Clan, who was said to stay at King because he hadn't achieved Priming explained.

Ebony could absolutely control his mana. His mana pool was full, so he had overflowing Wisdom. It could be slowed to a stop, stopping the conversation of sustenance, food into mana. He learned how to do that during the time he was starved. But why would he do that?

He needed to charge Dusk's currently bottomless mana capacity.

He could and would expand Spine with the excess mana.

He needed to make another Turtle Fort to deliver to Tova. Although this was not necessary anymore now that he was level 750, his Numbers could come back.

He could convert mana to money directly through his bracelet. Or using the same rate, conjure ice for mass within the spatial storage. He had a few dozen icy mountains inside.

Both Dusk and his bracelet had a rate limit.

Spine can simply grow in physical size in response to more mana. Yet that also meant more of his mana was exposed to the atmosphere. This was the main problem.

Ebony wasn't really in a rush to go out, nor did he feel trapped but he took a good look around at everyone present.

What he saw wasn't the mighty senior fighters or a group of vacationing elders.

What he saw was laziness.

Dusk extricated itself from Spine and found itself in his palms. He raised it high and a beam 3 metres thick gushed out and vertically smashed into the life force screen.

"Save the effort Senior Shi." Butcher Pang knew the potency of his mana, but he also had confidence in his barrier and seal of Intent.

The 3 metre thick column was not ice nor was it a gravitational tunnel. Simply pure arcane, liquid mana.

Ebony did not save the effort. He simply let them watch. At this point, he didn't care how complicated the spell was. He didn't experiment with what the most efficient method of breaking the spell was.

If they have an issue with his mana, he'll let them have his mana.

No one did anything to stop him. The screen supposedly allowed him to walk in and out to begin with. It only stopped the energy leaks from Xin, and conveniently, him.

The glowing of the life force screen and its imminent shattering didn't garner any reaction other than an annoyed scowl on Butcher Pang's face. Yet few saw when Ebony's figure oscillated between his prior position and up into the air where another giant screen lay. This one contained everyone's magical fireworks, still with remnant explosives.

Ebony rose and fit past the red-tinted screen without any resistance and splayed his arms wide open with Dusk in one hand. "Let us be more festive, shall we not?" His skin burned from the leftover combinations of spell work, but his challenge remained.

"I don't know your reasons for extending your period as a King, mayhaps you have plenty of Potential to gain. Maybe you're outcasts who can't evolve further due to an injury. No matter, you've all been lazing." He was essentially saying, if they had a problem with his mana control, they should show him.

Whatever the case, whether imprisonment or house arrest, he was beginning to have a disliking to that. Ironically, he now excelled at doing just that with Ice-Lightning Respite

Ebony first silenced the leftover sparks of elements and mana around him with a gravity vortex that pulled in everything. A few of the mana types combatted back against the gravitational pull, but he disregarded it and kept his efforts up. The spell wasn't filled with Will and mana quickly succumbed to his gravity magic with an endless source of mental power and energy.

Stuffing everything into a few plums, each plum a bit small in its capacity due to the limited gravity mana and their chaotic mixture. Ebony ended up with over a dozen Preserved Plums to calm the chaotic mixture of everything within. The Will drain was high, but he did not foresee the need for Coreflame of Preservation for long.

Not everyone was bothered by his challenge issue.

Uncle Wu, for one, sat out and was okay with just fishing while watching the others join him within the fireworks Intent screen to contain their energies from Elcra.

Cui also refrained from joining.

'That works too.' He had enough experience to trust his gut feeling. If Cui had joined, there wouldn't have been a fight or a training session. He'd just be dead.

It was clear that his skill tiers and levels were still a distance away from any of them who'd been Kings for years. It was clear that they were well-rounded in both magic and general combat sense. They had a stat advantage he didn't have due to most of his baseline being poised towards his Soul and Will from birth.

It was clear to the rest of the Xengs, that he was aiming to kick some sense into all of them.

"Mages, do something about the Domain." This woman dons the Emblem of the Huo Clan, a Phoenix or some type of fiery bird.

They plucked at his Will with expert handling and manipulation but all of them were shunted by sheer volume.

'It's not just the Elves then, I just have a large base Will ability.' Ebony compared their attempts to tear his Domain with the King ranked Elves under Tidal. They were more efficient. More potent with their usage that was for sure. At least 5 times better than he currently controls Will. He dealt with it by tossing more resources at the problem.

That alone gave him the advantage of all his elements and spells strengthened.

He couldn't weaken the warriors covering themselves with Intent, but he drained on them as they did to his Will.

His plum bombs had exploded to no effect. They were just remnants of the Xeng's spells so it was expected.

Even so, watching someone cut a Gravity Vortex in the midst of exploding and splitting the chaotic outblast by his Will into two by Intent was truly a fresh experience.

'Not only did he slice and separate gravity mana to disrupt the repulsion forces and prevent me from manipulating the spell further, he also sliced my Will so that it lost the directions of the spell I gave it.' Ebony experienced firsthand how an advanced warrior and Intent user dealt with magic.

"Peng Kan, Zhang Nan, Guo Ya. He injected mana inside you, hidden with Will." Ebony did not know who spoke. He only heard this 'voice' through vibrational perception and it might not have been intended for him to hear. Interesting that he couldn't find where the source of the voice was. Almost more interesting than the fact this person immediately noticed Sequester.

The three that had been called out frown slightly, as if irritated that his Will managed to slip through their Intent-filled mana skins.

Ebony decided to let it blow before they managed any countermeasures, but he merely saw tiny fumes escape their ears and nose at best. That was at least 200 million points of his coagulated mana sent by Dusk when he came into contact with their weapons. They snuffed—took it straight on like it was an annoyance.

They did not leave their internals unaugmented like many Elcrians. Bloody thick with life force despite their age.

"Non-intent users avoid physical contact of any kind." The same unseen voice warned.

Unfortunately for them, for the non-intent users, Ebony did not need direct physical contact.

Dusk restarted its liquid mana stream and he simply waved it around like a whip after seeing their movement flow and paths. Slowly trapping them to touch his liquid mana no matter where they evade. Netting them inwards.

When they used magic to repel and deflect, their spells were gradually torn down by the sheer purity and volume of mana they were trying to tear down. But the degradation was a lot slower than he needed. The net would doubtlessly fail but he just needed them to get closer to feel the full brunt of a mana expulsion from Dusk. That would be enough for them to drown in his Will. He couldn't be too hasty.

Will was not a resource he had in spades. At least, it wouldn't be enough for these people if he were to carelessly use it.

"I can't quite touch him." Peng Kan was a masked man who dual-wielded scimitars. He preferred to fly rather than stay grounded. The falcon Emblem might say something about his preference for flight.

"Leave his spell work to us." The voice he couldn't track confidently declared.

"Careful, warriors. Under this Domain….is a Shi." The orange-haired Huo lady hasn't done anything but talk so far. She did not have any weapons on her.

"How contradictory, a Shi Domain user." Guo Ya dressed like an ancient Chinese general but carried an unwieldy shield. The fancy grey shield had red streaks running across it and was 3 times wider than the small woman behind the shield.

"He's a positioning, evasive type. Don't expect to land a blow without trading blows. Butcher Pang, help us cut his possible paths down. We'll take it from there." The Huo Clan lady commanded.

Ebony's Oscillation shifted and slowly closed in, 'The space around here became deadly. But he can't box me in fully. What's limiting him? Dusk is.' A sea of knives cut blossomed above, under and behind him. It would tear him apart for sure, mana chassis included. There would be no dependency on extreme bodily regeneration. These cuts would remove his mana chassis too.

A cone shape directly in front of him and around his body was free from this Intent and active Knife skill. It seemed like these knife paths couldn't cover him completely, thanks to his own skill and Dusk vomiting huge volumes of mana.

Massively reducing his mobility does take away his extreme advantage in close combat. At least they really could land blows on him with 3 of them, Peng, Zhang and Guo now.

'Tier 6 Ascendant Arts are not too different from Tier 5 Sovereign Arts. They have far fewer weak points to exploit, and the users themselves have good instincts.' Feints didn't work well against his current opponents. Neither do Shades nor visual trickery with refracted light. They forced him to use everything he had, biting onto a sword stab, catching a punch with his hand and the same hand bending to catch another between the elbow. Redirecting their forces to each other.

'Well trained, not in teamwork.' While they were quite a bit stronger, he redirected their blows to each other. Sword to fist, fist to sword. Within that tight frame, they managed to pull back a large degree of their strength to prevent hurting each other. As expected from any Xeng, he supposed. Using that moment of contact between their redirected forces to push each other away from Ebony's follow-up swing of an ice-edged Dusk.

Sadly, he couldn't use Icicle anymore. The flimsy sword would not hold.

'Won't be able to hit them when they're quite a bit faster than me, and my movement space is limited. Refractions won't trick them. Shades can't hurt them or trick them. 60% of my mental capacity needs to deal with all the mages tearing my spells and mana down. I can't tell who it is, but one of them is capable of forcing me to localise where I can conjure and manifest my mana, so I can no longer cast near-ranged spells except for internal augmentation, which helps these close-ranged fighters. Can't even conjure mana near myself, something like an Aspect user or maybe along the lines of an Intent-type skill.' The one stopping him from latching onto gravity to support his speed and momentum externally or affecting the three close-range fighters on him was none of the close-range fighters.

Worse still, he couldn't pinpoint who was limiting his mana within his own Domain.

Displaying true multitasking and compartmentalising of his brain power. All of the 8 participants who were mainly magic casters were busy with dispelling, countering and suppressing his conjured spells within his Domain. While they had the power of Tiers, Skill levels and pure superiority in dispelling technical ability, he flooded them with a sheer number of concurrent spells and a dastardly amount of mana that Dusk was spitting out. That alone kept them at bay.

Rather than having trouble with dispelling the very nature of gravity magic when none of them were gravity mages, 2 of them had some affinity and could sense gravity mana. They dealt with that almost too easily.

All 8 of them had their own unique technique of dispelling a change in gravity or a quickly forming miniature black hole to their face.

Some perfected the basics, interrupting the elements with tiny pockets of mana to pop within any foreign spell. Disrupting the formation of most spells as long as the pockets of mana were strong enough and had some form of interaction and ability to touch the elemental spell. Gravity mana was not free from being touched by mana.

Another encapsulated his mana with their own, then physically swallowed the tiny spell once compressed into a candy-sized orb and used the natural magical defences of their magic body to completely dispel Ebony's control. Dispersing the mana that the spell contained. There was a chance this person was converting and purifying the swallowed mana into energy of their own, but Ebony wasn't able to tell.

The dumbest attempt had to be from the sole Yu clan member. She attempted to pump his mana into Ebony's spell, and by increasing the volume of his mana over Ebony's, the gravity vortex would indeed turn into a spell which has a greater percentage of the mage's control. Contesting Ebony with mana volume was unthinkable.

To the Yu's credit, she was likely banking on the fact that gravity mana was limited, and Ebony couldn't directly convert mana to gravity mana.

Except, he could.

All he had to do was conjure ice within the Myriad Bracelet. It was round about.

It took time to draw gravity mana this way. There were limits due to the stability of the bracelet when it comes to drawing only gravity mana out without extracting the mass from within. But it was possible to generate mass from mana.

To counter Yu's attempt, he simply had to add any other element or arcane mana. To keep a ball of gravity mana that a greater percentage of his mana didn't require it to be only made of gravity mana.

Altogether, the mages' skills here were actually….kinda subpar. Just 60% of his mental capacity and spell work could keep all 8 of them at bay and still counter to push them away. He wondered how much they held back to give him face since he was of the younger generation.

Ebony tried to weaponise his Aura, but it seemed relatively useless against the Xengs, mages included.

None of them were afraid of combat, a lot of combat.

Even if not all of them were pure combatants or combatants of any capacity. They weren't good targets to practice Aura Layering since he might not be able to see a difference, even if he was actually improving in the right direction.

'Not all that frightening. Only Cui is a pure combatant in Xienor. And maybe that guy…he's not wearing a clan emblem or carrying any mask on his side.' He also included the possibility of those that he cannot sense that continued to stay hidden inside their homes.

Butcher Pang and the 3 warriors still knew their way around combat, and they had an interesting usage of Intent that let him learn a thing or two, but nothing he couldn't handle. Butcher Pang was the most relaxed, barely warmed up.

Ebony saw the space around his closing in further. Butcher Pang got comfortable and was pushing his knife slices further. That's when Butcher Pang noticed the shiver in his forearm.

He took this chance and dived Spectre's Oscillation, Phantom's Flicker's evolution right through the sliced space behind him and appeared right in front of Butcher Pang. No one was surrounding him, and it was clear that he was so confident that Ebony couldn't get close to him.

"Why did you retract. You could've cut bone there." Ebony had Butcher Pang's cheeks gripped in one arm. He was injured everywhere, cut to the bone. Even though he moved faster than ever before, even 'phasing' through the air. The Intent would cut him all the same.

"Why don't you dare follow through. Is it because I'm a Shi? Is it because you don't want to shame me? Is it because I'm younger? Cease this worry, wavering dulls your Intent." The strength in Butcher Pang's resisting arms slowly died down as he went limp, lit aflame.

Ebony's movements were no longer trapped and he could move anyway he wanted again. He didn't let Buthcer Pang go. The man was still resisting and never turned fully frozen solid. The ice mage made sure to increase Preservation to make sure the mana was sealing and not destroying.

"Enough." Ebony looked down and noted all of them who breathed a sigh of relief.

Non-combatants they may be. His opponents turned to leave the encapsulated firework box.

"Where do you think you are going?" Ebony called out, "I think it's clear why you're stagnating here. Today we train."

He beckoned all those who didn't join from the outside, releasing Butcher Pang at the same time. The man recovered fairly quickly, pushing out Ebony's mana by himself.

Regardless of their unwillingness, those pointed out didn't hide their disgruntled expressions before clasping their fist and palm. "Yes, Senior Shi."

'Heh, now I get to learn their tricks and techniques.' Ebony felt like he picked up this 'naughtiness' from his wife or her grandmother.

It didn't matter if many were stronger than him now. He got away with challenging them or, getting them to train as their 'senior' and junior both at the same time.