Ebony's Fable

"Senior Shi…it's time for a break, don't you think?"

"I am taking one." Ebony had his real body present, his mind in the 'online' library searching for monster organs.

He couldn't find any on mana-beings' organs and had to search through a myriad of alien creatures and their special organs. He wanted nothing short of perfection for his new organ, but he was more than willing to make prototypes as long as it was going to be made of his mana it was mutable.

The shadow boxing in the area was his training hours ago, suspended momentum imprints were kicking around him.

Each of them embodied a Shade to increase their physical force but this was actively done by Ebony when he knew when the gravity infusions would activate. By overlapping them at the right moment, it increases the power of the delayed attacks significantly.

He wouldn't use this in combat yet. Leaving the so-called mana traces basically meant leaving tracks. That would defeat the purpose of hiding his momentum imprints.

Ebony had full control over what these mana traces were.

It probably only applied to those extremely dense with mana.

For him, it was his coagulated mana. Currently, whether he moves or stays still he would leave traces. He was too dense with mana.

It required conscious effort and mana manipulation to not leave any mana traces. The longer he stayed still, the thicker the mana traces and the more material his Shades.

This made his fighting style a bit weird. If he wanted to strengthen his Shades, he would have some jerky movements where he stayed still for a fraction of a second longer.

Wonderful for his sword art but not so much for his usual style. But the distinction no longer mattered.

Since Shades were mana-based, it was up to him to train his mental control so that this wasn't a problem and he could leave as thick a Shade as he wanted, whenever he wanted, wherever he wanted.

It had been 9 months since Xin started her evolution. She was either dead inside her room or had so much more potential that she was unable to absorb it dragged on for 2 months longer than it did for Ebony. He wasn't jealous.

It was a trusted hypothesis that the duration of evolution was roughly proportional to the amount of potential changing one's existence.

It was usually a good sign, but now he was worried about the endlessly potent blood of the Blood Saintess. It may have been too potent.

The unbelievers had already silently urged him to enter the house to check for a corpse.

He obviously believed that she wouldn't die from a mere evolution.

Entering would disrupt whatever was going on inside the house. He didn't take the risk of interrupting anything, whatever unknown flow of energy or the secret workings of the evolution space that the Ubiquitous Providence has its grubby hands in.

Xin had her mask with her as she evolved, since that had part of her soul but he held onto her divination coin and had been rolling it across your knuckles.

It was another quiet day when a letter was delivered into his hands by Scout Pigeon. Sophia delivered it to him.

A written letter was uncommon with callstones and Eidolon being more and more prominent.

It came from one of the Beastmen Ducal families of the Empire.

To summarise, it was a complaint letter.

He dried up a continent's worth of dungeons and their monsters, practically decreasing the chance of any dungeon breaks for a decade across the continent of Tova.

Also, 'stealing' the experience for the Empire. From the stamps, most of the vocal complaints were from beastmen families.

The Dwarves didn't care since their materials were almost untouched.

The humans seem to know him the best, or understood their King's stance the best and didn't bother him with this complaint.

The Elves couldn't be bothered by a couple of dungeons and their resources in monsters on a different continent.

Only the battle-thirsty beast men cared enough to complain.

Funnily enough, even Entras family stamp was here. 'He must have had a good laugh.' That old wolf must have known how futile this act was.

Whoever was the current head of the Entras family would have already gotten a good scolding from their older ancestor wolfman.

It was a silly complaint.

He'd stopped hunting for over a month. The Dungeons will refill sooner or later. It may hurt the Worldcore due to the amount of energy all the dungeons will attempt to parasite off as a whole, but only superficially.

Elcra was seemingly on the verge of evolution. It had energy in spades.

The letter lit aflame and shattered into cold particles.

So much for battle-thirsty.

No one came for a duel with the letter.

Not even a messenger.

Kong Jing had been right, levelling to 750 was easy. All it took was draining a continent's worth of dungeons.

Seven's students had the wilderness training experience to shore up their basic survival skills. He didn't think their food gathering and danger sensing was so bad that they needed a targeted wilderness training for it.

Many couldn't even identify safe and edible wild plants.

Raika and Tiha didn't need that as they were familiar with wilderness survival and were stuck fighting a different monster that Seven made them challenge every day.

In any case, his student's growth rate was alright.

They weren't improving in levels or skill tiers at an exponential speed. Their basic ability to understand combat and make use of their advantages while shoring up any weaknesses was skyrocketing to passable degrees.

Seven was rather confident that no matter which student and even some instructors, couldn't shock his students or cause them to freeze up no matter what magic or physical active skill they could throw at his students.

The actual power behind their fighting style was not so important to them. That was the easiest problem to deal with.

Seven doesn't tell Ebony every detail about his students, even in their updates. As a little surprise for when he do see them in person.

'Status.' Ebony's growth was nothing short of explosive throughout this period. He hid his essences and stats since there wouldn't be any change there, and he was healthy.

The realisation of Potential limit raised from his Grandmaster self was the evolution of many skills he long thought should've evolved or mutated.

Name: Ebony Rime

Priming: Lvl 515 (Ⅵ)

Core Skill:

Boundless Serenity Geyser Lvl 1555 (Ⅴ)

Authority of Will Domain Lvl 1111 (Ⅳ)

Hyperlucid Atelier Lvl 1219 (Ⅳ)

Adaptive Coreflame Implant Lvl 3 (Ⅳ)

Unique Skill: Mireloom Chassis Engine Lvl 1204 (Ⅳ)

Class: Embryonic Chillbrand Martial Sage - Lvl 750

Class Skills:

Phantasmal Shade Sovereign Arts Lvl 1481 (Ⅴ)

Spectre's Oscillation Lvl 1389 (Ⅴ)

Ice Mana Edict Lvl 1414

Fabrication of Frostblaze Embodiment Lvl 1299 (Ⅳ)

Frostblaze Tempering Lvl 1351 (Ⅴ)

Perennial Everfrost Armament Lvl 1303 (Ⅳ)

Ethereal Fluid Blitz Lvl 1296 (Ⅳ)

Phantom's Absence Lvl 1000 (Ⅳ)

Rimeforged Apparition Lvl 1241 (Ⅳ)

Blossoms of Crystalline Frost Lvl 1333 (Ⅴ)

Crystalline Avalanche Lvl 1212 (Ⅳ)

Frigid Shimmering Mirage Lvl 1245 (Ⅳ)

Ice-Lightning Respite Lvl 1107 (Ⅳ)

Empty Skill Slot

Empty Skill Slot

Sub-Class: Gravitational Archive of Resolve Lvl 750

Sub-Class Skills:

Resolve's Cadence Lvl 1377 (Ⅳ)

Titanic Mana Vibration Lvl 1377

Gravity Mana Decree Lvl 1286

Mantle of Reservation Lvl 1286 (Ⅴ)

Sonic Dissonance Lvl 1311 (Ⅳ)

Convergent Path Lvl 1257 (Ⅳ)

Gravity Quelling Vortex Lvl 1244 (Ⅲ)

Shattering Resonance Lvl 1318 (Ⅳ)

Soul Basilisk Pseudo-Imitation Roar Lvl 1101 (Ⅲ)

Rhythmgrav Establishment Lvl 91 (Ⅴ)

Profession: Eminent Arcanum - Lvl 750

Profession Skills:

Runic Mana Shaping Lvl 1007 (Ⅳ)

Crystalline Mana Matrix Lvl 1445 (Ⅴ)

Stalwart Brand Lvl 1178 (Ⅳ)

Mana Chassis Implosion Lvl 1115 (Ⅲ)

Mana Metabolismic Circulation Lvl 701 (Ⅲ)

Generic Skills:

Mana Discern Lvl 38 (Ⅲ)

Titanic Cold Resistance Lvl 282 (Ⅴ)

Running Lvl 252 (Ⅰ)

Mental Mapping Lvl 238 (Ⅱ)

English Lvl 8

Elcrian Lvl 14

Housekeeping Lvl 152 (Ⅰ)

Unyielding Form Lvl 345 (Ⅲ)

Advanced Mana Tracking Lvl 239 (Ⅲ)

Game Processing Lvl 125 (Ⅰ)

Extreme Heat Resistance Lvl 436 (Ⅳ)

Extreme Divination Resistance Lvl 211 (Ⅳ)

Gardening Lvl 272 (Ⅰ)

Cooking Lvl 223 (Ⅰ)

Integrated Trance Speed Reading Lvl 415 (Ⅱ)

Korun Lvl 382

Slumber Survival Instinct Lvl 194 (Ⅱ)

Immense Hunger Resistance Lvl 209 (Ⅲ)

Immense Exhaustion Resistance Lvl 388 (Ⅲ)

Sheer Lightning Resistance Lvl 280 (Ⅱ)

Sheer Blood Resistance Lvl 289 (Ⅱ)

Wind Resistance Lvl 268 (Ⅰ)

Poison Resistance 28 (Ⅰ)

Preservation Bubble Lvl 300 (Ⅰ)

Sustenance Regulation Lvl 184 (Ⅱ)

Lightning Mana Manipulation Lvl 426

Adaptable Bow Mastery Lvl 91 (Ⅰ)

Sheer Mana Poisoning Resistance Lvl 111 (Ⅱ)

Swimming Lvl 76 (Ⅰ)

Lightning Tether Lvl 426 (Ⅰ)

Soul Resilience Lvl 101 (Ⅰ)

Lunar Bioclock Lvl 159 (Ⅱ)

Gia Lvl 14

Will Relay Buffer Lvl 668 (Ⅲ)

Vigour Kneading Lvl 55 (Ⅱ)

Adamant Mental Tolerance Lvl 388 (Ⅵ)

Authority of Will Domain evolved to Tier 4 but honestly, from what he knew about Domains it was brute forced into Tier 4 by him. By the usual standards, the strength of his Domain is still well within what a Budding Domain is, instead of a Tier 4 Mature Domain.

This was likely due to his Will being far more developed than most.

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Regardless, it means an immense amount of refining can be done for it. Domain classified skills have far higher 'base' effect percentage limits than the average skill at the same tier but his does not reflect that.

Authority of Will Domain - Spread your personal domain into existence with anchored Will. Securing your Will in space to gain control of your territory. The central core of the Authority of Will Domain's magic is strengthened by 2500% + 10.0% per level. Control over your elements and magic is a static 4800% more robust. The Authority of your Will alters all within your Domain to obey the rules dictated by 200% + 0.1% per level. Will efficiency of imposing authority increases by 15% + 0.1% per level.

Consumes 1,800,500 MP/Min and Will

Classification: Domain Magic - Ice, Gravity, Sound, Sealing & Lightning.

This was a bit magical even for Ebony. Using his Will, he could make rules that defied the laws of physics that he knew of within his Domain. If he manifested his Will into Dusk so that no iron molecules can exist in his Domain, an iron ore that he takes out would be pushed out.

If he forcefully holds and stops the iron ore from being pushed out, it would start to break in some form.

Still a work in progress in terms of how removal is done because he was only testing this.

It was reality-bending. Like the Mandate users.

Ebony had to determine his 'rules' and iron it out over accumulation and numerous iterations as he pumped Will into Dusk over time.

This differentiates Dusk and on-the-spot Domains he could cast by a gulf. He cannot saturate his mana with enough Will on the spot, and neither would hastily cast Domains have the structure and stability of spatial control that Dusk would have.

Will was a channelled resource. He could limitlessly strengthen the effect of whatever he tried to Will into existence with more Will. If his total capacity wasn't enough to bring the effect into existence, it was because his Will is not potent, not voluminous and flexible enough or his imagination cannot bend reality the way he wanted due to the influence of the natural laws or if he was in another person's Domain.

Of course, the main limitation is the Will saturation point of mana.

The greatest gain that he got just two weeks ago has to be the creation of his new Core Skill.

Adaptive Coreflame Implant - Implant the Will of 1 to 3 of your 'Coreflames' into any frostblaze conjuration. All Coreflame Will efficiency increases by 2% + 0.1% per level. All Coreflame Will retention increases by 15% + 0.1% per level.

Current self designated Coreflames:

Preservation - Dictate the state of stasis. Will Potency increased by 10% + 0.1% per level.

Diametric Unity - Dictate the union of opposed flames. Will Potency increased by 3% + 0.1% per level.

Sequester - Dictate the concealment of existence. Will Potency increased by 5% + 0.1% per level.

Consumes Will

Classification: Ice Magic ---

Ebony's current Will saturation limit for his mana is about 0.00007%. So every 1 million points of mana could be imbued with roughly 0.7 points of Will. If he wanted to cast a fully saturated Sequester of 200 billion points of mana, he needed 140 thousand points of Will.

Fair to say, he couldn't produce that much within a short period. His total Will capacity was only a measly 6095.

It had to be noted that this saturation point of Will into mana had been drastically increased by him in the past few months. Every point of mana used to take far less Will to saturate.

He was training a new ability, sort of like when he first started to learn mana compression. Early spike in improvement was not shocking.

At most, it was a pity that the new skill didn't help increase Will saturation into Coreflame. It had been quite some time since he had a new skill at the single-digit levels for 2 whole weeks. This levelled very slowly for a Core Skill…did he not pump into Potential into his fourth Core Skill Slot or was this Will-based skill so hard to level?

Actually, he also felt that the Domain skill was hardly levelling compared to his previous levelling rate.

One Coreflame was straightforward but adding 2 Wills into the same flame increased the complexity required and hence, Will required multiplicative and not additively.

Ebony's Ethereal Arctic Rivertide Art was gone, fully subsumed into Phantasmal Shade Sovereign Arts. It mutated slightly.

Phantasmal Shade Sovereign Art - Elusive and unperceivable to those who see but not feel. No blocks, no escape. Adapting to change in battle faster than changes can find you, leave but shade of your art in your wake. Poise, fluidity, balance and grace increases by 5000% + 25.0% per level. Strength and Agility while tracing the Phantasmal Shade increases by 3500% + 25.0% per level. Momentum from each movement now carries forward like tidal surges, empowering your next strike with 5% of the preceding strike's Strength.Traces of your mana intensifies Phantasmal Shade by 100% + 2.5% per level.

He had the best of both worlds, a sign that the time he spent trying to learn how to use a weapon as well as his body, was not a waste. Now there was no real difference in what weapon he held.

There was still room for improvement but it wasn't something he could change significantly soon.

Breaking out of the shell and limitations of a 'weak' baseline human body, Ebony is finally able to evolve his footwork into a…full body movement skill.

Spectre's Oscillation - Expand, contract and vibrate your very cells with pure muscular control at desired power, direction, frequency and wavelengths. Oscillation's stability and grace sharpened with each level. Movement speed increases by 3200% + 25.0% per level. Disturbance to the surroundings caused by physical movement is reduced by 900% + 25.0% per level. Weave through physical matter with a static 50% more ease.

Spectre's Oscillation was one of the ways the Shi Clan skill was supposed to be applied but his physicals couldn't achieve what he wanted in the past.

Ebony no longer has to move his feet, bend his knees or ankles to move. He could move in any direction at nearly the same speed.

If he were afloat, his back muscles could contract and snap to push him forward. Should he want to dive downwards, the muscles on his head and shoulders can explode forcefully. Three-dimensional freedom beyond anything a bird or creature with wings can control.

His forehead could snap back while his knees went forward to dodge and counter.

He highly doubted anyone could copy this skill even if he wrote it down line by line. Not even his wife nor the Shi Clan members, though they can probably imitate the effect after observing him use it.

The reason was simple. He designed this for his rewired musculature. If he made a clone with his old human musculature, even he was not capable of using Spectre's Oscillation with his old body frame.

Ice Mana Edict - Ability to move and shape Ice Elemental Mana at will using minimal amounts of mana. Ice Mana follows your intentions with 700 + 10.0% accuracy and precision per level and adapts proactively to complex commands. Ice Mana may act autonomously to assist you with a static 20% chance based on the clarity of your edict.

Classification: Ice magic

It still highly bothered him that manipulation-type skills are rolled back a tier. It clearly gives a 10% per level increment, but is widely considered Tier 5 instead of 4.

His Sub-Class Titanic Mana Vibration, the manipulation-type skill for arcane-sound magic, was the same way that somehow supports this widely accepted classification.

Titanic - was the same way resistance-type skills are classified.

Normal

Sheer

Immense

Extreme

Titanic

Adamant

That was the way it mostly went for resistance-type skills.

Titanic Mana Vibration - Ability to vibrate mana in such a way to produce sound. Ability to manipulate vibrations to produce desired sounds increases 10.0% per level.

Classification: Sound Magic

So why is this Tier 5 skill only giving a 10% increment per level?

What happened to the patterns and rules?

Ebony didn't have an answer to this weird exception.

Frostblaze Tempering - Temper an object with freezing flames of your Will, giving it its elemental property and reinforcement. Tempered objects retained woven wires of flames for 300% + 25.0% longer without any intervention and are essentially irreversible. Has the effect of 1500% + 25.0% of Intelligence when the target comes into contact with flames.

Consumes MP

Classification: Ice Magic

It was a direct evolution of Woven Frostblaze Melding. Anything he tries to Temper cannot return to its original state. A random shield he picks up and Tempers will be permanently affected by the change he cast on it.

Tempering's first tier used to be Frost Injection, where he simply imbues ice elemental mana to strengthen it temporarily, like any warrior imbuing their equipment with mana. He had come a long way with a casual imbuing of mana to strengthen or modify a piece of equipment.

Tempering is possible on Perennial Everfrost Armament but the strengthening is a lot less than advertised in his skill description, as there was a lot of overlap of mana with the same effect.

Perennial Everfrost Armament was probably his least improved skill of all Class Skills. No evolutions, no mutations, and barely refined after he evolved. He might have to study forging again to improve his arsenal of conjured equipment.

Phantom's Absence - Your aura and Will bleed your presence away into obscurity. Ability to withdraw and match surrounding essence to remove your presence increases by 800% + 10.0% per level. Ability to stay out of plain sight while stationary increases by 1200% + 10.0% per level.

Phantom's Absence was a 2 tier jump for Waning Presence. Having experience with Entity Evanesce for years, he knew he still had potential to continue improving his camouflage.

Adding aura to it was accidental. He was merely controlling his essence to match the surroundings but the Skill seems to take it as aura. Perhaps because he is a King, his Will bleeds into essence manipulation and was taken as an aura.

The Will and essence consumption is low enough to be negligible. Sort of like breathing.

The next two skills were also a direct skill evolution without changing or mutating new functions.

Blossoms of Crystalline Frost – Highly condensed flames of frost crystallise into refined plum blossoms. Each petal carries embers and residual freezing flames that have an effect of 3000% + 25.0% of Intelligence upon impact. Petals are 2000% + 25.0% finer, enabling near-seamless penetration through physical and arcane matter.

Consumes MP

Classification: Ice Magic

Except for the addition of working against mana and other arcane defences or materials, it was mostly the same as the previous tier. This should help in piercing arcane or elemental barriers even more. Navin helped him develop it in this direction.

For now, this Blossoms took more than ten times as much mana as the previous version, but improving its mana efficiency was a low priority. That was for his Numbers to figure a way.

Ebony had a habit of chucking mana to brute force a skill evolution then optimise mana usage after.

Frigid Shimmering Mirage – Refine ice and cold to bend and scatter light, creating mirages and environmental distortions. Accuracy and control over refracted and reflected light increase by 1500% + 25.0% of Intelligence, allowing multiple overlapping mirages.

Consumes 8000 MP/Min

Classification: Ice Magic

Unlike Blossoms of Crystalline Frost, which didn't have a mana described since a petal can be any size Ebony wanted, this active stealth skill was more limited in scale. It could still vastly increase if he wanted to hide a whole City from sight but honestly, it was a very cheap spell that consumes more mental processing power than mana.

He had to take into account all creatures who were looking at where he created a mirage and adjust the spell along their perception in real time. This skill works very closely with Hyperlucid Atelier, his Core Skill.

Out of all of his skills, it was easily the one that took top 3 in terms of mental processing power required. Only behind his Core and Unique skills. The more targets he wanted to hide from, the greater the mental need to make sure this skill was working perfectly.

While the rest of his Class skills did not evolve or mutate, most of them are refined greatly compared to Grandmaster Ebony.

Sonic Dissonance - Unleash a potent wave of vibrations upon an entity to distort and destabilise an entity's structure. Sustained resonance interferes with physical and arcane integrity, persisting 1500% + 10.0% Intelligence per level.

Consumes MP

Classification: Sound Magic

Convergent Path – Manipulate gravity to create persistent streams between multiple points, pulling or repelling matter with precision. Strength of manipulation increases by 2500% + 10.0% Intelligence.

Consumes 58,000 MP/Min

Classification: Gravity Magic

Shattering Resonance - Infuse mana into any physical or mana-based attack to penetrate deep into the target or spread apart within the point of impact. Mana embeds itself in a stationary position and quakes violently. Mana embedding increases in strength by 1500% + 10.0% Intelligence per level. Strength and speed of vibrations increased by 1200% + 10.0% per level.

Resonance may propagate into connected matter or remain isolated.

Consumes MP

Classification: Sound Magic – Physical Technique

These skills evolved from Sonic Reverberation, Torrent Path and Quaking Impact, respectively. Similarly, they were mostly brute-forced to evolve by spending a huge amount of mana to strengthen the spells. Making full use of the Potential increase after his evolution.

Besides these, Extreme Mana Vibration and Gravity Mana Command both evolved rather easily.

After his fourth Core Skill creation, his greatest achievement in changing his entire battlestyle would be Rhythmgrav Establishment.

Rhythmgrav Establishment - Oversaturate the target entity with Gravity Mana. Establishing a link between points in time with rhythmic interaction of gravity overflowing from target entity and existing gravity mana. Motion, force, vector are captured and held in gravitational suspension. Gravitationally suspended momentum imprints are copied one-to-one with no error to the infinitesimally small degree. Delayed precision is increased by 10% + 2.5% per level. Delayed rhythm frame increased by 50% + 2.5% per level. Isolated gravitational suspension established is 1500% + 25.0% more resistant to external interference per level. Rhythmic integrity increased by 2000% + 25.0% per level.

Consumes 32,000,800 MP/Min.

Classification: Gravity Magic

Putting aside how amazed he was at himself for creating a single-element spell that took more mana than an entire Domain-type skill that could receive the mana efficiency Fortification of multiple elements. The implications that this single skill achieved for him might just be more reality-bending to him than the Adaptive Coreflame Implant.

First of all, he did not expect it to be Tier 5 off the bat even though it was a spell that took immense pain and effort to cast.

Ebony did experimental tests like never before to understand the spell description. Since he made the spell, he obviously understood the working principle even without an explanation but he needed to know what the Ubiquitous Providence made his skill out to be.

Precision was simple; it was the degree of error that his delayed strikes would have. His timing could be off by a few seconds if he wasn't careful.

The rhythm frame took some time to figure out but it was referring to how far forward he could send it to. This determined the time frame he could delay his strikes.

So how this really worked, according to the skill description, was that he leaves gravitationally suspended momentum imprints that duplicate motion, force and vector with close to no error. Ebony didn't know why but his gut had a feeling that Ubiquitous Providence was most impressed by this part compared to the rest of the skill's main functions.

His physical body, say his leg, would not be trapped in time or delayed to the future. He would still be one whole as long as he doesn't mess up his internal gravity oversaturation that bleeds gravity mana into the surrounding to meddle with ambient gravity. The only thing delayed was the attack itself.

So far, only his physical body. He had no success with delaying an ice spell or even a weapon, as the weapon wouldn't be able to take the infusion of gravity without breaking. He could test with Dusk, but there was little point. The staff would be unmovable in future once his Domain settles properly.

He would still test it once he was more confident with his control.

Resistance to interference made it harder for another gravity mage and the natural ambient gravity to affect his delayed strikes.

Rhythmic integrity was untested. Just by the logic and description, it probably referred to the resistance of his gravitational suspension to external space and time influence.

Ebony's Hyperlucid Atelier simulated fights had to explode in the mental processing capacity required. His entire fighting style had to add a layer of the time dimension factor into it. The possibilities were endless.

No wonder his mother did not complete her exploration and discovery.

His Profession skill evolution also gave him the support that these new spells and skills needed.

Crystalline Mana Matrix - Purified coagulated mana is terminally compressed under sheer force of mental exertion, solidifying into a crystalline form. Crystalline mana reinforces your mana chassis at a density of 3000% + 25.0% before crystalising. Crystalline mana has a static 5000% stability and resistance to change. Constitution is increased directly proportional to Intelligence to the compression degree of mana in the body.

It no longer had the description for coagulated mana but coagulated mana still exists and still powers his Unique Skill.

He estimated that coagulated mana remains at a density of 1000% + 25.0% per level, still affected by the skill level.

His mana had reached a purity that his mind had enough punch to solidify.

He'd thought it would be a simple skill evolution, but since he worked directly on his mana chassis to store mana, it brought about a Physique Refinement.

His latest Physique Refinement from a few months back and his mana compression-capacity skill evolution were an overall upgrade to all his magic. As expected, he could've long evolved it but lacked the mana purity and mental muscle to solidify mana. It was more than possible to solidify less pure mana, as shown by natural mana ores but he didn't have the mental power to do so.

Now, he had mana not losing in purity to human Emperors with sufficient mental muscle.

Last but not least, Physique Refinement aside was his runic curse.

Stalwart Brand - Brand an Entity with a specific set of runic curses. Source the runic branding with a static 15% of your essence regeneration. Base Constitution by 2500% + 10.0%. Strength and Endurance increases by 2000% + 10.0%. Impact, shear and elemental resistance is increased by 50% + 0.1%.

It was a skill that he created but has not implemented in himself. It required surgery on himself.

Some of his Numbers are already using it, so he knew it worked, but there were considerations when it came to Branding himself.

The vast increase in power did nothing to his self confidence. It didn't rise or drop.

Only more anticipation of the further perfection of self.