Ebony's Fable

Their walk took over 2 hours. Ebony saw their home.

Tiered houses, centring around one huge tree. Not a spirit tree, but they were in the same form and smaller in scale but still tens of kilometres tall and thousands of metres wide. This was likely the physical form and core of their Domain. They made wooden houses near the base and built upwards along the trunk.

With one look and scan, Ebony understood their social hierarchy was taken very seriously. The houses that didn't touch the tree and were built on flat ground were filled with Masters and below. Those who touched the base of the tree had Grandmasters.

Any family or house that could be built and stuck directly on the trunk had Kings. The higher up they were built, the purer and denser the mana they exuded.

He could almost see why they do not mix with the Frost Elves, who treated each other pretty much equally regardless of their family's most evolved individual or the number of them.

'Even Elves have people who cap out at Master?' Ebony was mildly surprised. He thought that with their long lives, just about any Elf could reach the ranks of a King or at worst, a Grandmaster.

Did he overestimate the Potential that most people had?

Unbelievably, there was an old Elf who was cleaning weeds at level 300 Master.

Old Elf.

While not exactly the first time he saw one since there were a couple amongst the Frost Elves, it was the first time he saw one looking so old but had mana that screamed 'under a thousand years old.'

Surely he must have been able to meet the requirement to evolve?

Was he born between a long line of Masters?

Is it that hard to break free from genetic limitations?

He had to let it sink deeper that he was 'lucky' to be born between highly evolved individuals.

Ebony cannot believe that, in almost a thousand years. The limit of an Elven Master's lifespan, this man cannot meet the requirements to evolve. Surely, even 1 level a year in a skill would let him reach the requirement.

He observed all the lower-level people instead of the stronger ones as the two archers saw Xin's curiosity and introduced their home to her.

Their short walk was enough for him to understand the societal suppression.

Of course, they couldn't level their skills….they didn't have many skills to begin with.

Servants were kept as servants, only having the skills required to do their jobs. They were not allowed near training grounds. Good families kept their education and training to their family members behind closed doors.

They were not slaves, but beyond the daily job scope, be it cleaning or serving people, these lower-level Elves don't have the opportunity to train. Maybe if they had free time after a hard day's job, they can sneak in some training or practice whatever skills they had, but that limits their growth extensively.

Servant families tended to be servants for generations.

He didn't know for sure, not from a few minutes of observation but overhearing their whispers and watching the way they interact with people of different status, tier and level was enough for him to make a good guess.

'Is this the Class limits that I read about?' Ebony realised he might be slightly wrong about their Potential limits.

Instead of not having the required skill levels, it could be that the class themselves are capped out at a certain evolution.

[Servant] the Journeyman Class, for example, is said to limit at [Retainer] with various adjectives such as Trusted Retainer and so on, at the ranks of a Grandmaster.

There was no direct evolution to Retainer at the ranks of a King, unless one sees a King-ranked General as a servant of an Emperor.

That was not to say they couldn't evolve, it was just that they needed new skills to break out of the mould of a [Servant] or [Retainer].

For example, Hector's bodyguard was a King but that's because his Class is not a butler he just took on the job of a butler while being a King-ranked fighter.

[Vassal] was seen as the 'direct' evolution of [Retainer]

But Vassal was usually an add-on to the full Class. [Vassal Commander of etc] is possible. Under more mature societies with Emperors in charge, they could nurture people to be their vassals right off the bat, forcing them to have the Emperor's name within their Class. The Empire of Ebbing Waves didn't have that knowledge or Class lineage, otherwise, it might be possible to see [Vassal Comander of the Barrier King] when he Mana Discerned someone.

An indirect evolutionary path of [Retainer]s were more official positions. Such as [Chamberlain], [Seneschal] and so on. Officials of a household, or even a government-type administrative duty. These could be King ranked Class equivalents.

By not giving them the chance to see skill books or letting them have the time to pick up other skills, these Masters have an incredibly tough, if not an impossible time to meet the requirements to evolve.

Ebony could create skills by innovating and modifying but if he were trapped within a village all his life and had never been taught martial arts, what information would he have to use to derive new skills?

Martial arts. Movement skill. Magic.

If there was no one to get him started, would he be able to create and develop his current skills?

Perhaps.

He did figure gravity magic out without a teacher.

But even then, he had arcane teachings. He had found access to books. Knowledge.

He wondered if he could do that if he was forced to stay in a small village, not walking further than the edges of their forest on a free day.

'What a shame….' If they weren't suppressed by their own race, would the Elves have a few more elite members?

What a waste of Potential.

If they weren't suppressed there was a greater chance for him to have one more rival, one more opponent that could push him. Oh well, this was out of his control.

"That is Dawnweave's branch."

"Thank you. You may leave now."

"We can introduce you to their maids to ease your entry—"

"No need. Hurry along."

The couple waited till the two young archers returned to their outpost and reported their findings to their direct superior. Xin couldn't sense the ongoing happenings but Ebony was tracking their every move.

Once he was sure the two young men shouldn't be held responsible for anything, he tossed Tower Head Slyvarinth Dawnweave up the tree to ram against ostensious double door.

The ice sculpture bounced against the door and slid across the raised platform.

The next moment, Xin found herself on this floor with his hands around her waist. She seemed slightly disoriented by his Oscillation.

A brief second later, a breeze of mana washed out and caressed their skin and hair.

Xin smiled but couldn't hold it in and laughed. "Honey, I think they're trying to use overflowing Wisdom to scare us off."

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"Hmm?"

Overflowing Wisdom?

This was overflowing meant to suppress?

He had thought it was just the breeze of air when the doors opened.

"Ah, I forgot. This was how Elves greet each other." Ebony recalled the time with the Elves at the Magus Consortium.

He was not here for a fight and did not have the Will to cast a Resolve's Cadence. The casual baseline regeneration should be enough for a greeting.

The wooden floorboards shattered under his feet, flowing in a radius around him all the way till his mana smashed the walls and the walls creaked.

The wooden veins curned and warped, crying out.

The entire branch of this mansion-like house started to creak under immense pressure.

Ebony made sure only to greet the one greeting him.

Their house did have arcane defences that distorted all mana, weakening most spells the moment foreign mana flies close.

But overflowing mana doesn't mind distorting. The enchantments don't weaken mana itself, just the formation of spells. He wasn't casting a spell and his mana could be distorted all they wanted, the effect of overflowing mana needs no special flow or formation like the conjuration of a spell.

As for the privacy protection, the house was sort of like an open book to him. He could still sense everyone inside, so he could prevent the maids and non-greeters from facing the brunt of his greeting.

He forgot about the wooden platform and house, and it broke before he could stop damaging them. He did not expect the materials to break down from just overflowing mana when he didn't even cast Resolve's Cadence.

Elven wood for construction should be able to take a lot of mana after all.

But the tree the house rested on and against was fine. Fortuntately the core of their Domain wasn't so fragile.

Upon closer inspection, Ebony was surprised to Mana Discern that this tree [Redwood Banyan Lvl 1000] had a level. It was a creature, not a conjuration?

Can a living creature be used as a Domain Core besides the caster themselves?

Did they give plant magic life, or is all plant magic living to begin with?

Fruits were growing on this Redwood Banyan that looked like figs. However, they only grew around the houses' highest branches on the tree.

"These fruits are potent enough to alter Physique, not just long-term consumption. A single one can probably completely alter the baseline Elves below." His wife whispered into his ear because of course her focus would be on the fruits.

Ebony also changed his Physique from drinking the sap of an Ancient-ranked tree.

This was no different.

But this tree was far bigger, more abundant in fruits, as Ful doesn't fruit and wasn't grown by many Elves who were one of the best plant nurturers.

Xin saw the fruit's energy.

Ebon,y on the other hand, saw how petty they were.

The fruits were infected with Will. If an Elf 'stole' the fruit and ate it, it probably wouldn't work on them. He wasn't so sure since he hadn't dissected the fruit to check the Will inside but there were grubby fingers of all the Kings within these fruits. Perhaps that was the side effect of having all the Kings and above nurture this tree and it was not something they could control since they pumped their Will into the tree.

This tree was not a treant. It couldn't move, except maybe shake a branch or something. It couldn't fight physically.

But there was a spirit, their Domain seemed cemented in two forms. It could likely use magic, had a mind and some intelligence beyond just the Wills of its nurturer.

As for the physical tree itself, Ebony was rather impressed at what he was sensing.

Xin might have a hard time cutting or burning it down, even if no active defense was cast by the tree or the Elves.

Not even Xin saw Ebony holding a piece of bark that he plucked off the Redwood Banyan and crushed it to dust within his palm.

This tree was the strongest thing in the Elven Domain right now.

It was not as petty as the Elves. The Spirit clearly felt what Ebony did and only lightly tapped his spirit to get him to stop tickling it.

There would come a day when Dusk was stronger in various aspects compared to Ebony, so he was looking forward to it after seeing this Redwood Banyan. While the bark wasn't as durable or resistant as Spine's scales this was also because the Redwood Banyan wasn't even running any mana through its bark yet. Spine was an ice spell reinforced by Domain, compounding runic formulations that continues to layers upon itself at this moment.

It was a pity this spirit didn't seem to be able to communicate or wasn't willing to.

Ebony wondered if the spirit was just the combined Wills of the Elves, or did it have a self-identity and consciousness after so long. It must have, since it wasn't like Dusk which was just an accumulation of Ebony.

Ebony tried to introduce himself with an isolated mana sound wire and also with Will to ask the spirit for its name, but it just ignored him or like the tree it was it cannot hear sound.

While the Elves inside were mumbling something and Xin demanded, "Bring my husband's clone out." Ebony welcomed the rushing of a few Wills that finally noticed his presence here. The mana entangled and the spirit tree must have transmitted his greeting to the Will that were being pumped into it.

There were so many of them.

In the Empire, all Ducal families had King-ranked individuals. Some more than others.

The Archducal families were usually the strongest or most highly respected. They tended to have multiple Kings.

Amongst the Imperial Army, a small number were Kings. Especially those in higher positions.

Amongst the common people, freelancers, elites working for smaller merchant groups ecetera also existed a couple here and there. Old or not didn't matter.

There were fewer than ten thousand King-ranked individuals throughout the entirety of the Empire after the Tetramyth fiasco, far fewer before the Tetramyth. Perhaps a little over a thousand or two thousand if his past senses were wrong or many Kings weren't in Tidal. If each of the 4 races had 400 or so Kings, it would be an even split.

There was a good chance he was wrong, his perception was a lot weaker in the past.

Nobles took up 70 to 80% of these Kings, the rest were imperial citizens.

The Royal family, have Navin and Yvette as Kings. The Lord Family had a few generations older than Navin still alive, with quite a few Kings. How strong they were or how imperfect their evolutions aside. There were at least dozens.

Each race had a different number of Dukes, but roughly dozens of Dukes per race. For humans and beastmen, any Kings besides the Duke themselves were usually near their deathbed by age. Dwarves and Elves had the benefit of a longer life and were healthy for longer.

In the past, as long as a Noble evolved to a King and didn't have a terrible record, their family would become a Ducal family. It was probably going to change now that Kings weren't as rare but even ten thousand people out of ten billion people were still the top 0.0001% of the population.

When he thought about it that way, there were truly very few Kings.

But these were Elves hid over a thousand Kings here, most of which aren't even Nobles of the Empire and had been in their Domain all along. That or they retired from the Empire long ago and returned. It did make sense since they had 2.5 times the lifespan of humans at the same rank, but none of them meddled with the Tetramyth war.

However, while there were 1091 individuals at the same evolutionary rank as him, only 3 dozen were supporting the growth of the Domain and received the support of the Domain.

3% of the Elven Kings and Queens were Will users.

A lot lower than he expected, no wonder there were so few Domain Mages amongst humans. It was almost a miracle that there were 2 or 3 human Domain Mages at King-ranked.

Ebony tried his best to find an Elf equivalent to Vent of the Frost Elves. By Will alone, it was hard to tell. He had to see them and perceive their mana but most of them hid their mana so well that even he could not tell until they showed themselves.

The head of the Dawnweave family claimed to be unaware of any clone.

Xin had little patience but the emotion and lie detector actually didn't get violent yet.

The Dawnweave family probably wasn't lying then.

Ebony continued to let her deal with the talking, but he walked up to her and flipped her mantle open to find a coin before he slid onto her thumb and index finger. She initially jerked back in surprise when he got all touchy all of a sudden but let him have his way before breaking into a wry smile and flipping her coin.

"No to whatever question you had."

"Shame." Looks like there was no one equivalent to Vent amongst the Elves.

Tower Head Dawnweave gravitated back into Ebony's hands, "Do a divination using his body, punch him where you feel most comfortable."

She pinched his cheek hard before throwing a hook at the frozen Tower Head's face.

The frozen body rocketed away from the mansion.

'There's an underground facility under that hut.' Ebony nodded at the discovery that Xin led him. Tower Head Dawnweave made a few sonic booms when he was sent down the [Redwood Banyan] and destroyed a small hut on the ground, in a village community far away from the base of the Domain Core. That revealed the underground structure when the ragdoll of a body collapsed the earthen flooring.

The leak of mana explained it. There was an enchantment that prevented Ebony's senses from noticing the hidden floor.

Ebony Oscillated away, leaving his wife to deal with the Dawnweave family.

Facility was far-fetched. It was just a small basement with musty books, magical trinkets and odd objects that might be decoration.

Finally, he found something that stood out. A transparent flask that blocked his Will and pushed away his mana.

'What a good bottle, my Will can't sense it at all, and my mana needs to be mentally pushed harder to go closer.' Ebony took the flask and uncapped it immediately.

There was no rush of Will memories.

This flask seemed to have kept One alive all this time without his Will recharge. The icy air flowed out, the internals of the flask completely covered in ice.

He poured out the tiny sphere of ice left over.

"It's me." Ebony reassured his first proper Clone.

Not even a Number. Not an Apparition.

It was so flimsy compared to all his older brother clones.