Ebony's Fable

'Done, now to summarise its effects…' Ebony was still within his trance even though he broke the seventh seal on Dusk.

Casting speed: + 720%

Mana purification: 280% mana compression equivalent

Multicasting mana efficiency: +35%

Multicasting mental processing: 8%

Spell Intensity: + 270%

Spell cost to max intensity: + 360%

Ebony didn't know how else to measure mana purity numerically, but the mana density equivalent that it gave him. In terms of mana compression purer mana gave him, it was equal to 28 levels of a Tier 4 mana compression skill.

Mana purity itself did give other benefits, but it was hard to quantify.

Casting speed wouldn't help with most of Ebony's spells, but there were many useful aspects for Dusk. Such as casting Gravity Vortexes or their longest cast, plum bombs.

Multicasting mana efficiency was how casting the same spell and duplicating it was more mana efficient. Mental processing was how much easier it was to form and control two copies of the same spell compared to one, in that the second would only take 8% of the effort it would take the original.

This was the most inaccurate value as it greatly depended on how they wanted to manipulate the copies of the spell and the magic body strength of their target.

Spell intensity was Ebony simplifying how spells could be strengthened, sped up, and toughened beyond merely the mana that was powering his spells.

From the 1.8 times strengthening that the 6th seal gave to the 3.7 times after breaking the 7th seal, it was a significant boost. Although the mana cost required also increased from 2.1 times the original mana cost of a spell to 4.6 times to reach the maximum spell intensity boost of 3.7 times, Ebony wasn't bothered and even wanted it to be higher.

There was something else the staff did to his Will but he didn't know what exactly changed from breaking the 6th to the 7th so he didn't quantify it.

'Mana purity and Will, those are the two things I'm not sure what changed from breaking this seal.'

Coming out of his trance, he found something foreign in his mind. A message from the Ning Saintess.

His soul was healed, no longer frozen.

Ful supposedly stopped by to leave him a present, a flame stored in crystalized sap for him to study and not consume.

The Ning Saintess even added an explanation for a question Ebony hasn't even asked Ful. Whether or not his evolution was affected by Ful's Will.

In some way or another, yes. It was.

The assurance from the Ning Saintess that it wasn't conscious didn't change that it didn't feel good. Even the explanation that he already had relevant genetics that let him more easily incorporate and awaken the ability to use frostblaze didn't help

The message did confirm that Ful was actively moving around and that's why he hasn't found the frostblaze forest.

All in all, it felt like the message was pushing him to evolve as soon as possible.

The Ning Saintess would be around to explain something before both of them evolved.

Ebony saw his house, but checked the time. It hasn't been more than a day.

Moving his house deeper into the Glades over a few days, he parked himself near the Apex Ape's territory.

Inviting and escorting the Thoya ladies over for tea and to stay a few nights. They felt safe enough to follow him deep into the Icy region without any of the combatant Frost Elves escorting them.

He brought them on fishing trips, showed Kiva some hunting tips and what dangers to look out for.

The three of them worked together on a frostsilk blanket for Clovis and Halvis. Entwining their mana threads, guiding Kiva on subtle and fine mana control.

Reading his Core Skill book to Kiva.

Teaching Roya new techniques he learned and exchanging rune studies. Her knowledge was surprisingly fresh; no wonder Kong Jing had stuff to learn from her.

It seemed like Elven runes were completely out of Korun's scope, which made sense due to the Xengs' bad relationship with the Elves.

Despite wearing her runic robes in the past, he never noticed there were some tricks woven into the threads themselves aside from the obvious Elcrian runes.

He escorted them home when Kiva started to miss her friend Willow, the guardian beast's baby bear and the other young Frost Elves. The bear took even longer than the Elves to mature and needed more than a hundred years before reaching an age of maturity.

His holiday and preparation time were over with that.

'Seven, may I connect?' Ebony sent Seven a message and asked for an active connection for him to see things through Seven in real time.

There was a few-second delay due to the distance, but he managed to latch a portion of Will to see through Seven.

Ebony watched Seven teach his class.

It was a classroom period where they were meditating while Seven sent mana towards their minds to distract them at random timings and random intensities.

The mages had to solve a mana puzzle with their mana while also in meditation.

'The mages can already meditate and move their mana. Good. The unclassed, especially, are adapting to changes faster. Raika is having the hardest time since her mind has long been fixed to her stiff ways of manipulation and mental workout.'

Reading Seven's updates, it seemed like their combat proficiency was still on the lower end. Situational awareness, timing, and positioning all needed more work.

But their mind-body connection was passable, with the body reacting to danger as fast as their minds could. The accuracy of making the wrong move or dodging the wrong way rarely happens after all the physical pain they received.

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Almost all of them could use 100% of their stats already.

The most concerning update was how many rumours there were about a new student from the Chef Profession faculty. 'Goddess descended', 'heavenly beauty' and other similar praises.

Imperial Citizens were getting infected by Eidolon. Tidal Academy and its elite students mostly had access to Eidolon early compared to the average citizen or freelancer.

It was hard to keep religion, or the topic of Godly beings away now that they had access to the wider net.

In mere days, the entire Academy and even his class had heard about this beauty.

They must have more free time than Seven assumed.

Umar snapped out of his meditation and stared at Seven with high precaution. After him, Shaen and Seren did the same. The last to look up was Apol followed by Raika.

They had a stunned look as they stared straight into Seven but quickly looked down at their table. Sweat beads formed on their foreheads and down their backs.

'Umar always had good senses but I didn't expect so many of them to be able to sense that something changed within Seven.' Ebony didn't know why else they would get that reaction other than the fact that his attention was now present.

However, the fear rising from them was something he didn't understand.

'Same thing happened with the ball's attendees. What are they sensing from me?'

They took a long time before falling back into a meditative state.

The warriors were tasked to stand, walk and some to read while staying in a state of meditation. Apol was the only one at the stage of reading and memorising what he read while meditating. The rest had difficulty even falling into meditation fast, especially if they were mentally disturbed.

After hours of testing how long he could attach a portion of his focus on one of his Apparitions, the door to his classroom gently slid open. He made them sliding doors after Tharnuminium Tower broke the door handle thrice from a lack of strength control after a training session.

His students ignored the disturbance, thinking it was part of the training.

But Masline failed to do so and looked before his jaw slowly dropped.

The scent that came in with the person opening the door also woke the hungry amongst his students. They had to meditate hungry after morning training, as hunger was also part of the disturbance training for meditation.

Audible gulps were heard with only Tiha, Seren and Apol who succeeded in fighting the urge to look at the source of the delicious scent. Tiha was the winner, having looked but still maintaining her state of meditation.

Apol broke out when he looked but saw the person pushing the trolley of food.

Seren was in the same position.

"She's beautiful..." Masline muttered.

Seven's icy facial muscles cracked from an eye twitch.

That twitch brought along Ebony's mana leak.

Every Will Relay Buffer, even those running parallel from the Glades to Tidal, cracked from the overload of mana, but Seven's Buffer managed to withstand it.

"Oh, I thought you came here in person. Now the food…well, your students can have them." Xin's shoulder slumped down when she realised that Ebony wasn't physically present.

Generally, the usage of active pressure with overflowing Wisdom and Vitality was to keep one's target stunned. With a sufficient difference in quality and quantity of life force, one can stun the target's body for a split second. That was usually enough for Xin to tear through any defence. While overflowing Wisdom stuns or rattles the mind, depending on the properties of an individual's mana, it effectively achieves the same purpose.

His students, on the other hand, were neither stunned nor rattled, only kept in suspension, where their minds were moving in slow motion. However, they weren't trapped for a split second but 30 to 130 seconds, with Raika snapping out first, followed by Tiha.

What Ebony didn't know was that each of them, in slow motion, faced the simulations of facing Ebony in combat. The simulations weren't slowed; they were forced to see themselves slain, whatever measures they took, including running. Unlike Ebony, who rarely ever makes the first move, simulated Ebony was all about how he would effectively take down someone or something.

Other than breaking out into a sudden gasp and tapping themselves over to check their bodies were in one piece, there wasn't much damage sustained to any of his students. Ebony wasn't present and only a mere fraction of himself was tagging along with Seven. Fortunately, he didn't permanently traumatise them unknowingly.

Ebony didn't concern himself with their reactions, but Seven quickly recorded the scene that replicated for each student, breaking out in a loud gasp and their breathing hastened with their pulse.

'Their pulses exploded all of a sudden. Too much useless training, now they have a basic mind-body connection. I think it's about time for real combat. They need to learn fear and how to cope with it.' Seven took it rather slowly since these people didn't train from the age of 3 or 4. He wanted to toss them directly against a monster, but the situation was different for everyone.

Seven needed help from a couple of other Numbers. They needed to tailor fights for individual students this time.

"Hello little ones, I'm your trainer Ebony's Wife. Train hard, okay? He has high hopes that he could train at least one rival for him. Do your best!" Xin pumped her fists to encourage his students, but her eyes were lazily glaring at Raika all the while.

She then had Seven put the tables together and serve food for his students to eat. Seven could only watch with Xin as they chowed down.

"WOAH!! My Strength increased by 45 points, for 10 days!?" Masline roared in awe as he bit off a chunk of beef ribs.

"My Perception increased by 20 by 3 days…" Seren was the slowest eater and sipped the hot soup.

"Looks like the buffs are effective on Journeymen but not so much for Masters…" Xin muttered in slight disappointment. She probably receives no buff or extremely short-duration buffs from these dishes made from Rare quality ingredients.

The most obvious improvement Ebony observed was that everyone could stack all the buffs from each dish, even multiple same-stat buffs could be stacked.

'Rare quality materials' limits are absolute stat raises and no percentage increment?' Ebony recorded for Xin in case she didn't notice.

Tharminium Tower glowed in warm orange light all of a sudden. "O-oh! A Cuisine Set Buff!"

"Yes! It worked!" Xin excited hops and her rush to hug Seven and jump around was a sight for sore eyes.

While Ebony was only preoccupied by the inkingly of pity that he didn't come here with his body.

'Cuisine Set Buff, that's when suitable dishes all mix and combine within the consumer's stomachs and their essence react with the consumer's bodies in a loop for a more effective buff.' Ebony knew what it was. This was the peak of what a Chef aimed to achieve for Elcrian chefs. A personalised Cuisine Set Buff.

There were over a dozen Imperial Chefs who achieved that, but they had their Class as chefs and supportive Sub-Classes and Profession. He didn't just focus his studies and research on what combat classes progression was like.

Amongst the list of top restaurants in Tidal, there were a few more chefs who were creators of said set buff.

For example, the restaurant that served dishes that extended lifespan was supposedly a Cuisine Set Buff. Ebony had reserved a spot long ago but they missed the reservation when they were off-world. He did reserve it again, but it wouldn't be his turn for a few more years. Due to the rare ingredients needed, the chef only served a few people every week.

She questioned the poor dwarf with intensity about what the buff effects were.

Although she was disappointed the buff was another temporary one, the effects seemed to satisfy her.

'All dishes part of the set had their buff durations equalised and extended. All previous stat bonuses double. And…satiety? She's making a set that makes her stay full for a longer period to combat her gluttony.' Ebony nodded when he gathered the information his students were sharing.

It was consistent for all of them except the stat numbers, which differed due to how much they ate of each dish and their individual physique differences.

Raika gained the least buff as expected, then Tikky Entras, who had the most advanced baseline physique amongst the journeymen.

By the looks of it, Rare-quality ingredients wouldn't even give Ebony any buffs unless Xin's skills were more advanced than they currently were. The limitations of having Chef as a standalone Profession were making themselves clear but Xin already exceeded many of these limitations with her life force and essence control that pushed her ahead.

The same way his mana compression and mental processing for overlapping runic formulas lets him power his runes beyond what a single skill and no rune Fortifications were usually able to do.

Still, neither of them has overcome a specialist Chef or a specialist Rune-focused class could do in every aspect.

Seven shook his head when Tikal meteored himself into their courtyard. He had long noticed Tikky calling her father over when Xin entered.

It was time for their spar. Seven nodded, thinking it was a good opportunity for his students to see higher-level fights.