Ebony's Fable

He ushered them all out and called for a proper barrier mage. The facilities and technology sufficient for his class would not be for the Duke. It took some time before they realised no one was suitable, and Lennings Lord had to come personally.

His wife was obviously ready for a battle; she had been waiting to study Entras' vitality skill.

However, she already knew the difference between their strength was quite large. Practically insurmountable for Entras.

Xin looked at the girl with similar features to Tikal and decided not to destroy the image she had of her father. Seven took the apron she passed to him, and she donned her mask and swiped dark flames over her body, summoning her gear onto herself.

Seven summoned his icy scale barriers to cover his students when Xin's heart pulsed, flattening the grass and sinking the ground within the barrier that Lenning conjured.

The pulse and shockwave made the barrier expand and crack because it was still a spell in mid-cast. Yet that was sufficient to shock Lennings while he stopped the smug face he was putting on while looking at Entras.

'I see, so she's handicapping herself by not using any mana.' Ebony understood what limitations she had put on herself. That would mean she wasn't using any blood, fire, lightning and wind augmentations.

Her blood and fire augmentation was a Tier 4 body enhancement, but a particularly strong one due to the 2 elements mixture. Her lightning was also at Tier 4, while Wind was a Tier 3 external boost to her attacks and movements and not an internal body enhancement. No mana also removed her 'lightning step' or whatever it was called now. They usually just called it lightning step, no matter what the skill evolved into.

However, her main augmentation had always been her vitality-based augmentations. Her Core Skill, Unwavering Immortal's Pulse, was at Tier 5 level 1288.

Unwavering Immortal's Pulse (V) - Unwavering heart —steady, resolute, and untiring. Each beat channels a perfected stream of vitality, augmenting physical ability by 25.0% per level. Vitality regeneration is amplified by a static 2800%. Passive state runs at a static 15% output.

Xin's skill descriptions were mostly shorter than his own.

Her 'physical ability' seemed to refer to Vitality, Strength, Constitution, Endurance, Agility and to some degree, Perception. At level 1288, she received a 32200% augmentation or a 322 times multiplier. Perhaps due to her Clan Skill or two mental states, she had it having a passive state. Reducing the consumption of energy this skill requires. This skill at full output exhausts her nutritional storage of food at an extreme rate.

Not 322 times more food, thanks to the constitution increase, but it was still a lot more energy draining.

Hence, even without activating Unwavering Immortal's Pulse, she had 48.3 times augmentation to her Vitality, Strength, Constitution, Endurance, and Agility at all times. Not to mention, the vitality regeneration increment stacked over the augmentation to her Vitality stat. It was why she needed to eat a lot every day.

And also why she was so much stronger if Ebony didn't run any augmentations. At least, she couldn't really hurt him thanks to his Constitution augmentation that was also passive as long as his mana pool was full.

No matter the strength difference or who her opponent was, it was still in her nature to be the first to act.

To Entras' credit, he could see and react to her movement. Parrying the first and second swords that cascaded on top of the first hit. He held strong on the first but the second broke his claw guard open and pushed him back a step.

'Vitality enhancement alone and her strength is greater than Entras. She hasn't even gotten into her Art.' Ebony didn't think much about how Entras wasn't even stunned for a split second by the life force. After all, he had already seen Xin and could preemptively prepare himself for a familiar flood of life force.

Entras needed half a second more before his mana moved and enhanced him. The beastmen had it tough, even with the fastest form of mana manipulation, internal manipulation.

To his credit, even outsped and overpowered, he was able to deflect and parry attacks on his extended claws and forearms. And they were mostly unharmed.

It would likely be a different story if Xin's swords were heated up by mana, but they were only heated up by friction at the moment.

Entras used an active Skill swipe of his hands to break and push Xin away to give him time to draw his one-handed axe and shield. He came geared this time.

'Tier 5 axe and shield Mastery, he developed it himself.' The proficiency he had with the axe and shield was surprisingly high, as he was able to handle Xin's twin sword style and accurately target weak points or interrupt strikes that would be fatal.

Tier 5 skills could be considered unreachable for the average Imperial Citizen. Even Tier 4 skills were rare amongst active freelancers.

Even for Nobles with proper lineage, developing the same technique or spell over generations, Tier 5 was a rarity. But that only referred to common skills, Core Skills were a different story since every individual had greater chances of taking their Core Skill further than any other of their Skills. There were likely quite several high-level freelancers who had one or a couple of Core Skills at Tier 5.

He'd already known that the old warrior had a variety of passive and active abilities at a high Tier and level for it to be able to exert as much force as he could.

It was sadly a bit too late, Xin's Art reached 2 digits in the combo counter. Another second and a tiny bit deeper into her Cascading Art, and her strength and speed already overcome the enhancement that Entras got for himself.

This time, Ebony had to watch closely when Entras sustained a hit under his arm. Despite tanking the sword thrust to his armpit, his whole body flew back.

'His skin isn't even pierced. It must be fortified a few times over, multiple Fortifications that deal with durability and body toughness….muscle elasticity, her sword dug in, but his muscles pushed him back. Besides that, his Physique must have been refined quite a lot.' Ebony was surprised how many hits Entras was taking without dipping into that Vitality Skill he was not using.

'Is it really just a passive…' Ebony saw blood when Xin's combos hit the three digits. She wouldn't need to go so far if she had her mana augmentations.

Ebony thought that Xin's Clan Skill was getting more stable. She was fighting Entras in her black haired state. To him, that meant no Intent was being used.

At this stage, Entras had been pushed against the barrier and was standing his ground. He was getting hit 97 out of 100 times, barely able to shield or parry the rest.

Razor-thin cuts turned into deep cuts.

But his glare ignited Xin's battle hunger a little.

Entras wasn't even half done, or so his eyes were telling Xin.

'What other counter does he have? That Dire Rush compound skill will have a tough time catching her, and at this rate, she would be able to slap it back. A transformation into full wolf form maybe?' Ebony sensed the internal movement of mana changing within Entra's body.

The Wolfman Duke has only shown partial transformation with his claws, legs, and fangs. Never completely turning his body into a wolf's form. It was not a known ability amongst Lizard, Fox or any other Beastmen but the Wolf Beastmen were the only ones that usually had mana-vitality-based transformation abilities. It wouldn't be farfetched for a King to be able to temporarily transform themselves.

By the records he read, Elcrian Wolfmen's transformation ability was considered to be made of 3 Skills. One Vitality, one Stamina and one Mana. They were also always on the same Tier for balance. That meant a full transformation would be equivalent to 3 Skill enhancements.

'Intent! A berserk type transformation.' The corner of Seven's lips raised ever so slightly. Ebony was glad for his wife, who was going to have more fun than she was expecting.

The moment Intent rose, Xin's hair saw red.

"GO DADDY!!" Tikki cried out.

That might as well be the greatest buff to Tikal Entra's Intent there is.

Ebony watched in awe when Tikal's Intent hammered at Xin's head and made her neck flinch back, it didn't stun her but it was enough for Tikal's body to explode into a 3 metre tall wolf, lunge his head forward and chomp into her torso before swining and flinging Xin's limp body across the field and into the other end of the barrier.

'Like Will, Intent is greatly grown by age and experience. Older people have us beat by large margins in this regard.'

The grey wolf had long, messy fur and various scars. A pair of overly excited eyes filled with bloodlust.

"El, that idiot's in a frenzy." Lennings face-palmed and shook his head.

'Is she sticking with the no mana handicap?' Ebony was able to see it happen in real time, unlike his students. Their eyes could barely catch up with all the flashes of high-speed movement.

Xin could've easily transmuted to take no damage.

It was already rare enough for him to see her hit by something.

But he knew she still took little to no damage.

Not with the blood that was extending out of her body and reforming into a halo. Her Halo didn't require any external mana control or mana at all. It just required blood and Intent.

That blood halo was made of Tikal's blood, and they perfectly guarded each tooth that would've otherwise landed on her body.

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As for crashing into the barrier, she landed on both feet. Vertically. She didn't get slammed on her back.

A Berserk Skill on top of 3 compounding enhancements was barely enough to surprise her. Not when her opponent was usually Ebony.

'Her Blood Halo can stop their piercing of those fangs? That's not even her blood…no wait, Tikal's blood is also dense with vitality, and if she used her vitality pilfer to enhance her blood halo, it wouldn't be that weak even if it's not her blood or her vitality.' Ebony did not expect the reactive defence spell to be that strong without active mental control.

She must have improved how Intent-only spells work in the past few months.

The next minute was an intense hunt. A semi-conscious wolf that understood human swordmanship was stopping Xin's usual style against quadrupeds.

Tikal's transformation was extremely resource-intensive. He was burning out his resource pools at an extreme rate and probably wouldn't last another minute.

Xin only relied on her Art building up.

The wolf's transformed form was enough to surprise both of them by how durable it was that Xin couldn't even cut fur off after she was 3-digit deep back into her combos.

The only problem for Tikal was that he wasn't in a state to disrupt Xin's Sword Art. His decision-making wasn't as acute in this form and allowed Xin to test her offence against his fur and skin.

With a slower and weaker body, Xin showed Tikal the obscene unfairness of her Sword Art.

Cascading Sword Sovereign Arts - Succession of power blended into the cascading sword sovereign arts. Strike after strike, Strength and Agility increased by a static 0.25%. Strength and attack speed increased by 100% while dual-wielding swords. Fluidity, balance, stability and deftness increases by 300% + 25.0% per level.

She could currently hit over 5 digits in combo counter rather easily. It wouldn't injure her while also having the ability not to tangle herself up with inertia. Reaching a 10,000 hit combo wouldn't even take minutes, but most people with a Sovereign Art would understand and break her combo before letting her boost herself any further. A 10,000 hit combo already meant a 25 times boost to her strength and agility, and this happened in real time without any mana or vitality cost. Only heavy stamina usage.

Tikkal's big frame didn't help his case as Xin was able to zip around and go under the wolf. There were more blind spots for her to take advantage of.

Xin's active Thrust Skill, Gospel's Perforation, didn't require mana. She had footwork that could still activate without mana to a weaker extent, keeping her mobile and far more agile despite being slower.

Tikal's crazed look stared into Xin's, and he howled while letting wounds open.

Noticing the familiar mana movement patterns within Tikal, Ebony was pretty sure he was about to use Dire Rush in this state. A final exchange before his resource runs dry.

He didn't need to warn or interrupt Xin from her fun.

'I still don't get what his vitality passive does….' Ebony still hasn't seen Tikal use the stored vitality to heal or anything of the sort. It was a separate flow from the resources used for his transformation, where mana was used up the fastest, along with stamina.

Xin didn't shy away from the challenge and met Dire Rush that exploded forth with her cascaded charged-up single sword Gospel's Perforation.

The sound of the clash was weird, not metal against fur or flesh.

'Sounds like those high-powered lasers cutting metal precisely…' Ebony recalled where he heard the similar sound from back from his time on Earth, and he watched some videos on how some things were manufactured.

Ebony never realised what sound clashes filled with thick mana and vitality make. He didn't even know if Will and Intent, once manifested and imbued into energies, could produce sounds.

However, that was not important now. Time seemed to slow down for him when he saw that neither Xin nor Tikal was pushed back immediately, but Xin's sword bent ever so slightly.

'That shouldn't happen…she's not even mana enhanced.'

That slight curvature of her swords had her thrust out her other sword and knock Tikal's durable skull back.

Looking a little confused as to why her sword bent when it should've easily withstood her current levels of strength. It wasn't a permanent bend, but it was a sign.

If strength or strain on the sword wasn't the reason and the sword wasn't damaged in any way, the only foreign stress it was currently under was Tikal's attack, energies and both of the combatants' Intent.

"What's wrong, speak to me…" She wished her sword spirits could reply.

Unlike Icicle, who is mostly dormant or still a seed, her sword spirits have shown certain levels of intelligence and capability to act or move their sword bodies.

Seven clapped his hands to gain attention, then he conjured a mist with the two icy figures fighting and reenacted the fight a few times slower for his students. They probably just saw earth exploding, craters forming, the barrier shaking and light flashes when Tikal was against the barrier.

Raika might have been able to watch it more clearly, but it was Lennings who was in awe when not a single muscular motion or fur blowing in the wind in a certain direction, at a certain time, was represented wrongly in his ice sculpture reenactment.

'If Tikal has that kind of finisher, I wonder what Lennings has.' Seven shared the same thought as Ebony.

It might not have seemed impressive considering how Tikal lost to Xin when she didn't use a drop of mana, but it was more than they expected from the fighter.

That meant Ebony's simulations were inaccurate. He had more data on Tikal now, but it still stood that his simulations were rather inaccurate before this.

Inaccuracy bothered him.

"What are you really here for?" Xin understood that Ebony only really moved for efficiency. Chances were, he was here with a purpose.

"You have been away for a while, and you never called. So I just wanted to check in."

"So you missed me? I win." She teased before she ran off to pack her wok and cooking utensils. "One minute!"

Ebony shared notes with Seven but decided not to cut in on whatever plans Seven had for training their students. The only comment he had was that they needed real combat as soon as possible.

The experience of having his mind in two places in the same time was hardly fresh with his usage of Will. Watering and tending his garden with his main body and also occasionally talking to people using Seven's body, was not something he expected himself to do.

He'd been Priming his body as usual, but it was mana-less, which meant his Priming exercises weren't ideal.

His mana had to be pumped into Dusk to strengthen his Domain. Since Dusk had embodied his staff body, and most of his Domain and mana had been reset, he needed to charge up his house defences.

Sophia rushed over to the nearest Apparition she could find. Seven's location was pretty much stationary and had been her contact point. Days ago, she called and told him that Marquis Revelle had placed a bounty on him with the Jaded Parasites.

Seven had been a little speechless when a family of assassins hired other people to do the job.

The Numbers hardly bothered with the bounty, so much so that they didn't even inform Ebony, and he didn't check with the mental notice board that the Numbers use in his mindspace either.

Sophia took things seriously and strongly warned the Numbers that Jaded Parasites had been around for thousands of years, almost as old as the Empire itself. According to her knowledge, the mercenary-style gang known as Jaded Parasites had 3 leaders or perhaps, 3 of the older members that kept the organisation together.

He doubted the authenticity, but one of them was famous for almost succeeding in assassinating Navin in his own home.

Then again, that was when Navin was a Grandmaster many decades ago.

His business manager and exceptionally talented information broker warned him that someone who has been making himself known over the past decade, known as the Shadow Houn,d had taken the job. His mission success rate so far was 100%. "There are rumours that he has slain one of the leaders to be able to stay ungraded and take any request, no matter the strength required."

Sophia had been able to find out surprisingly little about the Shadow Hound's abilities. The most obvious was that the person could move through shadows, and that was about it.

However, none of the Numbers had faced any hostile attacks as of yet.

They didn't worry about it.

Since Sophia nosily reported the same to Xin, and she had no reaction, he found it unnecessary to bother.

Two days later, his wife arrived home and dived for a tight embrace with intense sniffing.

"It's kinda cold here." She commented about their home's new location near Apa's territory

"Well, Apa was destroying my Buffers to get my attention because he was asking for my protection while he evolves. I didn't expect him to shove me aside now that he has Hector."

"Where's he?"

"They said it was a secret after having a punching contest to see who could punch a deeper hole in the ocean, then they disappeared from my range, but I believe Apa's already started his evolution process."

"Who won?"

"Apa made a wider whirlpool, Hector punched deeper thanks to his elemental magic. Apa is tougher, but Hector would probably win a battle since Apa rarely dodges a head-on challenge."

The Apex Ape had too much pride in his muscles to reject a contest of muscle, but Hector uses more than just muscle. In a contest of bodily strength, Apa far exceeded Hector unless Ebony miscalculated the elemental enhancements that Hector was capable of.

However, he was quite intrigued to learn how strong Apa would get. Unlike most monsters, Apa had been holding back his evolution for generations. Long enough for Gen to call them the strongest race of Grandmasters in the Glades, besides himself.

That did make him wonder how old Apa was. Mana Discern estimated Apa to be around 1200 to 1500 years old. Logically, it was odd how old this Grandmaster Ape was. Exceeding human life span by a long shot and his Vitality still felt young and virile.

Life span should've been a focus of his study for a while now. More life force or vitality doesn't always equal a longer life span.

He understood ageing from various aspects, physiological, psychological and even mana's ageing. Even with superhuman bodies, physiques, stats and all the other magical aspects. Ageing wasn't an overly complicated topic. Some spells slowed down ageing.

Of course, the aspects of ageing that he had no clue about would be how souls and/or spirits would play a part.

However, the general understanding was that humans and sub-humans' ageing rate was that the body ages the fastest or has the shortest life span. Then the mind followed by the soul.

Elcrians were said to have longer life spans than the baseline average human. This was already proven to be due to the ambient mana levels of an Ancient Worldcore.

Hence, mages having a longer average life span was attributed to mana extending the physical body's life span by slowing ageing. Old generation warriors and knights of the Empire weren't exactly experts at body enhancement magic, nor did they work with mana all their lives till a certain evolutionary rank.

His wife should not have any problem with this, if only her Core Skill wasn't speeding up her body's ageing. It did strike a balance, or she would've aged more noticeably after how much she overuses her Core Skill.

The Xeng genetics and baseline traits helped immensely.

'How are none of the Xengs of all generations dying of old age already…and most of them still feel young.' Ebony asked himself a serious question.

Kong Jing also wasn't aware. Despite her complaining about how the Xengs generally having a shorter life span on average, the reality was that every single generation of the Xengs from the Second was still alive. And the Second generation had been around for….he wasn't sure how long due to the time dilutions they play with from hopping between dimensions or dungeons.

Ebony bet they return to Earth, or some of them do. There was no other reason why the culture of their fashion would be updated and all over the place.

It may be true that they make use of time dilations to live to the current generation, but he knew for sure. Every one of them must have some method to extend their lifespan.

It wasn't the most complicated puzzle when mana alone was a simple solution beyond merely evolving to extend one's lifespan.

That wasn't a priority now.