Ebony's Fable

There was no 'locking in' of options because he had so much freedom here, after adding liquid potential to one that his instincts told him. He could reallocate his Potential as long as he was still in this space.

While filling in the required potential for his Profession's fortifications, he slowly faced the crystal monolith when his entire soul roared in pain.

Ebony hypothesised that everything in this space happens at the speed of his instincts. Even if he spent hours here, all but a moment would have passed for his body, and only when he was done would he fall into the evolutionary process.

The crystal monolith cracked from its sky-high tip down to its base practically instantly within this perception.

It came extremely suddenly.

"I'm not able to take it," Ebony muttered when his very soul was placed under extreme stress. His bodily and mental pain resistance might as well not have existed at the moment, yet he stood there and judged his crystal monolith as if he wasn't getting torn apart and dying.

At this moment, his Class monolith glowed. The title of his Class was changing. The symbol's heading seemed to be rolling like a jackpot but not settling on anything.

"What can I do about this? I don't have any technique to properly use this to change my Physique." Unlike his previous usage of Frostblaze Amur Maple sap to rebuild his body. Once where he had Gen and Ful's help, the second where he actively mutated his body and chassis.

This time, there were so many ingredients in his bathing potion. Crystal Fire, Enigma Rock and Phantal Thread from Teheil were all Ancient-quality materials.

Besides that, it also contained Pyrothernite Source Stone that Ebony repossessed during his escape from Cinderash. That was appraised to be of Legendary-quality.

It also contained various other alchemic buffers and catalysts to make those materials into one mixture without exploding.

But the main problem had to be the Willshard Ember Crystal that he stuffed in his mouth

He had no technique, no ideas to change his Physique.

"They said no technique was usually required. The evolution process will automatically convert energy to potential thanks to the potion, and I could use this to directly mutate or refine my Physique. Instinct, that's the answer. So, the reason it's not quite working is thanks to Willshard Ember Crystal, my evolutionary stage cannot absorb it fast enough before it starts hurting me. And there's no stop or pause button like active and manual Physique refinement since the evolution process has already started and my body's taking in whatever it can for its evolution." Ebony wandered around the cracked crystal monolith, which was almost about to split in half.

Looking down at his feet and at his hands, his 'body' here was also cracking and turning translucent.

Without hurry, he finally noticed something new besides the Priming moat. Placed between his Core Skills and his Class monoliths.

"This is Mireloom Chassis Engine's vessel. It's connected to the crystal monolith…Mireloom. Hmm, it's able to take in potential faster than most things here except my Priming." As he said that, the condensating potential across the crystal monolith already redirected itself into a specific portion of his baseline traits and started to feed into his Mireloom, which was a sub-section of his mana chassis.

"I see." Ebony started manually searching for baseline traits that seemed to absorb potential like a sink compared to others.

"A lot of these are connected to my Core Skills and Unique Skill. Guess I'm not getting my 4th Core skill slot until after I evolve, so I can't split it there."

Ebony didn't have time, not even the speed of instinct let him calculate what was good and what was harmful for him at the moment, and every Core Skill, and his Unique Skill was connected to so many things.

They were connected to various parts of his baseline trait, connected to various Fortifications, every one of his Classes, many skills, even generic skills.

The simplest and fastest solution he came up with to slow himself from dying right now was to direct the potential to the vessels for his Unique and Core Skills, allowing his instinct to raise all of their potential overall instead of targeting specific functions.

"In any case, I can reallocate them when I survive." To Ebony, it was not a matter of 'if' but when.

Unfortunately, what seemed like a long time passing was but a mere moment.

"I'm still dying." Thoughts here echoed out loud, and he couldn't tell how his tone was as flat as usual.

He already overloaded the entire space, not just his Unique and Core Skills, yet it wasn't saving him fast enough.

There was some sort of saturation point for everything here, likely limits as a Grandmaster or perhaps King.

The crystal monolith had the highest saturation point, followed by his Priming, then his Fortifications, then his Core Skill and finally his Unique Skill. His Class, Sub-Class, Profession and their skills saturate surprisingly fast as they were already near saturation point.

There was not much his generic skills could handle.

"Compatibility matters. This is clearly for Will. This place reacts to my thoughts and imagination. I'm not spending fast enough. That means…" Instincts slowed to his thoughts, "I can imagine ways to evolve that are less what I've been doing, that would make it more expensive."

The Ning Saintess showed him a myriad of creatures and their fighting style, his imagination and memory were vivid.

But that didn't mean he wanted to grow an extra arm or biologically create a second, third or fourth brain.

"Then my choice is obvious. This Potential should be used to raise my potential itself, that should lead to every evolutionary option being 'cheaper' in due time."

The lack of a reaction in the space answered him.

"It's not as simple as imagination, huh…oh?" Ebony got too hasty as the entire evolutionary space started trembling.

"It is possible but…I can't do it. Not during this evolution. Interesting," He was always fascinated by how instincts could answer questions that he never asked or knew the actual answer to. Yet, the answer seemed 100% certain it was right.

"Priming and Mireloom are the only responsive ones besides the crystal monolith itself. Everything else started nearly fully saturated already. This doesn't seem like the same liquid potential I have in this vat. Perhaps an unrefined version since it's just pure energy or it can't be turned into potential immediately." It took him a while to realize the energy that cracked him and his crystal monolith wasn't liquid potential, although very similar.

So he didn't just raise his potential everywhere, sadly.

Regardless, after exhausting his imaginative options, he'd come to realise there was truly not much he could do.

"Can my body still use mana outside…no. Will, it works." Ebony calmly tested and found that he could send Will out but not receive.

Dusk was tasked to send their mana into their house, into the bathroom and seal him in Ice-Lightning Respite.

All he could come up with, was to endure while continuing to find a solution.

❅❅❅

It had barely been a second since Ebony entered the bathroom and started his evolution and Xin was alarmed when Dusk practically barged in and sent mana into the bathroom and quickly shut the door on her again.

Her worries shot right up and was unwilling to settle down.

A second passed.

Then a minute.

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But her worries and intuition never let her relax.

Thoya had already dragged her away to remove external influences of aura and essence that were deemed impure for someone else's evolution.

She started shaking her feet while they forced her into a board game with the Thoya family and Hector. She couldn't focus on the game.

Two hours later, her senses were alerted but not before Dusk.

Someone just appeared at their doorsteps, out of a blast of mana.

However, it was a familiar aura.

Xin calmed down slightly when she felt her Sister Jing's presence right outside. It didn't last, as her alarm only shot through the roof when she smelled blood.

She practically burst a lightning flash to catch the two figures that were outside their house walls.

Apa hurried and got his fellow apes not to attack. The Apex Apes were extremely territorial, but Apa was well respected as the Alpha.

Red had no panic attacks but Black did.

They never saw their Sister Jing bleed or in such a horrible physical state. As for the man she supported by the shoulder, he was practically at death's door. Her student and Ebony's academic acquaintance, Mark.

"What happened? Who did this? Why didn't you look for a healer first?!"

"One thing at a time." Kong Jing replied under her haggard breath. "I remember Ebony could seal and stop injuries. I'm not familiar with the healers here."

"He's evolving…" or so she said but Dusk already acted and froze Mark solid. She noticed there was a long lag before Dusk did anything.

As expected, Dusk was greatly weakened. With most of its Will undergoing evolution with Ebony.

Remnant, or Unfading Will, as Ebony calls it is the Core of a Domain that would supposedly remain even if the one undergoing evolution failed and died. Hence, she couldn't use Dusk as an indicator for Ebony's well-being.

Dusk weirdly couldn't communicate with her either. It should have that capability, but it felt oddly non-existent.

Xin also couldn't feel her husband's usual 'sight' on her. With all his Will completely silent, he wasn't watching her for once.

Kong Jing was neither a combatant nor someone who trained hard. She was not accustomed to pain, and Xin felt it. Her tough act was easily seen through by Xin of today.

She was so weak that even her passive space defensive spell which was an imitation and better version of her husband's gravity repulsion skin was barely on.

'I have to bring them to Yvette but…' It wasn't that she didn't trust Hector, Apa or even Dusk's ability. She merely trusted herself more, and she really didn't want to go away from Ebony now.

Yet her heart was flooded with pain from her cousin. She didn't look like she had the mana to zip herself over to Yvette or any healer.

Xin did not expect Kong Jing to faint moments after making sure Mark was sealed, and he wasn't bleeding blood or life force out any longer.

"Step aside! Marky boy!" Hector pushed Xin aside and called out to his friend.

He pulled a flat disk out of his space ring and pushed mana to activate it.

'A barrier and…healing?' She completely forgot that Hector was a child of the Lord family.

Specialist in barrier and healing magic.

'It—won't work.' Xin knew the moment the magic device activated.

The Xengs had bodies, or rather, effective constitutions that were naturally high and extremely difficult to heal.

Unless the healer knew a lot about the individual's physique and had spells that matched the body, it was hard for general arcane healing magic to work.

On one hand, Kong Jing was just King-ranked, and she wasn't even highly focused on refining or mutating her Physique.

On the other hand, unlike Xin, Kong Jing was pure-blooded. The crafter didn't need refinement when her Physique was already as good as it came. Even worse, she had a space element body type.

Those were known to be exceptionally hard to damage and equally hard to heal.

"Seal her too, Dusk!" She asked but the tree's leaves shook without avail.

'Her magic body is too tough for foreign spells to touch!' She expected it but was still saddened. Even without mana or active defence, Kong Jing's magic body was beyond Xin's.

The current Dusk couldn't even touch her with mana.

'By the looks of it, Sister Jing picked her own fights and troubles. No Xeng elder would help her if that's the case.' She knew them well enough.

She couldn't even ask Ebony questions since he was usually the one thinking for them.

For the first time in her life, she wanted the ability to divine. To ask questions and receive answers, not just using a stick as a dowsing rod.

She scrambled around her Myriad Bracelet for any suitable potions since Ebony stuffed her with a bunch.

If there was something Kong Jing tried but Ebony could do better, it would be that her husband was probably richer, and the potions he got were the best money could buy around Hex.

She drained the potion down her cousin's throat and roughly kept her mouth shut so that every drop was swallowed.

She didn't read every potion label and their long lines of effects and just chose based on Intuition.

It worked, as always.

She didn't heal at a visible rate, but at least her heart rate returned to normal and her breathing stabilised.

'Good…' Now she just needed to trust that Kong Jing's body could heal itself.

Unbelievably, a healing potion worked for once. It was an unfamiliar feeling for Xin.

Sometimes she forgets how normal people did not have regenerative abilities. Merely high vitality did not give one the ability to regenerate flesh and bone unless they were genetically built that way like the Trolls, or had spells and Skills that help slowly refine one's Physique for greater regenerative functions.

In any case, her anxiety died down greatly.

It didn't even take an hour before Kong Jing woke up and laughed out loud, once again trying to calm her down.

"I'll get Yvette to look us over, see you later." Kong Jing had to bend her tough act under minutes of Xin's wordless glare.

'I'm glad she's fine, but is it a mere coincidence that she appeared injured all of a sudden as honey started evolving?'

"Ah, I almost forgot. Grandauntie Ning got me to make this for you." Kong Jing's voice entered along with a hand of hers that dropped a metallic object into her hands.

Kong Jing's hand disappeared before Xin could swat it in annoyance.

'A metal coin? Coins were not a common object on Elcra but she knew what coins were.

On one side of the coin was 'Yes' in Xenese and the other was 'No'.

Along the circumference, engraved 'Too Complicated, Try Again.'

"Is that old currency?" Hector peeked over with Kiva riding on a conjured baby bear that Ebony made for her.

"No…a tool for divination. Helps beginner Divination mages connect to the Astral Realms more smoothly and directly." Xin was getting annoyed.

How much of this was already foreseen by her Grandmother?

Worse of all, even though she wasn't in the Blood Realm or any uncontactable areas. She wasn't picking up any calls or replying to any messages left through Eidolon.

As for counterdivining her Grandmother, she wasn't so stupid. It wasn't even worth trying when she didn't even have a single relevant Skill besides Intuition itself.

She placed the coin above her thumb, ready to flip the coin.

This time, she instinctively knew the coin required mana and some sort of mental energy. She didn't know what it was, but it was draining from her and made her a little mentally tired.

'Maybe some form of Astral energy I have but don't know how to control? It could be Spirit.'

However, before she flicked it up. She faltered and watched her finger shake.

'Fear?' She dismissed the thought, catching the coin back into her palms.

She was afraid to ask the question.

She would rather worry than divine whether Ebony would survive a mere evolutionary process.

"Any questions you want to ask? Let's test this out." She turned her attention outwards.

"Are we having zingy uran juice during snack time this afternoon?" Kiva raised her hands enthusiastically.

She couldn't help but break into a smile.

What was she worried about?

There was no chance her husband would die during an evolution.

"Ah, I wonder?" She teamed with Roya and teased the girl.

As for Sister Jing, there was even less to worry about and more to question once she was back after receiving proper treatment.

"Yeah, so I might have accidentally appeared inside a Wizard's territory. I merely touched a book they left out in the open. Really! They didn't have to hunt me down…" Kong Jing explained herself.

"..." Xin clicked her tongue and pulled her coin out, "Sister Jing was marked and is being tracked down."

The coin was flipped in the air in slow motion, to Xin.

She sighed; her intuition told her the answer before the coin landed.

Yes.

The coin answered for the rest of the people to see.

"We are being watched right now." She divined once more.

Yes.

"Hmm?" Xin felt something off, and lightly tapped her face twice at how stupid her question was. She didn't ask 'who'.

And she already knew the head of the Ning family was watching them at the moment.

She got specific, "The people who marked Sister Jing are watching us now."

The coin landed standing up.

'They got anti-divination.' Xin didn't trust that she didn't have enough information.

Her guts told her that she should've had a clear answer. Her Perception should know danger.

"Sister Jing…" She tried not to complain about the trouble her cousin brought them at the worst possible time.