Ebony's Fable

Ebony wanted them to have a mindset for constant growth. Many a times, Imperial freelancers look for skill books. Train them to the skill book's limits and then look for more advanced skills.

A lot of them don't even try improving these skills.

Of course, Skill creators tend to face a problem of inefficient, suboptimal skills. He would know.

But it was the mindset for growth he wanted them to have. If he wanted to, he could probably slap any Emperor with enough money to sell their soul….not literally. But obtaining Tier 6 skill information? That seemed doable to him. Emperors were unlikely to sell their personal skills, no matter the price. But what about Saints?

There were a couple of them in the residential area of the Sector's Station. And there were so many Sector Stations. Would they withhold Tier 6 Skill in front of easy money? Ebony could overpay for the value of a few unoccupied Worldcores now.

But he still modified and created his own. Even though most of them were weaker and could be so much more by now. Once they had the experience of refining their skills, and hopefully a few skill evolutions, they could read all sorts of skill books and incorporate them to fit their personal style.

The edge that his students were lacking had to be sharpened at deaths door.

There were a couple of 'naturals'.

Masline had bursts of power when put into a tough spot. The shock of Tharnuminium Tower loosing an arm had flipped the switch. He was type that was empowered by emotional setbacks.

Well…pretty much every one of his students was that way. Was that normal?

'How come I don't have that convenient large burst of strength….' Ebony didn't linger on that complaint.

Every single one of his students appreciated the endurance and meditation training now.

Their bodies reacted before their minds thought.

Using the environment to their advantage.

Tracking their opponent's focus to slip free from sight any chance they get.

They were not desperate enough, even though no one has given up yet. This was not enough to create a rival for his future.

Seven was looking for a new variety of creatures and human opponents for his students. There was no vacation time planned for them soon.

Though if they asked for time off for personal issues, he wouldn't stop them. He knew about each of their background and situation,s but had never gotten involved or built a deeper relationship with any of them. He let Seven handle that; he'll receive the memories afterwards.

Seven had been looking into solving or listening in on their personal issues, for those who wanted to share. Thinking that if he could solve psychological restraints, he could get them to be more into training. It was not a bad idea, but it was out of Ebony's speciality, hence he left it to the Number that was training socially.

After mindset training for them to desire strength, he would have them develop combat instinct by fighting all sorts of people and monsters. They had too little combat experience and little to no natural instinct. From then on, they would no longer need physical or mental exercises. Sparing, duelling and monster hunting would be all they need for a long period. They can work on skill refinement concurrently or wait until they have developed a passable combat instinct.

Ebony checked his stores of mana; he was a little more than ready to leave and trouble the Nebulians, but he remained patient and watched over his students for this particular training. He didn't expect them to need camping knowledge, and they couldn't even sleep a peaceful night before the Tetramyth found them.

Raika had no one to watch her back, but she had a lightning dome that signalled her whenever anything crossed. It was interesting, her staff can maintain the spell, and she could sleep while the lightning detection spell runs. Other than her mana stores, she was in no danger whatsoever despite being alone. She wasn't 150 years 'young' Master for nothing.

Perhaps for a better fight or more effective training, the commander of the Journeyman Tetramyth was the most concerning. It did not have the rest of their kin's eagerness to consume. They were playing around with smaller groups of Tetramyth to hunt the 3 unclassed down.

'Journeymen Tetramyth can't command that many troops.' That was convenient in terms of difficulty level.

Those naïve students of his didn't pack for an extended trip and even had to source food in this designed battlefield. They had to fight against hungry ants that searched for food in the same way. Wilderness training might have to be on the table. Ebony had never done it.

He was just tossed into a jungle, and he figured things out.

Even with an Elf…a Frost Elf, they managed to eat a poison fruit. Tiha had to give an emergency treatment of frostbite to stop the poison. It was reckless and dangerous. The Frost Elf did not have sufficient control and could kill them. Instead, she succeeded and slowed down the poison in their bloodstream.

He hadn't taken her for such a reckless person. She was older than he was by a few years, but still a child under a century old by their standards.

Apol, the Apprentice Swordsman, had the most silent resolve. Quiet, ungiving. He was not one for teamwork. There were occasions where he outright ignored calls for help just to kill another Tetramyth. However, Shaen Veil, Welser's grandnephew, was a resourceful one or someone who knows how to manipulate human actions. As the only martial arts student of Seven, he was also the only one skilled enough for Apol to respect.

Knowing that his words get through to Apol, Shaen uses suggestions to guide Apol to any battlefront that would best help the rest of the group and still allow Apol to fight alone. Seven wasn't tricked by Shaen's friendly tone or 'suggestions'. Even if he used it peacefully and made sure to have Orvian watch out and support Apol, should a retreat for the solo fighter be necessary.

Orvian was the resident gravity, earth mage and warrior hybrid. Started as his student at level 24, now 100. He was seen as the weakest member of his class amongst his classmates in a one-on-one. Excluding the 3 unclassed younglings.

Gravity magic that had weak effects, weighing down the mages, did not effectively stop them from casting magic, and the warriors had plenty of gravitational resistance training from Seven. Earth magic that is easy to subvert and not a warrior of great skill or instinct. Yet, he was one of the most reliable as a support, and he can oversee the battlefield the best in the current situation.

Seven had a lot of internal notes for Orvian due to the boy's self-made style of fighting. It was a work in progress for a unique fighting style of hyper dense earth armour, lightened swings and weighted blows. Orvian had an immense amount to gain from watching how Seven used gravity in close combat while also trying to make new spells that could effectively use gravity and earth. These two elements worked slightly better together than gravity and ice.

The pair of noble fire mages, Rauthar Blaze and Luca Ember, both conjure yellow flames now. Their incorporation of vibrating their mana, converting to fire mana then vibrating the fire mana even further with their mental prowess has shown results in increasing natural heat, explosive power and the volatility of their spells. Now doing the same to all their spells, they were clearly going for a Fortification with it. These two were best buddies, and they were the leading combination magic researchers amongst Seven's Class.

Tikki Entras was a beastman of a Ducal Lineage. She had the raw instinct. Raw power. Raw bloodline and significantly advanced Physique.

What did the beastmen need to be strong? Combat, a ton of combat.

Under Seven's class, the rate of her improvement was a tiger given wings. In a one-on-one combat, she had no competition in the class other than the level 300 Grand Lightning mage. And even then, Raika probably cannot put her down unless she was willing to go overboard against the girl with great endurance and durability. Amongst the warriors in class, she did not respect any but Shaen and had clear negative feelings towards Apol. Rather standoffish, but the beastmen only respected strength.

Umar and Yusqly, his two former classmates, adapted the fastest. So far, Seven has not noted any burst of improvements. They built on what they already had and knew more so compared to creating new spells or change their initial combat techniques. Slow and steady for the two lightning mages. Seven didn't play favourites.

Ebony, on the other hand, was more curious about Umar. He was hoping the young boy would refine, mutate or awaken his physique. The boy had amazing perception that surpassed all his students. Yusqly became a more reticent girl after Seven's training. Seven was keeping an eye on their attitude and personality changes.

They did not wish to create an emotionless training machine like their younger self.

The human ice mage, Seren Dolty, piques Seven's curiosity the most. She had seemingly no family problems, no past trauma, no strong reason for an immense motivation to be strong. She truly, baselessly wanted to be stronger just because. The pursuit of strength and power itself without a motivating factor, was rare, and they obviously liked to see it. This was what made Xengs as strong as they are, in his opinion. They had an almost genetically coded desire to perfect themselves and reach the greatest heights they could.

Solun Caelum, the pure gravity mage, was level 1 when he took Ebony's test. He believed that it was fate that the moment he decided on the path less travelled and picked becoming a gravity mage, a gravity mage like Ebony became a trainer at the academy. Till this day, Seven refused to teach and even show him any specific gravity manipulation and spells. Seven was most afraid of affecting Solun because the young man was completely new to everything. If Seven showed him a letter, he would learn a letter. They did not need a copy of themselves as a gravity mage.

Seven basically forced Solun to fight all their classmates the most, to let him figure out for himself what the gravity element was to him. What did he want from gravity? What did he need gravity to do to help him?

Garren Thorn, Masline's friend and confidant, only joined to follow Masline as some sort of servant, friend. He'd shown the greatest change in motivation after seeing Seven. He desired the purest combat ability Seven displayed more so than getting stronger just to protect or keep up with Masline.

The three Unclassed Brenna, Derry and Jarn was still on a discovery journey. Seven did not rush them. They've been going on a talent hunt, trying out all sorts of weapons, playing with every element they had even a tinge of affinity with, but leaning towards Arcane, pure mana manipulation due to Seven's influence.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

While he socialised with the Arcanite Cortex Formicidae Emperor, Demons besieged his Turtle Fort, but the Estacy Lord never appeared.

The nearly unkillable Apparitions were causing unrest amongst the intruders. It didn't matter if they were stronger. His Apparitions keep coming back. They even had plans to run his Apparitions dry.

Ebony hadn't even felt a strain on the mana they were consuming to constantly reconjure a new body or cast their spells. Dusk reported that each time he recharged, the Turtle Fort had been getting bigger, not smaller. They were not making a net negative dent on his mana at all. However, his Apparitions were getting good training in learning how to keep their Will intact.

He had to study their individual memory and inject Will of the same mindset to his Numbers. He could easily maintain more Numbers now, but he didn't want to do that. He'd rather strengthen each one to be able to mimic a greater portion of his strength. He also didn't want them to die so fast if they were ever to be disconnected from him.

He didn't push it too far. Although ice can now take more Will before saturation due to purity increase and no Fortification, they still had a limit. Filling them with more Will would make them dependent on the crystals for Will and the chance that they would lose memories was higher if they were destroyed or had physical damage to the ice their bodies were made of. His Apparition skill was being modified to be made of ice with the properties to carry Will more efficiently, and there were already tiny results.

Upgrading all the Numbers excluding One, and the rest on Cinderash to have a maximum capacity of 180 Will didn't take long.

The rest went into Dusk. He was doing his best to cover up his failure of not having a Domain with sufficient Unfading Will. It would be great if Dusk could have Unfading Will in greater volumes than his maximum Will. That would functionally make it a dependable Domain with greater Will than Ebony. As the Core of a Domain, Unfading Will was able to regenerate Will too albeit slower than Ebony. When Unfading Will capacity exceeds his own sufficiently, it could have greater Will regeneration than he does.

He had the free time to do the tests and math. For every 100 points of Will he strengthens Dusk with, 20 completely disappear into the staff itself. This never happened in the past, and he had no idea on the purpose or result of the consumed Will. It probably changed the staff in ways he couldn't tell. Within that remaining 80, around 0.12 points is retained as Unfading Will after a period of 13 to 18 weeks. Around 0.0015% of Will is retained as Unfading Will.

If he took the Fortification for Unfading Will, this would likely be 0.003% and if he managed to push it to 400% Fortification, it might have been 0.0075% or 0.6 points of Unfading Will for every 100 points of Will. That was not meant to be this time around.

13 to 18 weeks was estimated. His Will doesn't dissipate as fast as it used to. Still, he would have to wait to find out if it was really true that he retained 0.12 points Unfading per 100 Fading.

Using that speed and time frame and his current charging of 24000 Will per day after taking into account expenditure for his Apparitions and the existing upkeep for Will Relay Buffer network plus unstable regeneration. He could get Dusk to have 6075 points of Unfading Will equivalent to his Will capacity in approximately 211 days.

In all honesty, that felt very short to make a semi-permanently equal to him. Of course, this excludes fresh Will that could be used up. That storage will be far higher, at the rate of 24000 per day and it doesn't fade for months if not longer. If Dusk constantly uses these, there would be nothing left over and his calculation of 0.12 points per 100 would be inaccurate. Instead of 211 days, it was more realistic to think it would take a year or more since Dusk would be experimenting or fighting with him.

In 1 to 2 months, he would hopefully have enough to sustain his Numbers and Will Relay Buffer. Then he wouldn't have to worry about disconnection should he use Will for Coreflames in battle. The limit for a Domain core was temporarily unknown, but if he could get Dusk to exceed his Will recovery, he would be able to use coreflame with all his spells within his Domain and no longer be limited by Will.

Sophia tiptoed in from one of the entrances. He gave her a small quest of trying to find her way down, without telling her any of the secret routes the Empire had.

Needless to say, it was hardly a secret when literal millions fought here.

Her stealth skills were not bad. Her mana and life force were completely hidden. It was definitely more than a technique and had a proper Skill. The clock she had on was a mental suggestion type to make people who saw her ignore her. It was useless on him, and he couldn't even tell how good or strong the mental suggestion was. Good thing, she learned from him and had ways to hide her gravitational signature and it did not affect the surrounding gravitational waves. Her boots and footwork didn't produce any vibration. Too bad she forgot that her entire body was producing vibrations when it moved against the ambient mana and atmosphere, and Ebony could pick that up.

Not to mention….her breathing wasn't concealed. What a blunder on her end or perhaps her cloak hides that too, and it didn't work on him.

Anyway, she wasn't even shocked about the army training exercise.

Cutting through the hoard with the Elves who definitely noticed her but didn't interact when they felt his mana hidden on her cloak. So far, the Elves had been leaving him alone, and he did the same to them. But one or two of them kept their attention on him.

He could feel it even though there was no foreign mana near him. The area around him was suffused with an extremely dilute layer of his Will. Dilute enough, small ranged enough that the Emperor Tetramyth didn't say anything….if she could even sense it.

At the very least, it will interfere with their mana perception and not know his exact location unless their perception skill is a lot higher than he gave them credit for.

Sophia's movement skills were not very good. On this massive underground battlefield, she wouldn't arrive where he was in a day or two. And that was if she could keep that running up for 2 days straight. He highly doubted her endurance. Other than sleep, she also needed to eat.

'Should I give her a yearly salary after all?' Ebony felt bad. Sophia was his business partner but she was doing all the work. Although their company's earnings would go to her in future, they basically earned nothing yet.

The massive order of agriculture robots would take a long time to be delivered to his Worldcore which he hadn't even named yet. The farms their company owns in Elva were doing okay. Despite the money she placed in, the produce doesn't exactly bring much attention. Their branding is hardly growing. The only problem was other farmers, merchant groups and vendors who did not like a rich company buying farmland and joining the industry.

Sophia was also slowly hiring children to learn from the hired hands. She merely posted jobs for farming that were very well paid and had strict selection criteria of Unclassed children below the age of 15.

Ebony knew what she was doing. She was trying to breed loyalty from a young age. But the children made their own choice….along with their parents.

He hoped she knew what she was doing. This might as well be subtle brainwashing.

He had no doubt that once these children grew up and got comfortable with an unreasonably high pay for farming, she would offer them a chance to be a supervisor on their Worldcore to handle the agriculture robots for her. He could and would send a Number for the job, but…it was better if he didn't have to do every single thing.

So far, she had been peaceful with the 3 Great Farms since their trade volume was still pathetic compared to the 3 Cities that could exceed Tidal in landmass if they combined.

Ebony learnt of surprising news about the 3 Great Farms. They did not need any noble family's protection. Yet Lure had not managed to stop them or even touch anyone.

This surprising news to him was that the 3 Great Farms was actually a Domain. Similar to the Elves, it was a Domain that was handed down over the generations.

The Farmer Kings of each Great Farm did not own the Domain either.

The Domain was naturally formed.

The very lands, soil, flora and herbs in each Great farm had actually formed a Domain

The Will of the corps and land had been birthed, separate from the Worldcore. It wasn't handed down over human generations, it was handed down through generations of vegetation and corps.

The amazing thing was that this Domain was filled with immense vitality protection. People's souls here couldn't be removed from their bodies that easily. It was a shocker to even the Royal family, and not even the Elves were aware that the weak Will of flora and herbs had made a Domain with soul protection effects.

The Elven noble in charge of the district in the 3 Great Farms rose in status overnight. They apparently didn't even know about this effect…. because none of them were King-ranked, they didn't even know they were in a natural Domain. For generations, this Elven noble family had birth Kings. But even amongst Elves, not all Kings were users of Will. Furthermore, they were not a combat focused family and were more agriculture-focused.

However, as plant lovers, this basically just proved to the Elves that the elven family was so good at their job that they unknowingly birthed a natural domain. The Will of individual plants was abysmally weak, practically non-existent. The family wasn't blamed because no passing Elf had ever figured it out either.

In fact, Ebony didn't know either. He had his Will Relay Buffer pulse searching probes many times and never found out.

Habitants of the 3 Great Farms were far from immune. But that's where the Farmer Kings came in.

They were farmers for generations. And they had Physiques that were optimised for farmers. Many Grand Knights of the Empire came from recent generations of farmers due to their robustness and high endurance, which was suitable for knights.

Unexpectedly, they haven't lost a fight against any attacking Kings. They were lucky the Elves put an extreme focus there once they figured a natural land and plant domain was there before any Emperors or soul puppets attacked.

Ebony pulled his eyes away from his book and looked past the Emperor Ant. Someone was looking right at him from the Empire's fortress. Across the training exercise battlefields and thousands of kilometres of barren land.

'Oplot's student…Demi was her name if I recall.' Ebony sparred with Lucas, then was challenged seriously. But Oplot's other student, the human woman, never interacted with him beyond acknowledging his presence.

Lucas has a weird physical resistance skill.

Demi had a magical or mana resistance one.

That was about all he knew about these two hermit disciples of Oplot. Oplot saw that in them, having parts of what made him special and why he thought the two of them could take over him in future.

Well…he doubted anyone else had skills that store damage. This was not genetic.

Oddities existed from time to time.

Hector and Oplot shared that trait. They had Physiques and talent with skills presumably no one in their ancestry had. The reasonable explanation was that they awakened some old genetics from extremely far back, so far back no one from their ancestry line remembered.

Lucas and Demi's growth was faster than 99.9% of the people in the Empire. Just not fast enough for Ebony or even Oplot's wishes.

Ebony felt the mana brimming in Demi's eyes. A skill.

He was not using any sight enhancement skill, natural sight. Getting over the fact that his eyes had an intense zoom function was pretty easy. A product of evolution and natural training was not uncomfortable in any way.

She mouthed something. He read her lips and shut his books with a soft clap, catching the Emperor Ant's attention.

Ebony shook the Ant's legs with his hands.

About 3 billion mana was injected with that hand-leg shake.

It didn't notice a thing.

He went invisible again and hid his mana. Weeks of training around terribly weak people and a bunch of extremely mana sensitive Elves had allowed him amazing training to hide his massive mana generation.

He waited for fifteen minutes before Dusk zipped beside him. "Take over here till I come back or they pass. If they die…seal their bodies." Ebony did not give any instructions to save his students should they be at death's door.

That intention was enough to affect his students' experience and growth. Now he realised how tough it was for Gen to not care.

It was too bad for his wife, but he wasn't inviting her to the party this time.

Receiving an invite from the 'Strongest' of the planet to take on one of their bases wasn't all that exciting. But the prospect that the Ecstasy Lord was there was high. Not to mention, possible leads to his house trespasser.

He might have to think of how to pacify his wife for taking on a target she called dibs on. Maybe stab him through his heart and seal him before letting her have a turn?

'Time to get a better understanding of how tough Oplot is.' Blinking or not, all the 'eyes' on him only realised he was no longer standing there moments after he disappeared.