Ebony's Fable

Scarlet was at the door holding a large tray of food, still dressed in her battle wear of mantle, twin longswords and leather boots with a bit of added height of heels uncovered by her mantle. She was quite tall, standing only a little shorter than Ebony, perhaps 175cm in height. Her slender form looked like a breeze can topple her but the strength from her strikes that even damaged his robes said otherwise.

“Here. Enjoy.” Scarlet handed the tray over and left. Ebony was surprised and glad, the natural thing would be to eat together right? Fortunately not. Ebony didn’t even realise his own disappointment at not being able to see what’s under her mask over his happiness of lesser contact with Scarlet.

There was a large plate with two thick pieces of what looked like steak with green vegetables at the side with carrots. A bowl of white creamy soup, a plate with 3 white steamed buns not unlike the Chinese steamed bun his mother made at home. Finally, a pie looking pastry on a smaller plate.

It was pretty weird, his mother proclaimed to be Asian but her last name was Stone. At least, it didn’t go to nothing as Ebony loved her food. Probably why he liked rice over bread.

The soup was potato soup, perhaps it was russell soup, there were normal looking potatoes here too and not just the black ones. The steak was likely bison as Ebony recognised the smell with his enhanced Perception and sense of smell. It was in between medium rare and medium well and the juices were flooding his tastebuds.

The vegetables were lightly roasted and retained most of their fresh flavour. The buns were actually turkey meat buns, the turkey had been minced with vegetables and plenty of pepper giving it a nice spicy kick. Ebony loved spicy and sour foods, this was the first spicy food he had since coming to Elcra but spice from pepper was different from chilly. The pie was a fruit pie, he didn’t know what fruit but the sauce was reddish and the cubes of fruit were sweet but not overbearing.

Ebony finished every bite and morsel of food on the tray in no time at all. It was the most delicious meal of Ebony's short life. He took the dishes down to the kitchen to wash and stood outside of Scarlet’s door. The employees just took the dishes away from him, confirming that they were their dishes and not Scarlet's.

“Thanks for the meal, it was delicious,” Ebony said, not bothering to knock or check if she was in.

Ebony returned to his room and was finally alone again for some full on multi magic tasking. The room had a light white mist around as Frost Mist Perception Sphere ran. He couldn’t keep it running for long at 100 mana per minute if he used it at his max range of 5 metres so he decreased it to a measly 1 metre radius. The mana cost reduced drastically for every metre. The bed had a layer of frost as he sat on it.

He vibrated the ice mana in Frost Mist Perception and found that it was possible to use them to create sound too. Ebony wanted to recreate the sounds of different instruments through Mana Vibrations alone. Starting with his favourite, the piano, he tried to reproduce the sounds key by key for all 88 of them one by one with his memory alone.

Battle Hum rang together to get rhythm going as he tried all sorts of bgm or theme songs. His goal was to use battle hum with Mana Vibrations so he doesn’t actually have to hum and disrupt his breath. Ebony bet that the Elemental Sensitivity Potion would work together with his Mana Perception in some way and this was the best way to push Mana Perception now. He had no idea that elemental sensitivity had nothing to do with his perception of mana.

Whatever remaining mana he had was conjured into ice mana, compressed and imbued into himself to train his cold resistance. Ebony made a lot of progress throughout the night, the higher his Core Skill level rises the less sleep he seems to need. Ebony also put 10 points into Agility, 15 into Intelligence and 5 into Perception.

Before the sun rose he stopped magic training and just meditated before getting all his stuff on and leaving. The overflowing mana getting absorbed by his bracelet.

He left the town and sped off at new speeds, uninhibited by the decrease in Agility from Icebody Enhancement. He was headed towards the forest Scarlet mentioned.

To not bore himself from boring travel he used Frost Mist Perception Sphere and Mana Vibrations to continue recreating piano keys again but made the radius even smaller, lower output than his mana regeneration in case he needed the mana. He needed a little more focus at keeping the Frost Mist Perception Sphere following him at high speeds.

He then cast a Layered Ice Carapace and slowly increased the number of layers such that he doesn’t drop below 3 quarters of his mana. Regenerating mana while casting for the win.

Overloading his casting glove in the manner he did cause it to improve fast. He could easily cast a single-layered shield in almost 2 seconds now, which wasn’t fast but better.

Training Frost Mist Perception Sphere, Mana Vibrations, Mana Perception, Layered Ice Carapace and Deep Persistent Meditation at the same time on the move. Ebony still wasn’t satisfied with it. He drew his greatsword and started dancing with it while he ran and ran, using a Treading Step boosted Two-Handed Power Stab from time to time.

It slowed his forward motion a lot but Ebony didn’t care, he glanced at his stamina levels. Stamina: 499/500. It hasn’t dropped for a long time now, a quick mental calculation told him he regenerated around 421 stamina per minute as long as Deep Persistent Meditation kept running.

Ebony played around with wielding it with both one hand, two and switching amongst his hands. Making it as fluid as he could, he could feel that he was really close to evolving his mastery.

The monsters in the plains who came at Ebony were sliced down without Ebony stopping. Ebony only stopped to bury them if he didn’t need their materials or meat. He had long had the habit of burying their bodies, it was a lot easier in Hoarfrost Glade as he just had to clear some snow up and didn’t bury the monkeys deep. Ebony made handles on his shield again and used it as a makeshift shovel.

Ebony did pass through a party or two here but they either didn’t see him or didn’t care about a crazy wacko almost haphazardly swinging a greatsword around with a light fog and eerie sounds covering him together with a giant floating turtle shelled-like ice shield behind him.

The big bulky bag really got in the way so he hung it on the inside of his now 5 layered shield which he started compressing. The 2 curves on the top of it were perfect for hooking his bag on, like shoulders but he still lightly froze it on so that it wouldn’t drop.

He started to see trees in a few hours and still unsatisfied, Ebony jumped onto a tree branch and pushed Treading Step to see if he could really move as if terrain didn’t matter. A single step took him from tree to tree and back to the ground before going up onto the trees again. Ebony was pretty awesome at parkouring but practice makes perfect, he wanted to be more agile than a monkey in their own homeground. Although there weren’t known monkey monsters in this unnamed forest.

Ebony’s low strength caused him to do little harm to even level 30 monsters if not struck right but if he could damage them then he didn’t bother using Icebody Enhancement so that he could improve on his swordsmanship.

He saw a weird creature he had never seen and closed up to Identify it, having gotten used to Identifying things from a much further distance.

[Rhoat Lvl 52]

The Rhoat stood on 2 thick legs, a head shorter than Ebony but much longer and tailed. Its back was round and wide looking like a turtles’ shell but the expansion and contractions on it with mucus seeping out was a little disgusting, it didn’t smell pleasant either. Its ovalish head only had a single eye, 2 holes on where Ebony assumed were cheeks and a large ass mouth with many sets of shark like teeth. It was completely brownish and greenish, somewhat camouflaging itself.

Scarlet said they were pack monsters but this poor guy was alone in a relatively open spot, since they’re purely physical they shouldn't be hiding underground or other magic. Of course she could be lying too but Ebony doubted it.

Ebony stopped training his magic and got a roughly 5% compressed Icebody Enhancement going, he was slowly but surely getting the hang of it. His Strength and Endurance getting about 42 stat point buff while Constitution received about 45. He should finally rival the average warrior’s Strength stat at his level with enhancement magic.

The Rhoat, aggressive as it looked, was the first to take the leap and chomp at Ebony.

Ebony met it with his usual sidestep dodge and counter only to almost widen his eyes in surprise as the muscle shell thing on its back morphed into a giant arm, punching Ebony.

‘So that’s the rhoats’ vital muscle thing? It’s one of the components in the pill Top ate right? I can see that.’ another reason to hunt Rhoats are that they have something called a vital muscle and was used in some crafts like making a potion that increases muscle tissue regeneration speed. Though the description of it was a small fist sized ball and not a literal superhuman sized fist of muscle.

Ebony’s Layered Ice Carapace that was on stand-by moved to defend him. He didn’t just stand there and got around it, slashing at wherever looked like a weak spot.

The Rhoat didn’t have any particularly hard spots and was just muscle upon muscle, they were thick but Ebony managed to land light cuts and bleeding. The cuts had mucus and muscle cover it and it was as if the Rhoat never got damaged.

The giant arm on its back morphed into all kinds of shapes like a hammer, axe, feet and kept trying to whack Ebony in some fashion but Ebony didn’t even need to try for his shield to be able to cope with it.

An Ice Sword which was shaped after his own flew in from behind Ebony, right where the Rhoat tried to bite his head off. It only takes a second to form one now but a second was too slow for Ebony so, he would at best form it and hide or ‘hold’ onto it until he feels is the best time to use. It hit.

Stabbing pretty deep but the Rhoat stopped it by biting on it, the resilience of Ebony’s magic or perhaps mana was starting to show as it required the level 52 Rhoat a second bite.

His Layered Ice Carapace took dozens and dozens of blunt blows with ease and the curvature of it was wonderful at sliding the not so sharp muscle blows. Ebony was also unconsciously adjusting his shield to take less pressure and force. Especially when the Rhoat was pissed at the shield for blocking its every attempt at smashing Ebony and started to focus on breaking the shield itself. Ebony just has his shield retreat, not to take pointless damage.

Ebony watched as the mucus tried to cover the Rhoat's face and froze instead, having difficulty healing itself. It was surprisingly weak to cold and Ebony wasn’t going to let his greatest advantage go. Imbuing enough ice mana into his greatsword to produce a chilly mist sinking to the ground.

The cuts Ebony landed now greatly slowed in healing or perhaps being covered up by its other muscle mass. The Rhoat got more and more defensive as it started to use less of the back shell muscle. The muscle mass going into its limbs and tail to protect itself better from strikes.

It was actually capable of condensing its muscles to make itself smaller and denser. It got faster and harder for Ebony strikes to dig in. The more disturbing fact was it slowly got more humanoid or more Ebony shaped, with one of its arms sword shaped and the other, shield.

It didn’t manage to completely copy the form, too bad its adaptation was a little too late as a huge portion of its body when condensed was frozen stiff and couldn’t move well. It eventually collapsed onto the ground on its own, still breathing and spasming. It didn’t seem to have any sort of vocal cords as it was mostly silent, its single eye staring at Ebony.

Right before he could put it out of misery a small shadow shot out of its body and into the air, splatting onto a tree.

The brownish green fluid splattered on the green was releasing a foul rancid smell that could cause passing birds to faint.

‘My money is on it calling its buddies.’ the smell didn’t even cause a single nerve or muscle on Ebony’s face to twitch, he could have stopped the Rhoat but what for? This way he didn’t have to go look for monsters trying to kill him.

His shield had a few faint cracks on it but he was already pushing his excess mana to repair and further condensing it as he decapitated the Rhoat. With enhancement on, he still had roughly 6 mana per min to spare elsewhere. Deciding not to use Ice Sword anymore after the first one, the excess mana went into his shield and Mana Injection into his sword.

‘It's not dead?’ Ebony thought as the muscles of the body and head squirmed towards each other, it was pretty grotesque but Ebony was a huge movie guy and it was interesting to see something like this in real life. He also didn’t get the kill notification.

Ebony let the head and body meet and connect before stabbing it and injecting more ice mana into it. Luckily for Ebony it didn’t take more mana than he produced to freeze the mass of muscle.

‘Ting’ ‘You have killed [Rhoat Lvl 52], enemy 10 levels or more above your own. Experience concentration too high to dilute completely, additional experience gained.’

Though it was not easy to calculate how much experience it was required to level, many have attempted to give a rough estimate. The imperial army had a lot of people to train and gather data from so there were some rough estimates for low level combatants.

A level 30 would roughly need over a hundred solo lvl 30 monster kills. Most people staying in parties would take many days to weeks if they hunt 10 monsters their level a day, unlike Ebony, others had limited stamina and mana. Monsters a level or 2 higher might lower the number needed by about 10 or so but there were too many unknown factors to take into account.

Parties of 5 would require over 500 monsters at level 30 to level 31? Ridiculous, and the party members wouldn’t even level at the same rate as experience gained was not equal amongst the number of people but decided by some kind of contribution. So perhaps, the more skilled ones would level faster while the rest suffered a slow levelling rate.

Furthermore, that’s only if they hunted monsters their level, Ebony saw some parties of apprentice ranks hunting those lower level than them. Why? Well, monsters don’t always travel solo, they actually tend to be in small groups. It takes 5 apprentice ranks to safely hunt something of their level without harm. All things considered it's all about risk management, if they are not satisfied with being weak and their slow progress then they should place their aim higher.

The parties with normal non-apprentice Classes are much stronger on average and could safely hunt those higher level than themselves.

Ebony learnt more about the experience pool theory Clovis told him. Everyone on the same level had the same sized experience pool or bucket. Imagine a bucket but with a film or filter over it, a concentrator or diluter so to speak.

Killing a monster at the same level pours a cup of ‘experience’ into the bucket but the film wouldn’t do anything as the experience is the same concentration as what one needs.

A monster of a higher level would provide a more concentrated experience which the filter would dilute to match one’s own necessary concentration. 10 levels higher was the bench mark where your filter is unable to dilute completely and concentrated experience enters your bucket.

The theory is that the concentrated experience is not able to diffuse in the experience pool but forcefully expands in volume to match one’s own experience concentration which was where the additional experience was from.

Lower level monster’s experience will instead get concentrated by the filter before entering your experience pool. Too low a level and the experience will not be concentrated enough to enter your pool or bucket. Though it shouldn’t be no experience they may be stuck in the filter waiting for more experience to concentrate before letting through the filter and into the pool.

Some say that everyone’s experience pool was the same size regardless of level and only the required concentration or density of experience increases with level but whether the amount of experience required to level increases or the concentration required increases doesn’t mean anything to Ebony since it just means it gets harder to level as he levels.

Seeing just some skill levels here and there, Ebony was planning to just aim for at least 10 levels higher than him, 20 would be perfect. It shouldn’t take many Rhoats for another level or 10.

Ebony wanted to continue watching the mass of muscle that even though dead, kept on compressing itself and shattering the ice embedded into it but the noises and shaking ground told him its friends were coming.

[Rhoat Lvl 55]

[Rhoat Lvl 52]

[Rhoat Lvl 54]

‘I should start moving deeper so that they can call stronger allies.’ The Rhoats were just shy of the level range he wanted them to be. It was interesting to see them in all shapes and sizes. One was wolf-like, another tigerish shape and the last was similar to the one he saw before. All had the same shell like back.

Ebony only used his shield, Icebody Enhancement, Ice Injection and his swordplay with a power stab or 2 every now and then when the situation allowed. He got used to their movements fast and with Treading Steps he played around with them and had them in the palm of his hands.

With every strike he landed their movement turned stiffer, their healing or regeneration not able to work as advertised for them, helped further. They were a poor match up against Ebony.

He just didn’t expect the wolf one to eat the remains of his first kill that turned into a fist sized ball which should be the vital muscle. Ebony was busy with the other 2 and although he could have stopped it if he really tried with his shield he was slightly curious to see what else they had up their sleeves.

The wolfish Rhoat retched and their grotesque muscle contractions and expansions were even more apparent. Its transformation took a few minutes in the time that Ebony managed to kill the other 2 and gain a level in his Class. He was just watching as it transformed into the form the first one tried to take before it died.

‘Ooo interesting, some kind of muscle memory dna nonsense?’ Ebony already had new training plans from this ability of theirs alone. They were able to morph into different forms to counter specific opponents or copy them since the first one tried to copy Ebony, giving them all unique forms depending on what they have fought before. When they die all the muscle either contracts to the max or have some wither and rot away but seem to keep some kind or data within that others of its kind can copy.

‘No wonder they were herd monsters. They eat each other to continue evolving.’ Ebony didn’t take too long to dispatch the transformed Rhoat too.

He waited for all of them to become fist sized before encasing them in ice and tossing them into his bag. His bag had many compartments so his clothes were safe and clean away from the disgusting ball but keeping it in ice was just an extra precaution.

Ebony rushed towards the direction the Rhoat backups came from going deeper and deeper. He defrosted all 3 vital muscles and fed the first Rhoat he saw. It actually didn’t rush up to attack Ebony seeing his actions and ate all 3 of them. Ebony fought the other 3 Rhoats right behind in the meantime, stopping them from eating the vital muscles.

The new transformation took even longer, almost 15 minutes. When it was done it didn’t even hesitate to jump at Ebony who stood a distance away.

Was it the fact that Ebony killed the previous 4 got ingrained into the vital muscle or just monster logic of killing anything? Ebony didn’t know and didn’t care, was it a cruel experiment? Nah, he was merely giving them a chance right?

The current Rhoat was humanoid with a huge sword arm and shield arm, Ebony tried to prolong fighting it to see if they can learn how to fight like a human. The Rhoat decided the shield to be a bad idea and made another sword arm out of it. Maybe cause Ebony didn’t hold the shield itself and it could not make a floating meat shield.

Interesting but silly, its flesh wasn’t sharp nor was it as hard as Ebony’s sword. Ebony continued his experiments till he got to the area where they moved in tens and were all at least 20 levels higher than him. The additional experience from 10 and 20 levels higher were significant as he gained another level hitting 38.

He realised that they were trying to copy their enemy's form, he had seen the other monsters of their form like the wolf and tiger but they were not his target so he ignored them for the most part. Though Ebony did see one or two human shaped ones before he fed them his ball vital muscle with at least 20 to 30 generations of change already.

A stray [Talwolf Lvl 42] who tried to bite his head off was processed into its parts minus its bones and organs for his dinner. He was beginning to think just one wolf wasn’t enough for him with how much energy he was expending non-stop. Ebony kept its pelt, bones and fangs.

Their ability to learn was not too shabby, they stopped trying to completely copy Ebony and kept themselves flexible to every form change they had. Maybe they had to eat their kill to fully copy the muscle composition of an enemy. They tend to grow fast, agile and strong legs to avoid or keep up with Ebony’s footwork now.

With the increase in their numbers Ebony had needed another shield which he dipped into his mana pool for.

Level 60s could cause larger cracks on a 5 layered one but his first bag carrying one was already fully compressed by now and they had no such luck at destroying it. Ebony had added 10 stat points to Intelligence and the other 10 to Wisdom just to even things out a little more with the monsters.

The nameless forest wasn’t considered large by Elcra’s standard but it was by no means small. Even so, it wasn’t like monsters were everywhere. When he was tracking their mucus down he would practice his magic and perception and compress his Layered Ice Carapace.

There were some personal tricks Rowent taught him at training and expanding his range that he was going to try when he could afford to, he wasn’t going to do it when he needed the mana in the case of an attack.

As Mana Perception levels he could feel pure mana in the surroundings more and more clearly, yet it doesn’t interfere with his other physical senses. To a small extent, he could exert some tiny control over it but it wasn’t worth the effort at the moment. Other than his own there were no ice elemental mana in the area but there was one more type of mana that was unknown to him. He couldn’t quite bring his attention onto the mana yet for some reasons, was elemental affinity really a thing?

Ebony got more and more used to fighting Rhoats and doesn’t even bother with those under 20 levels higher than him. A single good stab in them and enough ice mana was enough to badly incapacitate their mucus and muscle movement and contractions.

Affecting more than just the area he wounded them, they couldn’t use the muscle mass there to heal or transform, it stops them from changing into some forms. The muscles got stiff and they were just a wiggling mass of target.

They had no bones and were soft-bodied, even their higher level didn’t change the fact or widen the gap enough.

The sun went down then up, down and up again and again. 3 days passed.

Ebony’s only break was his meal time. He knew how to start a fire but had no pot to cook so roasted wolf and birds with recognised herbs, and water bread instead of souper bread was eaten.

Sleep? Even before stats were introduced to him, staying awake a night or two wasn’t anything special. But fighting almost non-stop for 3 days and nights was not just staying awake and was on another scale all together.

Pushing himself over his limits was so nostalgic, his daily life on Earth after his ‘trial’ was just normal, boring to the limit training. Then came stats and skills, and it got harder and harder to even feel like he reached his limits. Physical exhaustion was one thing, even with stamina showing an almost full bar he could feel his body creak a little with every step he took. Yet, he was more familiar with it than anything, Peak Performance pushing through it as a breath of fresh air.

Mental exhaustion on the other hand was something completely new to Ebony. With moving meditation or Persistent Meditation here Ebony didn’t think it would be possible to feel mentally tired. Oh how ecstatic he was when he realised that he could still make progress in his mental state.

He had, on multiple occasions trained his body till he collapsed yet every single time he was clearly thinking, feeling and sensing everything going on as he laid on the ground. Even if someone saw him on the ground they didn’t think anything was wrong with him since his heartbeat and breathing was normal. Ebony thought that no amount of physical exertion can pressure his mental state anymore. Mental exercises weren’t working too well for him either but it was something.

Here, his body changed. Evolved. There were much greater heights he could reach for and he would.

The constant use of Mana Compression, Mana Perception and all things magic, in general, was a real mental workout. Ebony did all that while constantly training whatever physical skill he could. All that while constantly looking out for battles, watching out for danger.

His only disappointment in progress was his sword mastery which he knew was close to tipping over. But nothing in the forest could help him improve his mastery. It reminded him of Scarlet’s swordsmanship which was something he admired and could only hope to reach. His mind was no longer so disturbed thinking of her, he should be able to act naturally if he sees her again.

That said, Ebony was starting to think he went a little too far at thinning the herd when it got harder to find monsters, he had already scoured the whole forest and only there were few he considered as hunting targets now. He was looking at his last target before he returned to Plainston for a good old bath.

[Rhoat Lvl 70]

It was solo and Ebony had been watching it for almost 2 hours or so due to it being a little different from the others. If level 70 was a monster’s supposed limit then they would have to get others' essence and not just ambient one’s. It wouldn’t be weird for monsters to kill people so a few level differences would be natural.

But this Rhoat was in the form of a ball the size of a large yoga exercise ball, with a single eye and huge ass mouth. Ebony watched it from a far on a tree branch because it saw the Rhoat eat another living Rhoat and not the vital muscle. A cannibal Rhoat.

Not so fascinating considering their powers of gaining the other Rhoats muscle memory but Ebony hadn’t seen any infighting amongst themselves nor a cannibal as long as the other party was still alive.

The more interesting thing was that it kept moving in Ebony’s direction by growing 4 wolf-like legs out even when he was sure it didn’t notice him. Then he remembered his disgusting, now almost black ball of Condense Vital Muscle, it was ultra attractive to Rhoats now. Ebony didn’t bother counting but it passed through at least a hundred mouths now. The previous few who ate it gained a few levels after their transformations.

‘A perfect final hunt before some real food and sleep.’ Ebony thought. His body and mind long past their limits. He turned off his Frost Mist and the piano playing stopped. He mentally picked up the 2 new fully compressed 5 Layered Ice Carapace and 1 fully compressed sword of ice that he was using like Rowent used his spear of fire. Leaving one cast free after he imbued 500 MP into his drawn greatsword. His shields did break a few times during mid group battle which he had to replace a few times.

Icebody Enhancement, roughly 20% compressed ice mana flowed through his body. He was slightly translucent now and was a pretty freaky sight, he could see through his skin and observe his muscles a little. Though only his face and right hand was showing on the outside since the rest of his body was covered.

Only now did Ebony think ice magic was usually depicted blue or light blue in colour, even his sense perceives ice mana in blue. Even the fact that he perceives colour in mana eluded him till now, he just never thought about it much. His Ice Sword though was white and transparent like ice cubes in a cold drink. He was no expert but even he knew that the white was air bubbles or minerals, since he formed it with mana there shouldn’t be minerals.

His Layered Ice Carapace on the other hand was light blue with no white in it. He formed and created the spell with a lot more care than Ice Sword. It was probably due to sticking the ice mana so close and structurally sound, copying the scales of a turtle. If he’s not wrong when ice turns or looks blue it was because it absorbed colours of the light spectrum other than blue or something.

Logically the air bubbles in ice would make it weaker or more brittle right? Ebony thought he should try forming his Ice Sword by structuring the ice mana in it better. It may make it tougher though the science he knew may not mean anything magically it wouldn’t hurt to try.

The denser his ice magic, the bluer it gets though not obvious, it was there. Then he thought to his frost flames, they were dark blue. The Frostblaze Amur Maples he had seen was lighter in blue, but they got lighter in colour as the rarity increased. The main one growing on progeniturtle was basically white in colour. Did they work differently?

No point thinking so much but he should be able to use combusting ice mana more and more soon with his current amount and regeneration of mana.

“Hey buddy, looking for this?” Ebony unfroze the stinky black condensed vital muscle. He could experiment more with his own magic any other time.