Ebony's Fable

“Bring me the list.”

“This is all of them at the moment, Sire.”

“...All boring. Help me sieve out the apprentice class, normal warriors, archers, rogues and mages.”

“Certainly.”

…

“That’s all there is?”

“...It is near the edge of the Empire, Sire. Even if many have flocked over, the talented and blessed are few. Those that have a certain level of ability would likely be in a party already.”

“Haa. Alright, I hope there are some interesting ones here.”

“...”

“Poison warrior? Over 60 year old and still level 64? Smoke Rogue? Such high quest points but only level 48”

“That one is the son of a merchant, Sire.”

“I see… hmm? A hybrid classed human? Ooo this one is interesting, an ice swordsman. Woah 16 and he’s already level 36? Okay, put me with him.”

“As you wish Sire. He has one party member already, her information is right under his.”

“Let’s see. What?! A Xeng is actually all the way out here? Hahaha! Great, I can see if they really are as nonsensically strong as the stories say.”

❅❅❅

Another 2 monotonous weeks passed with Ebony focusing on his magic together with sparring with Scarlet. The town has expanded many times over. Many new buildings were built. The mage association opened a branch with their mage tower here, right in the centre of Plainston.

Mages sure love towers.

The mage tower was not just a place where they kept their knowledge and did their research. It was also the main defensive structure against monsters or otherwise, invasions. They were not open to the public yet for some reason so Ebony hasn’t visited them.

An arena or they call it a colosseum was built as well or maybe it was expanded, Ebony didn’t remember since he didn’t see one before.

Somehow, Plainston’s noble wasn’t kicked out and was still in charge. The city walls were mostly completed already, the speed of construction here was impressive. Magic and skills sure made things convenient and efficient.

The more interesting thing that happened was obviously the classes he was able to take.

Gravity Mage - Requirements: Gravity Mana Manipulation Lvl 25 & Repulsive Body Lvl 25

Pretty basic and one that he knew was coming.

Bardic Gravity Mage - Requirements: Mana Vibration Lvl 25 & Gravity Mana Manipulation Lvl 25

He was pretty glad they could merge.

Orchestral Gravity Conductor - Requirements: Reversing the gravitational flow of your body’s mass without so much as a thought. Masterful recreation of numerous instrumental and non-instrumental vibrations through mana alone. Mana Vibration Lvl 25, Battle Song Lvl 25, Gravity Mana Manipulation Lvl 25 & Repulsive Body Lvl 25

Despite putting in the same amount of time and effort for his magic it was easy to see the skewness in skill levelling. What they call talent was truly limiting.

Battle Song was stuck at 32 for the past two weeks while Mana Vibration was stuck at 33. He was multitasking or casting but Gravity Mana Manipulation went past them in days staying at 35 for the past 5 days while Repulsive Body hasn’t levelled past 37 for 4 days even with all the time and mana he had spent on it.

The time and mana spent wasn’t wasted of course. He tried to change things up whenever he could or make the gravity mana do what it did but better and more efficiently.

After one type of instrument for example string instruments was recreated, other string instrumental sounds were easier to recreate. Now he had a wide choice of piano, violin, guitar, bass, drums, cellos and a couple more sounds he could make the sound off.

He could even ‘talk’ without talking anymore. His voice reverberated through the mana in the air without opening his mouth.

He was recreating some of his favourite songs with the original singer’s voice and all, the language may be incomprehensible to the people here but Ebony believed music was a universal language.

He kept reversing the gravitational flow and casting Repulsive Body that he unknowingly cast it while he was asleep. Deep Persistent Meditation obviously helped a lot in this regard. Unlike Icebody Enhancement which never required much effort to cast, Ebony was manually manipulating gravity mana almost every minute of the day. The effort paid back and he was deciding on putting the same if not more effort into Icebody Enhancement.

His maximum range of Mana Perception and control reached over 9 metres.

It will require focus and may or may not break him out of Deep Persistent Meditation but he could form a fifth cast if he really needed too.

A single second to cast Layered Ice Carapace seemed to be the limit to how fast he could get it. His spell acclimatisation glove probably reached the limit to how much it would help too, it was only a Common quality item after all.

Its mana pathways had smoothened out so much by now. The good news was he could easily cast a 5 layered one on the go if he had the mana for it, it wouldn’t even take much longer. Mana compression being the only thing that would take a little more time.

Ebony didn’t think he could get the skills to level 50. Even if he could, it would take years and the diminishing returns may not be worth it. He might die of old age not knowing his skills could no longer level. Time waits for no one.

Sub-Classes were more limited than Classes to begin with. Though some might rush their Class, few would rush to get their Sub-Class. There would be the advantage of stats to power through or get and train rarer skills. However, they are known to have a limit of 3 fortifications or at least no one has publicised themselves having 4.

Even for those that spent decades on their skills or had their Class over level 100. Only after another round of evolution would the number and quality of fortification increase. So, despite Orchestral Gravity Conductor requiring 4 skills Ebony may not get 4 types of fortifications.

Anyhow, Ebony has obviously decided on classing already.

The mana in the air was thin, absorbed by the slowly stabilizing dungeon from days ago.

The training square expanded and had protective walls in place but the sheer number of people caused a lot of friction between young freelancers or dungeon clearer wannabes.

Some even picked fights with Ebony and Scarlet, for all sorts of reasons like taking up the little space they had for too long. Ebony’s face pissing them off was actually the most nostalgic reason they gave since his facial expression had been giving him such problems since his time on Earth.

Only people 20 or 30 levels higher than Scarlet dared challenge her. It didn’t make a difference, she didn’t even need to use magic. Scarlet had consistently gone out to hunt and she hit level 53, admittedly having a Sub-class which she focussed on. Ebony wasn’t much of a match for her and it was more and more obvious as the days passed.

When he said he was classing she was even nice enough to cook a scrumptious meal for him again. More like a feast but he ate every morsel. The food she cooked was a completely different style of cuisine than inn food.

Ebony shouldn’t have tried avoiding her from the beginning. She was good company, never talking much during their spars or at all. It's been 3 weeks yet the number of words they spoke to each other could be counted.

From time to time he would find the others for a short spar too. Chris has picked up a Sub-Class in the meantime and whatever it was it gave him a whole lot of Strength, his fighting style has gotten a lot more aggressive as well.

With Mana Perception at its current level he found that Dina’s wires were tougher than they looked as they were reinforced with her mana. She also controlled the wires to a certain extent with mana.

Fergus still had his way of keeping his distance but there was little he could do against Ebony anymore. Well, Ebony couldn’t take him down either. His actual arrows could actually root his shield to the ground. Ebony couldn’t free his shield without cutting the roots down, his Intelligence or skill being weaker comparatively.

Rowent had a pretty awesome skill that he hadn't shown till then. He removed all the air in his surroundings, Ebony found that Constitution probably really reduced the need for oxygen too. He just needed to disrupt his cast or knock him down within the span of a breath. He was a fire mage that was an anti fire mage, he said it doesn’t work well if the opponent was a fire conjuror as well but it could easily eat up their mana if they wanted to keep the fire going.

Mages couldn’t manipulate the air, water, blood, bone etc. in another’s body due to the extreme difficulty. The target’s mana apparently interrupts foreign mana manipulation.

The strength difference between the mage and the target needs to be enormous but the fact that it wasn’t impossible was a little unnerving. It was mostly a battle between the mage's Intelligence and skills against their target's Wisdom and defences if any. Such as Resistance skills.

After many ‘friendly’ and unfriendly duels with others, it was clear that the escort party truly were ‘elites’ in comparison to most other freelancers.

That aside, he calmly meditated again after his feast.

‘Ting’ ‘You have met the requirements to obtain the class: Orchestral Gravity Conductor - Requirements: Reversing the gravitational flow of your body’s mass without so much as a thought. Masterful recreation of numerous instrumental and non-instrumental vibrations through mana alone. Mana Vibration Lvl 25, Battle Song Lvl 25, Gravity Mana Manipulation Lvl 25 & Repulsive Body Lvl 25’

‘Ting’ ‘A Class is bound. Choose Orchestral Gravity Conductor as your Sub-Class?’

Yes.

‘Ting’ ‘A Chosen Sub-Class will be bound to you and can never be changed. Choose ‘Orchestral Gravity Conductor’ as your Sub-Class?’

Yes.

❅❅❅

‘Ting’ ‘Orchestral Gravity Conductor Fortification Completed.”

‘Ting’ ‘Sub-Class changed to Orchestral Gravity Conductor’

‘Orchestral Gravity Conductor Fortification:

Mana efficiency with Sound Magic increased by 100%

Mana efficiency with Gravity Magic increased by 100%

Body’s natural gravitational flow reversed and increased by 100%

Generic Skills Converted to Sub-Class Skills:

Battle Song

Mana Vibration

Gravity Mana Manipulation

Magnified Gravity Field

Repulsive Body

Stemmed Sub-Class Skills:

Vibrational Gravity Sense (Passive) - Perceive the movement of mana and gravitational waves in your surroundings. Has the effect of 10% + 1.0% Perception and 100% of Mana Perception.

Ebony had the weirdest, indescribable feeling when he woke up almost an entire day later. Noticing nothing wrong with his body he checked the notifications. The mana efficiency with both types of magic seemed really natural. He was pretty confident he was going to get that, for some reason it feels instinctual to find ways to be more efficient with mana.

The last one of reversing his body’s gravitational flow was probably where the weird feeling was coming from. There was nothing natural about it. The same amount of gravity mana from his body but was twice as strong. Well, he preferred a gravity fortification more than sound, the applications of gravity in battle should show more effect than sound…probably.

The skills moved to his Sub-Class and the stemmed skill was nothing special. It overlapped with his Frost Mist Perception Sphere, it just wasn’t a magic skill and didn’t inflict damage or require his Intelligence stat. Sooner or later within his range of mana sense, his sense of sight would be inferior to his other senses.

Sadly, none of his skills evolved.

Race: Human

Name: Ebony Rime

Core Skill: Deep Persistent Meditation Lvl 124

Class: Meditative Swordsman of Frostblaze - Lvl 50

Class Skills:

Treading Step Lvl 67

Ice Mana Manipulation Lvl 66

Icebody Enhancement Lvl 77

Flowing Greatsword Mastery Lvl 80

Frost Injection Lvl 56

Ice Sword Lvl 52

Two-handed Power Stab Lvl 50

Layered Ice Carapace Lvl 51

Frost Mist Perception Sphere Lvl 61

Empty Skill Slot

Empty Skill Slot

Empty Skill Slot

Empty Skill Slot

Empty Skill Slot

Empty Skill Slot

Sub-Class: Orchestral Gravity Conductor Lvl 0

Sub-Class Skills:

Battle Song Lvl 32

Mana Vibration Lvl 33

Gravity Mana Manipulation Lvl 35

Magnified Gravity Field Lvl 4

Repulsive Body Lvl 37

Vibrational Gravity Sense Lvl 1

Empty Skill Slot

Empty Skill Slot

Empty Skill Slot

Empty Skill Slot

Profession: Mana Meister - Lvl 42

Profession Skills:

Mana Moulding Lvl 42

Sheer Mana Compression Lvl 94

Mana Perception Lvl 55

Empty Skill Slot

Empty Skill Slot

Health: 135/300

Stamina: 335/500

Mana: 36/1970

Unallocated stat points: 0

Strength: 30

Vitality: 30

Constitution: 80

Endurance: 50

Agility: 60

Intelligence: 101

Wisdom: 197

Perception: 50

Generic Skills:

Stealth Lvl 10

Identify Lvl 12

Sheer Cold Resistance Lvl 28

Running Lvl 29

Mental Mapping Lvl 9

Kicking Mastery Lvl 34

English Lvl 8

Elcrian Lvl 6

Mental Arithmetic Lvl 12

Dish Washing Lvl 8

Physical Conditioning Lvl 7

Magical Conditioning Lvl 7

Peak Performance Lvl 36

Tracking Lvl 9

Game Processing Lvl 10

Heat Resistance Lvl 18

Sheer Divination Resistance Lvl 12

He noticed the drop in his resources again but they were rising back up, health at a faster pace than it should, while stamina a little slower and mana about the same speed as usual.

The range of the gravitational waves or mana exuding from his body was less than a quarter of a cm. He conjured a pebble of ice and dropped it onto his open palms. Nothing. Not floating, not shifting aside.

He had a bit of mana left and it was regenerating quickly, he cast Repulsive Body.

It propped right out of contact with his palms, sliding to the sides and finally off his palms. Fortunately, his ability to manipulate gravity mana can extend the reversal of gravitational flow to his clothes and weapons. He had been doing it long enough for it to reverse naturally, almost as easy as breathing. He has yet to test it on his shield or if he could do it without touching it.

Doubling his natural gravitational flow or whatever shouldn’t be strong enough to push aside a pebble with Repulsive Body at level 37 or a 74% buff. Likely only possible since it scaled with Intelligence. The Intelligence stat was getting more and more value for Ebony.

He rested and meditated before standing up, the additional passive sense was disorientating. He might be able to turn it off if he tried but why would he? His mental clarity helped sieve information he didn’t directly need away but it’ll need some getting used to.

In his senses, every object in the room was radiating extremely dark purple colour waves. The lower their masses the weaker the waves. When he waved his hands in front of him he felt the pure mana in the air move aside, the same thing happened when he tossed the pebble of ice in the air.

His room wasn’t large, his senses stopped at the walls, door, windows and ceiling. He couldn’t sense past their gravitational waves other than the little bit of floor outside his room from under the door gap.

Something was on the floor, he went and picked it up finding it to be a note that slipped in from under the door. It was from Scarlet, telling him to look for her right after he woke up.

Paper wasn’t as uncommon or rare as he thought. Only the ones used for good books made to last many years, centuries or perhaps thousands of years were expensive. Market-bought ingredients and road stalls sell food wrapped in paper bags too.

He left his room and knocked on the door across the hall without thought. The hallway was dimly lit by pholamps on the wall. Ebony just realised he started classing late at night and having the phoslamp on or uncovered meant that it was the next night already. That or hardly any time had passed where he was unconscious. Doubtful.

Perhaps he should have waited for the next morning? He was extremely hungry after the classing so he should at least have gotten a bite before disturbing Scarlet.

‘Well, she did say right after. I hope I didn’t wake her up.’ Ebony thought, not planning to knock again if she didn’t hear the first.

Gravitational sense couldn’t pass through walls or at least not yet, the vibrational mana part did better in this regard. His mana sense ranged past 9 metres now, it could pass through not just under the door gap but vaguely through the mini gaps in the mana of the door itself.

It was useless if nothing moved, he couldn’t tell what was what and was no different from being blind if the gravitational part wasn’t able to sense the stationary objects. At least not with his current Perception or Mana Perception. One sensed motion, the other recognized bodies of matter. The additional sensory skill may be more useful than his other skills.

He felt and heard movement from Scarlet’s room, feet landed on the ground past the wooden doors. Whatever she was doing behind the doors she was taking her time.

The same old thick white mask only showing her burning red eyes peeked out from the small opened door gap.

“You’re done? Hold on.” Scarlet ordered before Ebony could apologise for the bad timing. She didn’t seem to be bothered or annoyed that Ebony woke her up but that wasn’t where his focus was on. She turned back leaving the door slightly ajar, Ebony could see her in a simple one piece dress, completely bright red as usual.

Pajamas, it covered her entirely till her ankles and only hands and dainty feet were bare. She had her hair down and flowing instead of her usual tall ponytail, like a flowing river. A river of blood that is. Ebony had been amazed at how she kept such long hair without it getting in the way of battle, especially with her close combat style.

It was completely dark in her room and she only left a small gap on the door ajar. The problem was his gravitational sense checking her out. He couldn’t see or sense any features but Ebony has got to say her figure was more perfect than he thought possible. There was a gravity defying part but it wasn’t what caught his attention, at least not all his attention.

Her mask was what caught most of his attention… It was radiating so damn much gravity mana for a small mask even if it was thick. Ebony estimated it weighed more than him together with his equipment, robes and greatsword. It wasn't just a little bit more either. It should be far heavier.

Scarlet’s mask was held in place by what looked like 2 leather straps, one behind her neck under where her usual ponytail would be and another above it. He didn’t think she could walk around wearing that even with her strength. The weird thing is that the constant gravitational waves towards the ground which pull everything towards it, were avoiding her mask or slipping off it as they came into contact with it.

Ebony guessed it meant the mask was somehow made to be lighter than its mass suggests since it was basically free from the effects of gravity. Ebony would be lying if he said he wasn’t intrigued by the material of the mask or how it's made.

Scarlet quickly picked something up in the darkness and returned with a large tray again. Food. It was still steaming hot and the smell made his stomach grumble. She pushed the tray onto Ebony without saying anything.

“You didn’t have to.” Ebony said that, but he thought that Scarlet was being really considerate. She obviously knew one would be very hungry after a classing and had made him a full meal beforehand.

“...Eat.” she shut the door on Ebony after saying that. Ebony noticed she had been concerned about the damage to his greatsword since it was largely damaged by her. She just didn’t say anything about it, even the earlier meal before he classed might have been her way of paying back. Her twin longswords on the other hand didn’t even get its polish blemished.

“Thank you. The food you cook is always delicious.” Scarlet was probably tired from her busy day and couldn’t wait to go back to sleep but thanking her was the least he could do.

Ebony was surprised to see a very familiar dish. His late night dinner consisted of a large mug of fruit juice, a plate of 3 baked potatoes salted and loaded with sour cream, bacon bits and spring onions. A clear soup that had lots of onions and vegetables in it.

Slabs of lamb chops, Ebony didn’t really like mutton all that much because they usually had a heavy scent or flavour but Scarlet’s didn’t have any of that and was very tender.

And finally a stir fried cubes of meat with glistering goldenish red sauce, it tasted like boar meat he had in Arcta. It was sweet and sour pork, one of his favourite dishes and he fell in love with the dish once more.

He cleaned that up and returned the dishes as usual before beginning his magic training again. Ebony planned to go out for hunts and earn some ores outside of filling them up. He wanted to get his Sub-Class as far as he could before the dungeon fully opened. It shouldn’t be more than a week before it completely stabilises according to the current updates the Quest Hall is giving.

Ebony or rather, everyone who applied for a party was also informed when he went to the Quest Hall for ore exchanges that they finalised most party applications and gave them a date for something like a grand meet up in 4 no... in 3 days.

Fortunately, he classed in time and 3 days should be enough to get to a respectable level. The meet up was somewhat traditional for any new party put together by the Quest Hall. If they don’t like each other they could still change or even opt out of the party.

Essentially, an event that’s mostly decided by battle capabilities. Every member would duel each other in the underground duelling grounds. If there is a member that was obviously much stronger than the others, he or she definitely wouldn’t want to be dragged down and fight or aim for lower levels of danger and monsters.

Ebony did have a problem he had with his Sub-Class, and it was that none of his skills were direct combat skills. For it to gain more experience than his main Class he would have to kill a monster using more of his Sub-Class skills than his other skills.

Unlikely, or more like impossible at the moment.

They were all supportive skills at best, though he will still gain experience and level them up in battle as long as he uses the skills since they do do something. The effects are just really pathetically weak right now.

He had to come up with offensive sound or gravity magic as soon as possible. Maybe he should have done that before he classed… Ebony had quite some effects or spells that he could come up with from reading experience or just imagination but gravity magic would be too mana intensive to train quickly.

He also had to learn how to utilise a portion of the gravitational waves or mana of the planet itself to even form a ball or something before he could do anything magical with it since he hasn’t been able to study the make up of gravity mana to conjure it yet. He’ll have to stick to Magnified Gravity Field and Repulsive Body for now, with half the mana cost it should be possible to use Magnified Gravity Field for a short while.

Sound magic on the other hand was pretty interesting itself. From what he understood it was capable of both physical and mental effects or damage. There are even actual sonic weapons on Earth. He could try creating some sort of extremely high frequency vibrations or sound waves to mentally disturb or even injure both people and monsters.

The next was more obvious, vibro weapons or vibrating blades to cut better was a little standard but it probably works. Ebony didn’t want to and couldn’t vibrate the metal alloy of his sword itself since he didn’t want to damage it by accident. He’ll either envelope it with his own mana or ice mana from imbuement and try to create micro vibrations at his highest speed possible.

He decided on ice mana since he almost always imbued ice mana into his greatsword in a battle unless he was sparing. He made it such that there was a whole layer of ice on the sword, he wanted it to affect the blade itself as little as possible. Ebony could either make his blade like a chainsaw or those ultrasonic vibration blades. Obviously, the ultrasonic vibration type made more sense.

Ebony didn’t know how they work and he was using manual manipulation of mana to vibrate so it was just trial and error for now. He had to make as small and fast a movement as possible of the ice or normal pure mana to create the effect.

The first aim would be to reach ‘ultrasonic’ which was to 20000 hertz or something. It was impossible for Ebony at the moment but it didn’t stop him from trying. One thing to note when he played Battle Song was that Mana Compression had no effect with Sound Magic or at least in buffing skills like Battle Song. Vibrating compressed mana didn’t make it stronger or anything. At least, Ebony hasn't figured out how to make use of it.

❅❅❅

Ebony gained a few levels in his Sub-Class by the time the sun rose. Each level in Sub-Class gave him 5 stat points he could freely allocate. He suited up and left for the Quest Hall, trading in his ores, checking out the latest news and dungeon information and available quests.

His room was colder than any other room due to the multiple fully compressed shields lying around. They don’t melt as easily anymore as long as he didn’t use it against Scarlet’s fire magic.

He made 2 of them float very close to his back, it will look like he was carrying them on his back from the front. Ebony couldn’t be seen from the back since his shields were large enough to cover him entirely. It didn’t get in the way much when he was on the street since there were many beastman and even a few human warriors larger than him and his shields together.

Ebony didn’t know but some were calling him the emotionless turtleman, shellback human and such.

Ebony thought it would be a good idea to start stocking up on higher rarity mana ores. He actually couldn’t just trade in Blues just like that since they were rare shit. He only found out when he upgraded his greatsword. Normal civilians have a limit quota of 1 Blue a month. Around these parts anyway.

A tiny bit of quest points is enough to consider one as a working freelancer and they can trade up to 2. Freelancers needed a certain amount of quest points to trade full Blues for more empty Blues and they were pretty limited in number too. This wasn’t including quest rewards and only trade ins. Of course, quests that pay out Blues were never easy.

Nothing higher in rarity was traded by the Quest Hall.

The Quest Halls throughout the Empire were connected by means similar to the callstone. There were screens for the latest Empire news and local news. With how large the continent was, local news was more reliable as the ‘latest’ news.

The biggest news recently was the loss of a town extremely far northeast from Plainston 4 months or so ago. Completely destroyed without a single brick or stone left, a hole hundreds of metres deep appeared where the town was. The Empire didn’t even have time to react or know what did that, at least that’s what they reported but Ebony didn’t think a town would disappear overnight without them knowing.

There was no news on the dungeon other than the 5 to 10 day estimation before the gate stabilised and then warning people not to get near and absorbed by the dungeon.

The monsters absorbed by the dungeon will likely appear as dungeon monsters in some form or way. The ambient mana in the surrounding area will likely affect the environment inside the dungeon. A lot of information on the forming dungeon can be glimpsed and predicted this way.

When the gate stabilises the Empire will send a party working directly under the imperial government to collect some data before letting others in.

Mostly retired dungeon clearers. They would record and publish data in the Quest Hall on stuff like how thin the air or oxygen levels are, relative gravity, time ratios and other general environmental information.

Bubble Hill is much larger than the nearby woods and Ebony didn’t explore it much. There should be lots of other monsters in there. He just noted the quests for materials or special singular wanted monsters before leaving towards the hills.