Ebony's Fable

Fear and excitement was replaced with tranquil calm almost as soon as it came.

Ebony made a sharp turn to face the golem. Opting out of Icebody Enhancement as he needs the Agility, he’ll be able to put it back on fast if he needs to take a blow. The golem couldn’t make a sharp turn like Ebony as it skidded to a stop.

2 Ice Swords flew towards the golem before he completed his turn. The golem didn’t stop it from stabbing into it. It didn’t have anything that looked like eyes but Ebony was sure it could sense things just as well as if it had them.

The Ice Swords stabbed lightly into the golem. Perhaps it really didn’t see them but it didn’t pluck them out as it lumbered towards Ebony.

There were not many trees around for Ebony to hide and swerve around. Bushes did nothing to stop a blow from the golem or hinder its sight.

Ebony manipulated his Ice Swords to inject themselves into the golem. The light frost and thin layer of ice in it either went unnoticed or it just didn’t care.

Ebony continued using this tactic, he weaved between any environmental fixtures and sent Ice Swords into the golem. He didn’t know if it was working as it didn’t slow down at all. He had put his casting glove back on in this short interval.

He was going downhill now which was perfect as the golem had slight difficulty moving downwards.

The golem slowed down its chase and slammed both log-like arms into the ground. A large area of ground around it rippled and turned to mud, Ebony fell right into it. It was deep, the mud covered him up to his thighs.

The golem leapt for a twin armed smash again, when its arm left the ground the mud returned to its normal earthen consistency. Ebony struggled to free himself, pushing himself up with his hands. The silly golem shouldn’t have leapt so high. It gave him time to free himself and move away from the landing spot but not far enough.

His shield rushed to protect him together with ice mana circulating within him at full speed, Icebody Enhancement on for the extra defense just in case. The ground turned to mud where he was standing again as the golem landed, he sank to his ankles. The golem followed up with a backhand swing that crashed right into both his shields and him. His mental muscles couldn't hold the shield in place to defend himself.

His outer shield completely shattered into chunks and fragments, Ebony probably couldn’t put the pieces together and use them as a proper shield anymore. He was sent flying even further this time and his ankle and hand had a disturbing crack sounding out. The mud held his ankles down, Ebony would be lucky if it was merely dislocated.

He still tried to bring the biggest chunks along, they were precious extremely compressed ice mana. It would take time and focus if he were to put it back together into a spell.

Ebony managed to stay on his feet but he felt the burn in his ankles, it was swelling up pretty badly. Stopping himself from getting blown back even further by digging into the ground with his feet.

Ebony no longer backed down from the aggressive golem.

He met it with his own aggression.

The golem didn’t let up and continued after Ebony who was not running this time.

Ebony dodged an overhead swing, going under it and power stabbing with his drawn and ice mana imbued greatsword. Ebony didn’t forget to cast compressed Icebody Enhancement for the power buff.

It struck the golem but didn’t get more than a finger’s length deep. He injected every drop of ice mana he could in a blast before disengaging with a quick and light sweeping slash.

It was pretty annoying that Ebony had to raise his arms and blade to go over his head due to its length and size. How ‘light’ the greatsword was to Ebony now was also taking away the weight and power advantage of using a greatsword.

Ebony stuck close to the giant, not letting it have the charge up and impact its size and strength gave it. Almost all his remaining mana went into Ice Injection and an Ice Sword or 2.

When the golem’s movements started to get stiff, Ebony felt the mana in the ground vibrate a whole lot. It was climbing on to the golem. Ebony didn’t know what it was up to but he didn’t like it.

It was tough since the ice mana was getting deep into the golem's body but Ebony managed to manipulate every bit of ice mana in the golem to combust at the same time.

Frosty mist leaked out from the areas where most ice mana was injected in. Dark blue flames spurted out from within it for less than a second before being extinguished. His flames of frost suppressed by the mud body of the golem.

‘I didn’t get enough mana in yet.’

Ebony didn’t want to combust the ice mana that quickly but the golem was likely replacing its hardening and frozen mud with fresh mud from the ground. Doing so would remove the ice mana from it and Ebony’s efforts would be wasted so he had no choice but to combust it in advance.

Chunks of the mud golem hardened and flew off its body. It merely replaced his mud body with new mud from the ground.

The situation wasn’t looking good for Ebony, the golem was back to full speed and power while Ebony’s injured ankle and overall aching body would have slowed him down if not for Peak Performance. Even that had a limit.

Fortunately, Icebody Enhancement has another function not described. The low temperatures of his body when casting Icebody Enhancement somewhat dulls pain even further, even acting like an ice pack for his swollen ankle. Despite all the pain resistance and Ebony’s ability to ignore bodily injuries, his movements were affected. Trying to push Treading Steps too far might be a bad idea.

Ebony was dipping into freshly regenerated mana, his pool emptying out already. He had one moderately damaged shield left and he couldn’t form another shield or sword without the mana for them.

He wouldn’t have fought the golem if he didn’t see the Cysaru beating it.

The golem was more of a magic based creature than a physical one. Reforming its body takes mana and casting magic stops their regeneration. Ebony will outlast any creature that couldn’t do the same as him. Or so he thinks.

The golem didn’t have many attack patterns, its movements large and predictable. Although Ebony could predict a few steps ahead the golem due to how predictable it was, it was too damn fast now that it wasn’t hindered by ice mana.

Ebony was pushing all his mana into imbuement and Ice Injection, continuing what he did. The golem didn’t remove the affected areas immediately, likely due to mana constraints.

Ebony didn’t believe it could reform its body without limit. He personally witnessed the Cysaru wear it down, slicing its body and limbs over and over again.

Another heavy blow landed on his shield which broke it and the golem’s strike didn’t stop there fully. The wild swing continued forth, smashing into Ebony’s upper belly. He reflexively tightened his muscles .

His ribs shattered on impact, Ebony felt something puncture as a handful of blood was forcefully coughed out.

Ebony was sent tumbling down the hill, luckily no tree was in the way. He rolled and rolled, trying to reduce impact as much as he could.

Breathing hurt like a bitch, his lungs might have had a hole in there now. The only silver lining was that the rib was still stuck there, plugging the hole and that he was still alive.

HP: 29/300

‘Haha, maybe not for long.’ Ebony breathing continued to be deep and measured.

Ebony was not even surprised that he had gotten hit by a potentially fatal attack, he was filled with a sense of serenity. The multiple notifications he received so far on skill levels didn’t catch his attention as usual.

His will to fight and come out victorious unwavered. Resolute.

He could feel the mana in his robe was emptied out too.

He didn’t put more mana into it of course, he didn’t have any left to spare. Another amazing property of his robe was that he could fill the mana up from attached mana ores too. The mana ores he left on already emptied out though, there wasn't much mana in them to begin with. He would probably be dead by now without it.

He didn’t dare to let Icebody Enhancement go off, it was preventing his internal conditions from worsening. The impact made him lose all his mana, and he realised some stuff about his body.

Ebony stood up again, feeling intense pain but unperturbed by it. He looked at the golem who was walking in his direction, it was pretty far off and it seemed like it didn’t know where Ebony landed. Ebony guessed that its senses were similar to Vibrational Gravity Sense, the golem probably had a much larger range though.

When it got close enough it jerked its body towards where Ebony was before starting its lumbering dash.

Ebony gathered as many broken chunks of his fully compressed Layered Ice Carapace as he could. There were thousands and thousands of ice mana in them. It was his last ditch attempt, his final weapon was his shield.

He stuck them together and sent it to the golem. The golem once again didn’t bother blocking, rather it couldn’t sense things in the air. Its senses were likely limited to things connected to the ground, that was why practically all of Ebony’s Ice Swords landed. Ebony didn’t notice the fact.

The ice chunks spread themselves across its torso and upper body as a freezing blast of wind slapped into Ebony’s broken body. The blast of dark blue flames chilled even the ground and air.

The golem felt nothing as it continued its dash. It was burning brightly in the night.

The flames were not covered by mud this time, it burned as ice mana spread over its body. The flames appeared to be spontaneous as Ebony felt the compressed ice mana cause the contacted ice mana already in the golem’s body to combust.

The lumbering giant had ice over it but continued moving, slowing down. It quickly got mud up from the ground to cover itself or perhaps swap out its hardened and frozen mud. The mud froze the instant they touched the flames.

Mud fought cold flames of frost.

The golem didn’t stop trying to bring up more mud to pat the flames out and recover mobility to its body. The golem finally noticed its predicament and fell onto the ground and rolled itself from side to side. His attempts of ridding Ebony’s flames of frost were futile.

Ebony didn’t stand there and watch. His flames would run out fast due to its insane consumption.

He didn’t care about his beaten and broken body, Peak Performance, Icebody Enhancement and Deep Persistent Meditation were working to allow his body to move the way he wanted it to.

He unleashed his greatest flurry of attacks where the golem was most frozen. The frozen parts were brittle like how ice was. The golem didn’t even feel his attacks since it doesn’t have a sense of pain. It was frantically trying to regain its normal body mass as Ebony shattered frozen parts of its body.

The golem was no threat when it was ‘disarmed’ in a literal sense.

Mud and earth from the ground struggled to rise from the ground to encapsulate it.

Ebony’s flames had long gone out, he didn’t stop smashing his greatsword into it’s torso where its core should be.

The golem was out of mana.

Ebony was full of stamina.

Even so Ebony’s attack slowed down.

‘Ting’ ‘You have killed [Mud Golem Lvl 136], enemy 80 levels or more above your own. Experience concentration too high to dilute completely, additional experience gained.’

‘Ting’ ‘Meditative Swordsman of Frostblaze level up 50 - 55, 50 stat points gained.’

‘Ting’ ‘Orchestral Gravity Conductor level up 16 - 30, 70 stat points gained.’

‘Ting’ ‘Mana Meister level up 42 - 46, 4 Wisdom stat gained.’

‘Ting’ ‘Core Skill Deep Persistent Meditation level up 124 - 129’

‘Ting’ ‘Class Skill Treading Step level up 67 - 70’

‘Ting’ ‘Class Skill Ice Mana Manipulation level up 66 - 71’

‘Ting’ ‘Class Skill Icebody Enhancement level up 77 - 79’

‘Ting’ ‘Class Skill Flowing Greatsword Mastery level up 80 - 81’

‘Ting’ ‘Class Skill Frost Injection level up 56 - 64’

‘Ting’ ‘Class Skill Ice Sword level up 52 - 55’

‘Ting’ ‘Class Skill Two-Handed Power Stab level up 50 - 52’

‘Ting’ ‘Class Skill Layered Ice Carapace level up 51 - 54’

‘Ting’ ‘Sub-Class Skill Battle Song level up 35 - 43’

‘Ting’ ‘Sub-Class Skill Mana Vibration level up 34 - 39’

‘Ting’ ‘Sub-Class Skill Repulsive Body level up 40 - 41’

‘Ting’ ‘Sub-Class Skill Vibrational Gravity Sense level up 13 - 20’

‘Ting’ ‘Profession Skill Mana Perception level up 55 - 56’

‘Ting’ ‘Generic Skill Stealth level up 10 - 12’

‘Ting’ ‘Generic Skill Peak Performance level up 36 - 39’

Ebony didn’t use Mana Meister’s skills much so it was a pleasant surprise it got 4 levels.

His Class got the bulk of the experience. Ebony used almost every Class skill at his disposal except for Frost Mist Perception Sphere.

He had Battle Song on almost the entire time unknowingly. Repulsive Body was only casted at the start.

Ebony’s new senses were actually very helpful, it saved him from the first leaping smash.

His Sub-Class and its skills levelled a few times before this fight, from the other marmot hunts. Magnified Gravity Field levelled once to level 5. It probably only levelled so much because of its comparatively lower level.

Stealth was probably him trying to stay out of the golem’s sight. Peak Performance surprisingly levelled again, pushing past what he thought was his limit.

He dug out the broken golem core he froze and smashed. It may not be worth anything in its broken state but he’ll try his luck.

Ebony wanted to look for somewhere safe but his body no longer listened well to him. Still, he managed to find a nice tree to lay back on. Forcing himself to climb a little higher onto its branches.

He closed his eyes and continued his meditation as usual. His senses weren’t cut off, they were heightened.

Ebony slowly eased Icebody Enhancement off.

The smaller fragments of his ribs have mostly dissolved back into mana. Ebony was not sure if dissolve was the right word to use. The larger fragments shifted themselves back into position but Ebony’s reckless movements and attacks scrambled them and even opened more wounds inside his chest.

He manipulated the mana in the larger piece stabbing his lung, gently pulling it out. More blood spilled but it quickly stopped without Ebony’s intervention. Fortunately, he could actually manipulate the mana in his bones to move the bone fragments. He hadn't been sure if it would’ve worked but it sure did.

Thank goodness he wasn’t fully human anymore. Ebony was still learning more and more about his new physique. He wondered if the ability to manipulate his body or rather the mana in his body was instinctual or not. The current situation is telling him yes was the answer.

Ebony had Mana Perception working at full throttle, making sure he wasn't moving the wrong thing to the wrong place.

He shifted the larger fragment and pieced his ribs back together. When all parts were where they were supposed to be his body should be able to regenerate and heal itself naturally.

Ebony had long figured that Icebody Enhancement helped to slow his own blood flow too so when all was back in place he used it to prevent himself from bleeding out internally. Even if that wasn’t enough he could always freeze the wounds shut with a little finesse with Ice Mana Manipulation. Whether it would affect his healing was another question altogether.

Looking at just the numbers he should be healing almost 9 health per minute. Health regeneration numbers were never very accurate since many factors will affect it. His Vitality alone should heal him by 3 health points per hour…

His partially mana body simplified it. His entire body really did become his mana pool so to speak.

Ebony only just realised earlier, when his mana pool hit rock bottom. The mana in his body, skin, muscle, blood, bone, organs etc. really did get siphoned out or used up when he didn’t have mana left.

When that happened, his body acted like how he remembers it when is injured. Normally.

Earlier, mana that he didn’t use for Icebody Enhancement rushed to all his cells. Perhaps, they regenerated from the cells itself, he couldn’t tell with his Mana Perception at his level. It was too fast and he was too busy to take note either.

Even if his Vitality was ten times higher than a normal human and health regeneration ten times higher, healing cuts visibly fast was unlikely. Much less broken bones or punctured organs. And his Vitality wasn’t so high either.

Having his body partially made of mana allowed him to join or reconnect tissues easily. Ebony thought it was oddly similar to the process of Mana Weaving or his Mana Moulding.

Ruptured blood vessels regenerated and reconnected. Bruises both external and internal fading. Torn muscles reconnect back as if they were never torn and bones stick back together, down to the molecular level.

His body can regenerate cells from mana alone, but what makes up the other non-mana portion of his cells?

He would likely be in a weakened state for a while even if he regenerates his body parts back to normal. The regenerated cells were not exactly the same as the parts that weren’t injured.

They weren’t…full. Maybe it was nutrients or the other essential components of what makes a particular cell function the way they do. His mana alone wasn’t able to recreate it perfectly. So he will still have to rest and recover normally, though at an accelerated pace.

When he could somewhat move normally again he took off back where he came from. Not overdoing it with his magic since he wanted to recover first.

Ebony only walked but he wasn’t slow with Treading Steps. He tried to stay out of sight using bushes and trees whenever he could. The swelling in his ankle went down quite a bit by now and Ebony didn’t have too much trouble walking.

He slayed another batch of marmots who thought he would be a good tasty target with utmost efficiency. Slicing their heads off before they knew it. Ebony was not in a mood to fool around with his gravity magic but still found himself burying them.

The city gates should be closed at this time but he didn’t want to stay in Bubble Hills for much longer. He stayed in the plains with Plainston in sight.

Setting up his tent that he never used before with a little fiddling. Sitting crossed leg and meditating in the tent. It didn’t sit right with him to fall asleep here out in the open. Tent or not.

He played around with Repulsive Body again when he could. Since he didn’t have additional gravity mana from his body and robes to compress he did his best and brought the reverse circulation of gravity mana even closer to his skin and clothes.

Essentially, it will reduce the range of effect of where the pushing force from his body will reach but it should also increase the concentration and power or force of push. Essentially gravity mana compression.

It worked pretty well, he pushed it down from below a quarter of a cm to possibly a single millimetre or less.

‘Ting’ ‘Sub-Class Skill Repulsive Body refined’

Repulsive Body - Reversing the flow of gravity of your body to repel matter. Has the effect of 15% + 1.0% Intelligence

Consumes 100 MP/Min

Classification: Gravity Magic

Ebony was aware of what skill refinement was. He had learnt it from Clovis early on. Skill refinement was simply improving a skill such that there were notable effects but the potential or rather, tier was not raised. Basically the skill was slightly changed into a similar skill but not drastically enough to consider it to have evolved. In Clovis’s words it was like a ‘lesser’ or degraded skill evolution.

A static 15% improvement was pretty sweet. Considering his fortifications, it was like a 30% power up.

In time, the sun rose.

Ebony packed up and made his way back to Plainston. The guards didn’t appreciate his smell. Dried blood and gut from his brutal slaughter.

Ebony must have casted Repulsive Body to include the dried blood on him like his clothes and weapon so it wasn’t as if he could clean himself with the spell. The guards did recognise Ebony and let him in after paying the fee though. Bloody people coming in wasn’t a very rare sight. At least Ebony wiped off most of the mud off him, except those already dried and dirtied into his clothes.

He garnered looks of disgust but he never bothered with them, this time wasn’t any different.

Reaching the inn to bump into Scarlet coming out. For some reason he backed off and kept his distance.

Scarlet seemed to frown under her masks before her eyes visibly widened.

‘I hope I don’t smell too bad… wait I didn’t tell her I wasn’t going to spar yesterday. Did she wait? Nah, she has her own training anyway.’ Ebony recalled.

“What did you fight? you’re…injured?” Scarlet asked before Ebony could apologise for not showing up without notice.

Ebony didn’t know why or what was it about the way she asked that didn’t feel…right to him but he put it aside as he was imagining things. There was nothing wrong with her questions after all.

She probably caught on to his level, 5 levels in a day meant he fought and hunted instead of levelling through pure training. It was a little surprising that she could tell he was injured though. Most signs of injuries should have healed furthermore, most of his injuries that were from blunt damage were internal.

“A couple of marmots and a Cysaru.” Ebony answered. He was intently staring at her mask though it was his senses observing it.

Now that Scarlet was equipped, Ebony can tell that her swords weren’t ordinary with his Vibrational Gravity Sense. He estimated that, going by weight alone each of her twin swords weighed 7-8 times his greatsword. There was something in the pommel area of the pommelless swords that was actively pushing aside some of the gravity mana pulling them down. Whatever it was likely messed with his new senses as well so it may be even heavier than Ebony estimated.

If Ebony had to guess it was what allowed weaker, lower levelled people to carry weapons made of much stronger, denser materials. It seems like it was a detachable part, when her Strength gets higher she’ll likely take it off the attachment for a heavier swing. Interesting.

“And?” Scarlet obviously didn’t buy Ebony’s reply.

Her Appraisal skill showed her the level 55 and [Bardic Gravity Mage Lvl 30], though slightly taken aback by his Sub-Class due to how rare gravity mages were she knew it was probably not as simple as her Appraisal results.

Appraisal can usually show the full Class name but will have a similar effect on Sub-Class as Identify. She’ll need the third tier of Identify to read the actual Sub-Class and peak at one’s Profession.

“A golem. 136.”

“Okay.” Scarlet just walked off after Ebony replied.

Ebony can guess that she was going to hunt a mud golem. He didn’t bother stopping her, she could easily run away from the ‘slow’ giants. Besides, the golems were the ones who should be running away. They’ll probably dry up and crumble from her fire magic.

Ebony relaxed as he washed himself of mud and blood cake, using plenty of scented soap the inn provided. Dirt and blood came right off his robes with water and a bit of scrubbing but his clothes needed some real effort to get it clean again.

His boots were a goner but he was going to get a new pair anyway. He was going to make a stop at the zees before the party meet up event the next day in any case. They should have some generic off the shelf boots if he’ll just stop by any equipment store for it.

He went to sleep in a fresh set of clothing leaving his laundry to dry. He woke up in 3 hours with many of his ores filled up, it was the first thing he checks after waking up nowadays.

His HP read 300/300 but his Mana Perception is telling him a whole lot of his body was just pure mana. Sleeping let him recover quite a bit but still not completely. He didn’t exactly feel weakened but more like some kind of physical exhaustion.

He did his stretching together with his magic conditioning. It was still early since he came into the city when the gates opened. After a few hours of light training, his robes were dry and he left for the Quest Hall with the Cysaru arms and the broken golem core pieces.

He traded in whatever ore he could leaving some spending cash. He got an empty Blue traded for filled Greens and still had left over Greens. He’ll need higher quest points to trade any more Blues this month.

Weight of the mana ores was the easiest way to tell them apart. A nice revelation he noticed a while back was that his new gravity sense lets him tell apart the mana ores without touching or carrying them. The higher the rarity the denser they were obviously. He just needed to note the amount of gravity mana in each rarity and he’ll be able to tell them apart without Identifying them.

Ebony wouldn’t be able to tell them apart if there was a pouch full of them. His senses being iffy and confusing when 2 or more objects come into contact with each other. They would sort of lump up into one ‘body’ or ‘entity’ and his current familiarity with Vibrational Gravity Sense was not enough to tell them apart if there were Blacks, Greys and Greens all in one pouch.

To begin with, his senses are too poor to pick up such weak gravitational waves or mana. The planet's gravitational mana completely covering them unless Ebony was really close and focusing on them.

The Cysaru scythe arms were gobbled up by some request but he could apparently supply blacksmiths directly.

It is common for a freelancer to be in a partnership with a blacksmith.

Blacksmiths need good materials to improve their skills faster. Equipment was too expensive for a new freelancer to buy. Poor equipment breaks or requires high maintenance fees too and breaking even was the best than a new freelancer could usually do if their party was decent.

Partnership was beneficial for both parties of roughly equal capabilities.

The most common terms were the fighter would supply most of the materials they get and pay a largely discounted price for equipment. Repair and maintenance was either largely discounted or even waived off depending on their agreement.

The crafter would improve his skills and it was also branding for their crafts. People will obviously take note of strong fighters and the equipment they wear isn’t always left out of consideration.

Partnerships don’t always work out well though. More often than not, equipment breaks. Strong fighters will be unhappy with poor equipment while good crafters blame weak, inexperienced fighters for constantly breaking their crafts.

Younger freelancers obviously want a good craftsman for high quality equipment. Equipment can let them take on stronger foes and improve their battle capability letting them get stronger faster by fighting stronger monsters.

Fresh crafters without so much as a year of experience wouldn’t have it that good since people wouldn’t likely look at their crafts much less get into a contract with them. Those that managed to stay a crafter through the early levels obviously want a strong fighter to wear their equipment. They can get better materials, reputation of the crafts and of course, speed through skill levels and such.

Balance was not easy to find and pride on both sides tended to be the problem. The weaker, less capable party needs to agree on ridiculous demands and it depends on how desperate they are for them to partner up or not.

People like Ebony who didn’t have such partnerships or are not contracted to companies were the only ones actually completing these requests for materials.

From hanging around in the populated but not crowded Quest Hall it seemed to Ebony that many parties were looking to make a name for themselves hoping to catch the attention of a well established company to be their contracted party.

The high flyers were the ones that plan to make it out as dungeon clearers who were a very respected bunch, respected for their strength. They are also the ones keeping dungeons from dungeon breaks which in turn protects the general public.

Ebony went to the Z&Z company shop.

Andel was no longer here. Top told Ebony that after their expansion was completed Andel wasn’t fit to be a manager here anymore. He was faced with the decision to be something like a co-manager basically demoting him by a rank or being transferred to another town branch.

Co-manager may sound nice but all the good deals are handled by the manager. Andel would have a hard time levelling up so he obviously opted to transfer and keep his post.

Top healed very well. The maker of his potion kept asking them how they got such a high quality condensed vital muscle and it worked wonders. By now, his injuries which would take months to heal naturally had recovered by more than 80%. He was in something like rehab to get back to his ‘top’ shape now.

Thinking about it, Ebony’s current state of weakness was close in effect to being not in his top shape.

Top recovering, Rowent, Fergus and his contribution and talent together with another one of their rising stars Dina and Chris who got a lot stronger got them to be able to stay here in Plainston for the dungeon.

They have long applied for a leave which they were entitled to for their own training purposes. They still did escorts from time to time but only short ones to nearby towns and cities.

They took some risks to level quickly, their teamwork allowing them to fight reasonably higher level monsters. Chris and Dina hit 60 the last time he saw them, Rowent and Top mid 60s. Rowent caught up to Top due to him not being able to contribute as much as he usually did. Fergus surpassed them in the high 60s.

It was no surprise, Fergus was by far the strongest in a sense. Elves had the tendency to suppress their levels for skills which was actually a really good idea if one wanted a stronger class or fortification. They had the leeway with their lifespan. Ebony believes Fergus could level even faster if he wasn’t held back by his team or wanted to keep a certain level of safety for the not so mobile mage and inexperienced warrior.

He got a common rarity pair of black boots that almost reached his mid calves and swapped them out to break in his new boots. Ebony still wasn’t exactly rich, spending the majority of his mana on magic training.

Thinking that having a potion on hand would be safer after the run in with the golem, he looked around and asked for recommendations for dungeon stuff. The stuff on the shelves they called potions weren’t really all that magical to Ebony.

Speed up blood clotting, increase tissue regeneration, speed up production of blood. Practically all have minor side effects that are harmful for the body if overused. Essentially speeding up the natural healing of the body, draining on their energy, nutrients or essence or whatever the people here call it.

They had better ones not on the shelves but they didn't sell it to anybody and it was expensive shit. Ebony didn’t really need any of them with his physique the way it was now. He just bought 2 general increased regeneration one’s that were in long thin test tubes commonly seen in laboratories back on Earth.

They were made like the phoslamp’s glass or crystal and were very tough to break apparently. Liquid potions were the go to for almost everyone only because they are fast acting and freelancers on the verge of death couldn’t wait for the effects of a pill to kick in. At least for these relatively low quality potions. It might have been better to go to a specialty shop like an alchemist’s or herbalist’s shop. Too bad there weren’t any in Plainston open yet.

Even though alchemists are pretty uncommon there should usually be 1 or 2 such potions shops in every town. Plainston was really at the edge of the countryside to not have one till now.

Ebony always found it weird there was an entire section on shovels and the fact that he saw many had a shovel clung to their bag straps. Even his bag had a holder for the shovel and it was placed at the side and made to be very easy to take out or hook back.

They were apparently what everyone who went into a dungeon would bring. There was a wide range of shovels which the sales lady kindly introduced to Ebony. Ebony got the recommended one since he didn’t know much about them. It was wide and sharp enough to be a weapon, a shovel.

‘Digging for treasure maybe?’ Ebony made a random guess on the use of the shovel. It would be more convenient to bury prey he didn’t eat or collect parts from anyway. He also bought more souper bread. He eats a lot if he uses too much stamina or continually fights and people spend quite some time in the dungeon.

They had quite a variety of dried jerky meat too. They were not nearly as compact as the souper bread but he still got enough to last him a week if he ate sparingly as a snack or something.

He didn’t look for Top and the other’s since they were likely out hunting.

Ebony went back to the inn and tried creating the spells he wanted to again, multitasking with his normal magic training. He was more interested in his gravity increasing attack idea. He didn’t manage to observe Scarlet’s mask and swords long enough so he didn’t manage to come up with any solid ideas.

The mana vibration one had more progress. He went about it the wrong way trying to manually force them make so many micromovements. He covered his hand in ice mana. Just knocking it onto another object was enough for one mana to vibrate and pass it to another.

It was obvious that was what made the sound but he didn’t think about it consciously. He just had to put his focus on one point and the vibrations will travel amongst the mana themselves. It was a whole lot easier to reach a high frequency.

Come the time for his physical training he made his way to the training square to see that Scarlet was already there. The lady mad flexed her 5 more levels as well and without so much as a scratch on her.