Ebony's Fable

“Ebony! Time for dinnerr~” Hector hollered to the practically sulking Ebony who was chewing on dried meat when he was walking back towards camp after scouting the path behind. Cheap jerky. Most of his expandable bread had been eaten to stuff himself full. Ebony really ate tons.

He looked back but was not in the mood to answer Hector, who was rubbing salt on wounds. He had still prepared chairs and tables for them. From stools to more intricate chairs with backrests. It was quite fun to play around with the design. He even put some time into ‘engraving’ designs on the table. It was just delicate control training for Ice Mana Control and a pastime.

He stepped past Hector and got seated in less than a second when he saw 4 sets of utensils.

Hector laughed.

“Not even a word of thanks for the almighty Hector!?”

“What form of magic did you use?” Ebony asked.

Mildly impressed that Hector managed to get Scarlet to cook for him again in such a short time. He had just told Hector the things that happened a few hours ago, right before they found the challenge room with pretty awesome loot. And, he already managed to get Scarlet to be okay with making food for him again in the time he was gone?

“Behold! My true power, an elemental mana called the communicative mana…” blah blah blah. Ebony didn’t listen to his nonsense any further than communicative mana. He would ask in detail again but food was more important.

Scarlet walked over with her large pot and placed it in the centre of the round decorated ice table. She lifted the lid and started scooping the red soup onto their bowls with a ladle. Ryley and Tuffock were making themselves comfortable with a thick cloth and stone cover so their asses don’t freeze.

It was tomato soup. Thick and heavy. Scarlet’s light stirring revealed cubes of meat, probably turkey again. Ebony was amazed at how many turkeys she brought. Would turkey even go well in tomato soup? Chicken would be nice, it would mean eggs as well. He honestly preferred to eat tomatoes raw, like munching on an apple rather than a tomato soup but he wasn’t complaining.

Holding up the bowl for Scarlet to snatch it out of his hand. She then took out a very familiar pack. Souper bread. Taking a few and dropping them in the soup. Surprisingly, it didn’t absorb much soup. Maybe due to the thickness of the soup. Now they were like croutons.

The main course was pot roast beef with whole carrots, an unknown green vegetable and a heck ton of onions and garlic. Ebony had long realised that Scarlet used a lot of garlic and onions in her cooking. Perfect.

The others couldn’t appreciate it but he sure did. They didn’t seem to like the smell of garlic or the strong taste of onions. The foolish and ignorant.

Lastly was a simple noodle dish. Looked like pasta with strips of bacon. It seems to be simple pasta in oil stir fry or was it saute? Ebony wasn’t really a chef. It was just missing some cheese. Although he was not a big fan of cheese, it seems out of place for pasta to not have cheese.

The beef and pasta are on huge serving plates. Scarlet portioned for all and a tray for herself.

“Eat up.”

For some reason, Scarlet was still at the table instead of going back into her tent to eat by herself. Ebony was hardly concerned about that now and started digging in with the soup coming first.

‘Oh yeah. This is what I’m missing in life.’ Ebony almost moaned mentally. The tomato soup was incredibly sour yet still tasted incredible. A work of a culinary god. Sour and spicy foods were his favourite after all. He didn’t really like sweet foods but he was still okay with them as he wasn’t so picky. Sweetness of fruits wasn’t counted.

Spoonful after spoonful, he cleaned up his bowl and got himself another. Then he twisted some pasta with his wooden fork on his spoon. Ebony didn’t stop as even his eating seemed to flow from a bite or two of pasta to beef or bowl of soup.

He didn’t realise that all the others were in a coughing fit gulping down water from their waterskins and even spitting out after gargling.

Ebony only stopped when the ladle hit the bottom of the pot, the sauce from the beef practically licked clean and every crumb of bacon, garlic and onion consumed. His party members’ faces were red from coughing and didn’t realise their dinner was gone before they knew it.

Only Scarlet was smart or alert enough to get another portion for herself. She was watching him the entire time before retreating to her tent with a soft “Hmpm!” so soft Ebony didn’t hear it in his busy meal.

“It was delicious. Thank you.” Ebony gave his honest opinion and appreciation to Scarlet whose expression he couldn’t see. Maybe when Vibrational Gravity Sense got even stronger and his senses became even more sensitive. A large bag was thrown out of her tent and he caught it.

"In case we separate." were the first words she had spoken to him in a while. The bag had more rations of different type than he previously had. He knew she was keeping track of his remaining supplies.

“Holy Ell. Damn. Wait. Dammit, where’s the meat!? The pasta!? Gone? It’s you! Cough our dinner back out.” Hector looked at Ebony in amazement before noticing that their dinner except the ones already on their plates and bowls was cleaned up as if they were already washed. They quickly pulled their plates closer and started gobbling up.

Ryley ate slowly, Tuffock a little disappointed, Hector desperately protecting his meal from him. The only thing was that they all pushed their soups aside.

Ebony took them and drank it with internal glee. Pasta slipped out of Hector’s mouth When he saw Ebony drinking that…concoction like water.

“A..amazing…” Tuffock was truly impressed, his eyes almost sparkled as he looked at Ebony.

“Urgh. It was your doing wasn’t it?” Ryley looked at Hector unhappily.

“Err. I didn’t think she would make the entire pot with it…” Hector was dismayed by his negligence. Who knew she would cook the same thing for all of them? He wanted to see Ebony’s scrunched up facial expression as small revenge for the pranks Ebony pulled on him. Like waking up freezing.

He gave Scarlet a pouch of pickled envy gooseberries. Envy gooseberries being the sourest known fruit and someone even thought to pickle it to make it worse. Placing one-fifth of a single berry into the large pot Scarlet used would be more than enough to make Hector’s tongue wriggle like a snake and wrinkles concentrated on his nose as his facial muscles squeezed.

Scarlet tossed out something to Hector from her tent. Hector found it to be the pouch he gave her. It was empty. He gulped loudly. ‘This devil…she used all 3.” Hector swore to never anger the devil in human’s skin.

Having his ploy fail miserably and even backfiring to have an unfilling dinner was discouraging enough. He chased Ebony during their spar as if to vent his anger. Tuffock and Ryley ganged up on him afterwards. They were silently pissed to get dragged into the charade.

Hector chuckled. ‘I’m such a nice guy.’

Ebony had used some of his time to somewhat mend the party’s clothes and stuff. Even just moving and travelling was causing their stuff to wear pretty quickly. His bag was not exactly treated gently with it getting tossed around when he didn’t want it to hinder his movements or when he was not sure his shields could take a hit.

He was so going to get a compact spatial bag or even better, a space ring or dimensional ring or whatever the people here call it. Hopefully, there was such a thing.

Wear and tear wasn’t so hard to fix. Ebony just had to dip his mana in and mend the scratches. They may look like scratches on the outside but they were cut and torn when zoomed in. He could only do so much without more material to fix stuff. Holes in Tuffock’s robes couldn’t be covered and his own robe had been looking worse and worse.

Hector’s scale armour was interesting to push his mana into. Its internal structure is so different from woven threads. Much closer to his very own Layered Ice Carapace but still fundamentally different. Possibly due to the different monster or animal its scales came from and the fact that Ebony’s Layered Ice Carapace was merely an imaginary and completely original made up structure. He didn’t have a chance to experiment or learn about the internal structure of Gen’s scale shell.

Clothes and equipment wasn’t the only thing that was mended that night.

Night passed.

Ebony woke up energised like never before. Though he might have over ate a little the previous night.

The journey was really dry on this endless walkway of a dungeon floor.

Finally noticing a change after a couple of hours.

“Light.” Ryley sped up. It wasn’t all that dark in the walkway but it wasn’t bright either. They were all glad something was changing.

Ebony liked where this was going less and less. It was still getting hotter and hotter.

They quickly reached where Ryley saw light. Hopefully, it was the next floor.

Ebony was right, he didn’t like it.

A desert. Lots of sunlight from the sun, probably fake. Lots and lots of sand, large sand dunes. Oh and what do you know? There’s a single cactus in sight. A wide-open desert, they came out from a hole at the bottom of a massive sand dune.

Ebony could spot a few small shadows in the distance. Either monsters or other people, he couldn’t tell from this distance.

The unanimous decision was made to move forward from where they came out from.

“What in the dungeons?” Ryley was stunned.

“What did you see?” Hector asked.

“Teen Giant Sandworms. Arrowtail Scorpions.”

“So?” Scarlet asked, unimpressed. She was itching to fight something else other than golems.

“...Their levels’ over 130.”

During their 6, almost 7 days in the walkway they encountered mostly fist, foot and head Earthen-Topaz golems. Near the fourth day, all of them were evolved but their levels were always exactly 100. The core golems didn’t show up much, only a total of 3 more showed up. All individually. The strongest being level 110. There was not much trouble with the whole party fighting together.

The walkway wasn’t all that squeezy. With one person fighting. With all of them? Their teamwork and trying not to hit each other were getting better and better by the day. Tuffock 2 and Ryley throwing insults here and there. Yet, it took their combined effort to get through a group of a single core golem and many other golems.

“Such a large level gap in one floor?” Hector didn’t believe what he heard. The strength difference between a level 110 and 130 was so much more than level 10 and level 30. The norm was a 5 to 10 level difference between floors. Of course, not every dungeon was the same so it was hard to say.

“Th..this is beyond us… we should not go any further.” Tuffock was getting more nervous. His spells didn’t do much against the level 110 core golem, much less a Teen Giant Sandworm 20 levels higher.

Tuffock voted to turn back. So did Hector, after a brief moment of hesitation, Scarlet’s words rang in his head. He decided not to gamble with a divination mage’s predictions. As long as they got out of the dungeon all should be fine.

Ebony and Scarlet were all for it. He doubted they could reach the top of the dungeon much less clear the dungeon. The dungeon was far more dangerous than anyone expected. Plainston’s popularity probably dropped quite a bit already. They were lucky the first floor still had level 80 monsters and not higher. It would still be a prime location for many people so the city wouldn’t be affected too much. Plainston's population may drop but the average strength of the people and quality of goods will rise. It isn’t all that bad of an exchange.

The most popular dungeons were Common ranked dungeons. Weak dungeons. The irony was that Common ranked dungeons were less common than Uncommon ranked ones. Like people and monsters, dungeons also grow stronger. That was Elcra’s current situation and many young humans, dwarfs and beastmen alike are growing slower than in the past when Common ranked dungeons were plentiful. Elves were largely unaffected, they never even depended on purely hunting to teach their young. The difference was that they had the advantage of time and lifespan on their side.

Humans and Beastmen were affected the most. They had the shortest lifespans and much fewer chose to be craftsmen like Dwarfs.

Ryley was silent. He was inwardly aware. He was the weakest of the lot with the exception of being roughly equal to the stone mage. A few special arrows weren’t enough to change the fact. Their frequent spars were enough to show him that.

Even so, Ryley didn’t want to give up on his hopes of being a dungeon clearer. There wouldn’t be another chance to be in a party with a Xeng. Furthermore, the other 2 hybrid warrior mages were both immensely powerful for their level as well. The Xeng and mana slave are still ever so confident.

Ryley ultimately went for it. There was still time to retreat if they couldn’t handle it anymore. He could still fight more aggressively by empowering both his bow and arrow with more mana. He would be able to fight fewer fights but they should still be able to go further.

Their levels can still rise and get stronger. Becoming first to clear the dungeon was obviously impossible but that hardly matters to Ryley now. Just clearing it was enough. He was at least that self-aware.

Ryley tried to be decently careful. He tried to remember every little thing he was taught. His Farsight was put to the test. He loosened their formation, taking advantage of the terrain. He was an Archer, with enough distance he could shoot anything down. A Power Archer no less.

Tuffock’s charged spells should be good enough to inflict damage as well.

Ryley discussed the general strategy they would take on this floor. The vanguards will be close together, buying time for Tuffock and Ryley was the gist of it really. Ryley will lead them to as small a group as he could find. They would try to get to level 100 on this floor.

The 40 level gap for Ebony and 30+ to 40 for the others would be perfect to speed through the levels with just a few successful hunts. Furthermore, the current dungeon monsters are greatly weakened by the seal. It was their best chance to get the most of this dungeon now.

That was what they did. It took some time. Moving away from monsters that were in groups of 5 or more. Traversing the sandy area proved difficult and unfamiliar even for Scarlet. Ebony didn’t feel much of a difference, lightly tapping off the ground if he wanted to. Hiding from monsters was even harder, the monsters would likely spot the party of humans before Ryley spotted them. Fortunately not every group was hell-bent on chasing.

Going on top of dunes gives them an advantage of sight but also puts them into perception too. Dilemma.

They did find out that the level range of monsters was actually 125 to 130 for the Giant Sandworms and that they mostly moved underground so it was hard to tell how many of them were in a group in general. The Arrowtail Scorpions on the other hand were at least level 130 to 140. They were usually a couple, always seen in groups of 2s. Ryley was further discouraged to continue when he spotted a Desert Wolf at level 117.

When there was one there was at least one pack. That was common sense when spotting wolves. Sure, such common sense may or may not apply to this specific dungeon but that was a gamble Ryley would not bet on.

It was a no brainer to pick the Arrowtail Scorpions to hunt.

Ebony thought otherwise. He would pick the wolves any day if it was merely a choice to choose the safest, fastest method to level.

[Arrowtail Scorpion Lvl 132]

[Arrowtail Scorpion Lvl 132]

They finally found a suitable pair of targets after almost half the day of hiding, scouting and exploring.

The scorpions were flat, only around Ebony’s calf when it was standing on its six legs and two pincers. They were longer than he was tall, their tails 2 thirds their body length. The arrowhead of the tail was their namesake and they look sharp and shiny, their tail itself slender.

Ebony had been spending a tiny but noticeable amount of mana to keep his Layered Ice Carapace in tip top shape. He fully enhanced himself, Battle Song more often used for classicals or the sound of river water flowing and such for a relaxing time now rather than the useless physical buff.

He sweated like he was literally melting. Because he was melting with Icebody Enhancement.

Following their plan, he focused on trying to trap one of them in his scale orb. He was probably the best at surviving and buying time so he was left to take care of the one of the left by himself.

Ebony had two of his shields stuck close to him. He should really not take a single hit if he doesn’t want to die. The Arrowtail Scorpions had the same idea as them when they saw each other. Prey.

'Skittering' down the sand dune might not have been right when they found the Arrowtail Scorpions less than a km away in a sec. It wasn’t the start that Ryley had hoped for but he took aim and Tuffock got right into chanting with his staff raised in front of him. They were actually only tasked to standby and attack for this fight unless things went south. The vanguards needed to test if they could cope.

Ebony took a step to meet the scorpion who covered most of the remaining distance in the meantime. He was the most undisrupted by the sandy desert out of all of them. He had both shields right in front of him just in time to block an incoming spear of a tail. It sharply pierced through the air and skidded along his shield. The sheer impact of the blow shook his head hard from the mental feedback.

His shields stayed strong and mostly undamaged. It was defendable.

Ebony started to disassemble his remaining shields, never losing focus from the scorpion who was repeatedly thrusting and stabbing with its tail over its head. The other scorpion was already forcefully distracted by Hector and Scarlet.

Ebony tried his best to angle his shields to let the Arrowtail Scorpion’s tail stabs to glide to the side to reduce damage on them but it was too fast. Even faster than Scarlet’s sword thrusts when she hasn’t gotten her buff kicked in. Every impact rattled his mind but it was only to the point of tossing a pebble into the lake. Barely even close to disrupting his mental state.

While he had been practising, it was a different beast altogether to defend against fatal attacks and control a few scales at the time to change in shape and surround the scorpion. Its tail was not its sole weapon, it stretched out its claws and tried to pincer the shields but the shields were too large compared to it. The fact didn’t stop it from trying to knock the annoying ice shields away. Though the power behind their pincers was pathetic compared to its tail strikes.

The Arrowtail Scorpion noticed the scales going over and above him for a while but didn’t bother with it until it shadowed over it. It quickly started to pince the scales that continually added on to cover itself. Making deep cuts on individual scales when it snaps onto them but is not able to remove them from their path.

The Arrowtail didn’t feel danger from the chilly pieces that it tried to destroy but it didn’t like that it was getting shadowed by them. It skittered back, stopping its futile aggression for a moment. It had already tried going at its weak but absolutely delicious looking prey from multiple angles but its prey was surprisingly capable of dodging and reacting to where it wanted to go to attack it from. It just needed a bit more time to wear down the prey’s scales.

Ebony followed the Arrowtail that retreated, its movement speed not as swift as its tail stabs. He had quite some fun moving across the desert with Treading Steps, hardly kicking up much sand every step he took unless he let Chaotic Repulsive Membrane push him off. That was a little too risky to do here, he would likely slip and fall horribly with the unstable footing. This was when the gravity in here was stronger than outside of the dungeon.

He was not able to catch up to the Arrowtail but the Arrowtail didn’t run for long either. Its objective is to devour Ebony. He just slammed the excess Layered Ice Carapace underside on its back when it turned back to arrow through Ebony with its tail.

It didn’t do much to the Arrowtail, its legs not even buckling down to the ground. But the shield split apart into scales and its ‘umbrella’ that kept chasing it clasp down and joined together. The Arrowtail found itself encased in a scale prison. It didn’t think much of it as its tail pierced a sizable hole through the ice orb easily enough. It poked another hole after the first, and again and again.

However, light from the holes kept getting covered as it made new holes to break itself free. Finally, a single strike only cracked bits of ice into its new home. It got darker and darker as the orb got thicker and thicker.

Ebony was impressed at the strength and power of the Arrowtail Scorpion. He used all 4 complete Layered Ice Carapace plus a few more scales from his last spare. His preparation as a mage was still insufficient. There were more problems like the fact that the structure of his orb wasn’t the best. The thicker it got the more scales were required and stuff like that. He still thought that it was more to protect something inside from the outside than to trap something inside it.

The scales broke a lot easier from within it. It was also easier to push it apart from its attachment to other scales without his mental input to force it in place. Well, more experiments were needed to perfect anything.

The Arrowtail Scorpion was far from having given up. He could sense the ice mana within that his orb was breaking down. Fast. He quickly released the ice mana from solid form to mist. The reaction from the scorpion was surprisingly almost instantaneous. It shivered for a second before doubling down in its attempts to break free.

It made a loud and high pitched hissing sound from within that reached far. Its companion hissed in return and tried to come to its rescue to have Scarlet take advantage of its broken concentration to slice 3 thin legs off one side of its body.

Tuffock and Ryley, who were originally high strung and tense, had relaxed a little. The Arrowtail Scorpion was not as intimidating as their levels suggest. Though they both knew that it was just the 3 hybrid vanguards on their team who were the unnatural ones. There was still the fact that the Core golems were really something else.

Ebony sensed with his perception of ice mana that the scorpion had sprayed some liquid on his ice. It didn’t do much but slide off. Perhaps poison from its tail but it was not corrosive. That was good.

It could claw nothing and the piercing with its tail kept getting stiffer, slower. It was freezing up slowly and then it did. Normal organic monsters were pretty affected by ice it seems. He just got some of the ice mana within to form a blade from the inner walls to cut its head off. It wasn’t frozen to the bone yet so it took some time and repeated stabbing.

‘Ting’ ‘You have killed [Arrowtail Scorpion Lvl 132], enemy 40 levels or more above your own. Experience concentration too high to dilute completely, additional experience gained.’

‘Ting’ ‘Meditative Swordsman of Frostblaze level up 89 - 90, 10 stat points gained.’

‘Ting’ ‘Mana Meister level up 86 - 87, 1 Wisdom stat gained.’

‘Ting’ ‘Class Skill Ice Mana Control level up 104 - 105’

‘Ting’ ‘Class Skill Layered Ice Carapace level up 95 - 96’

‘Ting’ ‘Class Skill Frost Mist Perception Sphere level up 96 - 97’

Ebony’s Class and Profession haven't levelled despite all the golems so it was no surprise. Ice Mana Control and Layered Ice Carapace were heavily used and practised, so that already gained a level or two but Frost Mist Perception Sphere hasn’t levelled up in a while.

This desert was a pretty good spot.

‘40 levels is a nice gap, but it isn’t feasible to level fast this way. Also, it’s sooo hot.’ Ebony could at best handle 2 of them at the same time; his orb prison can hold one while he fights the other. They seem weak to ice, an Ice Sword or Frost Injection here and there, dodge a little and he can buy enough time to take both down. He believes Scarlet was done with the other one too. So as a party, he thought a group of 5 to 6 may be a little dangerous but possible.

Yet, that seemed so…inefficient.