Ebony's Fable

A single day and night of 28 hours was enough for Ebony to dive all the way down back to the 8th floor. Scarlet was out cold throughout which made things even more worrisome. He remained as calm as always since her condition only seemed to improve over time. He kept her body temperature down with a little Frost Mist when she got hot enough to cook an egg. Fortunately, her heart rate returned to normal levels hours ago.

From here on out he had to travel based on the rough directions and information that Panic Attack told him. Using the walkway again might be much faster but there was really no place to hide there and Tuffock was still much faster than him if he really tried to come after him.

According to Michael, they came out of one of the largest sand dune on the 8th floor which was a terrible direction to follow. There were stairs in them that led to the 7th floor. Ebony hardly encountered any monsters at all, perhaps the dungeon was at an all time low after the thousands they lost. A large duration was spent on the 8th floor itself looking for the entrance or exit to the lower floors.

There were not many sand dunes that can be considered ‘largest’ but they were all quite a distance apart. Ebony only found it after another hour or so. Fortunately, they practically fully explored this floor when they were pushing to level 100.

He had tried to focus on regenerating his hand but progress was so slow he was beginning to think that maybe he couldn’t regenerate a whole hand after all.

He didn’t know what Scarlet would think if she saw his missing hand so he checked his left hand again. His glove was intact, only the area where it was pierced was a little grey and petrified. Ebony felt that that meant touching it would be no problem and he was right, the petrification didn’t spread when he removed his glove.

Ebony then conjured a hollow left hand and fit his gloves in before freezing it in place. He had hoped that he could still regenerate a hand and didn’t want to make a fully solid ice hand. Since his ice sculpture's model had always been himself it wasn’t too difficult to conjure and shape.

He practised his control and found it a little confusing when he attempted to physically grip something but it was his mind that was controlling the movements of his ice prosthetic. It was fantastic Ice Mana Control training.

It didn’t take too long to climb down the stairs to the seventh floor, significantly cooler than the desert. A canyon.

Canyon valley was more appropriate as that was where he climbed down to, the walls go up taller than a skyscraper. It was wide in some areas and bottlenecked ahead. Already spotting the Cutgorge Coyote that Michael mentioned.

There was supposed to be Giant Dustwing, and Sonorous Canyon Lion as well. Their levels were 115 to 120 for the coyotes, 105 to 115 for the dustwing which from their description was similar to a vulture and the lions were the highest at 130 to 135 despite being on a lower floor than the desert which has lower levelled monsters.

Ebony was interested in fighting them at least once but now really wasn’t the time for it. He couldn’t eat or cook them and didn’t stand to gain anything from hunting them either so he merely stepped past them. The Giant Dustwing was indeed a large vulture with a wingspan more than 10 metres long. They didn’t dive down to attack him and stayed high up on the walls and ledges on them, watching was all they did.

He did see multiple holes in the valley walls from time to time that Michael said was the lion’s den or spawn nodes.

The canyon valley was only a one way route, simple. Likely also because the dungeon hasn’t had time to expand and reach its full size. That would take years and was one reason why he wasn’t dead set on completing his Mental Map of the dungeon.

It was kind of weird. He spotted a [Sonorous Canyon Lion Lvl 132] that strutted out of one of the caves not too high up. It saw Ebony since there was no cover but then quickly turned around and dashed off back into the cave. He wasn’t about to complain since he wanted out as soon as possible.

He did hear a few roars and screams from the canyon holes and even dashed past 2 parties already so this floor seemed to be really populated compared to the desert floors. Ebony didn’t bother with them and they didn’t bother with him either.

Unlike the 8th to 11th floor which was all deserts, the 7th floor was comparatively larger like the floors below that. Ebony didn’t realise that Scarlet woke up after another half a day of speeding through the valley.

Scarlet had woken up due to a hunger pang but she quickly shut her eyes when she realised she was getting carried. Why? She didn’t know herself. She noticed the 2 levels she gained in Violent Heart Acceleration and the fact that the skill was running again. Immediately using Blood Mana Manipulation to slow it down.

Another half a day passed as she remained perfectly still in Ebony’s arms. It was not uncomfortable but she could no longer take it as she was getting hungrier and hungrier. Ebony was probably starving too, she thought. She acted like she was gradually rousing and patted him which caught his attention and he stopped running. The way he braked was gentle and light unlike her intense bursts of speed.

“You’re awake. Are you okay? Do you feel pain anywhere?” Ebony asked. He didn’t see hide or hair of Tuffock behind him though he didn’t look back, no attacks came anyway. Stopping for a moment should be of no concern.

“I..I’m fine. How long has it been?” Scarlet tried to speak but noticed it was painful to speak, she tried her best to hide the fact but it was too obvious.

Ebony told her that it had been 2 days and gave a rough explanation of what had happened after they found a random cave not too high up in the valley walls to hide. It was a small cave and there were only 3 coyotes in them that Ebony literally kicked out. They didn’t come back. Odd.

It was still dark but not from thunderclouds, just that it was night. Scarlet made dinner. She still ate in her tent, Ebony sat on the floor right outside her tent and they ate in silence. He needed the break and food too since his stamina started to drop by a few points every hour. Sustenance was still necessary or his stamina would start dropping faster and faster. His increase in Constitution did appear to help but only slightly.

Now that he thought about it, whenever he added Constitution his body weight increases a little. Scarlet felt a little too light for that to hold true for her. He estimated she weighed around 60 to 70 kg only. He didn’t believe her Constitution stat was all that low either; it might be even higher than his own.

Another thing he noted for a long time was that his body got tougher and muscles denser. Yet when he tetted with Scarlet, her fingers felt so soft he wondered if she had bones, the same for when he carried her. Did Constitution or rather all stats work differently for everyone or was it just the racial and gender differences that affected the way the stats affect the individual?

All Ebony could do was ponder but there was little point since he had no way to confirm so he pushed the thought aside like many other thoughts that pop up. He didn’t need so much clutter in his mind.

They rested for the night and staying up to guard each other didn’t come to mind as he fell asleep. He woke up refreshed and they didn’t get disturbed by any monsters, parties or stone mage. They quickly packed up and left after a quick meal.

Scarlet recovered enough to talk normally with a little discomfort. Apparently, her extraordinary mask had some healing spells embedded that would activate if her health dropped dangerously fast or low enough and didn’t rise back up after a certain period of time. All the swelling and internal bleeding without treatment activated them and she slowly recovered.

At this point, he would believe anything she says about what her mask can do. It was just too multipurpose and amazing. The needle that pierced through 2 of his shields and his arm didn’t even make a mark on it other than turning to stone dust after impact.

Ebony was gonna bet that the result would be the same even if he didn’t slow the needle down, though Scarlet’s entire neck and head would’ve snapped right off.

It didn’t even take an hour before they saw the canyon slowly turn rocky. There was the familiar sound of gushing water. That was the way to the 6th floor. A steep rocky cliff with Rockscale Ogres around level 105 to 115 that Panic Attack said was as tough as a level 140ish Arrowtail Scorpion. It also traverses the cliffs on all fours with ease, the most dangerous monster that Panic Attack has faced in the entire dungeon so far.

That was because the entire 6th floor was a rocky cliff with a raging waterfall in the centre. The waters had Climber Glaivefin Anabas that could swim up the waterfall and jump up to cut down those that got close or tried to pass through the waters. These 2 seemed to be the only monsters.

Michael called the 6th floor the killer floor that stopped over 95% of all parties from climbing up. Who could fight while climbing up a steep cliff that had large humanoid ogres that could camouflage as the rocky cliff itself and show themselves to eat the climbers, push them down or grab and throw them into the raging waterfall for the anabas to feed on?

They said the 6th floor was only 2 fifths of a gor long or tall which was about 2km so it was a really short distance.

Ebony cast a Layered Ice Carapace for the both of them to float down. They fell down faster than he could control it. He didn’t understand why it was so much harder to make himself float compared to just carrying around others.

The Ogres didn’t have the same tendency to hide as the monsters on the 7th floor. When they fell past one of them, it leapt off the cliff with ferocity and a deep roar looking to pull them down only to be smashed right back into the walls by a burning bundle of flames and falling off the cliff itself as it couldn’t get a grip onto the cliff.

The two of them landed not too long later to find the angry Ogre alive but cracked. The unlucky thing felt like it was a good idea to continue attacking them.

Ebony looked around, there was not much to see. Dirt ground with a river that connects from the waterfall, both sides walled. A route ahead and a waterfall and rocky cliff behind. It didn’t even take minutes to finish climbing or floating down the 6th floor. The entrance to the 5th floor was also only minutes away with their travelling speed.

A hole hundreds of metres in diameter was there in the ground. Looking down was seeing a sea of white. There were the familiar white cubes floating below. Just like the white cube they got their drops from that was also ‘hidden’ under a waterfall.

The river from the 6th floor also fell down into the 5th floor and all the way down to the 4th floor.

The 5th floor was an open cylindrical space with hundreds of thousands of identical white cubes. Many floated upwards towards the 6th floor.

The ones closer to the walls floated downwards to the 4th floor too. For the ones moving up, the longer one stood on them the faster the white cubes fell down too.

Some of these white cubes held treasure just like how Ebony and his party got theirs. Some were Cube Mimics at level 100, evolved. Only showing themselves and trying to swallow those that stepped on them whole. Others had monsters from other floors just climbing right out and attacking those that stood on them. Most were duds and just solid white cubes of unknown material.

The 5th floor also connected the 4th and 6th floors without anything blocking the path. Falling from the 5th floor would let one land into the cavernous river that flows downwards from the same waterfall that was falling from nowhere on the canyon floor. The river on the 4th floor was also said to fall into empty space that Panic Attack had warned them about. There was no surviving that.

Ebony and Scarlet didn’t hesitate to hop right down onto a random cube. They hopped down lower and lower, not standing on a cube for long unless they didn't see another cube to jump down to in their immediate vicinity. There was the largest number of people he had seen in the dungeon at one time on this floor.

Probably the fact that there was more treasure found here than on any other floor below. The monsters here didn’t exceed level 100 either, some were unevolved as well.

However, this floor was dangerous as they could fall at any time and they couldn’t stay still since the white cubes would start falling down to the river below if they stood on the same one for long enough.

Since none could camp here or even take breaks there were still not all that many people and the whole area was huge with so many white cubes everywhere. Mages with low physical stats probably had a terrible time here as well. Those that had the fear of heights would not love the place either.

The floor was a lot taller or longer than the 6th floor but going down was a lot faster than going up and only took them about 3 to 4 hours before it started to get dim where the cavernous river of a 4th floor was.

They tried not to bother with trying to open every single cube or fight every monster but it took time and effort to be careful of slipping.

The white cubes floating down would suddenly float up when they stepped on them and it was counterproductive to step on the ones floating up and wait for them to sink so they had no choice but to jump from one cube to another.

The 2 of them had to be careful near the last few cubes before the 4th floor was in sight. According to Michael there was no land near the entrance or exit and only the floating cubes which were floating platforms that travelled upwards along the downstream river. This was much more interesting than all the other floors they had been to.

Ebony noticed Scarlet’s hesitation to jump onto one of the cubes or platforms that was floating up along the river below. She took off and hopped onto one of them before he could say or ask anything.

The cavernous river was also considerably wide. The river was flowing downwards as the 4th floor was sloped. The white cubes are mostly submerged and only a platform can be seen. Ebony could spot some of the [Flesh Piranhas Lvl 100] already. Upside down, on the rocky ceiling were also [Squallgust Bats Lvl 100].

They used magic, likely wind and shot gusts of wind at them to push them into the raging river. The Flesh Piranhas also attempted to knock them down by leaping right out of the river. It wasn’t too much trouble to dodge the slow attacks. Ebony noticed that Scarlet had trouble seeing the attacks from the Piranhas underwater so he got her to move together and jump onto the same platforms.

The cubes acted in a similar fashion. They floated upstream but when stepped on too long will start to follow the flow of the river bringing along whoever was stepping on it down.

The cubes were a metre by a metre, not small but not large. Scarlet followed him and only stepped on the ones that he had stepped on with no problem. It was very clear to him that she seemed to take real care on how she moved and landed. Almost like she was afraid of something. Maybe she was still not feeling well so he decided to find somewhere to rest as soon as possible.

It was about 2 to 3 hours of hopping around from platform to platform before something like a small riverbank appeared. Ebony didn’t let his guard down as he jumped onto solid land instead of the bobbing platforms. Nothing attacked and there were no traps activated either. Scarlet quickly hopped along before she got carried away too far.

“Let’s take a break. I don’t think he’s following that closely behind anyway.” Ebony said. He actually doubted she was even concerned about getting followed by Tuffock. Tuffock didn’t appear all that much stronger than them but that may be because he didn’t want to kill Ebony.

The petrification magic was troublesome though. A tiny ass needle might have petrified his entire body. If that didn’t hit his hand but his head or chest Ebony would have been a goner already. The petrification mage didn’t even seem to put any effort into the spell so it could only mean he hasn’t been serious at all.

There was also the fact that the spell was aimed at Scarlet, not Ebony. No wonder they called him an idiot and panicked. They might have thought Ebony was dead or was dying with that single spell of theirs but not for long. Without the notification of his death, they would likely follow or chase him when they found out he hasn’t died yet.

Maybe petrifying wouldn’t kill him like the fire mage that was completely petrified and they had a way to depetrify him. That would actually buy Ebony more time as they would look for his statue instead of imagining he was already moving about and out of the dungeon.

Ebony didn’t know that that was exactly what Tuffock was doing, the petrification mage was searching around the 7th floor canyon for where Ebony had hidden before completely petrifying into a stone statue. It was not hard to hide from the sure death of the mana storm when one knew what to do. He was busy checking every wall in the caves, getting his men to believe he was their boss was all too simple with the way their organisation worked. He got them to spread out and check every single cave as well. With Ebony petrified and Scarlet dying, there was no real danger in getting his men to search for them.

Meanwhile Ebony was eating meat buns on the 4th floor with his hollow ice hand which he was training his control with. Scarlet hasn’t found out or didn’t bother saying anything. It was convenient that he always wore a left glove and it was mostly undamaged.

Based on his increasingly accurate internal clock it was still daytime and they should be able to travel a little further before stopping for the night.

She didn’t say what was wrong and he didn’t ask either. He believed that she would speak up if there was a problem.

‘Maybe she’s just hungry. I get really hungry when I regenerate broken and torn parts too.’ Ebony thought he got what was troubling her. Healing from an injury causes the body to be in real need of nutrients. Even though he wasn’t sure if healing through healing magic was any different, the long hours of moving did make him hungry.

“Do you have any tea?” Ebony had a craving for tea but Plainston didn’t have any. He had hoped it would change or improve her poor mood.

Well, the sudden question certainly confused her.

“Only a little left.” Scarlet answered.

She didn’t like tea, only having some left that her grandmother liked. Tea was bitter, she didn’t understand why some people liked it. She took out a large wooden tray with one of her grandma’s tea sets.

Ebony didn’t think he would see the brown clay teapot here, there were really so many similarities. It was plain and undecorated, wide and round body and thin neck. Only 2 small clay tea cups were on the tray with a jar.

His enhanced sense of smell had him sniffing the tea leaves inside. A type of black tea as far as he could tell it he didn’t recognize from scent alone.

“May I?” Ebony asked. He believed he was more than proficient enough. Scarlet let him do as he pleased, taking out a pot and filling it with water from a water mana ore before starting to boil it.

It didn’t take long to boil. Ebony took it and scalded the tea set twice over before opening the jar of dried leaves. Rather than black it had an extremely dark hue of red, the leaves were dried and balled up. There was really only enough for maybe 2 or 3 pots though he wouldn’t know how many times he could make tea from a single session until he tried.

It was not a leaf he recognized and the water needed to cool a little before pouring it in and letting the leaves expand.

“What tea is this?”

“Rooha tea. Astringent and bitter.”

‘Never heard of it but she clearly isn’t a fan.’ It was likely just a tea that was native to this world or continent. Ebony went ahead and asked about the brewing method for it. She just pulled the tray over and showed him instead.

It was just so pleasant to see. Despite her aggression and brutal violence, she was more graceful and elegant than anyone he had set his eyes on. Every little action of hers seems to draw his undivided attention.

It was black tea after all. Not really bitter in his opinion but it was very astringent. It was the wrong type of pot for this Rooha tea, he didn’t really test the qualities of water on Elcra either.

“You don’t like tea?” Ebony questioned.

“I don’t. It’s so bitter.”

“I think this Rooha tea will go well as milk tea. You could try adding milk if you have some.” Ebony was sure Scarlet kept milk around in one or more of her preservation magic enchanted boxes. Cream stew was so common as a dish here and he was pretty sure she used milk.

“Milk tea?” Confused, Scarlet had never heard of adding milk to tea. It sounded like a horrible idea that she’ll get scolded for wasting tea and yet she couldn’t help but want to try.

Ebony stopped her from adding too much after seeing the colour change to a lighter brown. He thought it would be so much trouble to set her tent up just to try the drink even with how the tents here were so damn easy and convenient to set up.

Scarlet kept her eye on the changes of the tea and not just its colour but also its scent. She was thirsty and was dying to try something new, being right in front of her was a temptation she’s not sure she could deny.

“…Lo..look away.” She unclasped the lower belt of her mask. Pulled her mantle up to cover her face and shift the bottom of her mask and took a sip while she filled her lungs with the light milky scent the tea has.

Ebony didn’t look away, she didn’t check either. Too excited to drink that he didn’t have time to look away even if he wanted to. Well, he didn’t want to. But he couldn’t see after she covered herself with her hands anyway and finished the tiny cup of tea quickly.

“It lost most of its astringency! And it’s sweeter now and not just from the milk I can taste the slight sweetness of Rooha leaves themselves! A little more milk should make it better or only the 2nd boil of the tea so that the tea is weaker.” Scarlet never sounded more excited, maybe even more excited than when they were discussing combat. She went on and on, from mumbling to outright telling Ebony all the possibilities she thought of that could make it taste better.

It was clear she liked sweet things so he introduced the idea of fruit tea and also what sweets and snacks that could go well with tea. He didn’t know much about tea culture here but it didn’t seem like she heard of milk tea, fruit tea wasn't new to her though.

So excitable and cute all of a sudden. They didn’t realise they were sitting closer and closer until Scarlet’s mask slipped. She didn’t latch the bottom belt back on after drinking.

Ebony reacted instantly and caught her mask with both hands, holding it onto her face. She didn’t want her face to be seen and Ebony did his best so that that held true.

Scarlet who was having so much fun talking about food only reacted after him and brought her hands up hurriedly to catch her mask from slipping off bringing her head down along so that her mask didn’t veer off. ‘Catching’ Ebony’s hands instead, her eyes shot up, finding the dark gaze looking right into her.

Stunned, time seemed to have stopped for the two of them when she looked up into his pitch black eyes.

Ebony couldn’t tell if he didn’t have the strength to pull his hands away due to her higher base strength or he was too busy admiring the flustered look in her blazing eyes. His heart skipped a beat when she looked right at him. If eyes could blush.

Scarlet on the other hand, couldn’t believe that she was holding onto Ebony’s hands. The back of his hands it may be but her brain was overloading with confusion, embarrassment and mostly blanking out. She wanted to hide already but he was holding onto her mask and wouldn’t let go.

One tried to calm his heart, the other her mind. And both useless Core Skills that they can’t control.

“Heeey! It really is both of you! I tho… should I just leave?”

They jerked and hurriedly separated. ‘Why did it feel like I was doing something I shouldn’t be doing?’ Ebony quickly calmed his heart which accelerated thrice over once they broke contact.

He randomly cast a shard of ice over at the man who acted like a shy maiden who saw something she shouldn’t that was slowly floating further back up to the 5th floor after he stopped hopping around. Obviously peeking through his fingers as he looked to the side.

“Woah! What are you doing!? I almost fell!” Hector, who was peeking through his fingers, swiftly ducked the incoming projectile. Then hopped onto another platform up ahead to dodge the burning spear that felt hotter than ever and was evaporating the surface of the river where it passed. It landed on the platform that Hector was previously standing on and spread in a circular wave big enough that the flames still reached Hector. He quickly put it out with his manipulation which he usually wasn’t able to in their spars. Her spell felt different from usual, a lot more unstable.

“Are you trying to kill me?!”

They answered with more projectiles.

They packed up really quickly and the three of them continued their way out. One of them desperately evading while finding a good platform to hop to. The other two blankly fired chilly and burning magical projectiles.