Ebony's Fable

Empirical Calendar. Date 06.10.5532. 6th day of winter.

Based on days, today was Ebony’s 17th birthday based on Elcra’s calendar. His 21st Earthen birthday that he wasn’t planning to keep count of anymore passed some time back already. He backdated and calculated based on days and not the hours so he might be days off back he had decided that the 6th day of winter was his birthday.

Ebony reached Arcta on the last few days of summer. It had been 3 months since then. His Class and Sub-Class skills weren't stagnant but they didn’t level very quickly either.

Ebony didn’t want to freeload. He really didn’t think they needed mana ores from him either so he asked for a job or some work. He didn’t bring it up to Roya since she would likely insist that he didn’t need to do anything.

Halvis also said that he could stay as long as he liked but with enough insistence he was referred back to Orren, the village chief. There were plenty of things they could have him do but the main things they needed was hunting for food and collecting ingredients or materials.

There was the usual dungeon clearing to do to lower the dungeons' population but he wasn’t needed for that. The low level one was small and practically a training ground for their young. The stronger one was beyond his capabilities apparently. One of the parties in Arcta was here for those dungeons. The other party which consisted of the great water mage wasn’t seen again, they probably only made a stop in Arcta to rest.

There were few Frost Elves at his level. The majority were adults whose levels he could not Identify. The others were the young children in the playground. The number of Frost Elves who were Journeymen could be counted was basically all the children. A sore spot for the Frost Elves due to Arcta losing so many of their people.

Ebony had his strength tested by Enya, the lady [Great Snow Rogue] that escorted him previously. She beat him black and blue without even using any more speed or power than necessary. She didn’t use any special skills but a single dagger.

He used everything at his disposal, he didn’t have a greatsword but an ice one worked fine in a spar. His Gravity Repulsive Membrane didn’t do jack and she seemed to completely ignore it. Though she did blink once or twice the first time she tried to land a blow on him.

It was refreshing to be beaten purely by skill and technique once again. He had easily over 10 Earth years of combat experience and together with the nonsense he had been put through it was what gave him his strength and advantage over those he had fought against so far. A truly pitifully short time compared to these Frost Elves and also many other people, even humans. For example, Michael from Panic Attack who can easily read and counter minor changes on the spot.

The Frost Elves gave him the good-to-go sign pretty easily despite how he lost so badly. He was tasked with protecting those level 30-60 guard-cum-hunting teams of young children, some were up to 10 to 30 years older than Clovis. Meaning they were all shorter than Ebony by a fair margin since they were only considered fully grown at an age of 100 to 150 depending on the individual.

They were a close-knit village, with an adult or two following the kids. In secret or openly, likely a relative of one of the children.

Ebony first followed a young-looking Frost Elf, Koawe. His first escorting mentor was definitely not young and one of the children called him grandfather.

Ebony got a creepy and eerie feeling from him. After Classing, he could better feel and sense someone’s general strength or at least danger levels. The village chief was the strongest individual he met so far at that time not including Gen, until he saw an older Frost Elf than Orren. He would choose to fight the village chief 10 out of 10 times if he were to choose between him and Koawe. Identifying him only gave question marks with nothing else coming up.

All said, he didn’t witness Koawe in action and he was a gentle and open man. He didn’t watch Ebony very closely but after the uneventful hunt Ebony was trusted with the village’s children. Since they put so much trust in him, he took great care to make sure everyone in his care came back safe and sound. He knew that they were extremely protective towards their young after the previous accident.

Only, it was harder that he was not supposed to interfere when one of them was not in any real life threatening danger.

There were a couple of times when Tiha and Qane were in his care too, not to hunt but to track and camp out overnight. They were not jealous that he levelled so fast, even Qane. They were being taught many things and had a long life to go. Levels weren’t everything. Just like how the monsters here were stronger than those outside they too were stronger than their levels suggest.

❅❅❅

The most dangerous time was a month back when he was escorting an extremely beautiful 16 year old looking girl, Palom, on a supposed 5 day trip.

It was towards the edge of the Chilly region which was also the smallest in terms of area. Yet, even in just the Chilly region, there were 30 to 40% of it where he couldn’t go unless he had a death wish.

The girl was also a level 100 Journeyman. [Herbalist Level 100] from the village’s Lasil family to collect ingredients. The vital crabapples are one of them.

Roya and Halvis introduced her as the youngest level 100 journeyman they had at only 25 years old. They seem to push him to be her escort a few times.

Enya and the oldest Frost Elf that Ebony had seen were present too at that time, he was Grandmaster Class. [Grand Ice Mage Lvl ???], oldest but still looked middle-aged at best.

Orren introduced him as the village guardian, Korben Ind, who recently volunteered to come here after he had a nephew who moved here due to having a child, his grand nephew. Standing near Korben, Ebony burped and felt the intrusion of chill not just on his skin but more on his mind. Though that was enough to mildly impress the high level ice mage.

They reached the main collection area but were attacked from under the snow. Ebony and even Enya were only there as the fast-footed one to carry Palom away while the powerhouses dealt with the trouble.

Ebony didn’t even get to see what it was that attacked them before he was thrown through the skies by the neck. If it wasn’t his newfound toughness he would’ve had his neck broken already. Palom had gentler care and was protected by a snow spell and carried away by him with Enya protecting his back.

A day of running later and both the middle aged man, Korben and Enya were no longer anywhere he could see since a long while back. Palom was half a fighter and she was no slower than Ebony in terms of movement but she got tired quickly. Her stamina was more of a concern than her mana.

Treading Steps may have helped but it doesn’t change his ever-increasing weight. The snow depth kept rising over autumn and also as he moved deeper into the glades than he ever did. Ebony sank all the way down to his butt when he stood still. Palom and the other Frost Elves had no such trouble, the snow didn’t hinder them like it hindered him.

Palom was a quiet but strong girl, she wasn’t scared of a few monsters. According to her it was likely a 5-Headed Snow Serpent. A distant relative of the legendary Leviathan.

She had really interesting magic. Under her long and wide sleeves were many different types of seed, plants and even pouches and satchels of herbs. She could use some kind of magic he didn’t recognise but guessed to be nature or herbal element if there was a herbal element.

She only confirmed that it was a 5-Headed Snow Serpent when 2 stray 3-Headed ones managed to slip away from Enya. They were only level 121 but Ebony struggled with them the most so far. Having trouble moving around was one thing, not having a weapon was another.

Palom was the first to sense the incoming serpent from under the snow. A handful of seeds thrown into the ground was all it took to alert him. The warning was exactly what he needed as the serpent needed time to break through his tough shields.

The problem was that a single serpent could keep him busy enough and it had back up. Ebony already knew that Palom needed time for her magic. The first seeds she threw erupted into vines and locked the first serpent down just in time for him to deal with the reinforcement.

Ice magic was wholly ineffective against the monsters in Hoarfrost Glades. And the Frost Elves still managed to hunt the monsters here with ice magic. His main methods of attack these days were kicking or punching with Sonic Overlay. Lightly touching a normal tree was enough to make a circular dent or two in it. While pumping ice mana into most monsters here didn’t really empower them it didn’t do much either until a whole lot was injected. They had really high resistance to ice and cold.

The serpents didn’t have very hard scales, their scales or outer skin was similar to that of the Snowskin Monkeys. Ice Swords used as projectiles were bitten right out of the air and so were close-ranged ones. The three heads worked together with its 6 eyes to manage.

The serpent was breaking Layered Ice Carapaces bite by bite. It didn’t take long considering it had a combined girth equivalent to his thighs when three heads joined and 4 to 5 times his height in length. The power and strength behind their attacks were really impressive, even beyond Ordina’s Arrowtails at level 150.

Palom was impressively holding her own ground better than he was. Her advantage was in the familiarity and ease of manoeuvring in this terrain and understanding the strengths and weaknesses of the serpent.

Ebony decided to imprison the one he was fighting to quickly help Palom end her battle so that they could take down the one he was fighting with her help. Combusting ice mana inside for any effect ice would have on it.

Flowers and herbs bloomed on the body of the serpent while Ebony held it down, letting Palom prepare her spell.

It was beautiful magic, the blood of the serpent was white like snow so the flowers and herbs took its colour. Some ice sculptures of flowers slowly bloomed and thornily poked into the serpent’s body.

The serpent that he was putting on flames surprisingly broke out with a combined drilling motion with its heads. Unravelling right as they broke out to attack both of them in close proximity. The one aiming for him hit the air as he was long alerted by his senses to defend Palom.

2 of the serpent’s heads with something like a snow drill on them, drilled through his hastily cast scales since his shields couldn’t move nearly as fast as him and tore into his lower chest and abdomen. He quickly grabbed them where they were, stopping it from reaching Palom.

She panicked a little from all the blood splattering onto her, not expecting Ebony to shield her with his own body. Then she realised he was still struggling to pump ice mana into the serpent while the other head was blocked off by his ice shields. Attempting to crush its head and neck with his odd repulsion magic and another one which she recognized as sound magic utilised as a physical offence spell.

She quickly pulled herself together, along with pulling a satchel of powder she threw over the serpent’s interconnected neck exposed by the three way split. It was poison, as fast-acting as it was, Ebony didn’t have time so she hastened and strengthened its effects with her magic.

It was Ebony’s closest shave with death as a part of his heart was drilled out too. He felt like he lost all the strength in his body but Optimum Condition kept him moving. Palom used whatever healing pills or herbs she had but she was obviously looking terribly worried, almost breaking into tears because nothing seemed to be working other than the fact that he stopped bleeding really quickly. She didn’t know about a human’s anatomy but many humanoids have pretty similar make-up so her craft and fresh herbs used should be more than effective enough. At least they have never failed on any of her fellow villagers.

She only realised that Ebony’s body was so…dense with mana. He was leaking enough mana to scare the living daylights out of her if it was from a hostile predator. Yet his mana was so relaxing to be exposed to, it calmed her down enough not to panic. She was young and didn’t know about mana beings but she managed to preserve his life till Enya came not long later and carried the ice sculpture that was Ebony preserving himself as well.

The snow serpent also used a pretty common cold poison that many poisonous creatures in Hoarfrost Glade have. Ebony had decent enough cold resistance to slow its effects and this poison was hardly anything significant to Palom. She wasn’t a healer but her family’s elders were more than capable of healing him despite being more of a herbalist family than a healing one. Their role in the village was the same as a healer’s.

That was when he was truly welcomed in their village as one of theirs. It had been a month since then and he had long recovered after 2 weeks of ice in his bones and the chilling pain pumping from his heart throughout him. Pain that he could live without, he could feel it but chose not to let the pain register in his mind. His Core Skill sure was useful at times like this.

Ebony was wondering why he didn't get any sort of poison resistance but it was due to the fact that he was receiving treatment and his body didn't get the chance to heal from and adapt to the poison.

Palom had kept visiting him and nursing him back to health for the entire 2 weeks and her visits to the Thoya household became more frequent.

Even after he was already completely healed and kept insisting that he was already fully healed. The concern was flattering but Ebony only moved without thinking, he was bound by the trust the Frost Elves put in him. The thought of not letting any harm befall on the people they entrusted him to protect haunted him. Interacting with people was more troubling than he remembered.

In the 2 and a half months after he got the Reinforced Mana Chassis skill he had been learning the abcs of various types of clothing including robes. Roya had taught him multiple internal structures every type of clothing can have to serve different purposes.

Some were better against sharp attacks, some were better against piercing, some were more comfortable on the skin. How to incorporate his mana into his work. What myriad of materials there were and how each type was suitable and not suitable for what sort of clothing or defensive equipment.

Seeing that Palom kept visiting and he remembered she was from a herbalist family, he didn't want to waste the chance. He checked if they were fine with telling things about herbalism. He was interested in it anyway.

In the end, Ebony even gained the Gardening Skill. There were many things Palom held back and Halvis didn't let Ebony mess with his croft so he received a pot with frozen soil that he had grown frostsilk cotton in. Ebony really liked seeing it grow. It was only in the vegetative development stage after one and a half months but it was something. Bringing life was fresh compared to the constant killings.

Once again, the description for skills was really vague.

Gardening - Ability to tend to plants according to their needs increase by 1.0% per level.

Ebony wondered if the description was only vague because he doesn't understand the skill well enough.

He mostly gave up on looking for Gen. He had no doubt wherever he was was probably beyond Ebony after searching far and wide, seeing no signs of the maple trees in the entire time he was here. The increasingly heavy snowing made it even harder and his normal Perception wasn’t much help. Though his ice magic especially in terms of perceiving ice mana and controlling them improved by leaps and bounds by living here in the midst of masters of the ice element.

And of course, Ebony’s greatest gain in terms of his personal strength. Reinforced Mana Chassis. He was calling the so called mana organ, mana chassis because of the skill. The mana chassis encompasses his entire body due to what he is, his Physique. Ebony forcefully strengthened it to hold compressed mana thereby strengthening his body as a whole. Yes, every single percent of mana compressed in his mana chassis increased his Constitution by a single percent of his Intelligence.

His previous questions were how it would work with his other Mana Compression skill and his Profession Fortification. Roya had some possible answers for him. This ‘Passive’ that he needed to train actively by trying to keep his body from bursting after forcing stuff inside probably had some restrictions or limitations.

Chances are, it would depend on his Sheer Mana Compression Skill. It likely wouldn’t level beyond how much he could compress his mana by. But then there was his 100% Mana Compressibility Fortification to take into account.

The skill also levelled horribly slowly, the process of training the skill hurts multitudes more than getting a portion of his heart torn off and poisoned. He was not sure about teaching Scarlet a skill that was so painful even for him to learn. There was also the fact that he could only learn this skill because he was partially made of mana. He could only hope she would get to change her Physique to one of a mana being as well.

Ebony found that he didn’t regenerate compressed mana per se. He had to fully regenerate his mana and let mana continue accumulating before they would accept being compressed inside his mana chassis. He had to have a full mana pool to train the skill which was honestly a waste of mana and time but it was too good a skill not to train. While it could be said that his mana pool has increased in a sense he didn’t think that way since he didn’t see a single reason to dilute his already compressed mana to cast spells with.

Another restriction would likely be his Constitution stat itself. It was like an enhancement spell or skill. Many people already researched how Strength and Agility correlated with Constitution but there were considerably fewer mages, much fewer enhancement mages of specific types for any real published result of the correlation between Intelligence and Constitution.

Ebony didn’t wear his myriad bracelet at all so that his overflowing mana wasn’t absorbed. He didn’t call Scarlet or Hector even once and they didn’t call him either.

❅❅❅

In the 3 months he had been living here it had only gotten colder and colder. Ebony had picked up a new habit. It started from looking out the window to see the change in hue in the moon's colour or moonlight when he was playing with magic in his room. Then he practised on the roof from then on or even just watched the moon as time passed and he meditated.

The autumn moon turned from light orange to red by the end of autumn and when winter came the red got darker in shade every night till light was turned off on Elcra. Ebony’s improved Perception didn’t mean shit, looking around the not small but not large village only to see some dim warm light of phos and looking up to see complete darkness.

He had no trouble moving around the house due to his improving Frost Mist Perception Sphere, Vibrational Gravity Sense and Mana Perception. Ebony had kept to his newfound hobby of just sitting and chilling while watching the moon, he didn't even stop when he could no longer see the moon in the middle of winter as it turned black.

Winter was a completely different beast altogether. It was the time for the adults of the village to come out to play. The children were all grounded into their homes for their own training. The village guards were all adults. The blizzard outside the village buried the entire village walls under snow. The village itself was unaffected, the work of magic.

The nights weren’t silent at all. It was more active than any forest he had been in. The roars, the screams, the laughter. All of it was just the beginning as winter only just started. He was also forbidden to go out of the village at night. Watching the attacks from the village walls one night was enough to make him sit still and stay grounded.

Ebony now really understood why so few even bothered coming to Hoarfrost Glade. Winter was when it truly woke up and came alive. Yet, the average majority would likely have enough trouble with the environment in summer. And Arcta was situated at the edge of Hoarfrost Glade where it was the safest. As the nights passed it became cold enough that he was shivering and ice formed on his skin every few minutes if he didn’t manipulate it away. His skin would probably crack from the dry chill over and over again if not for his Physique and Sheer Cold resistance.

Ebony felt a little weird as his stay in Arcta continued. It kept getting colder but only his heart felt colder while he just treated his body as getting Sheer Cold Resistance training. He didn’t like the feeling one bit, he couldn’t drive it away with Everlasting Tranquillity only slowing the creeping chill. There was no ice mana involved as he had to leave his mana full so that he could reinforce his mana chassis as long as he wasn’t fighting or tailoring.

He even asked the Lasil family elder to check him one more time for any poison left in his heart. He also doubted it since his health was back to full with even his hand having fully recovered but it was better safe than sorry. It might just be a dormant poison for all he knew.

There was nothing found and he was as healthy as he could be. They didn’t find the cause of the symptoms that he described but it only made Palom who overheard the conversation even more worried and checked on him frequently.

As nice as that sounded, it gained attention from some of the older Frost Elves that clearly liked Palom and didn’t like the attention she was giving Ebony. They were all Master Class and only didn’t attack him as he had saved her and some even had their siblings protected by him. All in all, they also had really nice personalities and no grudges were sown.

Ebony even made chit chat with them. Since it was so obvious they liked her, he gave some random tips for them to try to appeal to Palom. He might have never been in a relationship with a girl or wooed anyone; he was probably still better with all the movies and stories he had watched and read compared to these Frost Elves who didn’t know much of the outside world.

It was a win-win for him, he could get the overly worried Palom away and the young males not to build up a grudge with him either. Palom had been getting closer to him than he liked, it was weird he felt that way.

Today, Mrs.Calhy the frost plum lady had extended the invitation to visit her husband’s farm as they were right about to bloom. It would be an overnight stay since frost plums apparently bloomed at night. Mrs.Calhy even visited and asked for permission from who she thought was Ebony’s guardian which was the Thoya couple. He was completely a child in their eyes.

Ebony found it weird that he didn’t see any farm despite searching quite a large area in the Chilly region and he didn’t believe the farm would be so deep and far away from the village. He was right when he was brought not far away from the village and saw the snow on the ground part. The farm wasn’t exactly underground, it was just half an illusion spell they got someone to make according to Mrs.Calhy. There had never been a monster attack on it so that said it was more than safe enough for him to stay overnight without any problems

It suddenly became an outing trip for the young Frost Elves because Clovis heard it and wanted to go too. Then Tiha and the young ones heard it from Clovis and insisted on going too. Somehow getting into Palom’s ears and then her suitors. With so many of their children insisting they had to send some adults to watch over them just in case. Enya was also there since her sister Tiha was going. The easygoing and always smiling Koawe was going too.

They went a little earlier in the day to avoid any monsters. It turned into a mini festival for the village.

The farm wasn’t huge but there was more than enough space for all of them. The plum trees were only about 6-7 metres tall. The dark blue buds were already on them and already about to bloom.

Ebony created a chair that was slowly turning out to look more like a throne like the one on which Earthen-Topaz Core Golem sat. Adjusting the backrest to lay back a little and making himself comfortable eating a frost plum. What better to eat when waiting for their flowers to bloom?

Night came quickly. Some of the youngest children like Clovis already fell asleep as they were not used to staying up late and needed quite a bit of sleep.

The flowers bloomed a little late but it was the greatest birthday present he could hope for as he engraved the most beautiful flowers he had seen in his mind. They didn’t look too much different from the plum flowers on Earth, 5 wide round-tipped petals with multiple filaments inside and no stem. In the middle was dark blue and it lightened in shade till the tips of the petals to a light cyan. He didn’t really have to ‘engrave’ it in his head since he could never forget this scene.

Ebony only felt that it was too bad that something felt missing here.