Ebony's Fable

The MC, Iroy must have some skill that produces more saliva for himself as he was talking so much.

Introducing so many participants that any normal person would've talked themselves dry by now. The loudness didn’t really need a skill for it since they were tools like megaphones or microphones and speakers here. It may be something magical or something mechanically engineered for all he knew.

“It’s time for the young icy kicking swordsman’s 3rd match that I know many of you, including our honoured Grandmaster Craftswoman from Xeng, are waiting for!” Iroy had long noticed the weirdly empty spot around the front. He had been a little stunned to see not just any Grandmaster, not just any crafter, but a Xeng one. His mind blanked out but his mouth and throat never did.

Iroy was a very well-informed person, he had to be. He didn’t have to think too long before he shut the amplifying orb and coughed. The solid black line with a small circle in the middle sent unbelievably numb shocks to his mind.

For a couple of years, multiple divine-like items have been showing up in auctions that the Z&Z company had run.

Whether it was an empty glass bottle that could hold an unending amount of liquid. A tiny fruit knife so sharp and light the buyer who accidentally dropped it on the blade end couldn’t find it to this day as it sunk till god knows how deep. A hammer even the strongest Dwarf or Beastman couldn’t lift up. A single vambrace said to stay undamaged even after the user turned to ashes under an infernal salamander's breath.

No one knew who or what made those items but they all had a symbol on them. The exact same one on this Grandmaster that popped out of nowhere and is sitting in the coliseum he was in charge of. The straight line and circle.

The maker had always been unnamed but people already gave him, her or what a name to go by. The Null Horizon.

Partly because of her symbol. Partly because no one could ever find her. No one knew where this maker popped out from. No one knew of her origins. They knew nothing of the unknown crafter.

Now he did. Iroy couldn’t be more excited to host such a person. Everything made sense now that he found out she was a Xeng. Yet, no one in the audience seemed to recognise her. Nothing surprising as it wasn’t like just anyone would know or have seen her works or her symbol.

Iroy didn’t realise that he made the greatest mistake of his life yet by calling Null Horizon out like that until she glared in his direction. Ebony who was walking out and could feel her excited smile turn glum and then into what he recognised as a pout. He could almost see her pout from just her eyes.

Iroy wanted to kill himself from a few seconds back. This Grandmaster was obviously one that preferred anonymity. And he just brought the attention of more than half a million people to her? Did he hit his head this morning?

No one but Null Horizon knew what she was thinking at this moment.

Iroy also quickly tried to save himself by changing the subject and dragging the audience’s attention back to the matches. He was too late as most people were already either whispering or loudly talking about the Xeng Grandmaster’s presence and apparent support for Rimestone.

Iroy had a mental double take when he skimmed through the information about Rimestone’s opponent. Those fools! A fire mage? As high status as mages had, they were mostly known to be useless in battle until at least Master Class or an especially old and experienced mage.

Even so, a speed focused martial artist that got the rug pulled from under him in terms of initiative lost and they put a fire mage that probably couldn’t even say the second word of his chant against him? This particular one didn’t even study in or graduate from any academy! A vagrant, self-taught mage.

On second thoughts, his profile stated his affiliation with a pretty well-known company. That was the only ray of hope that talks about this guy’s capabilities.

Iroy had to leave the scoldings for later as both contestants were facing each other already. He was sweating from the imagined scolding that he would receive. This 3rd match either would make him lose his job from the loss of trust due to the Epic rank reward or gain popularity, trust and much more. He just needed to get on Null Horizon’s good side. Even the most minor connection with her will turn his life around. He cannot mess this up anymore.

Iroy was stuck between a rock and a hard place. Should he place his job as a priority or reduce the Grandmaster’s ire at any cost?

❅❅❅

Mark Rost was an untalented man. The day he found out the little orange and red particles he could feel were actually fire mana was the day he decided he would not stand for a mediocre life. Mark was only 10.

He understood, it may be one of the most common of elements and it was not going to be easy but that was fine. Mark understood from the young age of 7, that life was never going to be easy.

Alas, he found his talent as a fire mage to be…below average. He wasn’t discouraged or even surprised by the fact. He even expected it. His mother being a normal level 142 Master Shoemaker, his father a normal Master Warrior as a small town’s guard.

Mark’s hometown didn’t have any academy for mages, he didn’t have the mana ore for it either and he was not telling his family to burden them with his problems.

His father personally taught him. A man’s problems are his to deal with.

His mother personally taught him. A talented man will have to worry about being pulled down. An untalented and poor man like himself will only have to look up ahead and drag someone else down.

Mark fumbled around with the bits of orangy red particles as best he could on his own till he turned 12. A tiny flame dimmer than the lowest quality phos flickered above his palms. He practised every night till he passed out. It wasn’t a long time as his mana pool was probably too pathetic as a young human child.

The spark and ignition of a flame flickered out in less than a second but his determination soared. He was going to be a mage. He was going to give his pa and ma a better life.

His mana pool grew along with his body as he aged. The amount of time he could practise lighting a flame kept growing. Use less to do more. It was a common saying. Mark stuck with it. Optimising his mana expenditure as best he could.

By the age of 13, the less than a second flame turned to a small fireball he could keep alight for half a minute. Resting a little more than 10 hours before he could do it again. He had learned that humans had a 10% per hour mana regeneration rate based on their base maximum mana. Mark believed that maybe that only held true once they fully mature at the age of 15.

By the age of 14, he kept his body a little warmer throughout the night during winter with as little fire mana as he could.

He kept hiding it from his family. His pa kept checking if the physical training and spear poking got him any skills after he turned 15. Wanting to know how fast his skills level up to check his talent and potential. Mark didn’t neglect his father’s teachings. Working as hard physically as he did mentally.

His ma had limitless patience for him. She always reminded him that their family was more than capable of making a living and he had all the time he needed. May she live a long ripe life. He was gonna make sure it was a comfortable life. Warm clothing, soft beds, filled stomachs.

At the age of 16, his fire magic practice was exposed by a freelancer fire mage who passed by him. A beautiful young lady who didn’t look past 30. He obviously already learned Identify. It only got him question marks and he wasn't able to check her class. She said she wanted to see him cast something, anything with fire mana.

Mark had only 2 fire spells that were considered skills at that time. Body Warmth and Kindle. She already sensed him using Body Warmth so he lit a small flame above his palms and said “That’s about all I can do.”.

“How do you feel about being a mediocre, untalented fire mage that’ll burn some trash, warm some baths or die to a random rabbit outside these walls?” she had asked but oddly enough Mark didn’t sense any mockery behind her words.

“Not much. Talent is just a head start. Useless if one stops using it. If I don’t stop, I’ll be ahead sooner or later.” He found himself replying to the stranger. She smirked.

“Perfect. I had some trash I wanted to dispose of already.” The lady threw a pouch at his chest and walked away before he could say anything. It was a small pouch not unlike the one he used to carry his allowance, a couple of Greys. It was light, almost weightless so he wondered what trash she meant and found books inside. More books than should have been able to fit inside the small pouch. It was filled with gibberish symbols.

Mark was immensely happy and confused. Though not by much, the pouch was obviously one of those extremely expensive and hard to get spatial pouches. It definitely wasn’t the trash she said it was.

Books, depending on their contents, weren't all that cheap. He brought it to the town’s bookstore, run by an old man Pix, who couldn’t even stand straight anymore. He had read folktales and whatnot to the town’s children many times. Mark was somewhat familiar with him as with many children, teenagers and young adults from this small town.

He had told him that these books were all about runes. Old man Pix told him many things that day. He had felt like he returned to his childhood, eyes widening at Pix’s storytelling. But this was no story, merely what Pix thought was the truth and Mark believed him.

One didn’t need any kind of shit talent to learn the runic language. With runes, there was nothing one couldn’t do that a mage of another element could. Theoretically.

That was enough for him. Mark stepped onto the path of runes all by himself. Pix only knew about runes but not the runic language itself.

There were no other books on runes in the entire town. Mark studied the ones in the lady’s ‘trash’ for 2 years. A mere 9 books but he completely deciphered whatever there was to decipher. Thankfully, there were some notes and Elcrian words in there. In another 3 years, he succeeded in getting the Generic Skills for his runic endeavour. He had been making some decent income from his scroll selling. Using all his life’s savings till date as his capital. He was lucky he had succeeded.

At the age of 21, his family Identified him to be a [Fire Mage Lvl 0] after he ‘fell asleep’ for much too long.

Though his real class was Fire Poker. Ironically, his spear practice with a wooden rod was taken as Staff Mastery. Perhaps he was Identified as a fire mage rather than a fire warrior or spearman due to his focus on fire magic. His family was still unaware that he already got his Sub-Class Runic Scholar at the same time.

His ma cried. His pa’s frown deepened. They had been really upset. Upset that they didn’t have the financial capability to send him to an Academy. Any old unheard of academy would have made his path a lot smoother and easier.

Few would want to party with a low level vagrant mage like him. Mark didn’t care for that, and he made sure his parents understood.

“Ma, Pa. I’ll be dragging those up there down before you know it.” Mark smiled to reassure them of his determination and confidence.

“I know you will, son. I know you will.”

Today. At the age of 55, he was within the young group of Master ranked fire mages. Stepping over, defeating many other greater, more talented fire mages than himself. Catching the eye of a large alchemic company when he was only level 63 sped up his advance many times over. He got the promised access to more runic knowledge together with some of the senior fire mages also contracted to the company to tutor him for some time.

They caught wind of the newly found unresearched metal. The old fools higher up obviously wanted it. Just because it was a metal didn’t mean it didn’t have alchemical use after all. Mark was going to get it for them. Even greater, more profound runic knowledge was waiting for him.

Now stood a nonsensically young man in front of him. Another one of those talents. This one even seems greater than any that he had surpassed.

He didn’t look down on them. Why would he? Not every talent was lazy. Many talents were still ahead of him. He could only stare and keep climbing. But he wasn’t going to give up, not in the slightest. He needed to win at least 5 battles or the previous matches would just have been a waste of time.

Mark fought against many people. Since most were more talented than him it was not an exaggeration to say he was used to fighting people who were better and stronger than himself. He believed that Rimestone was the type to use only just enough effort to defeat his opponent with the same opening move. He was betting that Rimestone would start off with the exact same move he had done since his Journeyman match the previous day. He was a man of research and wasn’t going to let arrogance get to his head. Every little detail might help.

❅❅❅

Ebony slowly walked to his match grounds at his usual pace. Uncaring about the roaring crowd that turned silent and looked towards Master Jing. He saw that his opponent was also making his way there. His opponent was called Rost.

[Master Fire Mage Lvl 130]

The level spiked a little. Either there wasn’t anyone low level anymore or there really was a ploy to get rid of Ebony’s chances of winning the prize.

“I’m Mark Rost. I know you haven't shown any of your real power yet but, I’m not going to make it easy for you.” The man with dark eye circles said. His facial features appeared young like someone in their mid 20s but his dark orange hair had streaks of grey hair.

He was wearing leather armour, not much different from a martial artist’s garb. Holding a rod about 1.5m long, at the centre was a small bulge. The rod was carved, dimly red in colour where the lines were. His hands were covered in old burn wounds.

Ebony didn’t sense any strong sense of danger or strength from him but the look in his eyes was familiar. He found himself reminded of Scarlet’s eyes. Similar.

“Ebony. I look forward to duelling a diligent man like you, Mark.” Mark raised a brow with his words. Mark’s right leg stomped firmly forward as he got into the stance his father hammered into him. He took a deep breath.

Ebony wasn’t gonna fool around. He had a feeling his ass would be bitten if he wasn’t on high alert.

At first glance, Mark appeared to be a hybrid like him but it just didn’t feel like the man would charge up close and attack him. At 30 levels above, he would have over 800 base stat points over Ebony if he had roughly the same levels for all 3 Classes.

Still, he didn’t for one second think that the fire mage would have a high enough Constitution to survive a repelled kick to the face. So he’ll just test his reactions with the same kick he had. Mark was spot on.

“Begin!” The same words were called by a different referee.

Ebony burst off with Treading Step again, his feet flying forth. His right feet slammed into something hard before he felt it collapse inward, further, then into something hard again. His left hand moved downwards to deflect an incoming strike without thought. He kicked off whatever hard surface his right foot was on and pushed himself back along with pushing Mark’s staff-like rod aside. They disengaged right after the first exchange.

“WHAT DO WE HAVE HERE! Contestant Rost has countered Contestant Rimestone’s signature disrespectful face kicking! What just happened?! Did Contestant Rimestone stop his kick to defend himself or was it what some of the more perceptive audience saw!? Feel free to watch a replay after the match!” The noisy MC continued to promote some product or replay in a memory light if there was demand.

Ebony saw what happened in the split second. The moment he moved, Mark breathed out 2 short breaths very forcefully. He breathed 2 puffs of flames but what was weird was that they were solid by the time his kick reached the 2 puffs of flames. Only ‘breaking’ one and stopped by the second. At the same time, Mark stabbed out with his wooden staff that slowly glowed red along its carved lines.

Mark took the chance of his momentary pause to attack. Activating the fire mana ore in his version of a staff. Mark spun his glowing staff once and a full sized rune circle deployed itself as he stabbed right into the centre of the stabilised runic flame circle.

The staff clearly wasn’t going to hit Ebony from so far away but he already figured out what Mark just did, his feet were still faster than his magic so he attempted to dodge instead of depending on a shield. The runic circle had the diameter of Mark’s staff's length, from this runic circle, an entire pillar of flames threatened to swallow him up. He didn’t completely dodge in time as one his ears burned along with his hair catching fire. He quickly put the fire out with a few pats.

‘I got it. That staff of his is like a giant pen that I use for Inscription. Instead of liquefying normal mana ores it liquefies a fire mana ore or something like that. The carved or rather, engraved lines are probably preset or predrawn runes where a single spin can set up an entire runic spell…hot damn. That’s impressive.’ Ebony still had the time to calmly deduce.

The biggest question he had was how fire mana was used as both the power source and ‘ink’. The flames had to be so still and stable that the runic symbols wouldn’t be affected, as if solidified.

Unlike the fire breath blocked by his own feet, the huge runic spell circle was completely shown to Ebony. He had noticed that Mark’s staff or giant pen wasn’t completely lit up. Giving him the idea that it had multiple preset runic spells. The giant rune circle was screaming ‘huge pillar of flames’ to him who recognised the symbols but not having enough time to dissect it.

His folly was to assume that the runic spell ended as a simple huge pillar of flames. Mark, who stabbed his staff inside the floating runic circle swept his staff, following his dodge. He was truly befuddled that the runic spell’s effect hadn't ended and got bathed in flames from a wide sweep of the huge pillar of flames only stopped by the barrier. The pillar of flames whipped along with Mark’s staff movements.

The temperature within the barrier rose high up. Mark probably didn’t spend too much of his mana reserve on this attack as the pillar of flames died down. Ebony who was amidst the flames didn’t just stand there. Magnified Gravity Field expanded to stun Mark for a split second, he took another step towards Mark with Sonic Overlay enveloping his legs.

Mark was clearly well versed in spinning his staff at the drop of his hat. The same sized flame runic circle burned into existence. His kick landed on the solid but see-through circle behind the symbols in the air.

Mark was shocked that his flames destabilised so quickly and erratically all of a sudden and Ebony’s kick destroyed his defensive rune circle so easily. He needed to research that! His kick didn’t seem any different but it clearly wasn’t so simple.

Mark’s mind wandered but his body didn’t. His staff didn’t stop spinning and flowed along to come from the bottom to slap or uppercut Ebony’s chin. Trying to get an upper hand against Ebony in close range was just foolish. Mark also knew he was not much a match for most decent warriors with years under their belt. When his staff missed and the bottom of his staff faced his opponent, the tiny runic circle at the bottom glowed and burst into a spike of wind propelled flames that served to either push monsters that got too close or push himself back. In this case, Mark wind blasted himself back to gain the distance he so sorely needed.

He had rune-afied all his equipment. Where he marked as the top of his staff could activate a makeshift spear tip of steel. Other than the defensive solid wall of flames and pillar of flames there were still 1 more runic spell circle he could almost instantly cast. It wasn’t like he could only cast one at a time or that he couldn’t use multiple of them at once either. It was just too mana consuming if he did that.

He was an untalented fire mage. He was no conjuror and was only a first order mage that cheated his way into multicasting and speed casting. All his fire mana for spells was drawn from the Rare fire mana ore in his staff. He was only paid one Rare mana ore in half a year and much was usually saved for all his research. The rest of his defensive equipment was powered by Common or Uncommon mana ores.

Mark couldn’t give up here! He mentally flipped the switch to power all his equipments’ runes with mana.

Ebony chased after Mark who suddenly glowed all over. He had greatly sped up. Ebony quickly caught up and cast Magnified Gravity Field, he had to stay close to reduce mana consumption since mana consumed sharply rose with range just like it sharply decreased with range.

An Ice Sword found its way into his hand who swung it without hesitation. The blow was blocked by Mark whose staff steamed from melting his Ice Injection. His Ice Sword didn’t melt that much, just from the sheer amount of mana he had, the short time of contact and his improvement in getting ice not to melt that easily.

He watched Mark speed up with a dim glow from under his boots. Mark had more Agility than him but not more movement speed.

Mark was actually able to defend himself as he was getting pushed back. A random spin from Ebony’s lull in attack gave him the chance to push him back with another pillar of flames.

Although Ebony can cover the weakness of his swordsmanship with his Layered Ice Carapace and Vibrational Gravity Sense to watch his back it never did remove the inherent weakness of his offence.

Mark raised his staff overhead and spun his staff thrice as he stepped back. From all three of them was a continuous stream of dozens and dozens of fire arrows that homed in on Ebony. They seemed to know where he was and could chase him.

Ebony was getting scorched alive but not fatally. The arrows were nothing much and easily slapped away and dissipated. What concerned him was Mark taking his rod and drawing on the dirt ground in the meantime. With stabilised fire mana as his power source and air as the medium, his runic spells already had quite the kick behind them. Letting him complete one that used dirt and earth as the medium was not going to look so well.

He increased his pace. The air was getting thin within the enclosed barrier arena. Conjuring Frost Mist Perception Sphere to envelope the battlefield. Closing the distance was extremely easy for him, not to mention an enclosed space like this. It would be similar even in a wide open area.

Mark’s armour didn’t look impressive but the runes on them were annoyingly all for some purpose. The moment his greatsword touched his shoulder pad he was blasted by a strong gust of wind. A kick to the belly was met with a stone spike popping out. He reacted quickly enough to avoid his boots getting a hole in it. He was lucky the activation speed of the stone spike wasn't all that quick.

Only a bit of ice mana actually found its way onto Mark’s body or equipment. They also melted off soon enough. Mark’s floor drawing was obviously disrupted. The icy mist didn’t affect Mark at all as ice melted the moment they landed on his body.

‘How much longer can my mana supply last? I need to finish that rune fast! I didn’t expect him to be a gravity mage too! The increase in weight isn’t much but it’s pulling my speed down and increasing mana and stamina consumption.’ Mark thought. The cold never bothered him anymore when his Body Warmth, an untiered skill evolved to Internal Heating. Its consumption of fire mana was extremely low but his mana was limited.

‘Should I just use mana from my mana pool already? He’s a really good opponent but the next 2 will be even tougher.’ Ebony pondered. He didn’t charge his robe with much ice mana yet but that would only allow him to cast ice magic which was where he took the mana to cast Ice Sword from.

He didn’t ponder for long. Chaotic Repulsive Membrane sprung on. Smashing his feet right into a half-spun defensive rune. He didn’t expect to have a boot reach his belly just when his own was about to land on Mark’s. Both pushed out.

Ebony flew back. There was a strong gust that pushed him back but his Chaotic Repulsive Membrane repelled most of the forces behind the pushing kick.

Mark shot back as well but his flight towards the barrier behind suddenly slowed greatly, his feet grounding him and dragging dirt tracks along. The dust kicking up behind him told him that Mark’s armour likely had the same kind of wind propulsion rune that he activated to slow or weaken his repulsion kick. It was probably actually used to speed his own movement up but Mark was flexible with its usage.

Colour him impressed.

They remained still, looking at each other who was still well and dandy after the previous exchange for a split second. It felt like minutes passed instead.

Mark ran to the side and didn’t let his staff stop spinning. Circling the field’s perimeter with runic circles of flames shooting out arrows of flames. The field heated up greatly as Ebony’s Frost Mist evaporated due to the huge amount of fire he was spewing out. He couldn’t block everything and even ‘cutting’ the arrow apart only heated the area up. He was getting light burns from the steaming heat already.

Mark, who completely surrounded the area in arrow barraging runic spells burst off for a charge into the midst of his own arrows and a metal spear tip appeared on his staff.

Ebony noticed the metal tip getting red, the spear tip inching closer to his shoulder. He grabbed the shaft or the main body of the staff since blocking with a sword made of ice was not ideal. He was pushed back a couple of steps but he managed to hold the spear in place and stop it from touching his robe. Another sudden burst of force from Mark’s ‘spear’ came as he twisted it and added his whole body weight into.

It was the rune at the bottom of his staff. Then Mark took a single step forward as the runes on the back of his armour propelled him forward. A single step turned into an unstoppable charge. Ebony was pushed back step by step all the way till his back was against the barrier wall. But the spear tip never got further other than the initial surprise, his grip tightened and they were in a stalemate before all the force from Mark’s charge died down.

Mark pulled his staff back as the red hot metal tip disappeared. He and his equipment ran out of mana. Mark raised the figurative white flag and it ended in Ebony’s victory.

Ebony didn’t even feel like he won.

He wanted to talk runes with Mark. Hopefully, he wasn’t the type that held grudges after losing a match. There was too much going on at too fast a pace for Ebony to take a good look at all his runes.

This time the crowd stayed silent for a minute before going wild. It wasn’t just because Ebony won but Mark clearly showed his skills too. As for Master Jing, she was probably still pouting but she seemed even grumpier than usual.

Ebony later found out Zach had lost his 3rd match against an [Master Earth Warrior Lvl 134]. Another Dwarf.

They were hell bent on kicking Zach out of the competition. The Dwarf was very pissed at Zach’s arrogant attitude and wanted to beat him up but was stopped by the referee since Zach already admitted defeat. That got him even more pissed and a fight broke out behind the stage as the Dwarf went after Zach who was leaving the coliseum.

All he heard from the chit chatting in his waiting area was that the Dwarf's shoulder was almost lopped off, he was kicked out of the tournament and that Zach had been unharmed.

One more battle to get the amount of prize Master Jing demanded.