Ebony's Fable

All of Ebony’s stuff except the clothes and robe he was wearing was with Master Jing. Including all his food ration and waterskin. He was fine to go without food or water for a few days and he was not even putting those as a priority. It was far from the first time he went without food or water in the open wild. Procuring them wouldn’t be that hard as far as he could tell from looking around.

The sea was surprisingly close. It only took a little more than 2 days of constant movement before he could smell the salty scent of the sea. Ebony didn’t even feel thirsty yet, he didn’t really overexert himself. The forest he was in was even safer than Plainston’s which felt a little weird to him. There really only were low level and even wild unleveled animals and such.

The forest was still active and insects noisy but nothing approached him as long as he let his overflowing mana eke out a little.

The Frost Elves had somewhat indirectly cleared one of his questions. Ordina’s monsters really were chasing after him because he was a partial mana being whose mana was filled with vitality. It made him a delicious, easy to digest target for any dungeon. Indirectly because he never asked the question, it just came up in their explanations of what they knew about mana beings. Partial mana beings.

It had made his journey smooth sailing.

Ebony still couldn’t fly or float on his conjured and controlled ice. It was a flat terrain so the best he could do was jump as high as he could to survey the area. An ocean of blue where the horizon was the meeting of the sea and sky. Panoramic.

Something invaded his Vibrational Gravity Sense when he was dozens of metres in the air. Ebony already had a fully compressed Ice Sword in his hands and swung back reflexively. Only after swinging did he realise the familiarity of the figure. Repulsive forces ignored, Sonic Overlay held completely to a standstill between fingers.

“Is that how you greet me?” Master Jing asked, looking no worse for wear. She grabbed his shoulder and brought him along as she continued teleporting them. Random punches and kicks flew at him at the same time with her free arm and legs.

“...That’s how you conditioned me to greet you.” Ebony took a short beating but there was no malice.

“You covered quite a distance.” Master Jing commented. She probably didn’t take more than a few minutes to get where Ebony was in 2 days.

“You took a long time considering you didn’t need any measurable strength for some random archer.” 2 days was a long time. He didn’t know what battles at Master Jing’s level would be like, maybe 2 days was a really short time for them. Endurance stat and all being so much higher.

“Cheeky punk. He was hardly the only one on the payroll. I went to remove two or three of their company's stores as a small lesson. They were weaker than I expected for people that are close to the Fissure borders. We’re here, this should be the Fourth Tide if I’m not wrong.” Master Jing teleported onto land this time.

The salty breeze is even stronger here. The city, Fourth Tide, was a massive city. There were many towers built tall enough that they dwarfed any other building he had seen during his time here on Elcra. Built atop a cliffside, the edge of the city was a rocky drop to the sea.

The city walls were black in colour and patrolling guards atop the walls weren’t even more than 5 metres apart. Just standing where they were brought down a heavy pressure on his shoulders in terms of the actual phantom weight of overflowing Vitality from the entire city as a whole.

6 stalwart, unmoving and unflinching [Great Knights Lvl ???] stood along the gate entrance with 4 [Master Warriors] also of unknown levels. Any single one of them gave him a strong sense of danger. The 6 great knights especially, covered in full plate armour. They were almost exactly how he envisioned knights to look like. Dauntless.

“Halt! State your purpose of visit and affiliation if any!” one of the warriors ordered. 4 of them crossed their spears to block Master Jing. They clearly weren't fooling around, the security here is the highest he had seen. The fact that Master Jing didn’t just enter the city was also saying some things. At least, this was the first he had seen anyone, guards including not awed or scared of the mask’s significance.

“Craftswoman. Xienor.” Master Jing only said the obvious but the warriors swallowing their saliva was not lost on him. Looks like they weren’t nearly as dauntless as the knights but he also knew that Master Jing was doing what she told him and was using her aura on them.

“Esteemed Grandmaster, you’re welcome to enter for free but your servant will have to pay the fee without exception.” The warrior spoke politely but forced himself to stand straight and look strong. Crafters had privileges everywhere they went, a Grandmaster ranked one was even more desired to have in any city or town.

Being called a servant just fell on deaf ears to Ebony, in actuality it wasn’t so far from the truth. He did do all her chores and was leaching off her. Despite Master Jing expecting payment, he wasn’t so dumb he didn’t know the value of even a single word and book of her repository of knowledge.

Ebony didn’t know what happened but the warriors all knelt down after the man finished his sentence. ‘Knelt’ was an understatement, their knees crashed and dug deep into the ground. Blood dripped onto the ground, they were bleeding from their eyes, ears, nose and mouth. He didn’t even see the knights move when there were 6 swords drawn and pointed not even an inch away from Master Jing.

They apparently didn’t even appear to exist in Master Jing’s sights. She only moved to grab the speaking man’s head and carried him up single-handedly and seemed to speak into his ears. The knights yelled for her to stop moving but their blades didn’t move. Ebony couldn’t hear a single word the knights were yelling. The only thing reverberating in his ears and mind was Master Jing’s whispers. So soft, he thought he imagined it.

“Call my little brother a servant again and the Empire will no longer have a First Tide, not to mention Fourth. Understand?” Ebony saw the rage in her eyes and words.

Master Jing let the poor man go and threw dozens of mana ores on the ground before walking through the gate. That was a ridiculous entrance fee but he couldn’t tell if she was just tossing a random amount or it was actually that expensive.

As for the knights, they found themselves standing back in their original position the moment Master Jing let the warrior go. Pointing their blades forward at each other. They were greatly alarmed but stayed stunned as Master Jing brought him along to enter. Motionless. None dared to move a muscle.

Master Jing’s rage filled words warmed his chilled heart. The fact that she threatened the Empire like it was nothing didn’t even feel out of place. Nor the fact that she said she didn’t have any measurable combat power.

She hailed a bird-like raptor monster drawn carriage and headed for the Quest Hall.

The Quest Hall in Fourth Tide was really silent and spacious in comparison to even Plainston when it was a town. There weren’t even many employees and not a single freelancer party in sight. She did the same thing and bought a plot of land. The city was clearly different from any other Ebony had visited so far. It was military.

Master Jing didn’t survey the area of anything and just paid the full sum, signed and took the deed and left.

The residents were mostly families of the army, craftsmen, blacksmiths, traders and all the people necessary to keep the city running. Perhaps, because they were the fourth or something there was still a noisy market here and there. [Master Fisher]s’ also beyond Ebony’s Identify range cheerfully promoting their fresh catch. The laughter of children was the life of any city. The mood in the city was not as tense as the security made it seem.

The difference is that even a random civilian has enough overflowing Vitality that Ebony could vaguely sense. No wonder the entire city seemed to put pressure on him before he even entered.

They arrived at where Master Jing’s plot of land was, in the same carriage that waited outside the Quest Hall. There were hundreds of knights that looked exactly the same as the one’s at the gate lined up in two rows as if they were welcoming their entourage.

One man that was garbed in extravagantly shiny armour, clearly enchanted in some fashion stood before their carriage. The only one that didn’t have his helmet on, showing his tanned skin and squarish face.

Ebony alighted along with Master Jing as she paid the nervous driver and let him go. Master Jing didn’t even look at the man blocking their way and walked past him. Obviously, he expressionlessly followed along.

“This spot’s not that bad don’t you think? There’s a nice breeze and all. It’s too bad that it’s more crowded than described.” Master Jing said.

“Yes Master Jing.” Ebony replied without much thought.

Master Jing frowned and was about to say something but the armoured man who got slighted fake coughed and interrupted her.

“Greetings. I am Marquis Kenley Rey Briggs, City lord of Fourth Tide.” Kenley the City lord self-introduced.

Master Jing openly ignored him and purposely asked Ebony for his opinion on how she should place her cottage.

“...I have been made aware of my men’s earlier disregard and discourtesy. I am here to offer, in the Empire’s stead, our most sincere apologies. We’ve brought some of the new ore that you’ve shown interest in as a show of our sincerity.” Kenley, who was a [Grand Knight] of unknown levels waved his hands and tens of chests dropped with a loud thump on the ground.

They sure had incredibly fast information sources. Their sincerity was also pretty awesome if all the chests were filled with the exact same ore. The amount present is definitely more than the total sum even offered as a reward in Crust Deposit City’s tournament. Quality aside.

“Your sincerity can be shown by staying out of my sight.” Master Jing waved her right hand back without even turning to face the marquis. She didn’t do much, only moving hundreds of knights along with the city lord and the chests by dozens of metres. The chests were even stacked up high in front of them so that they were ‘out of sight'.

‘Not good at teleporting people and no fighting capabilities my ass.’

She proceeded to place her house facing the sea and went about doing her own things. Ebony took a nice bath to wash up. Returning to the guest room that he made home for the past half a year. There was a literal hill of Blues overflowing from his bed to the ground. He swept them all aside and just slept in his comfortable clothes. Completely at ease enough to remove his robe and sleep in peace.

The city lord didn’t push any further and just left, neither of them seeing his ugly expression. Kenley’s men were inwardly relieved that their city lord still had a whiff of self control. They knew his tendencies but the aristocrats who had been around long enough had the knowledge not to mess with the Xengs beaten into their very bones.

❅❅❅

It was hours later when Ebony fell awake. One moment he was lying comfortably in dreamless dreamland, the next moment he was falling through the air and onto the warm hard ground. It wasn’t a very high fall but a fall from any height was more than enough to wake him up. It didn’t take him very long to orientate himself that he was underground, near the forge.

“Decide.” Master Jing dictated. It wasn’t hard for him to guess what she was referring to. Perhaps he had been dragging his feet for too long.

“...I want to learn how to make accessories. With mana manipulation as the base tool.” Ebony said after a moment of thought. Whatever he made would never be better than a dedicated craftsman or smith. At least for starters, accessories were small crafts. Watching Mark fight also showed him the utility that runic equipment has. It could be both a hobby and have practical use with runes.

“Accessories? Ohh, punk. Not bad. But accessories are too broad, I don’t have all the time in the world just to teach you everything. Specify 1 or 2. As for using just mana, that was my plan for you all along.” Master Jing was a little surprised before confusing him a little, what was ‘not bad’ about the choice?

“Ring and necklace.” Ebony replied. Storage or dimensional rings were very common in novels. Rings especially were the most common accessory worn after all. Maybe bracelets for the people here since everyone wore a myriad bracelet. That only meant there was little point in bracelet making for now as nothing can really replace it as an all-purpose tool.

“Read and understand all the most basic forging techniques, material properties and the books on structure of rings and necklaces yet?” Master Jing asked.

“Mostly.” That might have been an understatement since he finished more than just the basic level ones. It was just that his understanding of more advanced stuff was iffy and he had little to no actual hands-on experience. Theoretical knowledge alone is never enough when it comes to any type of craft.

“Go ahead.” Master Jing tossed what Ebony knew was just normal iron ore. She didn’t give any instructions, only wanting to see what he had come up with. He had the theoretical knowledge but how to mesh it with Mana Moulding was the question.

It was nothing new to him that just forcing the materials to bend under his mana’s force would just break the internal structure of the material itself. Even when he worked with fibrous materials.

There was a world of difference between his work and a normal tailor’s work in Roya’s eyes. That was to say even his mana tailored clothes had flaws, mostly about the flawed integrity of the end product due to all the forcing and bashing that his mana did to the raw materials.

Ebony tried wrapping and enveloping the ore with his mana as gently as possible, not doing anything with it other than trying to dig in as deep as possible. He took a foundry tong laying around to grab the ore, his mana ‘imbued’ poorly into it as well. Chucking it into the flames.

An ingot was usually smelted from the ores to oxidise and reduce it, get an alloy and separate impurities. There were ingots around of course but if Master Jing tossed him an ore, then that’s what he would use.

As for smelting it, Ebony was thinking he could just separate what he needed with Mana Moulding alone. His Perception training in Arcta was really shining here. His fine control and sensing were really unnatural or so Roya has said but him being a partial mana being probably affected that.

Ebony could perceive the different particles that his mana was wrapping around. The heat from the flames excited them, burning his mana along with it. He would’ve made a pair of tongs using ice mana to train his ability to make his ice more resistant to heat if it wasn’t for the fact that the quickly evaporating ice would affect his mana consumption and the process itself. The water or steam might cause some unwanted reactions as well.

One could see the ore quickly turn red hot, some parts liquid. Nothing dripped down, the burning ball wriggled. The tong was merely the connecting arm for his mana to pass through since it was easier when he was in contact with his own mana.

A small bubble slowly grew out of the bulk and when he decided he had separated the different stuff he pulled the melting ore that was staying in shape with his Mana Moulding. The small bubble dripped onto the floor as he ‘cut’ that portion out.

Master Jing didn’t say anything throughout, just silently watching. Ebony took a small hammer and started to shape the soft solid. Mana Moulding was only there to guide instead of force the molecules to move into place. Another use of it was compression force, he wouldn’t be putting the integrity of the material into question with just that as it was like hammering with his mana.

Fine tuning and shaping were all done with his mana. The end product was a couple of iron rings that were cooling and mostly hardened again.

“...”

Master Jing didn’t say anything but it wasn’t silent as she was beating him up.

“You call this crafting?” She only stopped after Ebony got a bruised face which wasn’t very long considering the strength she was putting into her punches.

“Well...” What could he say? It was improv and his rendition of ‘forging’ with mana.

“What was the quality of the ore I passed you?” She knocked his head with her knuckles.

“Common.” Ebony didn’t forget.

“That… scrap metal?” Master Jing was hesitant to call those metal hoops rings.

“...Inferior.” He wasn’t embarrassed since it was his first try but it was surely a tiny bit disappointing.

“This might take longer than I thought…” Master Jing commented as she shook her head.

❅❅❅

Master Jing really could make whatever she put her mind to. She copied Ebony’s method but purely with mana as her tool. Clearly far surpassing him with sheer control and precision. There were steps she added.

She made Ebony a small forge of his own, there was more than enough space beside her own forge. Together with a workspace.

She had been exaggerating a little as he wasn’t that far off with his process. It wasn’t conventional at all but it fundamentally worked. She refined every step of his and just told him to figure things out himself. How to refine his craft even further was up to him.

Literal tens of thousands of iron rings later. Master Jing approved his latest work. At this point, she already told him to give up on necklaces for now. Ebony moved on to different metals and alloys, steel, bronze, copper, nickel etc.. Some were easier, some were tougher. Then to different designs and all.

When he was allowed to work with Uncommon ranked materials, it was kind of another roadblock. The same iron of different quality was almost like working with a different material altogether.

Ebony’s research in runes didn’t lag behind. It actually improved by leaps and bounds. He had stayed in contact with Mark. Even getting the best callstone he could get his hands on, making calls cheaper. He might be somewhat rich with over a million Blues but that doesn't mean he should waste mana.

It took a month before it was delivered from Tidal.

The Rare Callstone could reach almost 200 Gur, a million km or so it was advertised since he couldn’t get all the details with his Identify. 1MP/10km/s or 0.1MP/km/s was the best mana efficiency current technology can give or so even Master Jing believed. At least for something small enough to fit in the myriad bracelets, the entire Empire was connected through the Quest Halls with the larger versions of callstones.

Callstone quality depended more on the mage making it than the material. This mana efficiency was considering that the power source was a Blue or Rare mana ore, a lower rarity one would be less mana efficient but it was a small difference. A higher rarity ore would be a little wasteful as some of its 'energy' would be lost for no reason.

Why didn't she make this stuff for Ebony? She had better things to do with her time or so she claims. The simplest runes like dust resistance for the house weren't even made because she couldn’t be bothered. Even giving excuses that the rune would interfere with other more useful runes.

His myriad bracelet was already one of the best that money can buy him as the really good stuff had really low demand and supply. He didn’t have the connection or status to even find a better one to buy.

As for getting Purples, it was actually possible to trade in for them but only in Tidal the Capital City and maybe some other cities. Including First and Second Tide or the 3 great farm cities. It was not worth the trade and he was persuaded against doing so by Master Jing. She also called a Purple "too powerful for your needs".

He wanted the spatial storage pretty badly but there was a literal space mage craftswoman beside him.

Ebony didn’t need to engrave anything. He just moulded runes on, when he was in the middle of shaping the molten materials.

He managed to make simple things like the Ring of Water. It was just a ring that could convert surrounding mana into water. A useless ring that was constantly wet could describe it.

Ebony then learned to make the simple connection rune to an external power source, the mana ore. How to make it activatable and whatnot. This was where the rune would affect things like mana conversion efficiency.

He even asked why myriad bracelets were not made with some of the simplest mana absorbing runes to charge mana ores. It was because even the simplest ones were huge and complicated and most cities actually have them. The mana in the city and their surrounding was the Empire’s asset too, used to power the city barriers or so it was publicly announced. Hence, the mana density outside and inside a city is usually very different.

❅❅❅

18 months.

Ebony was never a big fan of seafood but he had been wanting to eat some fish for some time. Now he couldn’t be more bored of fish or other seafood.

Master Jing finally said “Okay. You pass.” after his latest work finally managed to get her approval.

It was a simple ring made of simple materials.

[Durable Steel Ring of Featherweight Ice Blast(Common)]

According to Master Jing’s inspection, the wearer would have 22% reduced gravity on them. All of these calculations were only up till a certain extent because there were limits to the runes themselves. Meaning if gravity was increased by 10 times for example, the ring may not even reduce gravity on the wearer, much less by 22%.

A single Black could activate the ability for a little under 5 minutes. A Grey could last 1 and a half hours, more than the quantity of mana in them suggests and even increase the effectiveness a little. That was where the quality of mana ores played a part in terms of efficiency and purity.

There was also a skill of Ebony’s that he made the ring able to cast. A strong blast of ice mana can be cast from the ring itself. ‘Programmed’ with runic symbols to consume 100 mana, a Black was enough to freeze a large pot of water almost instantly and all the way through. Together with freezing the pot a little. The ‘blast’ of ice mana was mostly in mist form like Ebony’s Frost Mist Perception Sphere.

It was not hard to activate and anyone else who wore it just needed the most basic ability to utilise mana. The symbol needed to face the target so either wearing it facing inward to cast with palms open unless they wanted to freeze their hand shut or facing outwards so that they could cast it with a fist closed, punching a blast of icy mist instead.

To put 2 runic abilities into one tiny ring should be amazing enough to impress Master Jing because he couldn’t even find something like that in the accessory stores here.

The base of his steel even had a durability rune that he moulded the very molecules of steel to take the shape of. All of his runic symbols were inside the ring themselves and not engraved on them. There was so much more space and he could even layer them.

It was nothing new. Master Jing could do it easily. It was the more advanced stuff as it was basically a 3D rune instead of a 2D one. The possibilities increase even more. He still needed to research and read up more as he basically skipped 2 dimensional rune engraving.

Taking into account the simple materials, the runes could likely only use Greys as a power source. Using Greens might wear down the runes and ring more than 10 times faster. Rings like this might be useful but not high in demand for most people since it would break with use. Enchantments simply have to be recast.

Ebony's fine control of mana had reached incredible levels that the him from a year or more back couldn’t even imagine.

He didn’t use Inscription anymore but the skill still levelled when he was moulding runes.

Fourth Tide was a border city of Elva. It felt a little weird but the rocky shore of Elva felt very…straight. The cliff was a straight fall all the way down to the sea not far below.

This area was not the most important and even when Trolls came over from the continent of Tova this area doesn’t see battle all the time. Thus, it was less tense here and there haven’t been any Troll invasions for a couple of decades already.

Even without Troll invasions, there were sea monster attacks from time to time.

In the time Ebony was here, there were 2 notable attacks that required the city’s attention. It was quite the sight to watch, the city’s defences of artillery barrage of spells from either the walls or the tall mage towers.

Master Jing invited him to come out and watch as they drank alcohol. It was like watching this world’s version of a firework show. They were actually not that far from the front line of battles but the house was unshaken and any ricochet or stray spells bounced off an invisible barrier. The monster attack only had numbers and a few Grandmaster ranked, nothing to worry about.

Master Jing was a bad drunk. Saying incomprehensible things like ‘I’ll personally send you to **** if you make little Xin sad.’ or feeding him to some monster and more threats. He never got the translation.

He out-drunk her despite all the Constitution she might have. He didn’t or perhaps couldn’t, feel even the least bit drunk with Everlasting Tranquillity.

Ebony always felt a little disappointed that he will probably never experience being drunk. Miffed.