Ebony's Fable

Fleet-Footed Kappas are not normally aggressive. Or so Ebony had read. Aberrant usually meant they ate enough creatures like him. People with Classes. That was only the general logic and the most common opinion about what aberrant creatures were. He didn’t really think so with what Gen had told him and how Obsius wasn’t hell-bent on killing people. Unless Obsius was never an aberrant and it was just Z&Z's escort party that misunderstood. Perhaps they didn't have a classification for intelligent monsters since 'aberrants' were referred to as extremely bloodthirsty and stronger variants.

They are basically more intelligent versions that managed to stop themselves from absorbing ambient essence to grow stronger. Perhaps the next step for them would be to become like Gen and obtain a Class.

This Kappa had a pretty impressive sounding title of Transient Roaming but it also didn’t attack Ebony and merely stared creepily at him. Ebony matched its stare with his own as the 2 stood unmoving.

The Kappa was light green in colour throughout, rounder than a human face with much larger pupils and eyes, dark green beak and a bald head. It had limbs as thin as twigs and looked like a light breeze could snap them. Webbed feet thrice as large as his and its arms were webbed to its torso too.

After an unknown amount of time staring at each other, Ebony won the staring contest as the Kappa tapped its webbed feet on the branch he was standing twice before moving ahead of him.

Ebony didn’t ponder. There was nothing to think about, it was obvious even without its prompt. Follow.

It didn’t even take seconds before the Kappa was out of sight. It wasn’t just its speed since it was a dense ass jungle where his sight was significantly affected by the mist and thick foliage. He continued moving towards where he last saw it. Ten minutes in and he faced a dead end with no Kappa anywhere.

He was about to take a random direction since he couldn’t even find or see any sort of footprint or tracks left by the Kappa. But then something entered his range of perception not far away again. Still above him, it was the Kappa looking down at him.

Ebony didn’t sense any mockery but he was no Kappa whisperer and this Kappa was silent, unlike Obsius. This time, the Kappa raised its arm and pointed at him before pointing at its own feet.

Ebony did what he thought was natural and gave the Kappa a thumbs up. The Kappa had some level of intelligence and even cocked its head at his gesture. It moved again and he watched its feet more closely.

Their run went on for hours. The Kappa slowed itself down so that he could always either see or sense it. It had been a little surprising to see the similarities to how they ran. It was incredibly similar to his Treading Step. The moment its feet touched the ground it was pushed off with minimal ankle or knee movement. It landed without sound and when it ran on the ground the leaves didn’t even kick up much after its impressive push off speed, if at all.

‘Did it see that the Treading Step I used was similar and thought it'd show me how it's done or something?’

Perhaps the Kappa thought he was a fellow Kappa, just bigger and slower. That or it was just having fun or doing whatever it felt like doing.

He could somewhat catch up if he used Chaotic Repulsive Membrane but he didn’t and focused fully on what difference the Kappa wanted to show him. The difference was repulsive steps were hard to control. The Kappa even stepped or kicked between two trees back and forth to show off to him.

They were running straight for a rocky cliff, another dead end. It was angled, falling towards them a little and looked possible to climb. The Kappa didn’t even slow down and its step brought it right to the cliff where its free feet landed on the cliff and the Kappa used the momentum of its dash to bring its body to stick to the face of the cliff and continued running up.

It was running as fast vertically as it was horizontally. It stopped abruptly a dozen or so metres up and its webbed feet seemed to grip onto the cliff as it turned to look at Ebony who was about to use his hands to climb. Disapproval.

‘Does it look like I can grip with my feet?’

Ebony ran up as many steps as he could before he had no choice but to grab onto a protruding rock but then a moist webbed foot kicked his hand off and he fell. One of his Layered Ice Carapaces he had been carrying around slowed his fall.

He didn’t know how tall the cliff was as he couldn’t see far past the mist nor was the end of the cliff within the range of his senses. The Kappa started from the ground again before stopping and looking silently at Ebony.

‘I’ll just use ice as a frozen grip. Or maybe increase or redirect gravity from the cliff to strengthen on me.’

A single step took Ebony up high and he didn’t stop, copying the Kappa as much as possible. From its footing to the way it adjusts its body weight and centre of gravity.

The Kappa got rougher. Whenever he fell and had his shield catch his fall, the Kappa would leap off the cliff and kick his shield away. Its kick was strong, it instantly ripped whatever control Ebony had over his shield as the shield was sent flying out of his range of control and somewhere into the jungle before he could even mentally hold it.

He had underestimated the Kappa. He knew that the Kappa could crush his head before he could react if it wanted to kill him. The second time he tried to stop his fall with another Layered Ice Carapace was met with a more forceful attempt. The Kappa just directly jumped onto his shield, its large webbed feet expanded large enough to grab his entire shield within its sole and crushed it into ice dust.

Ebony’s expression never changed as usual and Everlasting Tranquillity was still up but that was a shocking sight to him. That had been a fully compressed Layered Ice Carapace. The Kappa was level 100 and hasn’t evolved like him yet, the sheer power of its grip was probably far beyond the highest level monster or opponent he had beaten. Levels really were useless for gauging strength. Appearance didn’t tell him crap either with the Kappa’s thin bony limbs that had incredible power within them.

With the Kappa's speed, he had absolutely no chance of even resisting if it wanted to crush his head or entire body into a bloody mess.

That said, it never attacked Ebony. Patiently watching him run up a cliff and falling. Sometimes gesturing with its arms and legs, assuming he understood what it was trying to tell him.

Ten days later.

‘Ting’ ‘Class Skill Treading Step evolved into Treading Stride.’

Treading Stride (Passive) - Unhindered by uneven terrain, move across the lands with speed, grace and stability. Treading Stride allows one to travel through most terrains with more ease, increasing in grace and stability in movement with each level. Movement speed increases by 2.5% per level. Ability to adjust centre of mass, maintain footing and balance on most surfaces increase by 1.0% per level.

Nothing much changed about the skill description other than the additional effect and the increase of the movement speed percentage. The footwork and/or movement skill was perfect for his swordsmanship too or any close combat really. His greatsword obviously put him out of balance with its immense weight, the skill would help somewhat.

The Kappa would often show its irritation during the 4 days he took to scale the cliff without using his hands and taking great falls that he had to land on his feet. Even rolling to break his fall wasn’t accepted. The worst was when he landed heavily and made large potholes in the ground.

It would take breaks and run off for a couple of minutes, bringing back something in its hands. From snakes to birds to large insects, eating it live and raw and even offering some to him. He declined the insects but processed the birds and roasted it over fire and seasoned it with simple salt and pepper because anything else seemed troublesome. Simple was good.

The Kappa was intelligent. It was entranced by the smell and Ebony obviously let it try some. It wasn’t good with hot food but it didn’t stop eating. The next day, the Kappa attempted to make its own fire. He taught it how to roast meat over fire or how to tell when it was ready. The Kappa never went back to raw meat again, improving its roasting skills every day. He was glad he taught something to it in exchange, he also gave it some of his rations to see if it liked them.

Ebony also slept twice in this period when the Kappa was sleeping as well. Well, the Kappa slept every night but he continued his practice. After the first night he fell asleep near it, the Kappa was no longer as hard on him when it oversaw his training. Maybe it got respectful after it sensed his leaking mana or essence.

After he scaled the 3 to 5 km tall cliff within a few steps without falling, the Kappa brought him all over the place. A swampy area, not exactly a swamp per se as the mud or water wasn’t even calf deep, it was more like a still lake.

Running on water was actually possible for him since quite a while back with his speed alone but it was fun to actually run on a pond and reach the other end without getting himself wet.

There had been some monsters and animals around but they all ran off when they walked in. He didn’t have empty mana ores anymore and he didn’t bother restraining any excess mana he had now that he found out how convenient it was. Ebony didn’t sense any monsters or creatures in the water and the lake was as still inside as it looked like on the surface.

The mist was not as heavy near the lake which was a little weird but he could see the end of the lake so it wasn’t all that large. The remaining time had been spent here. The Kappa knocked him into the lake whenever he kicked up a lot of water with the force of his steps.

The first exercise it made him do was sidestepping between a really short distance. Even the Kappa couldn’t leave the lake water completely still. But, it made light ripples, unlike his big splash. He didn’t use the weight of his equipment as an excuse. He also didn’t use ice magic to increase or solidify his footing.

The first thing he had to improve on was how instantaneous he had to step off before his whole body weight landed. The second was that the Kappa was unhappy about how short each of his stride was. It had taken some effort to understand the Kappa’s miming.

Treading Step or Treading Stride had reached level 139. 7 levels in such a short time was impressive when the skill doesn’t level so easily anymore unless he was running away from a dangerous hostile or something.

Ebony didn’t know how the Kappa found out before he even saw him run or move after his skill evolved but the Kappa smiled the moment his skill evolved.

It raced with him with apparent joy on its face, a large smile showing its sharp and dirty teeth.

It hadn’t been much of a race because it was still far ahead of him, at least he could somewhat keep up now. The mocking Kappa was running or hopping on one feet as if a handicap for him to even keep up. They ran around for more than half a day before the Kappa was tired out.

The Kappa sat around with Ebony for a while before it raised one of its feet to him. Soles facing Ebony, he had assumed it was some gesture of Kappas and he high fived it with his own feet. Not fearing it would crush his leg. Without much of a whoosh or vibration in the air, the Kappa jumped and flew much like a flying squirrel. Gliding away.

“See you around, teacher Ka.” Ebony said to himself. The Kappa didn’t introduce itself so he just shortened Kappa. The weird encounter didn’t get to him, it was a lucky encounter. At least, the naivety in him thought it was luck. The unlucky fact was that he was lost.

As best as he did with mapping the area with Mental Mapping, the mist wasn’t kind to him and he was more focused on observing the Kappa. He could still guess which way was west with the sun’s position but it wouldn’t be very accurate if the sunlight was more affected by the mist than he assumed.

He continued his journey towards where he decided was west.

Ebony’s travelling speed greatly increased with the help of his now tier 2 movement skill. There had been one area with monsters that he avoided instead of picking a fight. [Feral Gators Lvl 131], he didn’t need Identify to tell that they were feral. They were 3m long alligator looking monsters that ‘summon’ larger phantom jaws like the houndmaster guy Ebony killed to bite anything in its way.

They were too busy fighting another group of Gators but some noticed his aura. Charging towards him instead of running away like most other monsters. He didn’t stand to gain anything by hunting it and the Kappa’s ability to crush his full powered Layered Ice Carapace to bits and pieces had convinced him not to take any chances or risk that he didn’t need to take.

He had left them in the dust with his newfound speed.

Despite the increase in his speed, he took another 6 days of travelling before he managed to leave the jungle. A wide open plain with just land, grass, tiny mounds of earth, sky, clouds and sun ahead.

He had probably moved quite far away from the sea or border from what he saw and the poor estimate or gauge his Mental Mapping told him.

There were no dirt roads at all. There apparently weren't many cities or towns here so it was no surprise. The plains were not new to him and were filled with low level monsters. He had changed his mind about not looking for a town. He needed to use the toilet and a nice bath would do him good. It didn’t feel comfortable with all the mist and lake water that constantly dried off and got back on him again and again.

He didn't train Chaotic Repulsive Membrane as it got in the way of his movement training.

Moving through the Plains would be much easier since he could just go straight south without anything blocking his way. Since he was no longer in the jungle where danger could be anywhere, he connected his robe to his myriad bracelet. He didn’t really need to do that to charge it with ice mana but it was more mana efficient. Without further delay, he shot off towards south.

He didn’t expect to see people in less than half a day.

“Stop right there boy!” A loud shout from a low voice yelled for him to stop. Ebony could see a large group of almost 30 people dressed in a mishmash of armour. Some didn’t even have full leather armour. Mostly rogues and warriors with a few archers.

Ebony stopped before them. He identified them to all be Master Classed, around level 110 to 130. The highest was one guy near the back, sitting on a wagon. It was obvious with the smell and he wasn’t blind. There were dead corpses around and these people had bloodied weapons. They were fresh.

“What is it?” Ebony asked in his usual dead tone.

The group, clearly bandits of some kind, was laughing and giggling amongst themselves. Some already threw threats and told him to take all his mana ores out and leave his impressive and expensive looking equipment down.

“Strip everything on you and you can go.” One of the lady warriors was wearing armour that didn’t really cover her belly. The women on Elva were more on the conservative side so her style of fashion could be considered 'open' here. After all, hand holding was only for family and couples, mostly married. And also, useless armour.

This was an event that Ebony had read about many times. He had been on Elcra for almost 3 years now, a few more months would mark his third year. He had almost thought that stories were stories and such things didn’t actually happen in real life. The law and order on Elva were pretty solidified by the sheer power known as the Empire. He was clearly wrong.

“Is there a town or city around?” he asked, ignoring the woman who asked him to strip.

“Stop wasting your time, no one’s gonna come and save you.” The first warrior said.

“The town’s days away, we already killed the escorts for the miners. No one is going to come all the way out here if there hadn’t been a Grey ore mine here. It’s gonna be another 2 weeks before anyone passes by so you can give up already.” The woman was nice enough to give him useful information. There was a town further south just a few days away, with their speed or a drawn carriage or wagon’s speed. Since further up north will just bring him to Fissure Sea again.

“Anyone with a bounty?” he asked. They hadn’t tried to kill him and still offered to let him go. He should at least be polite.

The bandit group only just started to feel that maybe Ebony wasn’t scared and stunned. The question had been odd for someone about to get robbed.

They told him to shut up and hurry and drop his weapon and strip his stuff down. They were probably only after the weapon and robe. Ebony didn’t look like he was carrying much other than those. Heavy shields would slow him down and he didn’t feel the need to move around with it since he could cast one when he wanted. Dodging was an option too.

They were even polite enough to introduce themselves as the Prairie Brigands. They were shouting, pissed that they weren’t recognised by asking him ‘can’t you tell we’re blah blah.’ but it went through deaf ears. Since they seem so proud they should be wanted.

The brigands surrounded him since he stopped when they asked. Perfectly placed for his Magnified Gravity Field and Frost Mist Perception Sphere. Except for the one guy posing and sitting on the wagon, wiping blood off his halberd.

Ebony drew Icicle and tried to imbue it with ice mana for Frost Injection so that he could just freeze them and bring them to the town’s custody. Then he realised that he forgot that Icicle just absorbed ice mana endlessly. It didn’t even freeze up on the surface and he couldn’t utilise the ice mana after it absorbed it, he could still sense that the ice mana was inside the blade. It was kinda embarrassing for the ice mage. He sheathed his greatsword back for now.

The brigands didn’t expect gravity to more than double all of a sudden and Ebony took the chance to go around freezing them. A single step took him between 2 warriors and he grabbed their arms, twisting them into a lock with his enhanced strength. Far superior to the Master Warriors that didn’t know how to use any sort of enhancement magic.

Frost Injection ran through his own hands, freezing the two who were caught off guard by how fast he moved and appeared beside them. He took them seriously. They were all higher level and even a level 100 Kappa could squash him to death but he also knew the general standards of people now. It wasn't a reason to let his guard down.

They finally reacted after the first 2 whose hands Ebony froze and screamed in panic when they couldn’t shake his grip off. The freezing probably hurt a little bit as well.

The dumb circling had made the archers not dare to shoot randomly but there were only a few of them to begin with. The closest warrior sent his axe down on Ebony, it moved pretty slowly in Ebony’s eyes. He reflexively moved his upper body back just enough to dodge it but he forgot his hands were still stuck to the 2 warriors' hands as well.

It was too late.

“...erm. Oops?” Ebony truly didn’t mean to have the 2 warriors’ hands chopped off like that. He dodged without thinking after all. The loud screams were a little jarring on the ears so he manipulated the mana around them to not travel to him. He unfroze the arms still in his hand and tossed it back to them, maybe they could stick it back on afterwards.

Some of the brigands members were just stunned and standing still, some moved after the momentary shock and either helped pull the 2 injured warriors back or started backing up the ones that reacted better and started attacking Ebony.

They were really really badly trained. He even wondered if they had ever been in a fight. He took it as seriously and cautiously as he could but it didn’t even take half a minute to put them all lying on the ground. There had been so much screaming he started to freeze their mouths shut along with their arms and feet. Including the highest level halberd guy.

It was so anticlimactic really.

They were just so slow. Hardly any could react properly when he was right in front or beside them and already grabbing their wrists.

There were 2 huge conestoga wagons, all bigger than the Z&Z wagons he rode to Plainston. He buried all 10 corpses. All garbed in fighting equipment. Not everyone was dead. He counted 4 [Miners] and 2 [Master Miners], Human and Beastmen alike. There were 2 [Coachman] as well. They were only knocked out and left on the wagons themselves. At least they didn’t kill wantonly. Not that it was any of his business.

Miners were also one of the pretty socially high ranked occupations, surprisingly. Especially those that are specifically classed to mine mana ores. They were a pretty respected Class. Money makes the world go round and so many things run on mana and mana ores here so maybe it wasn’t all that unbelievable that those that obtain the resource they all so desperately needed was respected.

The wagons were filled with crates and bags, mining equipment, and many phoslamps. Greys filled the crates, there were probably tens or hundreds of thousands here. The escort of 10 must have been really weak if brigands of less than 30 could take them with only a few looking slightly injured.

The brigands could even knock so many miners out without harming them. Were the Prairie Brigands actually pretty capable or these people were so incapable?