“You-you’re back! I knew you’d be fine!”

  “A hug I did not expect.” Ebony coughed from the slamming hug from an oddly well-dressed prince, minus the bushy beard.

  “What’s wrong with that and where’s mine?”

  There were stronger emotions behind the meeting than he was expecting.

  ‘No, Hector had always been like this. I just never felt whatever he was expressing and it never came across.’

  “You’ve gained some muscle,” Ebony commented. It was harder to pick out a single person since there were too many mana signatures mixing in Tidal compared to Cinderash where close to no one actively controlled their aether and Teheil where no one had mana.

  “I stepped away from the Tetramyth battle. We, some of the younger generation nobles, took Uncle Oplot’s advice and went to Lacuna Expanse.” Hector was almost unrecognisable, hiding in a blacksmith store and drinking ale in broad daylight with a young dwarf.

  “That’s the world dungeon on Elva, isn’t that too much of a jump,” Ebony recalled.

  “Not so, it’s less like a dungeon and more like another continent. There are no weird dungeon rules and effects, just another world. Monsters range from normal unlevelled animals to levels higher than any individual we have. You-is Scarlet…”

  “I brought her back in one piece. I heard from Welser that you went on a training spree.”

  “Haha. He said that?” Hector scratched his beard but didn’t look away. “I didn’t want to be that powerless ever again.”

  “That is tough. Comparison is the devil, I wonder if I can ever get rid of that feeling.” It was hard to say but he couldn’t even consider himself as a top 100 strongest individual he personally knew anymore. Not after landing on Sky’s Edge, Xiaoya. He could easily name 20 Cinderashians that he couldn’t even make bat an eye, half of which were Saints and Emperors that may not be under Gearhart’s direct command. A few of which his clones had managed to learn from. A small handful of Kings could do the same.

  Mr Guru the Telepath had no real combat ability if he wasn’t able to enter people’s minds. That in itself was a strength but Ebony still managed to trap him. Mr Guru wasn’t kidding when he said they didn’t need their strongest which were the Boiler Knights in his opinion. There were also Gearhart’s sons and the children of the handful of Cinderashian Saints.

  “You have that feeling? Even now?” The well-dressed but bearded prince did not expect those words out of Ebony.

  “Even more so. I’ve seen how small and insignificant I am. I had better stay on Elcra till I get bigger as the Xengs would say.”

  His relationship with Hector was a bit estranged but they didn’t find it necessary to recount each other’s experiences to each other at this moment. They were facing each other both in one piece, healthier than ever and that was about all they needed to know.

  “Why the get up?” Ebony decided to ask about the present instead of the past.

  “Haha… Mal was given assistant head director rights for Tidal Academy. They are grooming her ability to rule but they don’t want the same type of rule that the old Empire has been following. You can say that she’s being tested for her ability to grow Tidal Academy’s educational abilities and reputation. If you met Wel, you should know that we’re having a tough time standing out as a new Worldcore to the sector.”

  “And she got you to come to class.” Ebony cocked his head.

  “...no.”

  “Teach?”

  “No…I’m-I’m the poster boy. I didn’t agree! But I might have…blown apart an ambassador’s arm and have been stuck doing this for a while.” Hector smashed the mug on the stone table.

  “Ah, I see. You do have Navin’s genetics. Well, lucky for me to have found you so easily. What ambassador?” Ebony could see it.

  In human standards, Navin was the most handsome man he knew. Hector was maturing and getting more similar in terms of appearance.

  “Nothing big, he’s from a Rare Worldcore and was looking for schools for their people.”

  Ebony knew there were many worlds that had access to Eidolon or other worlds despite being a low-ranking Worldcore. Because many of them were conquered or occupied by people from other Worldcores and not a naturally developing Worldcore like Elcra.

  He could technically go and find a Worldcore floating in space and if it wasn’t registered, he could claim it as his. Many Emperors do this and make a planet their own and even a small portion of Kings that have the right skill set or information channels. The competition wasn’t all that fierce, one could even buy an untapped Worldcore with no intelligent or sentient lifeforms. That wasn’t something he could afford without savings.

  It wasn’t every day that one could find a Worldcore that grew by itself and had civilization grow from close to nothing to finding their way out. One could argue that the ancestors of Elcra were a group of Human, Dwarves, Beastmen and Elven explorers who landed on Elcra to claim as theirs but that history was lost or hidden. As far as he was aware, Elcra was deemed unclaimed and self-owned by Eidolon so it was hard to say how the first people came about.

  Ebony was introduced to the Dwarf Orik, the owner of the blacksmith he knocked on the doors of. It was one of Hector’s friends from young and not from freelancing around the continent. Unlike his war buddies, who never meet up, Hector always comes to visit Orik whenever he has time and nothing better to do.

  Hector had duties to attend to in Tidal and wouldn’t be leaving for long terms for the foreseeable future.

  “Hector, wish me good luck. When a good day comes by, I’ll be getting myself a wife.” He didn’t forget to give the promised invitation.

  “Finally! What do you mean by a good day?”

  “Hmm…if you’re this close by you’ll probably know when it happens but I’ll send a message if the location is far.”

  “You’re talking about a wedding right?”

  “No, I’m talking about my proposal. It’s a duel, remember?”

  “Ahh right. I don’t understand the Xengs man. Why would they want their daughters beaten?”

  “I’ve met them. They are pretty normal. The duel is more about showing their daughter’s family that she would be protected and cared for in good hands. Or strong hands I suppose.”

  “I had a feeling you were returning. A couple of months back dozens of Xengs returned and the next week, the Tetramyths were trying to close their portals. I heard they didn’t allow the portals to be closed and the Tetramyths put their heads down and released all intention to fight back or protect themselves. Someone sat on the fortress wall for a week and the Tetramyth promised never to come back.”

  ‘A few old friends told them about the Tetramyths, they thought it might be interesting but then disappointed their opponents wouldn’t fight back. Maybe a Kong clan member forcefully overtook control of their portal spell or equipment.’ Ebony summarised what had happened even without sufficient information.

  Previously, the only Xeng support the Empire received was a pair of crafters. Now that Sky’s Edge was physically flown over, the residents probably didn’t have anything better to do and came down for a walk.

  He already learnt that Kong Jing was only able to get the interest of two, sixth-generation crafters. From the Xu clan who were mostly crafters. Her mother was also from the Xu clan. Needless to say, when the older generation came, they wanted a bit of stretching and warm-up, but the Tetramyths were not up for it.

  “There was a bit of…drama when an Elf attacked a couple of Xeng. Thankfully no one’s dead.” The Prince probably played things down with his words.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  ‘That shouldn’t be an issue right? The elves are far more divided against external threats compared to the Xengs.’ Since this was the Xengs as a whole, it shouldn’t become war or mutual extermination with a fight between a few people that didn’t end up in deaths.

  “Forget about that, I always wanted to ask…why do you even like Scarlet? When we first met, you two only knew each other for a short time too but it felt to me like you’ve been interested in her from the start.”

  “Hmm. I’m not sure if you can accept this explanation. It’s colour,” Ebony had another second of uninterrupted thought. “Life was boring to me. Back where I came from. I had no direction and expected how my entire 80 years of life would turn out. I was confident it would turn out the way I imagined. I came here, haha. Messing up on a little wolf and boar chase because I was a little happy inside, forgetting my training for a bit. There was some colour in my mind.”

  He conjured a ball of ice above his mug. “That colour quickly faded when I got the hang of moving and using mana. Learning ice magic. Picking up the sword, something more unknown was also adding colour. I expected years of training, yet again. Nothing different from the life I knew. It was and is arrogant of me, but I saw myself getting strong. At the top of the food chain. But that was it, I never knew why I trained. I never knew why I needed or wanted to be strong. Sure, I had an attachment to life but I never minded dying in a hunt. Eat or be eaten is natural, dying is natural.

  She was a splotch in my mind…mindspace. An unknown splotch. That never happened to me since my parents disappeared. It’s partly a biological instinct and more…how do I explain this? I know this sounds stupid, but when we met it was like, I knew this would happen. The moment I stopped erasing the splotch, it proliferated. I recognised the splotch as colour. I gained a weakness. With it, I gained direction. I no longer have to get stronger by sheer instinct and genetics. I wanted to get stronger. This splotch is what I desire so much and can’t get enough of.” Ebony had never put it in words but he realised he was feeling lighter after saying these words. She was a weakness he feared to have but learning was beneficial. With a weakness, his desire to grow stronger rose.

  “--I think I get it.”

  “You do?” He was honestly surprised Hector understood what he was saying.

  “...Tracy Velas is a survival class instructor at Tidal Academy.”

  “No wonder you’re still staying at Tidal.” It looks like they were not wrong with their assessment of Hector and the woman they only met once.

  He didn’t stick for long, Hector’s friend had not been welcoming to use the smithy’s backyard as a pub. Hector himself went on a quest to tell people that Ebony was back.

  ‘There shouldn’t be that many people to inform.’ He retrieved his callstone but didn’t find a need to tell people other than Hector who came to mind. There was Mark but he was more like a scholar who shared similar interests that he was acquainted with. He would call the Thoyas but the callstone doesn’t go that far. He was very sure that he shouldn’t invite the Thoyas to see his proposal, they were more withdrawn from the sort of showing affection that humans or he was used to.

  He didn’t want to go back home yet so he visited the Piercing Tempest Academy.

  Lo-and-behold, he was momentarily stunned. Realising that those classmates of his had long grown up into teens preparing for their Classing. They were 3 to 5 years into their skill levelling and classing preparation stage. Since most of them were from families that could afford the school fees, they did not have to rush their choices. It wasn’t rare for mages to take their first class well into their twenties.

  Hector for one was a few years older than Ebony and Xin and he was only Journeymen when they met.

  Not all of his classmates continued to take advanced courses. Some took part-time courses while learning skills for a Sub-Class or Profession from a different academy or their family members. Others simply ended their learning at a different academy.

  Ebony learnt from Targot the lightning mage instructor about how Raika the daughter of the headmistress managed to get a recommendation into Tidal Academy. Together with the ‘young’ female instructor, his classmates Umar and Yusqly were noted as talents by Tidal Academy and they changed schools.

  Umar was proudly promoted as a student from Piercing Tempest Academy with training fees fully waived for a decade. That was enough to bring more students into their lightning magic school. A lot were first-generation mages that had a passable affinity with lightning mana.

  He was here to look for the old lady Wilcox to ask about his membership with Magus Consortium but she was on a school outing with the Journeymen student group in a dungeon. He was relieved he didn’t take their first meeting present of spectral life jelly because he wasn’t around to do the job of joining their regulated Epic Dungeon run.

  “Ebony, hurry up and come back. Grandma’s about to leave tonight so we’re having dinner together.” His bracelet was made able to read and use a callstone too. The Elcrian Myriad Bracelet was a reverse-engineered version of the universal one so there wasn’t much of an issue.

  He was just a step away from home but he still replied, “I’ll be right there.”

  Taking a very long step, he arrived home.

  All of his clones noted the danger earlier and were hiding in Dusk. As for Dusk, it couldn’t run away but it was just an innocent tree that was ignored. Not everyone talked to a tree and it was unknown whether Veronica knew about the Domain core.

  Other than Kong Jing who was fiddling with his gravity cube. The grandmother and daughter combo was busying themselves in the kitchen. The younger lady chided the older woman’s cooking skills and nonchalance in ingredient handling while the older one cried about how she cooked for the young lady for a decade and this was how she treated her elder.

  It was not his place to step in so he set the table up instead. His clones had been keeping the place in good condition but he wiped and cleaned everything again out of habit.

  Ebony hadn’t sat in front of Veronica for an extended period before. His meetings and interactions with this older lady were always short. On his first meeting, he was kidnapped and tossed to Kong Jing. Then he received a farewell when she left Elcra. And the next time he met her was on Xiaoya for less than a few hours. All of which were spent between the Ning pair.

  So he was wondering what he should say but he didn’t have to worry. During dinner, the older lady took charge of talking and keeping it lively around the table. It was clear to him that she loved to tell stories.

  ‘How do I address her...Grand Aunty or Grandniece?’ Suddenly, he was conflicted. By logic and their prior relationship, Grand Aunty was about as right as could be. By Xeng culture, Veronica was of the fifth generation and he was of the third.

  He wasn’t able to ponder long over dinner before Xin asked, “Can’t you stay over a few days before going off? Where are you going after just arriving?”

  “I’m busy. Garden of the Deceased. No, you don’t need to come with me. No, don't bother visiting or calling the Frost Elves. Yes, they are currently cut off from normal means of visit. No little Jing, your space magic wouldn’t work.”

  Ebony looked between the two younger ladies. They were more used to the divination mage’s answering her questions before they asked. He was indeed about to suggest going to Bubble Hills where the Garden of the Decreased was and where the Frost Elves weren’t far away from. By the looks of it, her granddaughter was going to suggest the same while Kong Jing was going to say she can enter the hidden village whenever she felt like it.

  “You are not allowed to follow me either.” The masked woman with black hair turned serious for once, her tone lowering gravely.

  The space mage secretly told him the Nings were arguing about how the younger face of the older Ning must be masked up for dinner. Ebony roughly understood how strong Xeng genetics were even when it came to appearances but he couldn’t help but mirth at her worries. She would likely look similar and he had already seen Veronica’s face so having her masked now wouldn’t change much.

  “Wrong!” A sudden shout entered his mind with a foot stomp.

  He didn’t know how she did that but they were brought back to the moment.

  “Now that I’ve finished all that I could prepare for you my dear child, it’s time for my own hurdle. Don’t come ruining my chance. You are not to look for me till I look for you. Besides, I’ll be going with ah Min and my sisters with our grandfather, it’ll be the safest place there.” Veronica gave the taller but younger woman a head rub. “Ah don’t worry, I will be right here watching soon. Right?”

  Ebony shrugged his shoulders up. This divination mage was ruining his chances. Doesn’t she know her granddaughter has incredible Intuition?

  He needed every lead-up he could take and he was banking on catching her off-guard.

  ‘But she’s right, I’ve been dragging it. Soon it is. My perception of ‘soon’ is going haywire with the recent happenings. Is ten years considered recent? It feels like it. Now I’m thinking like the older generations…I’ve spent too much time in my mindspace with or without Mr Guru.’ When perceived time in his mind was counted in the thousands of years, the passage of a measly ten outside was hard to think of as a long time.

  As a Telepath, one of Mr Guru’s abilities was to speed or slow down Ebony’s thinking capacity. In terms of the effects he felt, the perceived time in his mindspace would speed up or slow down accordingly. The Telepath could weaken his magic or the strength of anything that required mental power. That included his ability to fight inside his mind. He could make illusions of power and spells. If Ebony could cast a frostflame, the Telepath could imagine himself casting the same spell.

  The Telepath could imagine himself covered in an impenetrable armour that was invisible, weightless and made of skin. He could imagine a knife in his target’s throat that ignores all defensive abilities.

  In the same way, Ebony used the same power of imagination to protect himself. It was very educational to fight with one’s imagination. Yet, the Telepath couldn’t imagine breaking out of the seal he was caught in for he didn’t know why he couldn’t move and he went too deep in Ebony’s natural mental defences. Ebony needed proper active mental defensive techniques as soon as possible. He could trick Mr Guru once but there are always greater opponents.

  ‘A Ning family outing to the Garden of the Deceased. I heard Veronica’s grandfather was locked in a dungeon where time passed faster and he doesn’t have much of his lifespan left. Going to a place called Garden of the Deceased does not sound…auspicious.’

  “I can’t go?” Ning Xin puffed.

  “You cannot, fifth generation and up only. There is a reason why even that kid Oplot or the Elves doesn’t explore the Garden of the Deceased. Elcra is an interesting and fateful place. Okay, now that we’re done with dinner, I can’t keep my sisters, aunties and uncles waiting.” The short lady wiped her mouth with a napkin, gave her granddaughter a tight hug and snapped her fingers to disappear from her spot.

  Unbeknownst to them, Veronica had people waiting for her.