‘That feeling when she snapped her fingers reminds me of the time I got Lunar Bioclock. Is it the celestial bodies? Now that I’ve been in space…space-space, celestial bodies probably refer to the stars and planets and these bodies may have conscious thought. Veronica’s divination is said to use astral powers or astral mana; perhaps she makes use of these celestial bodies' energy to cast her spells and divination?’

  “How did she do that?” Kong Jing had juice drool down her lips and staining her shirt.

  Kong Jing acted like a barrier between him and Xin by dragging her cousin around. It looks like she got some intense orders or suggestions to keep him apart or the issue of the two of them living in the same house would be known to the traditionalistic Xeng elders.

  Either way, it helped Ebony.

  The next day, Five the clone brought back a blindfolded fat man in bindings.

  “Mr. Rumble. I’ll keep it short, you contained me for seven months and four days in the year 5536. I’m a bit late but you will be contained here for the same length of time. Don’t worry, you don’t have to escape like I did. Since you took my time, I will take yours.” Ebony put the fat man in a cage underground. He borrowed the ceiling of the sewers below ground. It wasn’t like his first kidnapper gave him a chance to talk back so Ebony wasn’t interested in any conversation.

  If anyone chanced upon ice mana while cleaning or exploring the sewers, Five or another clone caretaker could move the cage that refracts light around it. He thought about completely sealing the man in ice so that he didn’t need to eat or drink for a long time, but since that wasn’t how he was treated he didn’t treat the man that way.

  It had been so simple to find and take the man away from his very own store. Ebony felt that he needed to do this and he wasn’t being petty.

  Mr Kidnapper, the halberd warrior was a different story. Spy girl had continued to send letters and information since there was movement from his clones every so often. She had kept track of him and news on Lure and her organisation, Jaded Parasites.

  The halberd user returned to Tidal a couple years ago, evolved. And he officially left the Jaded Parasites by completing a series of ‘impossible’ missions to extricate himself. The Fatal Nine or whatever. It was extremely rare for anyone to complete them so the spy girl had written him the details of all nine missions Mr Kidnapper had to complete to leave the Jaded Parasites with his life intact.

  His current location was unknown and it was speculated that the leaders of the Jaded Parasites still sent someone to eliminate Mr Kidnapper. It was a pity his clones weren’t awake to keep an eye on him. Ebony owed him 2 beatings. One was a concussion and the other was when he tore Ning Xin’s winning streak and beat her down. These two objectives were very simple for Ebony so he just needed the man’s location. Perhaps he should sell Mr Kidnapper off too but that would require a buyer. It was too much effort so he only remembered the first two beatings.

  With that, Ebony’s loose ends remained with the Nebulian who were a bit too much for him at the moment and the Cinderashians. As the strong divination mage said, his calls to the Thoya family failed. Although his callstone didn’t have that kind of range, he just had to take a couple of hour detour out of the city before he was within range but the transmission signal didn’t know where to fly. Confirming that the Frost Elves were hidden for real.

  He checked up on news about the Tetramyth and it was said they were practically begging the Kong clan members to let them close the portal. The Necrochitin Saintess and her sisters were played around with, the Xengs tried to force a stronger Tetramyth out but none came in the past months.

  As an ant race, they were very weak in physical and magical traits in comparison with other races at the same rank. Once again explained by the lower baseline traits of insect races compared with other animals. But they did have a Goddess, hence their entire bloodline had an increase in their total baseline trait. They have expensive traits, the most well-known for ants were precognition and most lines of Tetremyth embody a certain level of precognition which was envied by many races. Humans who want to invest in this trait would find it not worth the cost when the same volume of potential could be used to increase their Strength stat in effectiveness multiplicatively.

  As for the situation with the Trolls, it was quite surprising. People of Elva was sent on expeditions to Tova, publicly helping the Trolls to clear the magical slimes that Oplot once placed on Tova. It was an experience galore for anyone with magic while all physical-based fighters could only watch. In return, the Trolls had to pay war reparations with resources only found on the continent of Tova. Since the Trolls didn’t need many of these rare materials, they obliged instead of facing racial extermination or slavery.

  However, they still couldn’t co-exist. They did not accept the Empire stepping back and offering peace. They did not accept getting paid in foodstuff for their man and muscle power for mining and construction. They were adamant that the people of Elva should either cut their heads off or be eaten for their empowerment. They wanted to fight so much and the bad news was that a race of Trolls sent a message to Elcra, the Empire, daring them to exterminate the Trolls on Tova if they wanted to face the same.

  It was too bad Hector didn’t know enough about the outside world or which race of Trolls was smart enough to communicate and threaten the Empire.

  Geopolitical news wasn’t something he was very interested in, but as far as he could tell, the Empire was safe from the waves of contact with greater powers. So he went to the nearest Quest Hall, got an employee to show him land for sale. The employee just so happened to be spy girl who was still working for them and she got promoted enough to move to Central Tidal, choosing to work near his house.

  Secretly a metal mage but working for the government lady kindly and professionally acted as the Quest Hall assistant manager of land and dwellings. When they left to view land for sale, she cut the act and reported whatever information she thought was relevant. She wasn't surprised that he was back after a decade.

  The closest plot of land to the royal family both quiet and away from the bustling city was a dozen streets away from his current house. The Quest Hall hasn’t fully incorporated universal trading currencies but the assistant manager gave him flexible limits. He could pay up in a week so all he needed to do was find Purples and a few nobles to give him a signed copy of their ‘okay’ for him to buy plots of land in central Central Tidal. He could just get the signatures from a young prince, the crowned princess and if he really had to, the King and Queen would probably give the okay sign. Unless they see him as a problematic time bomb that would endanger the nobles that lived there.

  With the expedited work, he bought roughly 180,000 square metres of land or a 400 by 450 metres rectangular block of land that was his in two days of administrative processing. 18 hectares wasn’t that much but more than enough for two.

  Using savings from the past few months that weren't spent during training or buying access to books from the biggest bookstore in the universe, he had long placed orders for the most suitable building material at Epic rank. It was too costly even for him to get a higher quality version, considering the quantities he was planning to work with.

  He made use of Xeng’s connections or perhaps reputation to purchase from a different region altogether. A building material that was perfect for him, feeding it mana was all it took to change its properties. It could be made into bricks and also cement slurry to cover the gaps. It was a popular building material but not always the best choice since it was not a worthwhile investment. It was perfect for Ebony since it was said to have a nearly unparalleled ability to absorb mana. The delivery cost more than ten times more than the material itself. He already had it ordered and delivered to Sky’s Edge and thousands of tons of the dry powder was in his very bracelet.

  Along with that was a sample of high-quality soil with no special properties except an extremely high concentration of life force so that it was suitable for a wide range of plants regardless of its element. The soil was called General Life and Ebony had a sample from the Peng Clan. There was enough soil for a single potted tree. This wasn’t something he could buy with just money and neither was it something he could afford at large volumes at the moment.

  “I need to do something very important and will be away for a couple of weeks.” He notified the two ladies before he hid the entire landmass with the help of a specialist. A hired hand from the Jaded Parasites. He did not expect them to have such a good master of stealth, illusion and redirection of attention using subtle mental suggestions with enchantment effects. And for such a cheap price.

  Xin had good perception too so he didn’t want to spread his mana to make this project invisible by his means.

  If the hired hand didn’t exclude him from the effects, he might need another second to realise that something felt off about this blank piece of land. A world of magic and magic users was very different from his escape attempts from non-magic users. Speaking of, he was very curious why he hadn’t received any feedback or follow-up from Gearhart. It was hard to believe Mr Guru actually listened to his threats or persuasion. Even a busy man like Gearhart would have done something by now.

  He knew that Mr Guru erased his and maybe even Gearhart’s memories of the name Rime but that only gave more reason to have a follow-up. Especially when he was on Teheil with Cinderashians running about. But Ebony was a man of practical use of mental resources, if there was no problem, he shouldn’t spend too much time worrying about it.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  As per tradition for the man to prepare a house to be turned into a home, he did his part and built a new house from the ground up. From powder that could be made into mana bricks and cement. Since it took on properties of mana, the bricks would be more physically and elementally durable than most metals of the same quality and it was cooling. He tested that the material could indeed absorb extreme amounts of mana, they weren’t any less durable, tolerant or resilient than a metal of a higher quality. That was taking his mana into account so the bricks also absorbed impact and shock to a high degree.

  Most of the land would be for a garden that would likely look more like a farm since he needed to grow all of their favourite plants, be it fruits or vegetables. On second thoughts, a garden with fruit trees, tea plantation and flowers might be better. He could always buy farmland and hire farmers with dedicated skills to grow the weird and unique plants they’ve collected over the years.

  He didn’t have plans for anything fancy or humongous but a 350 square metres base seems about right and at least three floors. The first floor would need a very large kitchen, a dining room, living room, a freezer room and fresh food storage, a laundry room and a toilet. The second would have a master bedroom, and although he didn’t think it necessary 4 guest rooms or empty rooms that could be repurposed. Another toilet. And he was considering a third floor as a study and library with possibly half of the floor opened up as a balcony or rooftop barbeque spot but that wasn’t necessary when he had so much outdoor space. Leaving it as an empty room, it could be a dressing room, wardrobe for both casual use and armoury for their weapons and gear. Their wardrobe was growing and he couldn’t think of other amenities that a woman would need.

  Underground would be the main storage, the same underground forge and workspace for him, a cellar that he had been thinking about for a while and finally the same underground pool. He did think about a normal pool but with so many magic eyes and perception around it was likely not normal to have a body of water sitting out in the open.

  He had so much land that he built the underground more horizontally than having them deep underground and messing with the sewerage.

  During which, he stayed in contact with Shi Qiang and asked for help and advice on what was required or expected of him. With her help, one of her Zhao Clan friends came to help him with the house. They were in charge of making all houses in Xiaoya completely private. A fun fact he learnt was that even Shi Tao could not peek her senses around in other people’s houses as long as the Zhao worked their magic. They took their privacy very seriously, one was no different from a normal human in one of their houses.

  A fourth-generation Xu also undertook the mission of building a training field in Ebony’s specifications. This would be his backyard. The woman, Xu Ying needed help from a Kong for the spatial shenanigans. They just so happened to be Kong Jing’s maternal grandmother and the man was her father. When it came to customised training fields, the Xengs were second to none.

  This was Kong Jing’s father using the opportunity to take a better look at how his daughter had been living on Elcra.

  Altogether, it barely took ten days for him to complete the project. No clones, he placed every brick and cemented them all by hand. The house was empty even though he already took note of what furniture she’d liked in the past shopping trips because he thought it would be a better activity to do together and fill the house up.

  Stretching his body and taking last checks on the new garden, he brought a clone here and had it take care of the garden while he waited for the target’s guard to go down.

  Returning home after a round of conditioning, nothing happened other than the two sisters just returning from a dungeon trip. They went to a dungeon somewhere inside Vermin Paradise with Athena who was still a freelancer. Athena was probably one of Xin’s best friends, maybe more so than Mallory. He wasn’t sure why, but they matched well. The lady was more happy and excited to see Xin alive than surprised at the weird two personality woman. She was a woman of the battlefield and was more concerned about seeing a friend alive than caring about a split in personality. To be fair, Xin was still the same person.

  The lady’s outings to the dungeon were forced by Athena suggesting they needed a girl’s week out. They came back with weird bags of gel. Gel from a plant in Vermin Paradise and not within the dungeon. It supposedly helps with digestion and is rumoured to keep skin ‘glowing’ when applied. It was also delicious and was quite similar to aloe vera. So a bowl of transparent jelly was part of the dessert even though it was breakfast.

  Ebony got a visit from Wilcox the old lady as she returned and found out he visited the academy.

  “Oh you didn’t miss a thing. The nobles closed Spectral Veil Stronghold to the public a year after the only meeting you went to. It’s only been a decade and the Magus Consortium doesn’t do much together outside of dealings between some members who are more well-acquainted with each other. Haha…in fact, there hasn’t been another full meeting since.” The old lady placed the cup of tea she had down gently after answering his concerns about membership.

  To these mages that were relatively advanced, or strong enough to challenge an Epic ranked dungeon a decade might not be enough for them to complete a research or create a new spell they were satisfied with.

  ‘Must have been the rush to strengthen themselves against the Tetramyth. Since the Tetramyth issue has been dialled down to nothing but a situation with a bigger bully present, the dungeons might be opened up soon.’ Ebony had some guesses of his own. As far as things went, the public only knew about a war with monsters but not so much about their opponent the Tetramyths.

  “The Crater of Tidal…that was you wasn’t it.”

  “I was the target.” Ebony didn’t expect the old lightning mage to figure it out. The Crater of Tidal was the event where a molten crater frozen over appeared in the city. Yet thousands of people were evacuated right before that happened.

  Considering the size of Tidal, it was a small issue geographically but a big one when it came to safety. On one hand, no reported deaths made the citizens cheer at the Life Queen’s awesomeness. On the other, residents and shop owners were concerned that strong people or natural disasters could ruin their livelihoods and homes. They barely had any memories of why or what happened before they returned to a wasteland where their properties were.

  Thanks to Hector’s presence and Muse who was well known to be the Life Queen’s assistant or fellow Great Healer, the blame or follow-up never reached Ebony. The Noble in charge of the district had a lot of backlash but didn’t dare to push Hector too far. They were less afraid of Hector, a mostly unknown prince and more so of Muse who was someone known to walk in and out of the Royal couple’s home. In fact, Hector could barely be considered a prince since he was two generations down.

  However, in terms of strength or evolutionary stage he was not far off from the actual princes who were mostly Kings.

  Unfortunately, the Elven Noble sensed ice mana specifically from a Frost Elf. So they pushed the issue.

  Too little was known about the details and neither spy girl, Wilcox or his clones found out any more. However, it was likely due to this that the Frost Elven village went into serious hidden village mode. Their fighters might not be afraid of the Elves but the non-fighters didn’t have that kind of iron in them.

  That made him worried and he wanted to contact them to see if they needed any help but he believed that would be detrimental. Maybe he had a good sixth sense too because his gut was telling him to leave them alone till the situation changed. He started to think of ways to inform them he was back without leaking their location. The first job was to allow his clones to start going throughout Elva and placing Will Relay Buffers and maybe hope the fighters or Domain users could sense his Will nearby but if the Elves were there, they would be able to notice the same.

  ‘I wonder if placing a Will Relay Buffer is against some kind of Elven privacy law…’ Noticing an issue, he had his clones skip Tidal altogether. In any case, this was where his home was and he didn’t need a relay buffer where he was. They were the only ones who might notice Will with a scant few humans that may be able to do the same.

  Visiting graves was an activity he didn't bring Xin along for. He took some effort to find the graves of a few people he knew, such as Ryley. He had a tombstone, not at Tidal but closer to Hata Town. Ebony didn't have words to say to a passing first party member. But for some reason, his feet and mind were brought forward to do such an action.

  Receiving a few visits and calls from Mark himself who did well for himself and now had bought a house for his parents. Rented a workshop for himself, and gave his parents the opportunity to go back to school and upgrade themselves to be able to keep a store open to Tidal’s standards. The trip from a town to Central Tidal must not have been easy for them without a space mage or endless endurance to run at high speeds.

  Mark had not completed Kong Jing’s test for him but from the crafter’s mood when Mark left, he could tell the lady was impressed by the man’s progress on whatever he was doing.

  A rare date at Aroma Alcoves.

  Receiving a royal summons. To explain the Crater of Tidal situation formally but only to Yvette who blocked out any other noble that wanted to meet the victim or cause of the event. Fend off a few probes at what the Xengs want for Ning Xin who wasn’t very defensive or aggressive in her non-combat mode.

  Having almost daily music lectures from Muse who bawled her eyes out when she first met up again.

  Restarting the restaurant hunting from one end of the street to the next district.

  Watching movies while having more food than their meal times. They were packing in as much food as they could throughout the 28 hours of the day. He supplied them with ingredients that couldn’t be found on Elcra since Elcra had limited monster meat at Ancient equivalent to Emperor-ranked meat. They could be found but hunting them was troublesome if not outright impossible. Cooking them to make use of all the nutrients proved slightly beyond his chef’s abilities.

  Acting as a guest sparring duelist to perform for the Piercing Tempest Academy along with Wilcox.

  Being dragged around by Hector to go drinking with his war buddies, including honorary commander Wilson. Going out to sea to dive, fish giant mackerel with their bare hands and roasting them over fire on the beach was an activity he hadn’t planned for.

  His days were packed.

  Kong Jing the planted supervisor, had long left their home to continue her research and craft.

  The far from monotonous life where less than half was occupied by training and conditioning quickly blended into routine till one morning, Ebony felt an infectious hum full of glee.

  Picking a grape while drying his hair from the after-morning exercise shower, “what got you so excited?”

  “I don’t know. I just woke up feeling great today! I feel like today’s going to turn out fantastic. Maybe I’ll finally succeed in a dish I’m satisfied with!” She exclaimed while her knife flashed down and separated the fish's head from its body. She was recently experimenting with fried fish dishes.

  ‘Finally.’ His next breath gave him goosebumps.

  Her strong intuition that bordered foresight sure was useful. What better indicator of success to use than the intuition of the grandchild of an excellent divination mage?

  “Scarlet Rhael Ning Xin, I challenge you to a duel.”