“Did you need something, Aunt Tao?” Ebony presented himself in the temple home of his Aunt after changing clothes.

  “I can’t see you without a reason?” The lady with closed eyelids frowned.

  “You can.” Of course she could, if she opened her eyes.

  “Hmp. So similar. Anyway, I won’t lecture you about that duel but let’s talk about the wedding.”

  The experienced older lady educated Ebony for a short morning.

  “Sorry Aunt Tao, I’m not planning to invite them all.” Ebony felt bad when they saw him as family but he wasn’t that close to the rest of the Xeng clans.

  He was in favor of inviting the Shis and Nings, which was expected, and Kong Jing, for sure, but the others weren’t people he was comfortable with. He saw no reason to have people he didn’t know in his wedding. He didn’t want to make a big deal out of it, but he remembered his father telling him about how much a wedding meant to his mother.

  It was a big deal. It should be a big deal.

  For them, it was officialising a lifelong promise.

  Promises were one of the heaviest things in life.

  “That’s fine, but at least send an invite to the second generation. Don’t worry, other than me and the Ning family head none of the others will have to come, most of them can’t even receive the invitation. However, I ask that you extend an invitation to a representative of each clan.”

  “...Okay.” He could deal with a representative or two from each clan. Too much noise wasn’t up his alley and it likely wouldn’t be for Xin either. “About the date of the ceremony,”

  “The Nings would send us a notice at least a month before. For now, you can prepare the things I told you about.”

  “Mmm. Auntie I want to ask about that person that popped up near me that has a cracked Xeng mask. Do you know who I’m talking about?”

  “I heard. The Ning kids met that man too and I noticed when he appeared down on Elcra. Ignore him and everything he’s said.”

  “Is he supposed to be me?”

  “Why do you think that?”

  “That mask has Xin’s old patterns. His mana is vast but familiar. It suppresses my own. Now I learned my mother sends delays into the past. You get where I’m coming from. I didn’t sense any gravitational movement, but is that supposed to be a delay sent back from the future?”

  “It is not possible to go back in time. There are Time mages but not a God of Time. That man could be said to be another you, another future. The very fact that we can see and sense him, is proof that his present is not your future. So nothing he says is relevant to us because the past he lived is not yours to live.”

  “Because events had long changed.” Ebony thought about the butterfly effect but he couldn’t see how the first time he saw that future version of him had changed so much just by making him willingly sit in prison for a slightly longer period.

  ‘Or is it the soul roar I heard and tried to copy?’

  “Auntie Tao, do you recognise this roar? Wait, it is okay to cast it? It’s a soul attack using my essence.”

  “Cast it.”

  Ebony did as asked, he had been curious about what he had copied for a long time. It was hard to tell if his ‘attack’ was just a breeze to the woman who looked too similar to the mother in his memories.

  “Hang on, I’ll need you to replay that for a second opinion. I don’t remember hearing it but maybe the rest of us. Play it louder, can you do it over the whole island?”

  “Almost.” His mental range might have expanded but the island wasn’t exactly tiny.

  “Good enough.”

  “Is it a good idea to cast a soul attack over the whole island…”

  “Relax, that can hardly be called an attack. If anyone gets hurt by that then their souls need toughening up anyway.”

  With permission, he went ahead and unleashed the roar and reverberated it as far as he could. His mana could go far but the roar used essence. Life force and stamina would disperse before they got as far as his mana. The stamina usage for this spell wasn’t even a conscious manipulation, it was just like moving his muscles so he couldn’t actively help the spell go further or make it more efficient.

  “Got it, Qin Mei said this should be the roar of a Soul Basilisk. She also commented that your copy of it lacks the expression and life of the real thing but she recognised that this particular breed is not a little snake but one that evolved. Possibly a Dragon or a half because of the existential suppression that you’ve managed to copy well.”

  “How strong are these Soul Basilisk?”

  “Born Higher Beings. If they are the breed little Mei mentioned, then they are Saints the moment they emerge from their eggs.”

  “I thought everything starts from unclassed, even monsters.”

  “They do, even Dragons. But they can just stay in their eggs, level, evolve and understand the...hmm, you don’t know this…let’s say power, in their genes. Many of these races and species stay pregnant for a very long time to feed their eggs enough energy. Lay these eggs when they are ready, and let the eggs gestate for an even longer period. And when they hatch, viola, Saint. Oh, memories and even combat experience included. In their minds, in their muscle memory. Everything.” Shi Tao was likely forced to change her words because Ebony never read about this from the God of Knowledge’s library while she did.

  That was precisely why the Xengs didn’t want to give birth after evolving to Saints. They would just be making copies of themselves and they hated that notion.

  Levelling did not require hunting and killing. He knew that, but he felt pity hearing that other races just stay unhatched and born a Saint. All that power, and they didn’t get the chance to feel how and where it came from just felt like taking all the fun out of becoming stronger.

  The reason for hating this sort of shortcut was also the fact that these races have an extreme difficulty of growing stronger than their parents.

  “I see…then what is this existential suppression?”

  “Is that not self-explanatory? They specialise in suppressing other beings. Most creatures do this with eye contact, like we do. Eyes are powerful. It wasn’t that obvious when we were unclassed and even Grandmaster but you must have seen normal people flinch or shake when they made eye contact with you. This just gets more obvious as you evolve and stare into the eyes of a creature that isn’t as evolved. This roar makes use of this trait and enhances it.”

  “Is that why you have to close your eyes?”

  “Yes.”

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

  There was a long pause before Ebony excused himself. “I’ll get going now.”

  He visited his mother’s grave and gave it a dust before asking the spear standing guard, “are you called Qua or is that your nickname?”

  There was no reaction from the spear.

  “I’m getting married. I heard Qua will test her, is that supposed to be someone else.”

  “My name is Singularity Quasar. Mu.” The ground dented with a pulse, words forming in Xenese.

  ‘Mu, is that supposed to be me?’ Ebony felt weird, he had never been called by the second name his father gave him.

  “Your name is kinda awesome.”

  “That is my formal title as a spirit.” Another pulse of gravity imprinted the ground, the spear didn't move.

  “Is there anything she had to tell me?” Ebony asked with a bit more hope. His mother never told him about his Aunt other than her existence but she must have communicated better with her spear.

  “Do you think I would know?” The earth popped back up before new words were imprinted.

  “Perhaps. If there’s anyone she would communicate with, her spear most likely knows. You’ve probably spent more time with her than my entire lifetime.” Ebony replied with a tinge of envy that he purposely tried to express.

  “It was a short time.” The spear ‘curtly’ replied on the floor.

  “Did she have fun?” The word wasn’t unfamiliar but its meaning was different for everyone.

  Her spear should know better than him what it meant to his mother.

  “I presume.”

  “How was it being her spear?”

  “I am still her spear. It is a spear’s greatest honour.”

  “Other than honour, is it a good life?”

  “Nothing I wish more.”

  “So she’s that great.”

  “Now, your partner. What is her name? I will test her in your mother’s place.”

  “I won’t let you bully her.” It wouldn’t be a test, just a beating. Ebony already experienced it. This spear didn’t need a wielder to break him at the moment.

  “Haven’t even married her and you’re defending her instead of standing by your mother?” The earth crumbled in form.

  “Did my mother tell you to say that?”

  “She wouldn’t but I can be her translator.”

  Ebony knew it was right, his mother wouldn’t say that. She would get to letting their bodies talk instead of communicating with words. Many Xeng were like that but some were more extreme and his mother was one of them.

  “I will be there as well.”

  “Be my guest.”

  He foresaw an ugly beating in the foreseeable future. Quasar’s attacks hurt, they couldn’t be healed instantly since they could destroy his mana chassis. He was, however, curious how Xin’s Intuition and reaction speed could counter the spear of unknown rank and material.

  The ground was returned to normal and the spear spirit quiet.

  Ebony eyed the area, “Quasar, did you hide anything from Aunt Tao?”

  There was no reaction from the unmoving spear.

  “Did Aunt Tao lie to me?”

  Ebony stared at the unmoving spearhead and silent mana in the area with immense focus.

  “I’m always ready. Let me know when you think I am.”

  Ebony Flickered backwards at the first shiver of movement from the spear. He saw the head bonk coming years ago.

  Smashing his gravity cube into his previous spot, he blasted a small range of Domain open to exert his Will upon.

  As fast as he tried to avoid it, it seemed futile.

  Twenty images and ice conjurations of him were sucked into a vortex of gravity and faced the collapse of unbending pressure. He had hoped it would at least slow the spear down from finding his real body but it didn’t change a thing.

  Just when he thought he successfully sacrificed taking on the head bonk to grab and freeze the spear, he caught nothing but air.

  ‘A delay? It wasn’t…’ Ebony’s gravity cube wasn’t helping much to suppress everything within range. It couldn’t stop a Spirit whose main element was gravity.

  He explosively burned the air around him to expose the spear’s location but found out it wasn’t anywhere in his senses. There was no gap in ice mana and no gravitational presence.

  ‘It cut itself out of this space?’

  A sudden hint of disturbance in his Domain appeared right in front of his face. Icicle came crashing down and parrying the spearhead just in time.

  Thankfully, his Domain was able to sense when it reappeared.

  Pushed back a step, his left leg tendon was sliced open. Not a single hint of gravitational disturbance alerted him of a delayed attack this time.

  ‘When did it stab there? I’m actually dumb! This entire space has been lived by Quasar for years, every part of this space has been stabbed or swept by Quasar…It can activate a past attack whenever it wants. This is practically Quasar’s Domain…’ Ebony was facing a spear that wasn’t limiting itself to the Infinite Variation’s power control.

  Unable to explosively regenerate his tendon, he could only freeze his wound in ice and manipulate it to move. He only physically regenerated his legs not long ago and it wasn’t fully healed to begin with but it probably wouldn’t have changed a thing against Quasar.

  He realised he was pretty much dead the moment Quasar chose to attack him but he childishly fought back. At most, it was another learning opportunity.

  He Willed a few gravitational bombs filled with his flames into existence but a simple poke was all it took for Quasar to unravel his vortex. A light sweep enveloped individual masses of flames in gravity, compressed into annihilation giving him a mental feedback of the destruction of his conjuration. Vibrations were outright ignored or absorbed.

  Ebony stomped the ground with a Quake that spread out his best solution against spirits at the moment, Pseudo-Imitation Roar of a Soul Basilisk.

  His veins burst and he bled from his orifices when the soul attack seemed to have been absorbed into some weird gravity spell, augmented and reflected at him. His body was violently pushed away from the house and smashed into the mountain opposite Infinite Variations cover mountain.

  Having a taste of his own medicine, Quasar stopped playing and used a simple Magnified Gravity to keep him joined to the earth.

  It was ever so humbling but fighting Quasar made it feel like he forgot all the skills and spells he learnt thus far. He wasn’t able to apply most of them.

  Ebony’s greatest confusion was where Quasar was pulling out so much gravity mana from. It wasn’t even taking his cube’s gravity mana which it was more than capable of doing, even in his Domain. Ebony’s Will already showed how little resistance it could put against some people.

  ‘It could be hiding its mass from me but even if it’s heavier than my cube…have I not explored enough possibilities of conjuring gravity mana out of mana alone?’ Ebony’s mind went through some possibilities while his body was facing the consequences of his words. It wasn’t pleasant to know that Quasar could squash him as easily as it did to his ice sculptures and refractions.

  He couldn’t let anyone this strong point their fangs at his family.

  Shi Tao was hiding things from him. He wasn’t so blind.

  He accepted that his parents were dead. That didn’t seem to be a lie. But nothing felt resolved. Shi Tao had too much indignation whenever she spoke to him about his mother. Within that indignation was undeniable hope.

  Quasar might not have said anything but he got the answer he wanted.

  For now, the spear would be his indicator to when he could learn what he wanted to know.

  “If you’re so rough with my future wife, I won’t bring you along next time.”

  “I go wherever I want.” The words were imprinted into his chest this time. Carving a dent in his already injured body.

  “I help you find out how many ways you can be swung.”

  “You? You are merely my Master’s offspring. I, Singularity Quasar, rather turn to dust than settle for second fiddle.”

  Ebony found himself smiling once again.

  His mother was a confident woman and an overly confident spear wielder.

  Today he figured out the reason why he wasn’t taught the spear. It wasn’t because she thought he was not talented with the spear.

  She just didn’t believe he could be a better spear wielder than she was.

  “Hahahaha that’s just like her.” He temporarily lost resistance and accidentally let his eyeballs sink in, pushed by gravity.

  Ebony continued to let his tearful laughter out into the valleys.

  It was too bad no one with ears was present to hear it.