“Ice dolls?” Ebony cocked his head at the request of the young girl who called him ‘bada’.

  “You made ice dolls and they could move right?” Kiva brought him outdoors. There was an outhouse he’d never seen. The new workshop looked more like a playroom just for Kiva.

  ‘Did she learn to move these dolls after seeing my old Models?’ Ebony looked around the threads and fabric. There was a heap of small pieces of tablecloth, likely practice crafts Kiva made herself and repurposed into her floating rain dolls.

  It was very different but he could see how his Models inspired her to control puppets. Her mana thread control was more polished than he’d ever got when he was learning the basics from Roya but that was to be expected from a mana tailor’s daughter who knew it all her life.

  Hearing the request, Ebony conjured a Model into existence without imbuing Will into it. He didn’t want to make any more Models and send them on missions, but manually controlling them was acceptable. They still had their uses.

  “How how!” The short girl jumped about his Model, trying to find out how it’s making complex movements like gripping and even blinking without threads of mana.

  Sadly, there were no tips he could give her. It was pure manipulation of mana, just brought to the extreme where every movement was calculated. An Unclassed didn’t have enough brain power to do what he was doing. Clones’ movements were simplified using Will, removing the brain power required.

  However, he continued to allow Kiva to learn whatever she could from her mana sense. She immediately put them into practice, trying to make her rain dolls lift a ‘hand’ or form fingers with the cloth.

  Even Ebony was learning, she was doing things quite differently from him despite learning from him. A portion of his mind was redirected to simulate if this method of weaving and manipulation can be applicable elsewhere.

  At the end of playtime when Roya came nagging about meal time, Kiva’s dolls had a ghostly smile and eye sockets instead of a smooth round ball. He couldn’t understand why that was more important to her compared to making fingers but, she spent the mental effort to maintain that instead of giving them the usage of fingers which were more complicated.

  “So tell me, did you come back because you’re going to evolve again or something?” Roya said halfway through the meal, in fake displeasure.

  “Not this time, there is still much to develop. No, I came back this time to tell you that I’m getting married.”

  The older couple’s faces turned into one of shock instead of surprise, “is it not scarlet?”

  Thinking there’s some kind of confusion, “why would you question that?”

  “You didn’t bring her, and you said she was in good health.” They worriedly looked at him.

  “It's her.”

  The couple relaxed and breathed a sigh of relief.

  He was rather amused by their reaction. “Anyway, I’m sending you an invite to our wedding. I believe you know what that is.”

  It was his turn to be surprised when the mood turned sour. Only after a wry smile did Halvis explain, “We have wedding ceremonies too. Sorry about that Ebony, the mention of the ceremony of bond is not a pleasant one for Roya and me.”

  This was news to Clovis and Kiva as they were perking their pointy ears too.

  “Excuse me,” Roya got up, pushing her chair harder than usual. She went to get more juice.

  “We didn't have a traditional ceremony, our marriage wasn’t blessed by our God. However, there is no objection since we have Winter’s blessing.”

  ‘Their God, that should refer to Yggdrasil...or a Frost Elven God? What about Winter?’ Ebony voiced out, “Winter?”

  “Ah, yes. We pray to our Gods to bless our marriage, for us Frost Elves, we typically require both Winter’s blessing and our God. Since we didn’t have both, we could only skip a proper ceremony if we want to be with each other as husband and wife.”

  ‘Sounds rough. That didn’t answer my question but I suppose it’s either a Deity or a concept they believe in.’ Ebony didn’t have to ask the Xengs, he was sure they prayed to no God. There was a chance they did to The First, but he wasn’t informed. He didn’t see anyone pray either.

  The only people they had to ask were each other’s parents for they weren’t only their own person, but also sons and daughters.

  He was at a loss for comforting words for bringing up bad memories for them. Clovis was in the same spot but Kiva had her cloth doll wipe her mother’s tears and two more patting her head softly. Hiding behind the door, which wasn’t even closed properly didn’t really help when they were in a room of Elves.

  “We’ll gladly come.” Roya came back to reply with deep blue eye bags.

  “There’s no date yet but I doubt it'll be this year. I also came since I was worried but the village seems alright.” Ebony noted the month, it was almost the season of winter for Elcra again.

  “Thanks to the Lords and Lady.” Halvis smiled with glints of respect in his eyes.

  After dinner, Ebony and Kiva watched as Clovis sparred with his father Halvis.

  Clovis was beginning to be on the dominant side. Despite being more than a hundred levels lower, it was expected since Halvis didn’t have any combat classes. He only had a handful of Generic combat skills, together with Class Skills that were adapted or utilised for combat.

  As young as Halvis was, he had over a century of experience exploring the world outside Arcta with Roya. They had a modicum of combat ability and usage of their non-combat skills for combat.

  Kiva didn’t cheer out loud like she used to, silently watching and pumping her little fist when her brother got close to landing a hit on their father.

  ‘Halvis and Roya are both level 300 already. They are accelerating their levelling speed, all of the villagers.’ Ebony guessed that the reason for the speedy levels was for a stat boost. Every bit helped their survival capabilities. In his mind, Roya could level faster by giving her craft to a strong fighter and level...'did I level her up faster by using her robe? Maybe. But also maybe not.' His robe didn't help him anymore.

  With just a small amount of mana in his Coagulated Mana Repository, his skin was tougher than the robe she made him. Considering his pure physical skin, he hadn't quite gotten as tough as a properly made defensive equipment from a specialised tailor. But Coagulated Mana Repository was pracitcally a passive skill for him and finding him out of mana was getting harder and harder. Even the active mana defence he could get out of the robe with his mana would be less than his passive alone much less all of his active augmentations.

  Clovis was not cut out for battle, that didn’t change. But he wasn’t hopeless when a bow was in his hands. At least he was more resolute and didn’t hesitate to release the bowstring aimed at his father.

  ‘Sparring isn’t that useful for him,’ Ebony tapped his index finger on his thigh. Clovis picked up combat for self-defence, and he was a marksman. This sparring was to train his reflexes should a battle ever come this close to him. Which shouldn’t.

  “Brother Ebony? Are you anxious?” Kiva remembered him now, but she changed the form of address after becoming embarrassed about calling him in baby speech.

  “Anxious? Me? What makes you say that?” He was so speechless, all his words had a questioning tone behind them without his manual intention.

  “You never tap your fingers like that, you’ve been doing that since showing me your ice dolls.”

  “I did?”

  ‘I did…’ Ebony realised before the answer came. Numerous reasons spawned at the same time and the process of elimination happened almost instantly. ‘Hmm, I miss her.’

  Despite being apart from Xin for a short period, it felt longer than the entire time they were on different planets.

  “Mmhmm, you did.”

  Ebony found himself patting Kiva’s head and using it as a meditative trigger. It wasn’t required even when he was a child but it was a habit to make any action into a trigger into deeper meditation or a trigger to erase any emotional unease.

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  And he stopped himself this once, focusing on the patting more than the meditation. His ‘heart’ stopped his mind from erasing the feeling. He would regret it if he erased these feelings.

  ‘My meditation core skill is quite different from before. Or maybe it’s me who's different.’ Ebony figured out that he wasn’t really anxious but it wasn’t far from it. He was intrigued by the peculiar feeling that he didn’t want to keep his mind clear, while his mind insisted on using all strong feelings and ‘distractions’ printed in his mindspace to feed his core skill.

  That was how it always worked.

  Doing stupid things worked really well to strengthen his core skill. Mr Guru painting his mindspace gave so much fuel for Boundless Serenity Geyser to erase.

  But now, his mindspace was filled with a blushing smile that he was reluctant to remove.

  ‘Look like Dad was right after all, I’m ruined.’ Ebony looked inside his mindspace. Despite the gorgeous face, it was time to compartmentalise them instead of letting them flood his mind. Packing it in the sector of his brain that was for more emotional topics and people.

  It was like a growing plague that brought about positive feelings.

  “How about you Kiva, want to play?” Ebony didn’t bring up combat with the girl. He felt that regardless of how highly he thought of combat, it was not his place to influence her the way he already influenced Clovis. Although he didn’t regret it, he might have disregarded how Clovis’s parents thought about a Scholar picking up combat.

  Thankfully, they were practical people. Self-defence was a requirement if Clovis really wanted to go out of their protected village.

  But if Kiva was going to be a dedicated tailor, there was no reason not to specialise.

  Ebony had equipped his clones with Dwarven weapons and armour currently. Ones made by Elcrian crafters. They were better than what he could produce with Perennial Everfrost Armament. With Hector’s help, getting a Dwarven Noble to sell him some crafts wasn’t that difficult.

  Some of his Clones used the techniques he learned from Cinderash. Incorporating it further into his own battle style.

  A couple even took browsed the Ferroquads' 4 armed techniques from the other clones who were currently seal within Aegis who was hibernating. The rest of his clones back on Cinderash didn't share everything since Ebony wanted to see if his separate clones could learn new things from not interacting and checking out each of their individual growth over time. He, however, disseminated anything his clones learned to any other clone should they want to study them.

  Others were wielding new weapons.

  2 of them were learning armour mastery. Utilising armour to the best of their abilities. This was going poorly. When it came to defence, he just trusted his body. Using gravity for repulsion or redirection, using ice as a shield.

  Depending on metals and moving his body to adapt to a second or third skin wasn’t something he was familiar with.

  “No, fight me too. I have been practising.” Kiva wasn’t a toddler anymore, in human terms.

  She placed both palms in front of her, raising a piece of robe he didn’t pay much attention to on the rack out on the porch. It was a standard Frost Elven robe, one he could see a young village archer guard wearing. But the colours were a bit darker, mostly black. They usually wear white, brown and blue.

  Ebony snapped a Model into existence.

  He was challenged, there was only one thing to do.

  ‘Three threads holding the spine of the robe but hair thin webs across the entire robe, two for each wrist and one for the elbows.’

  Model Ebony rammed a fist through the chest of the robe to smash the largest congregation of mana threads. It was merely faster than any unclassed human boxer or martial artist.

  The textile opponent managed to react after the impact. Having its ‘wings’ wrap around the Model’s arms and upper body while its arms coiled and ‘punched’.

  Having a cloth punch had the effect one would imagine. It might not even tickle Kiva herself.

  Until the entire robe twisted with a jerk, a very forceful manoeuvre that proved to Ebony that it was a mental action that was practised. Perhaps to the point where it was a skill now seeing that she was past the age of 15 and should be able to gain skills for a while now.

  Kiva didn’t expect Model Ebony to be that heavy but Ebony reacted in time and reduced the difficulty. Any normal person would be flipped or have their shoulders dislocated. He had Model Ebony react to it by jumping sideways along with the textile twist.

  ‘There’s a lot of grip. I see, the micro webs of mana crumple along the entire stretch of the robe arm for more friction.’ Although he didn’t want to bully an Unclassed, he had Model Ebony actively send pulses of mana the way Elcrian warriors would dispel magic spells.

  There was no reason to be a fully physical opponent when she was an Elf, she should expect anti-magic tactics too.

  ‘Did she see me fight mother’s model with the towel?’ He knew where this fighting style he was looking at miles away. Kiva was trying to throw his Model around with the ghostly robe.

  Then she demonstrated a surprising stance when her robe was allowed to stick around Model Ebony. This was as much of a learning moment as it was a spar and he wanted to see more of what she could do so destroying her mana threads outright wasn’t a goal of his.

  She wore the robe on the Model and had it attempt to break his Model’s limbs in the other direction.

  ‘She’s not like Clovis at all.’

  “Good. But that wouldn’t work, your mana threads are too few and too weak to break even a soft-boned creature's bones.”

  The entire robe was made by Kiva herself so her control over it was much more than it could be to a random robe but it didn’t mean she could control every inch of the robe for now.

  Ebony took a moment to internalise and simulate about a thousand experiments.

  Clovis was resting from his spar when he took his robe and copied Kiva. The robe put Clovis into it after the agreement.

  “Try again,” This robe was the one Roya made for him, it was worn out and repaired by him so many times that it was mostly made of his mana. Not to mention it was also fully affected by Woven Frostblaze Melding, vastly changing its material’s properties.

  He used the same about and even the layout of mana threads that Kiva used to move Clovis.

  ‘I’m influencing her again…that’s not good.’ He realised that if she copied him, she might not improve further than what he showed her all the time. To counteract this, he had to show her that there was more than one way of utilising her skills.

  He needed to instil the idea of always thinking and making further improvements, so he showed her many of his failed experiments and what he got out of the failures.

  “Hey hey, it has gone dark hours ago.” Roya had her hands on her hips while standing at the front door.

  “Ah, sorry about that, Roya.” He saw that she had washed up, no longer uneasy from the talk about the wedding.

  “How about letting me have a turn?”

  “Mama!” Kiva hopped about and kicked snow up.

  Roya seemed to expect that Ebony wouldn’t turn a spar down because she stepped out onto the snow with her outdoor boots.

  ‘Does she want to vent on me?’

  “Haha I can see the look in your eyes but I’m actually stronger in a fight than Halvis.” Roya was quickly handed a staff. Halvis smiled when she said as much to prove the validity of the statement.

  Using a Model against Kiva was both to show her how he used mana manipulation and an additional measure not to kill her on accident. He’d always respected a fight, so he faced Roya himself despite a Model most likely being sufficient for a Master Mana Tailor.

  The first thing that surprised him was how fast she cast. He’d seen Elves cast, he had his Model destroyed by an Elf back during the Tetramyth fight underground.

  A closer look allowed him to see that it was her staff that facilitated the movement of mana.

  He self-managed himself back to his past state as a level 300 Master, with his memory and absolute control over body and mind it was not too difficult to copy the effects of the items the Xeng used to weaken themselves.

  He was barely able to dodge the closed-ranged mana net fire in time.

  Decompressing his mana, he was attacked with anti-magic tactics. Having his mana covered in hers, and actively broken down so that it couldn’t be converted to ice mana or formed into a spell. She acted quickly enough to disrupt the conversion of his mana to gravity mana so that he couldn’t magnify gravity outside of what he used for his body.

  ‘I need to learn advanced mage techniques faster. Their form of dispel is much more efficient than the warriors.’

  Although Roya was fast, and her Mana Tailor Class wasn’t just for show since her ability to break down and tie mana down was exceptional, she couldn’t hit Ebony with any of her spells. She wasn’t familiar with his Flicker which probably looked like teleporting or blinking to the untrained eye.

  Just like she could sense where he was going to conjure mana, he could do the same and predict where her spells were going to come out from. Where she was aiming at. And even track her spells' range with her eyes. She was a good spell caster but not so much a trained combatant.

  She was a user of both ice and snow and her active spells that were probably skills could be boiled down to a mana net, terrain snow shift and the classic ice lance. She was probably the crowd control and firepower while Halvis was the archer and possibly vanguard with his greater physical ability as a farmer.

  Ebony wasn’t sure if she had any Fortifications that could be applied after her spells came into contact with him but he doubted it would be decisive enough to change the result since she was a dedicated and specialised tailor.

  Finding a way to counter her mana disruption mid-battle didn’t take more than a minute either so he won the battle the way they preferred, a showcase of superior mana and magic control. It was hardly fair but nothing less was expected when she pits herself against someone who used mana control with his life depending on it while she used it to make better clothing.

  ‘Though the Death Tailor would be an interesting opponent. I wonder what else she can do other than making robes that kill its wearer.’ Ebony never learned much about the Death element.

  There weren't many who used it. He hadn’t even seen another person with it, unlike rare elements like Dark, Light or even ice outside.

  He didn’t even believe Death was an element, something that Kong Jing also questioned.

  It was clear that Roya’s mana techniques were more suitable for Kiva.

  As it was getting late, the young Clovis and Kiva had to go to bed. While Ebony learned how to expedite and change his sleep schedule by experimenting with stamina manipulation to increase or decrease his daily physical expenditure, he didn’t think he could fall asleep anytime soon.