Ebony's Fable

Over the past 2 weeks Ebony’s daily schedule was roughly waking up at the 4th hour, completing his routine body conditioning and full body stretching that he changed a little focusing a lot more on wrist, legs and ankle flexibility by then a morning run till the 6th hour when the sun rose. From the 6th to 10th hour he and Clovis would be at the village ‘Playground’, which was actually a training square.

Largely a shooting range for archers and ice mages alike and also an open space for light spars. Their preferred sidearm of choice was knives and daggers. The Frost Elves were also pretty decent with them, they had some rogues classers and hunter classers that use it as their main weapon of choice too.

The Hunter class was a different class from Archers or Rogues and needed tracking, stealth and one type of combat skill.

Frost Elves don’t have children often, so aside from a couple children that looked like they were 5-7 which translated to 8-9 years old to Ebony, Clovis was the oldest one there that hasn’t gotten a class.

They can already use ice mana manipulation but due to their extremely small manapool they were taught to focus on their control. Meaning forming different shapes of ice cubes and eating them. Adorable.

Ice magic wasn’t the only magic they could use of course, some used snow, some wood, a rare few used air and according to Clovis their strongest hunter was a Mist Hunter. Honestly sounding cool and silly at the same time. Is he hunting mist?

The training square was mostly populated with young Frost Elves that picked combat classes. Other than the hunter classes all the others were required to be village guards till they hit lvl 80 or were considered as strong as an average lvl 80.

Those that hit this lvl could either choose to continue serving as a guard or form a team with others to go dungeon delving. The weakest dungeon they know of in Hoarfrost Glade is said to have monsters in the level range of 65 - 100.

The first 10ish levels were so easy to gain you could just train your skills and level without killing any monsters. Lvl 30 - 80 was the Frost Elves lagging period, taking decades to reach lvl 80. Only those that took combat classes of course.

They took turns rotating as guards and taking hunting trips but nearby monsters were low levelled and they couldn’t go too far out as it was dangerous and the trip would take too long causing the advancement to be very slow at this stage. Well they had roughly 2.5 times longer lifespans than humans at the same level and were only considered adults when they turned a century old, very young adults.

Many curious eyes were on him the first few days he went to the playground as the only human. Many felt that the giant blade he swung around was ridiculous. Ebony didn’t interact with most of them since they focused on their archery and magic in the shooting range.

The only ones he interacted with were a [Snow Rogue Lvl 12] girl, Tiha, that looked 13-14 but was actually 17 and a [Ice Mage Lvl 16] 18 year old boy, Qane that was supposedly trying to train how to wield a knife to get a melee Sub Class. Though Ebony suspects Qane just doesn’t want the Tiha to get close to Ebony from the looks he gave her all the time.

The playground had training bows, arrows, daggers, knives and some other weapons Ebony didn’t recognize and a whole range of traps. All weapons made of the bark of the Venbark tree, its durability and elasticity made it ideal for both the training bows and melee options.

Tiha used dual daggers around 6 gers long, the blade reaching the elbows of her short arms. Held backhanded, she moved and swung with skill. Always hiding one of her blades behind her back.

Ebony took some time to translate Elcra’s unit measurement for length or distance and mass with Clovis.

Gar: 5mm, Ger: 5cm, Gir: 5m, Gor: 5km, Gur: 5000km

Tav: 5mg, Tev: 5g, Tiv: 5kg, Tov: 5000Kg, Tuv: 5,000,000kg

There was an unnoticeable error margin. They were on some ridiculous scales and there were supposedly bigger units of measurement. Ebony asked about the distance to Plainston to get an idea of how large Elcra was. “I think it was..a little under 2 Gurs.”

‘Gurs? Hot damn. Isn’t that like half of the Great wall or like a quarter across Earth? No wonder they were convinced I couldn’t make the trip.’

“Don’t worry Eb..Ebo..Eb. I won’t bully little Clo’s friends.” Tiha said. Clovis introduced Ebony to these two who were the closest to his age before running off to the area designated for traps to play alone. Ebony’s name translated to Elcrian was a little hard to pronounce for the young Frost Elf.

Ebony had asked his parents why the heck they named their son after a tree and it was his extremely dark black irises and hair that sparked the thought. Sadly, he found out his hair changed colour likely from the process of getting his physique. They wanted him to grow up durable(so he could take a beating from his mother) and apparently ebony wood had the ability to take high polish which they wanted him to be able to polish his mind and character (so that he won’t go crazy being forced to sit still and meditate in all sort of conditions when he was not even 2 yet).

Body toughened by his mother, mind by his father.

Ebony hated the idea of hitting a woman or girl in this case, but that didn’t mean he would hold back or go easy against an opponent. Painful memories of his mother beating that thought right out of him flashed in his mind.

‘Never go easy in a fight Ebony, Never.’ was a lesson he learnt time and time again, sprains, pulled muscle, fractured bones and snapped tendons. Good times.

Concerned about his morality for a second for planning to swing a giant blade taller than the little girl and wanting to make a blunted ice copy that could trigger his Greatsword mastery skill only for Tiha to grab his blade and swing it like a badminton racket kicking up a snow cloud from the wind pressure alone.

“Groundless worries little Eb. You’ll never hit me with this bulky thing.”

“...” To think the day would come when a little loli would call Ebony little. How does she even know he was younger than her? Because he was unclassed or unawakened?

Just in case, Ebony took a random wooden dagger and hacked at his blade with all his strength. Seeing no damage on either of them satisfied him. Tiha just laughed at his antics and moved. Fast. Tiha was too fast for Ebony even when she was obviously trying to control her speed, standing behind Ebony pushing one wooden dagger against his back.

“Let's play.”

Ashamed to say but Ebony just didn’t stand a chance against Tiha. That said he never lost badly unless she used her speed and power to push him.

Walking back with cracked bones here and there at first as both Tiha and Qane were still getting used to controlling their strength slowly reduced injuries over the two weeks to cuts and bruises. Ebony didn’t land a single hit with his blade even after 2 weeks of sparring with them. They were small targets and a big slow blade was a no go. Kicking worked better to distract and create distance when they got close.

No matter how fast he tried to dodge they just sped up, chasing after him. Though he made them trip quite a few times by predicting and timing his dodges. They weren’t as used to fighting as Ebony that was for sure, especially Qane. Slashing diagonally, Ebony just sidestepped and Icebody Enhanced kneed him in the solar plexus, sending him rolling onto the ground, coughing but hardly hurt. Thoroughly impressing Tiha and a few others that were watching.

Qane got a boo or two and didn’t train with Ebony for a week, even though he was a mage he was level 16 and shouldn’t have gotten hit like that by an unclassed.

Going a different direction on the way back to get groceries in Arcta’s trading square, a marketplace with food stalls, fruit, vegetable stalls and hunters showing off their game. Clovis also used this chance to get Ebony to learn daily speech.

Ebony got well acquainted with the Elf lady selling frost plums quickly, showering awkward sounding praises he learnt at first before his pronunciation was accurate.

Currency was the shaped mana ore but was referred to by colour. Rarities of objects and items go from Inferior, Common, Uncommon, Rare. Like the colour Identifying them gives, a Black was an inferior mana ore which holds up to 100MP, a Grey or common - 1000MP, a Green or uncommon - 10,000MP and Blue or rare 100,000MP. A Black could get him 3-4 frost plums depending on the vendor's mood. Boar meat is the cheapest due to the size of a single boar, rabbit was pricier. Half a tiv of boar meat costs 4-5 Blacks while the same weight of rabbit could be double that price.

Mana ores are generally fully filled before using them to trade. Ebony kinda assumed they would carry those medieval pouches or satchels with drawstrings to carry their money, which he did see some Frost Elves wearing on their hips. Clovis kept the mana ores he got from Roya in a thin wooden rectangular box with 3 equal segments 2 of them filled with Blacks and the other with a few greys.

Bringing back groceries, Ebony would wash up and have late breakfast with Clovis. Clovis lectures Ebony till the 14th hour. Ebony mostly listens and nodded, rarely asking any questions. Clovis was a good teacher.

The 14th to 15th hour was self reading and writing practice. By the 15th hour, all the mana he spent would have been recovered and he learnt Mana Weaving from Roya. Using the frostsilk cotton that was going to be tossed away due to their lower quality to practise.

Pure mana was inert, different materials could take different amounts of mana before reaching what Roya called mana saturation. Simple enough, it was like adding sugar to a cup of water once saturated the sugar wouldn’t dissolve anymore.

Frostsilk cotton looked no different from the cotton balls he’d seen pictures of. Ebony couldn’t see mana, so Roya’s explanations were all he had. Pushing mana into the cotton until the cotton moved with his mana, forming threads with them and then weaving them. No equipment, no loom or anything, how long would it take to even make anything with this?

Roya taught Ebony all the basics and left him to practise till he could make a piece of cloth she was satisfied with before she let him help. Ebony hasn't passed even after 2 weeks. Control of mana was key, Roya could turn the cotton to dust by forcing more mana than the cotton could take into it. Ebony had no trouble with this of course, Roya made robes for magicians and frostsilk cotton could take a lot of mana. There was no way he was turning anything to dust or damage any materials.

It was quite a sight to see her at work, putting her hand into a tray full of cotton and watching them turn to evenly thick threads in seconds. Controlling hundreds of threads at the same time, she made a long sleeved t-shirt for Ebony in minutes. Ebony could only control 4 at the same time, though she acted shocked at the fact it seemed like sarcasm to Ebony. She said she was able to do that due to her tailoring skills and was not able to replicate what Ebony did but he took that comment with a grain of salt.

Ebony's mana pool dries up in less than 15 mins every session so all he did the past 2 weeks was turning raw cotton into threads of even thickness. Perhaps not even enough for a pair of socks or gloves after 2 weeks of effort so progress was slow in this regard.

The rest of the 15th hour was spent reading tailoring books which had tips and techniques similar to knitting techniques. How to make shirts, pants, socks, gloves, hats, robes, coats, mantles, etc. They didn’t have tea or coffee and preferred juices, which was obviously frost plum juice. A brown stick was ground into powder and a little was added into the juice, it tasted quite similar to cinnamon. Outright heavenly.

The 16th to 20th hour was spent training himself in their front yard, trying to incorporate kicking with his sword fighting and Treading Steps but kicking would always leave him in a state where he wouldn’t be able to dodge easily. Trying to optimise and refine a new personal fighting style was a relaxing way to pass the time and level some skills. Near the 20th hour he would use Icebody Enhancement to get used to moving with the stiffness and increase in strength.

The Thoya family were hooked on some of the tunes that Ebony hummed during his training, like the Beethoven Virus and some of his favourite theme songs. Ebony didn’t hum loudly but they probably heard him with their most likely buffed up Perception stat and Clovis probably caught him humming whether he was reading or training.

The sun mostly disappeared from the horizon when the 20th hour came.

The 20th to 21st hour was bathing and helping to clean the house together with preparations for dinner. Thank goodness bathing was a thing here. They had a wooden bathtub with something that looked like a tap that had a water mana ore on it. [Water Mana Ore 8532/10000 (Uncommon)] the Identify skill worked differently for everyone and it was even based on one’s own knowledge but that was questionable, he didn’t know what a vital hoarfrost crabapple or frostblaze amur maple was before Identifying them.

There was a knob to twist to adjust the flow of water, not so different from any tap. Lighting up and producing a stream of water. The stove worked similarly but Identify just gave him [Stove]. Weird.

Other than the black potatoes called ashen tubers, many ingredients were actually the same as what Ebony was used to seeing. There weren’t any leafy vegetables grown in these parts due to the cold. The Thoya family was quite well to do and meat was on the dinner table daily.

Ebony had dinner together with the 3 of them at the 21st hour with Clovis telling them how his day went and Roya asking Ebony how he was doing in his new environment. It was painfully obvious how much she treated Ebony like a toddler which probably wasn’t wrong in her opinion. Halvis on the other hand, though polite, didn't talk to Ebony much which felt more natural to Ebony since he was a perfect stranger to them to begin with and he preferred not having to talk so much anyway.

The food looked good but tasted better than most of what he had before. Roya’s Profession was a chef and she had skills that improve one’s cooking to the next level. Pun intended. The serving size was roughly 1.5 times more than he was used to but despite having needed less food he ate the same amount as Halvis, almost feeling bad about it. Perhaps it was all the training or longer days or missing lunch or Roya insisting that a growing boy needed to eat more.

After dinner, Ebony would help wash the dishes before getting shoo-ed to play with Clovis. Clovis, who Ebony suspects doesn’t have the meditation skill would have recovered all his mana spent in the playground by this hour. He would practice his Ice Vines in the corner of the front yard and Ebony would watch him cast it without using the surrounding ice mana, which seemed wasteful not to use it to cast.

Ebony asked and it seemed they were just taught to use magic using their own mana so that they could still use ice magic even without the presence of ice mana in the air, which made a lot of sense. Ice magic came naturally to the Frost Elves and Clovis couldn’t explain well on how to convert mana to ice mana internally. Fundamentally he just needed to change or will his mana to take on the properties of ice mana.

Since he could use Icebody Enhancement, he was starting to be able to observe how his mana changed. He should be able to use ice magic without ambient ice mana soon. Joining Clovis in the study on the second floor of their 2 storey cabin after he finished ‘playing’ which meant his mana pool was empty. Clovis would check his reading and writing and correct him on some minor mistakes otherwise Ebony did pretty well and was learning really fast.

They had ‘normal’ paper, a little light brownish in colour that Ebony couldn’t tear or rip even if he tried or so Clovis advertised but Ebony didn’t try. He already tried breaking a single thread Roya made out of cotton to his internal dismay felt like tugging on a steel wire so he didn’t bother trying anyway paper was probably precious. They had quill pens and something similar to a pencil which Ebony preferred.

Clovis would start yawning around the 24th hour when Roya would come to get him to go to sleep as it was his bedtime. He needed 10 hours of sleep a day and would sleep from the 24th hour till the 6th hour. Elves in general apparently slept a little more compared to other races.

Ebony would retreat to his guest room at the end of the same floor. It was not large with only a bed at the left corner, a wooden table and chair against the wall on the right with a window in the middle facing the street. A wardrobe by the side of the door, unlike the study which had lamps powered by mana ores too the rest of the house uses a luminescent or glow in the dark liquid they called [Phos].

The most common light source on Elcra is produced by a plant called [Phostor]. Not able to be grown in Arcta, it had to be bought from the merchants when they came around. Phos was a transparent liquid like water just a little more viscous, basically plant dew. Halvis would take a bucket of phos to put under the sun for the day. It would absorb sunlight and would produce a light orange glow in the dark. Table lamps were tall cup like glasses, it couldn’t be turned off so there was a reverse cup with a small knob used to cover it.

Fortunately it could be reused for years as it evaporated slowly, even more so in Arcta, their only concern was spilling it.

From the 24th hour to the 26th hour Ebony would sit on the bed with his legs crossed and meditate. His father called Persistent Meditation, moving meditation and stopped making him practice meditation when Ebony achieved moving meditation when he turned 5 but he never stopped his habit of meditating every day, every hour, every minute and every second. His father didn't even know that he could do so. Ebony's continued persistence in improving his state of mind let him achieve it over time.

Using the Icebody Enhancement he tried to lower its output to replicate what he did when he assimilated the sap he had no success over 2 weeks. However, he was able to create a cube of ice with his own mana by the end of the first week. Feeling how his mana changed when he used Icebody Enhancement it felt natural, he was actually already doing it whenever he cast Icebody Enhancement he just wasn’t aware due to how natural it felt to him like a body part he didn’t know he had.

Ending his day at the 26th hour by going to sleep and the cycle repeats when the 4th hour hits again. Ebony used to sleep 7 hours a day for 24 hours, 9 if he was feeling lazy. Now he was fully rested after 6 hours of sleep for a 28 hour day. Kudos to the Frostblaze physique, more time awake was more time to grind skill levels.