Ebony's Fable

Unfortunately, he didn’t have a eureka moment after waking up about 4 hours later.

Ebony went about his daily routine as per usual but with a brand err... old sword. There wasn’t any rust on it, even if bronze was more resistant to corrosion or rusting, the sword shouldn’t be that old right?

He didn’t know jackshit about sword maintenance but he could still give this baby a good wipe down.

It was a very web or light novel event to happen but he obviously didn’t find some legendary weapon in some small village’s dusty warehouse. If anything it would be the weapon stuck in the maple tree.

Ebony didn’t know what rarity the colour red was for so it could only mean rarer than Rare.

The morning was uneventful as always but Roya came to look for Ebony when it was his turning frostsilk cotton into frostsilk threads time. He had long known he was baited, he was in no way a help to her frostsilk blanket bullshit. Now he was mentally questioning if Roya even needed help or if she was even pregnant or not.

Making a few short threads used up his entire mana pool, after all this time he only had a bowl full of threads.

He had read up on the tailoring books and theoretically knew how to make quite a few things. He just hasn't tried his hand at it.

There were no needles, no machines, no equipment in the house. Roya’s only tool was her mana and her skills. Ebony had no way to reasonably start making anything at all.

“Ebony, I presume you’re about to pick a Class soon with your skill levels rising again after the rite. You should be coming close to your desired Class. Ah don’t rush to pick the Class if you haven’t gotten a conditioning type skill okay, every strong fighter would have at least 1 no matter how weak it seems at first.”

“...I’m not sure about whether I am close to my desired Class. And yes, I am still trying to get the conditioning type skill.”

“That’s good but what do you mean? You have been working on a specific skill set haven’t you?”

“Yes, but I feel like I’m missing something.”

Roya laughed but quickly tried to hide it. “That’s good. Many humans tend to rush, I guess many tend to rush and not just humans. Getting a Class allows one to quickly gain strength, skills and much more. Choosing a Class is a very important decision as it is irreversible and decides your future path. It is good to take your time to decide wisely and go with what you feel speaks to you more.”

“Irreversible. I know. As with many decisions in life. You were looking for me?”

“Yes, you know that you have an unnaturally large mana pool don’t you? Seeing your talent with ice magic that’s even higher than some Frost Elves together with your features truly makes me wonder if you are a half. Never mind, I was trying to suggest some things to you.”

“Such as?”

“You’ve read the book Foundations of Classes, Sub-Classes, Profession, Skills and Stats. I wanted to suggest a Profession that I think you should go for or at least consider. Want to make a guess? It's one of the examples in the book.”

“...Mana Meister.”

“That’s right! You’re really sharp as always.”

“It caught my eye but the requirements for the Profession weren't written.”

“Mana Meister is one of the most famous Professions or Sub-Classes for mages or any crafters that rely heavily on mana after all. With your already large mana pool and talent for magic, ice magic at least, Mana Meister would go extremely well with your Class as long as you pick a magic focused Class. It’s obvious that you plan to be combat focused so I would not recommend picking Mana Meister as your Sub-Class but rather to take a magic type Sub-Class. It will further improve the value of being a Mana Meister.”

“...”

“The requirements for Mana Meister aren’t a secret. Despite knowing the requirements and benefits of the Class, the number of humans who have it are few and far between. Popular amongst Elves and Foxmens but even so, uncommon.” Roya said.

‘Is she going to tell me the requirements or not?’ Ebony secretly thought.

“Are you a Mana Meister?” Ebony knew Roya was a Tailor and a Chef, perhaps her Sub-Class was Mana Meister.

“No, I did aim to be one and got the skills required too but the skills got placed into my Class so I could no longer meet the requirement to be one. Having the same Class as another doesn’t mean you have the same skills and vice versa after all.”

‘So her Class is Master Mana Tailor, Profession is Chef. I don’t know her Sub-Class but I’m gonna bet it’s a crafting type to enhance her craft in some way.’

“So what are the required skills? Elves and foxmen, known for their talent for magic hence, mana, have difficulty getting it. If it’s as popular as you say but few have obtained it I can only imagine it’s not easy to get.”

“2 mana manipulation type skills. There is no handicapped apprentice version for Mana Meister so you’ll have to get them to lvl 25. Mana Weaving is considered a mana manipulation skill so you just need one more. For someone like you with a large mana pool there is no better supportive skill than Mana Compression.”

“Tha...”

“There is no need for thanks between us. You should try to get the skill before choosing your Class so that it can benefit from the Class's Evolutionary Potential. It is also the reason why it is uncommon for us to have it, after getting a magic type class, there is a chance such mana manipulation skills go under class skills. Like me.” Roya said and high fived or tetted Ebony. No longer the five finger touch, meaning he was treated as a close friend.

“...”

“Do you know where our unit for length or distance, ger, came from?”

“No.”

“If ambient mana is formed into a sphere or orb, 1 point of mana will be exactly 1 ger in diameter. Though you won’t be able to see mana you should be able to feel it. Try forming one now but, with your own mana. Not within your body.” What Roya said was only true for the unclassed and if they didn’t manipulate its density somehow.

Ebony raised his hands, palms facing up, he tried to move exactly 1 point of mana to form a sphere. It was pretty easy, he had already played around with his mana enough to control it to this degree with ease.

He could feel a small invisible to the eye, ball atop his palm. Without a ruler Ebony could only estimate but it seemed larger than 5cm in diameter.

“Wow. Effortlessly.” Roya whispered. “You are a born mage. Mana is not much different from any other matter in its current state; it has similar properties to gas or air. Now try to compress that sphere of mana, keep it at 1 point of mana and don’t add any more mana to it.”

Ebony was about to try but how was he supposed to compress it?

He shrugged, obviously with mental hands. He tried to apply pressure evenly across the surface of the sphere to compress it. He was faced with resistance from his own mana for the first time.

The resistance was strong, like it was trying to tell Ebony how much it doesn’t want to be made smaller. Despite the strong resistance Ebony felt like it budged and buckled under his mentally applied force.

‘Ting’ ‘Generic Skill Mana Compression learned’

Mana Compression - Compressing mana to increase its density. Mana is compressed by 1.0% per level.

Roya seemed to notice Ebony’s pause and asked, “You got Lesser Mana Compression already? That was fast!”

“No, I got Mana Compression.”

“...Really?” Roya asked in disbelief.

“Really. It's a good thing right?”

“O..of course, it's more than just good. I was worried Class Evolutionary Potential wasn’t going to be enough to evolve Lesser Mana Compression to Mana Compression but who was I kidding…” Roya spoke very softly. Compressing mana shouldn’t be that easy of a feat, Ebony guessed.

“You just have to train both Mana Weaving and Mana Compression to lvl 25 and you should be able to pick it either as a Sub-Class or Profession after you get your Class. There’s one thing about Mana Compression that the skill doesn’t tell you and it’s that mana density is directly proportional to the power of the spells you used with compressed mana. Compressing mana by a single percent increases the effect of Intelligence by a single percent. The catch is that the amount of mana used for any magic is increased directly proportionally as well.”

“Why? If a spell used 50 mana and I were to compress all 50 mana by 1% the power of the spell would increase by 1%. The mana is compressed but it is still essentially 50 points of mana isn’t it?” Ebony asked.

“Good question. The best answer I can give you is that spells or magic uses mana as a volume and not its density. Using the same example, compressing 50 points of mana by 1% will leave you with 49.5 points of mana not 50. So unlike this exercise you’ll have to put in more mana rather than keeping it at the same amount of mana. Once you get comfortable at compressing mana you should try finding out for yourself.” Roya explained.

“I see. Thank you, I have learnt much.”

“Haaa. You’re welcome. Just remember that everything boils down to mana.” Roya sighed and left the room.

Ebony had no idea why she sighed, was it because he thanked her again after she said not to, or was it because she was still shocked that he got the tier 1 version of the skill and not the untiered ‘lesser’ version.

Everything boils down to mana.

Ebony heard Roya saying this multiple times; it had a pretty literal meaning in this world.

Everything had mana.

If there was air there was air mana, water had water mana, earth had earth mana and fire had fire mana. If there's light there’s light mana, take light mana away and you would have dark mana, take that away too and there would still be space mana and all sorts of other natural mana, time, gravity and any other nonsense. Take every type of mana you can think of away from that and you would still be left with void and void mana.

Hearing this phrase again scratched his mental itch even harder of whatever he’s forgetting.

‘Hot damn. This is annoying. What am I missing? Something about mana in some way?’

Pushing the thought aside again, he continued weaving cotton into threads.

He was going to train Mana Compression during the time he trains ice and enhancement magic. They already reached the required level and reached their limit already.

It took him 3 days to level Ice Mana Manipulation by 1 lvl based on what he read the normal curve for levelling time after reaching the limit increased exponentially.

The next level might take a week, then the next a month, a year, a decade, more or even never. Seeing he had no chance at getting them to lvl 50 he might as well spend his mana elsewhere.

Besides, Mana Compression was so efficient to train, he only had to use a single mana and even though he can’t collect back the mana, which he tried before, the cost was low.

The 16th hour soon came so Ebony made his way to his usual spot for his physical training. The reason for keeping up the training routine so hard was for a conditioning type skill. Ebony was glad he found out about this type of skill. The difference between combat Classers who have it and those that don’t would gulf over time with and without this skill.

Strength Conditioning (Passive) - Strengthening your body through deliberate taxation of the body increasing Strength by 0.01% per level.

Endurance Conditioning (Passive) - Strengthening your body through deliberate taxation of the body increasing Endurance by 0.01% per level.

Constitution Conditioning (Passive) - Strengthening your body through deliberate taxation of the body increasing Constitution by 0.01% per level.

Agility Conditioning (Passive) - Strengthening your body through deliberate taxation of the body increasing Agility by 0.01% per level.

Intelligence Conditioning (Passive) - Strengthening your mind through deliberate taxation of the mind increasing Intelligence by 0.01% per level.

These were the most common ones and how to get them was quite literal. If he lifted weights over and over he should be able to get Strength Conditioning. Wisdom and Perception Conditioning wasn’t in the book but it should exist too. The question was what kind of training one needs to do to be considered taxation of Wisdom or Perception.

The reason people go to academies or benefits of joining the army was mostly for their tried and true training that could give these conditioning type skills. Of course, they had better skills, the best type of training regimes give a conditioning skill that increases multiple stats after all.

The percentage might seem very small and it was very small but this wasn’t a world with only skills but also skill levels. It’ll stack soon enough. It is the agreed the most common but hardest type of skill to obtain and level due to the raw amount of time and effort needed.

There were no known Classes associated with these skills due to how hard it was to level them and there wasn’t an apprentice version either for those that left their Sub-Class or Professions blank till their conditioning skill hit lvl 10.

Not bothered that he hadn't gotten any one of them since he was aiming to get a combined one anyway, Ebony continued training.

He had to get used to his new weapon anyway. It felt really good to swing, faster, smoother and more accurate than he was with the leaf blade.

Though not fully accustomed to it after a mere 3 hours it was pretty good already.

The biggest problem was sheathing the damn unreasonably long sword. With its length it was impractical to hang by his hip so he refitted his old ice belt buckle to hang the scabbard on his back. But the thing wasn’t designed to sheath that way. With the handle being 40cm the blade itself was 1.35m. He couldn’t figure out how to sheath it smoothly.

He tried just carrying the scabbard in his left hand but it got in the way and kept him off balance.

His mana has regenerated to over 90 near the end of the 4 hours that he trains, so he was about to use Icebody Enhancement for his magic enhanced physical training, the last portion. Ebony jerked as he stopped himself from casting Icebody Enhancement.

“Hot freaking damn. How the heck did I forget that?” Ebony whispered monotonously to himself.

He placed it in the corner of his mind since he didn’t know what Class Evolution was before but Gen mentioned the ice mage who got the Ice Crystal Physique, Allumi had her physique trigger a Class Evolution. That translates to having her physique as a Class requirement.

Ebony saw no reason why his physique wouldn’t count either so he was still missing something else. When he was about to use Icebody Enhancement to circulate ice mana, it just clicked into place. His mana, his body being partially made of mana, his physique, a gift.

Frostblaze Physique. Frostblaze Physique. Frostblaze Physique. Frostblaze Physique. Frostblaze Physique.

‘Frostblaze…can I do that too?’

Ebony was familiar with what it was. He didn’t just burn in it for 3 days, he took it and smeared it into every inch of his body inside out. It even changed his hair colour which he wasn’t pleased about when he found out. Knowing what it was and being able to do it was 2 different things altogether.

It should be considered as ice magic, the Frostblaze Amur Maple uses ice elemental mana and spontaneously combust it into flames of frost. He was also able to manipulate it with Ice Mana Manipulation.

How do you combust mana?

Ebony was in the middle of his training and since he didn’t know where to begin he finished up his training first. No surprise, he didn’t gain any skill levels or the conditioning skill.

He washed up and had dinner with the Thoya family, undisrupted by his sudden awareness of what he had, what he wanted.

He picked a random book to read in the study, Clovis did his own studying after dinner. Same as usual. Time flew and Clovis’s bed time came, Ebony returned to his room as well.

His mana was topped off again.

However, he didn’t get anxious. He trained Mana Compression. Forming an orb above his palms he thought ‘Why should I do it one at a time?’ as he formed another 3 orbs reaching his limit at 4.

Starting to compress them his focus was too spread out so he dispersed one of them. At 3, it was unstable and he couldn’t compress it evenly throughout the 3 orbs so he settled for 2 and it was perfect.

As always, Ebony was meditating while he was compressing his mana.

‘Ting’ ‘Generic Skill Mana Compression level up 1 → 2’

‘Ting’ ‘Generic Skill Mana Compression level up 2 → 3’

‘Ting’ ‘Generic Skill Mana Compression level up 3 → 4’

‘Ting’ ‘Generic Skill Mana Compression level up 4 → 5’

The skill levelled quickly at its low level but the internal pressure pushing back against his mental hands seemed to increase by more than 1% per for every percent he compresses it so it was getting much harder to compress. Dispersing one of the orbs he continued pushing through. Mana Compression reached lvl 6 before Ebony could no longer hold the compressed mana up together and it burst apart, dispersing.

‘Hmm? Hahaha that must be a sign for me.’ No one would have been able to tell that Ebony was laughing in his head by looking at his face.

Ebony meditated a little before raising his palms again, he conjured a sphere of ice taking 15 mana to make one the same size of the pure mana sphere. Then nothing, he stared at the sphere of ice and nothing seemed to be happening.

Ebony obviously knew that compressing it wouldn’t make it combust into flames and that wasn’t what he was doing. He was recalling his 3 day freezing bath more specifically the way ice mana ‘combusted’. Trying to do the opposite of compression and expanding the ice sphere instead.

He failed or succeeded after 5 or so minutes when the sphere of ice broke into hundreds of tiny ice shards. There was hardly any force behind it so he didn’t get hurt or break anything. Seeing the result he knew he was going at this from the wrong angle. Even if he put more mental force doing that it would at best increase the strength of the exploding sphere of ice.

The keyword was combustion not expansion. Ebony knew how it worked. He manipulated it before with Ice Mana Manipulation. He just needed to recreate it.

Recalling the sight of burning trees, the burning cold through his very bones, organs and nerves.

Combustion was a high temperature chemical reaction, obviously not true for ice mana. The tree spontaneously combust ice mana which means they self-heat or perhaps self-cool in this case.

This time he used just a single point of mana to turn to ice. It was a small shard that looked like it could melt any time.

Ebony visualised the flames, then down to the mana and for some reason imagined them as molecules. He started shaking it up, to move it, to excite it. Nothing worked.

Everything boils down to mana.

‘It's getting late. Forget it, I'll try again tomorrow after another try.’ Ebony thought. Seeing his mana pool at half he pooled them all together and couldn’t help but thinking ‘might as well just boil all of this. He mentally pushed inside the mana hoping it would add bubbles and ‘boil’ the thing.

It surprisingly worked. A little too well perhaps.

The ice mana really ‘boiled’, there was no change from what he can see from the larger sphere of ice but his sense tells him otherwise. He kept forcing pressure into every point of ice mana, he began to feel it reach a tipping point as the mana vibrated uncontrollably.

He gave one final push as if he was pushing off the ground one last time after hundreds of push ups.

His face was met with a familiar blue flame for a fraction of a second as he felt all the mana in his control burn up so quickly he didn’t notice until it was all gone. He heard the sweet sweet bell of a notification but it wasn’t the time to look at it. Why?

His face was frozen in a thin layer of ice and he couldn’t breathe.

Thankfully, he managed to claw it off his face without any damage and it only felt like a cool drink’s temperature at best.

One good thing about being weak was the inability to hurt oneself. Though the thought itself was pretty hurtful. Coming back to the important things.

‘Ting’ ‘You have met the requirements to obtain the class: Meditative Swordsman of Frostblaze - Requirements: Tempering your body into one of the Frostblaze Physique and stepping on the path of the blazing frost. Deep Persistent Meditation Lvl 50, Ice Mana Manipulation Lvl 25, Any Ice Enhancement Magic Lvl 25, Treading Step Lvl 25 & Any type of Sword Mastery Lvl 10

‘Ting’ ‘A Chosen Class will be bound to you and can never be changed. Choose ‘Meditative Swordsman of Frostblaze’ as your Class?’

‘Oooh I am oh so close.’