Ebony's Fable

“You… you do not know of awakenings?” Gen asked with widened eyes.

“No, I just appeared here yesterday.” Ebony answered, seeing no reason to hide the fact.

“Appeared?” Gen asked, his already narrowed eyes narrowed further.

“Yes, I do not know where I am but where I’m from there is no mana much less magic or magical telepathic turtles at least not that I knew off.” Ebony explained.

“Inconceivable… there would be no life without mana as it is part of one’s essence. No matter, back to your question I believe you can see your status, awakening refers to obtaining a class. Unawakened are identified as their race and would not have a level, hence calling you Human.” Gen replied while shrugging off what Ebony said as a load of nonsense.

“How do I get a Class?” Ebony asked, he couldn’t bother explaining his origins to a turtle if it doesn’t believe him.

“When skills reach a certain level you will naturally get to take up a Class.” Gen said.

“What level do the skills have to get to?” Ebony asked.

“The higher the better. 25 for Classing, not all skills have associated Classes. You will require multiple skills. It would be best to think thrice on any Classes you have met the requirements for as they follow you for life… My apologies. I do not know if it is the same for creatures who gained sapience like us with sapient born creatures like you.” Gen replied dejectedly.

“I see... oh yeah how are you able to communicate with me like this? Some kind of magic?” curious, Ebony questioned. Persistent Meditation was already past that level so he needed more skills to reach that level.

“With this tool that’s handed down from generation to generation, I’m unaware of its origins but it is likely made by other sapient creatures that gave it to our kind. Inserting mana into it allows me to communicate conceptual thoughts, mental images and more regardless of language. I’m not really an expert when it comes to these devices.” Gen replied while raising its front right leg showing off a band tied to it with a tiny light purple gem in the middle.

‘Damn that’s convenient, it probably helped them in getting help from different races that passed by. Oh yeah, he mentioned Frost Elves around the area, to think I would get the chance to see living breathing elves. Let’s hope they aren’t hostile to humans.’ Ebony thought.

“If there’s nothing else I will return to rest... please feel free to stay for as long as you like, you can ask me anything if you have any questions. When you want to leave I will get Ton to carry you out.” Gen said, he was obviously drained either from the conversation or by feeding the Frostblaze Amur its essence or both. Feeding its ‘essence’ probably meant feeding it its lifeforce or something similar.

“Could I trouble you to make me a snow dome as well, hollow on the inside with space for me to enter and exit. I would like to rest as well.” Ebony requested.

“Of course, that’s no trouble.” Gen answered when an igloo was raised a dozen metres away from him instantly.

“Thank you Gen.” Ebony thanked and walked towards the igloo when Gen retreated into its shell and snow dome. The igloo was well made and easily twice his height and about 10 metres in diameter. Finally able to relax for real with a modicum of safety, Ebony collapsed onto the snow and fell asleep without care.

Waking up half a day later, Ebony pushed himself off the ground and started his stretching and body conditioning. Flexibility was always emphasised when he trained as it improves the range of motion of his joints, he stretched from head to toe and started his callisthenics. Drenched in sweat after an hour he finished up with a cool-down stretch.

Calling up the notifications that he ignored he had gained a new skill and some skill levels.

‘Ting’ ‘Generic Skill Mental Mapping learned’

Mental Mapping - Mapping your journey in your mind you can call up a mental map of anywhere you have been to and have seen. Increases accuracy and ability to recall maps slightly every level.

‘The perfect skill for every travel lover.’

‘Ting’ ‘Generic Skill Persistent Meditation level up 31 → 33’

‘It even levels when I’m asleep...’

It was surprisingly warm in the igloo despite sleeping in a pile of snow, Cold Resistance didn’t level.

Recovering his stamina in less than 10 minutes he left the igloo, Gen was still in his snow dome and Ebony decided to explore without bothering it.

He was roughly half a kilometre away from the progenitor turtle, Identify only had a range of about 5 metres which is kinda short but complaining wouldn’t increase the range. Strolling towards it, Ebony wanted to see the weapon that was stuck to the tree.

A short walk later he realised he underestimated what a behemoth it was, he was in front of its head and he couldn’t even see the top of the beast.

[Corpse of ????]

‘Hmm?’ Ebony let out as his eyes stung a little for a second not expecting pain from using Identify.

‘Ting’ ‘Generic Skill Identify level up 5 → 9’

‘Wow… now that’s a mad flex. Its leaked essence created a forest who knows how huge and identifying its corpse gave me 4 levels in Identify and I still don’t know what it is. Now how do I get on top of it?’ Ebony had wanted to see the weapon stuck in the tree. Looking around he found protruding tree roots across its shell. Going for the nearest one he tried to pull on it to test its strength but it didn’t even budge so he got to climbing.

The turtle was partially buried in snow so it was an slope that got less and less steep. The roots were thick and numerous making the climb slightly easier though it was a long climb. He made it to the top of its shell in less than half an hour, he had been taking his time. The ‘ground’ was littered with 3-bladed maple leaves over a metre long, dashing towards the trunk, he Identified the tree. He didn’t realise a large majority of ice mana in the surroundings were actively avoiding him.

[Frostblaze Amur Maple Tree of ?? (Ancient) - Evolved from absorbing the essence of ?? The leaves of the Frostblaze Amur Maple Tree will spontaneously combust ice elemental mana into freezing flames of Frostblaze to cool itself and its surroundings down. Utilising the cold to toughen itself and grow]

[Dried leaf of the Frostblaze Amur Maple Tree of ?? - Leaf of the Frostblaze Amur Maple Tree off ?? fallen off and withered with time.]

‘Ting’ ‘Generic Skill Identify level up 9 → 11’

A burning icicle was sticking out of the trunk high up above where he was.

‘That should be the weapon, it's frozen but why is it combusting like the leaves?’ Unable to Identify it from where he was, Ebony ran back where he came from and climbed down the behemoth at full speed. ‘No way I’m touching that tree.’ Ebony thought as ice formed on his skin he was quickly freezing up just being in the vicinity of the tree. Fortunately, he prepared some crabapples in his pockets.

The ice mana was so dense there that he was practically swimming in it, going down much quicker than when he climbed up. Ebony returned to his igloo while pondering his situation. He couldn’t stay here for long as he didn’t see any source of food or water if you didn’t count snow. He would have to ask Gen if there was anything edible here for humans to be sure. A little over a hundred crabapples could only last him so long, and even the large territory of the Frostblaze Amur above doesn’t have any food so he would have to travel out of it to find food.

It’s the best place to train his ice magic though, with a much higher ice mana density here he could reduce the mana usage to level his skills up faster. Which brought him back to testing Icebody Enhancement without using external ice mana.

After he was able to manipulate ice mana, Ebony started to be able to feel the mana in his body faintly though he had no idea where it was coming from or being produced from. Mana was colourless and formless as far as he could tell. Nothing happened after circulating his mana for a while, ‘Is external ice mana really required? The skill description didn’t have any sort of requirement other than the MP cost though.’

Moving mana around his own body didn’t consume his MP but it didn’t strengthen him either, ‘Weird…’ chanting or saying skill names out loud did come to mind but it wasn’t like he did that earlier and it felt kinda stupid to say out your skill name. Still, it didn’t hurt to try, with no idea what to chant the skill name was all Ebony had.

“Icebody Enhancement” he muttered, imagining ice mana circulating like his blood being pumped throughout his body, feeling a slight chill through his body. He was almost speechless when he felt the skill running. Before he knew it, the mana circulating in his body was ice mana, he didn’t use the ambient ice mana though.

Turning the buff on and off a couple more times quickly to test it, he wanted to know how the skill worked in more detail. An empty MP gauge and 1 level in Icebody Enhancement later, Ebony found out that thankfully he didn’t actually have to voice out the skill name just thinking it worked out. He just needed to get used to it. The power of imagination perhaps.

Focusing inward, his mana converts to ice mana when he activates Icebody Enhancement too fast for him to ‘see’ how, but once he manages to reproduce the conversion manually he could probably use the skill without… using the skill? Not sure if it was worth the effort if he could just mentally will the activation of the skill but it just felt more natural to Ebony, like learning to use a new limb he had. Besides, if he figured out how to manually convert his mana to a different element he could try many things with it.

Now that he doesn’t have any MP left Ebony checked his status to see what skill he should grind a few quick levels up.

Name: Ebony Rime

Class: N/A

Sub-Class: N/A

Profession: N/A

Health: 53/60

Stamina: 60/60

Mana: 1/100

Strength: 5

Vitality: 6

Constitution: 9

Endurance: 6

Agility: 7

Intelligence: 6

Wisdom: 10

Perception: 7

Generic Skills:

Persistent Meditation Lvl 33

Lesser Stealth Lvl 4

Identify Lvl 11

Cold Resistance Lvl 25

Running Lvl 2

Treading Step Lvl 3

Humming Lvl 7

Ice Mana Manipulation Lvl 9

Icebody Enhancement Lvl 2

Mental Mapping Lvl 1

Stats didn’t change at all but his repertoire of skills had increased a bit. His HP healed up to 53 perhaps repeatedly eating those crabapples had some effect on healing his arm or perhaps it was him getting actual rest and sleep or both.

Deciding to train Running and Treading Step to help traversing around, Ebony started running towards one end of the underground dome. Planning to map out the whole underground dome while he was at it. But before that, he stopped somewhere without any turtle snow lumps and found a random empty spot.

Obviously needing to clear his bowels somewhere remotely private, digging a hole in the snow and making do with snow as wipes. Not exactly comfortable or hygienic but he had to make do, should’ve gotten some leaves instead.

With his business done, Ebony ran towards the dome walls and his training montage started. Running normally for the first few minutes and then with Treading Step activated after he noticed his stamina dropping slightly faster when in use, about 2-3 points more per minute even though the skill description didn’t specify stamina usage like with Icebody Enhancement and MP cost.

‘Anime protagonists, and even villians get their BGM for their training montages and here I am humming my own BGM...that’s a bit sad to think about, should I stop? Nah.’ Ebony mused as recalled some theme songs he liked.

The underground dome was large, Ebony’s stamina was almost half after running part way through. When his SP was empty he still managed to control his breath and he could still move so he continued running to test if it was possible to move if he ever runs out of SP. About 3 minutes in, he got a notification

‘Ting’ ‘You have over exhausted your body. Agility decreased by 50%, Perception decreased by 30% and Stamina regeneration rate decreased by 50% for 10 minutes.’

Ignoring it, Ebony continued testing the limits. Running and Treading Step each got a level already due to its low level. Controlling his breathing he ran for another 10 minutes before falling into the snowy ground.

‘Ting’ ‘You have severely over exhausted your body. Agility decreased by 80%, Perception decreased by 50% and Stamina regeneration rate decreased by 80% for 30 minutes.’

‘Ting’ ‘Generic Skill Running level up 3 → 5’

‘Ting’ ‘Generic Skill Treading Step level up 4 → 6’

‘Ting’ ‘Generic Skill Persistent Meditation level up 33 → 34’

‘Levelling speed is increased when pushing limits but the decrease in SP recovery rate causes it to not be worthwhile, at low levels at least. I have to wait for too long to recover to continue training.’ Ebony thought while laying down. He could still move, albeit barely. But he didn’t want to make it worse or risk permanent damage to his body so he just rested and meditated.

After appearing in this place, as calm as Ebony was, his state of mind was not as it usually was. Even though he loved travelling or the litrpg like world he’s in now it wasn’t like he had nothing back on Earth. He had a somewhat good relationship with his 2 maybe alive relatives, his parents, though he hasn’t seen them in years as they were world touring.

He was planning to do the same when he had some savings, though that plan is moot now. He wasn't worried about his parents but didn’t want them to worry about him. But that was meh, not so important. They haven’t even contacted him for years. Ebony had not been distraught by the fact but it only started sinking in now that he had no way of communicating with them or if it was possible to go back. It hardly bothered him though. He already didn’t get in contact with them for a long time and he wasn’t really attached to the empty house he always returns to.

There’s no point worrying about something he couldn’t do anything about so he put that aside, ‘There’s a way here, there’ll be a way back.’ Ebony consoled himself as he cleared his thoughts and closed his eyes. Opening them what felt like seconds later when he got a notification for another level for Persistent Meditation, noticing that about an hour had already passed and his stamina was full again Ebony continued his run.

The underground dome was at least 15 kilometres in circumference seeing how he was around 2-3 km away from mount turtle when he arrived and if it was directly in the centre that would give a diameter of 4-6 km multiplying that by 3.14 would give us approximately 12.5 to over 18 km in circumference. Ebony could usually run about 8 km before even feeling like he was exerting himself and he guessed that the dome was closer to 18 km in circumference based on his run. The previous short run from the wolf pup must have been pretty intense for him to tire so quickly.

Repeating the cycle, Ebony ran and ran. When his SP was empty he stopped instead of pushing himself like earlier. With Persistent Meditation at lvl 35 it only took about 7 and a half minutes to recover his stamina fully, Ebony rinsed and repeated like a machine and made another obvious discovery which was that his muscles would still hurt and tire even with his stamina full.

Returning to his igloo when his MP was almost full. It was a fruitful training with Running reaching lvl 13, Treading Step lvl 15, Humming lvl 9 and Persistent Meditation lvl 36. The underground dome was empty plains throughout with the exception of mount turtle tree and dozen snow lump turtle homes only in front of mount turtle’s head.

Back in his igloo, Ebony was going to practise Ice Mana Manipulation instead of Icebody Enhancement this time. He found it weird that he didn’t get a Mana Manipulation skill and instead, the ice mana version, as he was controlling his mana as well. ‘Maybe there wasn’t a Mana Manipulation skill like how there wasn’t a moving your arms and legs skill.’ he speculated.

Ice mana was abundant here but Ebony wanted to try some exercises that may help improve his control over ice mana rather than making large quantities of anything made of ice. His previous ice cube compressing method formed ice that was brittle and it wasted lots of mana to just jam it together.

Particle by particle, he tried to merge them in a line. Forming a thin thread made of ice, he wanted to make the thinnest, straighest thread he could that wouldn't break when held horizontally. Starting off with 10 cm length threads, the thread was waving when the ice mana was still under his control. When it reached the length that Ebony decided was 10 cm, he removed his control over it while pinching one end and it broke off instantly.

‘I guess trying to make it hair thin from the get go was too much to ask.’ Ebony complained while retrying over and over again till it reached a thickness where it wouldn't fall apart on itself. Paper thin. Failed. Twice of that. Failed. Double that. Failed. Double that. Failed. Double that. Success.

‘More of a thin rod than a thread but it's a start. I should try making 2-3 of them at the same time and perhaps compressing more ice mana so that I can slowly make them thinner and tougher.’ Ebony thought.

‘Ting’ ‘Generic Skill Ice Mana Manipulation level up 9 → 10’

Ebony was about to disregard the notification when another notification rang.

‘Ting’ ‘You have met the requirements to obtain the class: Self-taught Apprentice Ice Mage - Requirements: Achieved Lvl 10 Ice Mana Manipulation with no prior knowledge of ice magic and no one to receive said knowledge from.

‘Finally, a class, hmm a lvl 10 requirement seems really low compared to 25 that Gen said and my other skills reached lvl 10 too. Do they not have an associated class?’

‘Ting’ ‘A Chosen Class will be bound to you and can never be changed. Choose ‘Self-taught Apprentice Ice Mage’ as your Class?’

‘That’s new, it's actually giving useful information for once though Gen already told me. I should hold off on picking a class if that’s the case. I know too little about classes to make an informed decision. Don’t want to choose a weak class if I can expand my choices, my skills levels are still low I think and higher levels and requirements for classes could only be better right? The notification also doesn’t tell what I could get from choosing the class, assuming getting a class will give me skills or stats. At least I wasn’t forced to take the first class I was offered.’

‘Ting’ ‘You have met the requirements to obtain the class: Calm Apprentice Ice Mage - Requirements: Lvl 25 Persistent Meditation, Lvl 10 Ice Mana Manipulation’

‘Ting’ ‘A Chosen Class will be bound to you and can never be changed. Choose ‘Calm Apprentice Ice Mage’ as your Class?’

‘No requirements for knowledge and only skill levels for this class. I should try to get more skills and if the requirements were the same for other skills level 10 and level 25 seems like the bar for them to trigger getting a class. I wonder If I got Ice Mana Manipulation to level 25 would I get another class… well, only one way to find out. Grinding.’

With no more notifications popping up, Ebony continued playing with rods of ice waving around like a whip. He tried bringing up the class choosing notification with a thought and it was possible so he wasn’t forced to make a choice now.

Emptying his mana pool again, he gained another 3 levels in Ice Mana Manipulation and a level in Persistent Meditation. The ice mana filled environment was making it very mana efficient for Ebony. With time on his hands he was thinking of looking for Gen.