"Don't sulk. It's your fault for lazing around here so long." Ebony gave the Alpha a pat on its back while it sat in a foetal position and drew circles in the snow.

"You can understand me, right? What's your name?" He tried again.

"APPAA!!" The Alpha slapped his hand away.

"Apa is it? Come on, you must be delaying your evolution because you know your potential is greater. Wanna come with me? I'm going deeper to look for better fights."

"APA APPAA!" Apa beat his chest and gave Ebony a punch that almost enveloped his whole body since the fist was so big.

A layered scale shield blocked the punch. The good'ol ice shield still served its purpose. Ebony was done with the fist and sword fight so he didn't skimp on magic.

"You're strong. Stronger than any of the Empire's Grand Knights. Maybe a handful of Nobles who are Kings can rival you for a moment but perhaps only the Archduke and Royals can beat or handle you." Ebony reassured the gorilla with injured pride.

Even with magic at play, Ebony didn't know many Elcrians who could beat the Apex Ape. Apa would destroy Na with a single punch no matter how many bodies Na had. And the Dungeon didn't have many bodies as strong as the main one.

"Appa??" The ape's pitch got higher.

"Yes, I'm speaking the truth. Even the so-called Emperor's Guardian Knights won't be able to take a single punch of yours without exploding into a bloody pulp. Excluding his direct students and himself."

"Apa apa…" The Ape got back to sulking and collecting snow into a ball before flattening it and making the ground's snow denser.

"It's a big world out there. Go out and punch, punch and punch. Then evolve. Become even bigger. Punch even harder and come back victorious. Look, I'm about to leave with or without you."

"Apaaa." The Alpha glanced behind Ebony.

'He's worried about his people.'

"Ask them what they think about this." Ebony watched as the intelligent Apex Ape conversed with his people.

It was almost refreshing to see how dismissive his kin were. Almost as if they were saying they didn't need a loser for an Alpha.

The Alpha went on to beat up every single Ape that made disgruntled voices or insults. In two hours, it brought forth another Ape that shared some features with the Alpha and raised its fist above their heads.

Apa that roared to the skies.

He was telling them he would be back stronger. Ebony believed he was reading the room correctly.

There was an instinctual understanding, even without language. Perhaps Apa was understanding Ebony in the same way rather than language.

'Now I got another potential sparring partner in future.' Ebony needed as many good opponents as possible.

He pulled out combs of bananas and thick logs of hardy metal that he got as souvenirs. They loved punching hard things and he assumed they would like bananas.

They went bananas over it.

Ebony took out a backpack from his bracelet with the bare essentials for camping. Once again putting his bracelet as a final backup. Although the new Myriad Bracelet was now bonded to him, he knew better than to trust an item fully. There must be plenty of methods to lock his access out, especially if a space mage or people with similar powers were taken into account.

'Been a while since I camped traditionally.' Ready to fully exhaust himself by over-exerting his stamina, he was ready to hunt for sustenance.

"Ready Apa?"

"Hrruhm" Apa harrumphed.

Apa easily kept up with his Flickering as they charged into other creatures' territories. As a creature, the Apex Apes had the most evolved twitch muscle group Ebony had seen till this day. He had to use skills, and sometimes mana to copy a fraction of the ability Apa and the Apex Apes could do with pure explosive twitch muscles.

The intelligent Alpha seemed to be under the influence of adrenaline as it punched every creature they came across and turned them into a bloody mist without hesitation.

'What a waste…' Ebony couldn't stop it in time and watched the waste of lives, food and training opportunities turn to red mist.

Apa showed Ebony why Gen called it the strongest race in the region. No matter what showed up, it would throw itself at the creature with great zeal. Not even disappointed when a single fist would tear through ice, mana, flesh and bones alike.

The Apex Apes were far from the largest creatures around the Glades.

'Was Gen this strong back then?' Ebony wondered how much the old turtle held back in their past duels. It was not easy to compare since the turtle was more of a magic caster.

❅❅❅

'Ting' 'Class Skill Ethereal Fluid Blitz lvl up 912 → 913'

"You want me to bring this rock around for you? I can conjure a hard bed for you." Ebony excessively overexerted his muscles.

"Appa pa." Apa shook his head in disagreement.

Thanks to the stamina over exhaustion, he had to sleep more frequently for his body to recover. He was fine with snow but Apa the Apex Ape was very picky and loved his hard but smooth surfaces.

Pointing to his bracelet, Apa argued for his favourite rock to sleep on.

❅❅❅

"APA!" Apa shouted into Ebony's ears.

"Hmm? What was I happy about?" Ebony cocked his head when the giant lug of muscle probed his shoulder.

"Apa pa." Apa gently watched the fire as Ebony roasted a giant snakeheaded bird for their meal.

"I found some success in curse runic formulas. This is huge for me." Ebony replied to the hungry monkey.

"Appa apaa."

"When did I do that? I delegated my clones to help me study." Ebony looked into the Apex Ape buddy's eyes.

He'd realise that the reason why he understood Apa was surprisingly not because he was delusional. Apa was capable of using Intent. Consciously or not, Apa was manifesting more than sounds when he spoke in his monkey language.

This realisation made a good conversation topic a few nights ago. Ebony recalled that the Apex Apes weren't from Elcra and was genuinely interested enough to ask Apa, hoping they could communicate properly.

There was a surprising amount of mutual understanding. As long as they weren't misinterpreting each other. Apa and his race came from Lacuna Expanse the World Dungeon. They crossed lands and mountains, worlds. Before they chose Elcra.

Ebony wasn't able to decipher the monkey dance and body language trying to explain how they decided to enter Elcra and why they decided to choose Hoarfrost Glades of all places. He summed it up to instinct.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"Aaapa."

"Why am I happy about a curse runic formula? I got inspiration from Korta and Navin, their curses don't just take mana. Stronger versions can temporarily reduce their mana capacity or use other payment, such as reducing one's stats to ensure a stronger curse on their opponents. However, Korta wasn't like that. A few months ago, I managed to see him spar with their stronger counterparts. Korta was physically the fastest and strongest, even against the Kings of his race. And he can still debuff his opponents, I find myself troubled if I were to be hit by those curses. Speed and evasion can't help me dodge the curse either, I don't feel mana moving when a curse is cast either."

"APA!" Apa's eyes lit up and patted his chest powerfully.

"Oh, you see where I'm getting. Yeah, I noticed it too. Korta cursed himself, in a self-positive way. I don't know what price he paid but he augmented himself with a curse. Maybe multiple curses. Maybe he doesn't call it a curse. Maybe it's his sub-class. I don't know, but what I do know is that this was possible. My rune study teacher's rune language is very comprehensive. She is indeed a genius. To think she created this language while she was a teen is quite incredulous." Ebony had rarely been so talkative but he found it so easy to talk to Apa.

'I can begin to fold it into Tolerant Stalwart Foundation before I optimise it. I need a version for my clones and a version for myself. Mine can take mana regeneration since I have so much extra but what do my clones have in excess…I'll have to think about that, they can use a minor version for now.' A few clones immediately got to the drawing board and redrew the Tolerant Stalwart Foundation with a new formula that had to be incorporated.

Ebony himself put a portion of his mental processing to speed things up. It was already a complicated runic formula, to add a big portion of something new while keeping the same function was going to be tough if not impossible.

❅❅❅

"Hahaha, you know what I mean? It's funny how I end up back here when I can go anywhere else. I got the money to go to other planets in record time. I can go to Lacuna Expanse for higher-level opponents. But I keep ending up here in the Glades every time I'm about to evolve."

"Apa appa pa." Apa ripped into the octopi-looking terror. The very same one that chased Ebony away long ago. This time, it was wide awake and pulled out of the ground for Ebony to see in full splendour.

"Mmm, this time I'm not looking for some friends of mine. Yet, something in the glades must be drawing us here."

Ebony took an augmented step forward and burned the tentacle that was about to wrap around Apa's neck.

Icicle looked as if it was a whip as it flurried around the two of them, preventing more tentacles from grabbing onto any of their limbs to drag them underground.

While Ebony had met many intelligent, non-monster-like monsters. That somewhat skewed his outlook on highly evolved monsters being more intelligent. It was simply not true. Not like the high kobolds and unlike the Apex Apes that were social, and up for conversation.

Apa and Ebony had been trailing across the Icy Region for the past four months and he'd not seen another relatively friendly race.

Monsters were monsters. They did not care for his Will, no matter how soothing.

Ebony was a tasty treat for monsters to evolve.

Levelling was done simply by a monster accepting more of the Worldcore's essence. To break free from their racial limits, monsters ate other monsters. And people with classes were the best treat.

When real monsters sensed his mana, they looked out for a few things. One was density and most ran away the moment Ebony's mana so much as tickle their hair. But deep in the Icy Region, where monster territory starts density wasn't all they judged danger by.

Certain King-ranked races saw Ebony's mana as less 'pure' than theirs. Less pure but immensely dense was very attractive to them because purity was a better gauge for a creature's evolutionary stage.

Those had been the duo's dinner.

Recently, just about all monster territory they'd trespassed had deemed him more of a treat than a threat. None held any hesitation to blast their desire to eat him up so he did the same but he succeeded. Every time.

"Appaa apa." Apa jumped into the multi-headed octopi and punched his bloody way out. He did that to every monster that tried to eat him because they were bigger than him.

"You're getting bored huh…I know. Should've expected this when you were already the strongest around." Ebony wondered how many heads this particular [Cephalopoda Cyroscylla Lvl 721]. This was the seventh one they fished up from the ground and none had the same number of heads so far.

He didn't find any correlation between the number of heads and power or scale of magic but they did have more or less ways of attacking with their weird magic mouths. Grinding ice oesophagus was not what he'd expected. Their biology was of interest to him, their muscles weren't fully organic and neither were the ice portions fully ice-elemental.

It was a good blend of the two that made Ebony wonder if that's how monsters had unbelievable stat-count compared to normal people. Even without active magical augmentation, they were as strong as him with multiple augmentations with levels almost in the 4 digits.

Two blue shadows chased after Ebony. The elastic but tough tentacles resisted Icicle's tear only to falter when the two Shades connected and rejoined with the real body the next instant.

'I can use the Phantasmal Shades properly now. They can either follow up with me or I can use the force of my mind to push them ahead of me. I can leave them behind me much further than I can push them ahead of me, thousands of times further.' Ebony can produce a similar effect with light refraction and mirages but Shades have physical effect, they have force behind them. Mixing both would be ideal.

He had his clones try their best but he was the only one who could produce Shades. Most likely due to his mana chassis being the main reason he was leaving Shades behind at all.

❅❅❅

"Don't sulk, the [Alloy Fur Mammoth]s are just ridiculous creatures. Stop punching that mountain, it's just icing on their backs. I doubt they'll wake up from their hibernation if they haven't already after you blasted that mountain up." Ebony gave Apa's back a pat when it drew circles in the snow again.

Ebony hadn't even come across another creature that was a tenth of these mammoths' size. Cinderash was dominated by a creature called Gearhart, a Saint. Their monster populace was not all that terrifying in comparison.

Teheil was barely explored by Ebony or anyone else. The curtain of cushioning that split the Altarbound Kin and the invaders was considered level 5-8 cushioning.

According to the humans there, the levels of cushioning reached up to 20.

What creatures lie in areas with those levels of cushioning?

Ebony was interested in finding out in the future.

Apa faced his first defeat against the only pair of King-ranked Mammoths in the Glades. They weren't particularly high-level, merely in the six hundreds.

Their sheer size truly made one wonder what they ate to sustain that body mass. Taller than mountains, the moving mountain range of a monster race slept tight.

❅❅❅

"Cold? Come here, I'll keep you warm as you sleep." The fourth night in the Glacial Region was not kind on Apa.

It was far too cold.

'I can barely breathe too, is oxygen almost frozen here?' The best buds slept back to back while Ebony warmed the adorable ape with mana vibrations.

It just so happened to be in the middle of winter. The nights were pure dark as the Elcrain moons didn't reflect any sunlight past this creature's territory.

Ebony stopped enforcing his Will and Domain into the area and even over himself hours ago. That would put him out in the open and that creature would disturb their sleep once again. It could sense Will just like the elder Elves could.

It could sense when Ebony's mind probed mana senses, no matter the element.

It could feel Apa's Intent.

It could feel their breath.

It could smell their life force.

It was breathing all over them.

Ebony kept all of that in mind and slept soundly.

Waking up with ice over their bodies, Ebony was almost amused that his cold resistance could still increase naturally without any self-imposed freezing.

'Shh, Apa.' Ebony Willed his thoughts into Apa with his mana. The waking ape stopped its twitch muscles from punching air.

'Now where is that thing watching us from…' Ebony asked himself in the blind. Not daring to probe his mana out, not daring to feel ambient mana. Neither did his vibrational and gravitational sense go active. They wouldn't work anyway.

Not against an immaterial monster.

'If this is where the Frost Elves slow down…no wonder they take months to travel between villages.'

Ebony scanned their surroundings with no light despite Lunar Bioclock informing him it was well into the morning.

While helping Apa sit up, he felt his buddy's fur click with static. Ebony was not lightning fast, he wasn't able to manipulate the static electricity before Apa worked up his impressive twitch muscles and punched at the ground.

Ebony understood Apa's intent immediately and jumped up into the air.

The icy ground broke…and recovered before either of them finished their ascent into the skies.

"It's coming Apa."

"AAPPA!!"

[Grand Stygian-Frost Elemental Lvl 678]

'Ting' 'Generic Skill Appraise evolved into Mana Discern'

'Hey, I can use Appraise without looking now. And 'Grand' which usually refers to Grandmasters means King for spirits and I suppose elementals now.' Ebony got his burning flames ripped out of his body, removing Fabrication of Frostblaze Embodiment as it was being replenished.

Fight or flight.

A glance with Apa in the dark had him 'smiling' while the Apex Ape grinned foolishly.

Their Will and Intent had a mutual understanding.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.