"Hey there cousin. Had a feeling you would come back. But I can't let you sneak around the island to look for your bride, it'll reflect badly on us and you if you can't even control yourself before getting married. This mandatory time away from each other has reasons okay?" Shi Qiang fetched Ebony before he even got to space and was busy getting bombarded by a monster he couldn't even sense within his mental range.

Wind magic had never posed much threat to him before. Xin only used the wind element as support or to enhance her slices, giving it some range and additional reach at times.

"That wasn't what I-maybe there was a small thought…" Ebony wanted to deny it but he couldn't tell the lie when his mind argued with his mouth when evidence surfaced. There was a tiny hope that he would be able to catch a glimpse of Xin if he returned.

"So, I'm sure you're back with an excuse so you might as well use it."

"Cousin, how about giving me some training-"

"Say less."

❅❅❅

Ebony woke up with a throbbing headache that didn't want to go away.

His elder cousin Shi Qiang was home and heard of his request but put him to sleep instead of giving him any training tips.

He didn't appreciate the cracked skull but the mana explosion that happened in his head to knock him out truly knocked him out in ways he never imagined. All from a nod of her head and the muscular flex of her fingertips. The Clan skill of the Shi was used quite differently from person to person.

'Such a simple but forceful use of mana but the mana didn't deal any physical damage.' Ebony's Unique Skill was shaken because the mana chassis in his head was undergoing massive disturbance. They were being compressed.

All the factory work was halted because his 'machinery' turned to jelly and was squished up against each other. This hurt him far more than physical injury that he could recover on a whim.

'Should've known all of them could injure mana chassis but Shi Qiang is far more familiar with it compared to Ning Xun…they are a generation apart.' Ebony shook his head to push the pain away but it was lingering on. He had to hurry back to Elcra after the two-hour nap.

His recovery seemed to surprise Shi Qiang when he walked past the room where the Shi ladies were playing the same board game he'd seen her play with Shi Tao but this time it was 3 vs 3.

"I'll be back for training," Ebony commented before he Flickered off and cast Torrent Path with his cube's gravity mana and fired himself back to Elcra as fast as he could. It was almost dinner time but being back for training seemed more apt.

There was a slight accident when he rammed into a spell or attack from another monster but he managed to stop the reflection before it destroyed a river.

Tempestuous Lull Pelt was stronger than ever with more gravity mana than he could use at the moment. Ramming into a wind magic blade sent it flying back in a different direction. His pet cube was truly a fantastic support weapon and shield.

'A different creature from the one that attacked me on the way up.' Ebony could differentiate between mana signatures easily.

Going down took around the same time but less effort since he didn't have to go against the planet's natural gravitational strength.

'I'm early…' Ebony went into his old home, more silent and quiet than ever to take a shower and change into a set of Elcrian wear.

Icicle and his robe were allowed to rest on their stands. His poor equipment needed an upgrade as soon as possible.

Icicle was still better than a conjured Armament due to the Melding that it had undergone with his cold flames and its ability to heal fast but that wasn't enough to withstand a Domain buffed swing much less a condensed Will and mana Domain buff.

As for swinging his armaments in those conditions, well, conjured weapons were disposable and none felt as good to swing as Icicle.

'It's also getting light since it can no longer take in my maximally compressed mana without hurting itself.' Ebony ran his fingers through his wet hair and left the house.

In any case, he could summon Icicle over since he was only going to be close by. The delay shouldn't hurt if he needed it.

Dry before he reached the Quest Hall, he stood outside waiting without disturbing the spy girl at her day job.

'Great another version of edited Tolerant Stalwart Foundation to test later. Vastly increased mana consumption as usual for power but that's all I'm good for so might as well make the best of it. But the runic formulas have been collapsing recently. They can't handle the strain of such dense mana? That shouldn't be the case but I need to find a way to further purify my mana instead of condensing it to a slurry-almost solid form.'

He was not resting or wasting any time.

Other than the runic formulas collapsing from the energy source itself, a bigger problem for him was that his body couldn't even handle that much load anymore. His compressed Domain buffed self already gave him lasting injuries, there was no benefit to further augment himself with mana.

It was still a work for the future but he needed to deal with his body breaking down from his mana first.

'I could encase myself in Armament armour and then maybe create a runic formula for an armour instead…it wouldn't be able to hold as many internal symbols though. Can my ice element handle a Domain buff?' Instead of simulating that, he had Seven stop what it was doing.

Dusk, sitting comfortably at home conjured a Model.

Seven's body went still where it was at and it sent all its Will back to Dusk. The efficient tree then placed Seven into its new body. Effectively teleporting Seven back to Tidal.

Seven sat under Dusk and received the tree's buff and Ebony's mana.

Once again, the effect of Fabrication of Frostblaze Embodiment doesn't increase Seven or any of his clones strength by more than 50 to 60 times. The skill increases Ebony's strength by 1200% +10% of his intelligence per level, at its current level of 993 it should give him an 11,130% increment.

It can be said that his Strength stat should be increased by 111.3 times that of his Intelligence stat which was almost in the 4 thousands after his Conditioning. Considering his base Strength stat in the single thousand, the tier 4 spell and skill should multiply his Strength by over 300 times.

That was the skill by itself without any mana compression. Coagulated Mana Repository had reached a hard limit at level 1029 and it wouldn't budge at all no matter what he did. His mana couldn't be compressed any further by all his mental power. No amount of fiddling he did with the mana packed them any tighter. He was lacking the strength of mind, the Intelligence stat.

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Similarly, his mana could be compressed over 110 times. Their refinement degrees and levels as a tier 4 skill coincidentally made them give the same degree of multiplicative effect. This worked fully multiplicatively, as Ebony had long tested. Compressing a spell by 1% increased its power by 1% of what the base mana could already do.

Certain spells changed this relation depending on their complexity and requirements for pure mana but self-enhancement spells generally didn't. A basic, maximally compressed Fabrication of Frostblaze of Embodiment did in fact increase his Strength stat over 33,000 times.

Since Ebony's Baseline Trait didn't make him much different from a normal human in terms of physical muscle strength, it wasn't that crazy.

It sounded ridiculous but there were still a few Knights in Elcra who could match this. Ebony could recall the group of elite knights that had a group of mages augment a small group or even a single Knight to ridiculous degrees.

Compounding augmentation of Tolerant Stalwart Foundation on top of that made him superhuman amongst Grandmasters with good mana control and body enhancement. Using Ethereal Fluid Blitz can bring his momentum up by another factor. So could Torrent Path, his trusty gravity support for movement.

Adding his Domain over himself and using Will augmentation to hold his mana and spell together should have made him physically strong enough to do magical things. But there was the Apex Ape to stand over him to show him that pure muscle can go a long way. Their Baseline Trait for Strength and Constitution must be amazingly high which made them less magically inclined.

This was the same for the Cinderashians. They had physically strong bodies and were very resistant to heat and a certain line of poisons. But, their ability to use and manipulate Aether came very late. Only after multiple evolutions did they start being able to even sense Aether.

Compressing his Domain after that…well, his body begins to scatter into ice dust.

All of that was just passive strength. There were his Arts and active skills like Phantom's Flicker, Crystalline Avalanche and Quake Kick.

Woven Frostblaze Melding doesn't augment his body and only items and materials. This was the skill for augmenting one's equipment with mana so that it doesn't break as easily against magic and all superhuman feats of strength.

Every Elcrian warrior had a similar skill if they weren't trying to bankrupt themselves by breaking their weapon and armour all the time.

Yet, Seven barely got much of the augmentation. Melding did work on it so that covered the clones' gap with Ebony by a little.

Ebony's flames could even meld with his ice. Melded ice mana is quite different from normal ice or any of the ice he saw the Frost Elves and monsters in the Glades use. It wasn't uniquely his, Ful probably had similar ice.

All of his Perennial Everfrost Armament were conjured as melded ice nowadays, as it had been for years.

The only weird thing was that Ebony couldn't tell where it was different. It wasn't the temperature, albeit colder than normal the difference was minute. It was hard to say if it was any more durable since many skills were working on it to make it more durable.

It did help to exert his flames through all conjured ice more easily but that seems almost obvious.

With his mana regeneration reaching the current heights, seeing his clones use Frostblaze has become more of a common sight. Although he did try to limit them to only using it when they had to.

Dusk knew what Ebony wanted without even so much as a thought, it was collective Ebony after all. It poured Will into Seven and essentially gave the clone enough Will for the compressed Domain buff to activate on the conjured golem.

Seven was about to hop out to their new house, Ebony had a training square at his new home that the Xengs made. But after mildly considering only using it after he got married, he dropped the attempt and had Seven go inside Dusk to punch the tree from inside.

If the tree wasn't tougher than Ebony, there would be no point in having a shelter inside of it to begin with. A decade ago, Dusk was already strong enough to withstand Emperor Tetramyth's bites. As unfair as it was to the physically weak insect race, they were still highly evolved.

Dusk didn't even shake externally. Its mana was vibrationally stabilised before the shock from the punch got through the entirety of metres of layered scales for bark. Its anti-impact abilities had risen greatly since Ebony returned to Elcra.

'There is a difference but it takes so much more out of Dusk than it takes out of me to buff myself.' Ebony was still satisfied with the results of the experiment.

Because it hardly mattered, Dusk had way more collective Will than Ebony could store within himself.

Given enough time, Ebony might grow Dusk to the point where it could support a Clone that could augment itself further than Ebony could withstand.

Ebony's mind raced as 3 of them watched Seven disperse into ice dust in slow motion.

Seven, safely resting within Dusk commented "That was too intense, my melded body was breaking down before I even moved."

"Dusk, how much Will did that take?"

"About 13 days of what you give me was consumed in 0.0083 seconds for that punch. You hesitated too long wondering if Seven should go to a training field."

"That is way too much." Ebony could use a compressed Domain for a minute or two at the risk of his body completely dying, mana chassis and all. Using only Will in himself and receiving nothing from Dusk.

Yet it took 13 days for a single, maybe 2 attacks for a Clone. It was highly wasteful.

'Should I increase the amount I give Dusk while keeping a smaller regenerated amount for myself…' Ebony had to reconsider his allocation of Will regenerated once again.

Although his training was very important, he also weighed the importance of Dusk. His current greatest safety net excluding the Shi. Not because he didn't trust them with his back but he understood that it was every man for themselves.

While he was busy experimenting and refining spells in his simulated battlefield and library, Spy girl walked out with a couple of ladies surrounding her.

"Is that the man, assistant manager?"

"He's so handsome…the cool type."

A few squeals came after the numerous whispers happening at the same time. Ebony heard every word clearly but felt nothing of it.

Positive or negative, he rarely cared about the contents of people's first impressions of him and they flew over his head as usual.

Spy girl on the other hand had her hands full chastising her female subordinates. With a tinge of red on her face, she broke away from them and hurried Ebony along.

"Why did you have to wait here!?" She whispered and found that Ebony wasn't cooperating and moved at his own pace.

"Let's go." Ebony walked her to the destination he had in mind.

After ignoring her questions, they were seated in a restaurant with private seating a few minutes of avian carriage flight away.

"This…this is a really expensive place." Spy girl stared at the bright decor and caressed the tablecloth.

"I'm the one who brought you, don't worry and order." Ebony learned from all the people watching and pulled the seat for the lady. It seemed almost universal from Earth to Elva to Cinderash that he did it instinctually.

Spy girl was placed under a lot of pressure even though it was not his intention.

The waiter got her modest order and turned to him, "no need." He waved the man away. It was rare to see a male waiter in this world to be honest, especially an adult male who could have so many other occupations.

She stopped speaking, maybe waiting for him to speak up but the food came extremely quickly. "E--go ahead and eat." He stopped himself from one-word sentences, proud that he didn't come off as if he was ordering her to eat.

"What--what about you?"

"Not hungry."

"..."

Ebony called for the waiter and asked for every dish they had on the menu before changing the request to a small portion after recalling that he wasn't eating with Xin.

He watched and urged her to have a bit of everything they had on the menu, recording her comments about the taste of each dish.

'Xin will like this salted ox roast and this sunflare pepper stir fry.' Satisfied with her answers, he got another recommendation for Xin.

'Not having the ability to taste food is quite a disability at times like this.' Ebony nodded when Spy girl complained about not being able to eat any more.

Looking at the table full of food, he couldn't waste it and stuffed all the tasteless calories down in a moment.

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