Ebony didn't expect the delivery to arrive while he was out having a meal. He'd searched Eidolon's open market for weeks before suitable seeds were found.

The Geode Spore.

It feeds on inorganic matter, earth and wood elemental mana while producing a source of essence, metals and minerals.

Na should be able to make any material it had the known properties of, those materials that entered his Dungeon body and consumed to make his. He should be able to produce wood, soil and whatever common elements the spore could want.

The produced essence included life and it also consumed life force but it was rather tamed so the Geode Spore's ratio of the exchange can be considered to be symbiotic. The metals and minerals produced could be used by Na for his Knight-based fighting style for his armour.

And now Spy Girl, Sophia a metal mage was on board?

Everything was falling into place for him.

'I'm getting lucky, it's almost odd…why do I think I'm lucky? Why did I think this is odd?' Perhaps all that split-mind thinking had forced him to overthink things that didn't matter.

Ebony let the ice torso he conjured go after he succeeded in editing a portion of the new runic formula. Since these were Curse runes he was working with, he decided to have more success with his ice sculptures before he used them on his body.

Sophia had been helpful enough to lend him a wrist to look at for what bracelets would fit on Xin. All of them would fit great but he was limited to bracelets and anklets because necklaces would be too much and a single ring was already too much for the swordswoman.

Jewellery gets in the way.

But when he thought about how they can also be worn outside of battle, he saw no reason not to get her some.

Ebony had some Worldcores in mind that he could go for training but he wasn't quite done with Elva and he could go with Xin after they were married so Sophia's out-of-world training that she requested would have to wait a few years.

He was pleasantly surprised by her eagerness to train and saw it as a fresh graduate asking for overseas experience.

"So about this company of ours, what other plans have you already made? Where do you think we can find loyal farmers for produce you want? What produce do you even want?"

"These seeds, this batch is from Cinderash and this is from Teheil. As for loyal farmers…there are some options. One, we can adopt some Thrymmari. The Thrymmari are a race that does not have Professions or Sub-Classes and are the race most famed for their farmers. They only have 5 to 7 Class Skill slots according to the forums. That is their evolutionary choice. They've erased their Profession, Sub-Class and Class Skill slots all to strengthen these 5 Skill slots. It is rumoured that these 5 Skill slots might be almost as helpful to their skills as a Core Skill." Ebony gave an introduction to the Thrymmari race.

He found this race interesting for their commitment to specialisation. Many Artisan races copied the Thrymmari in this race for specialization. They've tossed all their Natural Potential into a very limited number of skills but these skills were very wide in terms of their capabilities.

However, many races failed and the loss of a Profession made them like a demonised version of their original race. Instead of skill slot improvement, they got a stat raise whether willingly or accidentally. This made ambient essence rush into their bodies during their evolution and demonise them.

"Two. I don't like this choice but they have…faith. The Altarbound Kin, their Altar of Abundance, Fertility and Longevity are fit for farming. If they can relight their Altar of Fertility." Ebony had a natural, inexplicable dislike for the Altarbound Kin. He never cared about absolute strangers to the point where he liked or disliked them.

He attacked their High Priestess but within weeks, she was praising him to the skies. Her guards looked at him weirdly. The entire race of them were fanatics and highly delusional.

This personality trait of theirs was their power.

Ning Xin had a personal promise to the Altarbound Kin. She mentioned being brought back from extreme hunger, gluttony. For a bite of the High Priestess's flesh, she promised herself to rid of Teheil's invaders.

Once again, he didn't fully understand the relationship between Xin and the Altarbound Kin. She told him much, but not everything. He could tell that much.

But now that they were providing her with some kind of power, he couldn't exactly forget about them anymore.

Besides the weird relationship and their fanatical personalities, they had amazing farmers due to Teheil's nature.

He was also a small figure that a great deal of Altarbound Kin saw in high regard. Other than the High Priestess who he couldn't fully trust, the Kin he interacted with seemed like naive children.

Ebony could bring Sophia there and have her ask if anyone wanted to be farmers elsewhere. This also provided them a route of escape from their predicament of losing their homeworld.

From what he saw, if it wasn't for their curtain of cushioning they wouldn't have lasted this long. It was hard to say if the lit Altar of Might helped them enough.

'I never saw those Saints on Teheil. Who did Gearhart send? Did he have a subordinate Saint?' Recalling this fact, he informed Sophia since he could use her information-gathering skills right now.

"You have a what for an enemy?!" Sophia gained the courage to yell at him and smack the table.

"Calm down, I wouldn't go so far as to say we're enemies." Ebony made sure no tea was spilt.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN?! You said you held his family hostage after-what? Carrying their island away? And you say you're not enemies!??"

"Hmm…when you put it that way. It was a toothless threat, I would've been a fish on a chopping board for any of the Boiler Knights if they knew I existed. He just saw me as a useful prisoner, even with what I did and even with Mr Guru I highly doubt he sees me as an enemy. My current hypothesis is that Mr Guru still kept his memories about who my mother is, so he didn't send anyone because of the Xeng. But I don't know the truth of the matter."

"I find it hard to believe there was no follow-up at all."

"My latest update on them after buying some broker's services was that Cinderash was facing some Dungeon problem. They inexplicably lost almost half of all their Dungeons within days. That loss is much bigger than losing me, a mere individual making mana."

Dungeons tapped into Worldcore's essence and produced materials, it was a minable resource. The loss of those dungeons financially easily out scaled the loss of Ebony. The only silver lining there could be was that the cost of maintaining his dungeons had dropped drastically whereas maintaining Ebony was practically free if one didn't account for the capital cost of the prison that was now in his Myriad Bracelet.

There was civil unrest for losing so much of their resources so Ebony thought that Gearhart had his hands full. Numerous people were jobless and were leaving Cinderash for better opportunities but there were many natives that couldn't just leave their homes. That would mean leaving the safety of being one of Gearhart's subjects.

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The Sector Cinderash was in was harsher than the Sector Elcra was in since there were more Saints there.

"That's all you got?" Sophia frowned.

"Cinderash closed off entry to foreigners. I couldn't find any Spirits who can travel there by Spirit Realm that worked as information brokers." Ebony answered truthfully.

"Did they close off their imports and exports?"

"I highly doubt so, they have more than one planet or Worldcore as you might say. They transport different resources between each other."

"That means information is still entering and exiting, you can easily find a wealth of information about Cinderash that way. A bit of Sulpto is all it'll take to loosen some lips. People are the same everywhere."

"...I'll leave that to you again." Ebony delegated information gathering back to her, "I'll put an order for your Myriad Bracelet and portable module, use this and customise your order. Customise it however you like and whatever you think helps you work better. Don't worry, I won't take this out of your portion of the profits. Just take it as a gift for a successful cooperation." Ebony gave Sophia access to his module with a thought.

"Bribery won't work on me…" She hesitantly slid the Bracelet closer.

"There's no budget limit," Ebony added, there was a limit to what his reputation could get him and Hex only had limited access to.

There was nothing more he had to say because she was already deep into window shopping.

"Mark? What are you doing here?" Ebony greeted the visitor he had. He'd sensed Mark in a carriage towards his house hours ago.

"What? Didn't Master Jing tell you I'd be here?" The runic academic patted his boots before entering the gates that swung open with mana.

"She sent you here?" As usual, Ebony was uninformed about these matters.

"Yeah, anyway it's been a long time Ebony." Mark habitually lifted his hand.

"Mmm." Ebony gave his previous hired help and close acquaintance a tet.

Mark was doing well for himself, he was dressed in good leather armour and chainmail underneath. Armoured like a freelancer but with odd pieces of equipment. His orange hair had deeper shades of grey with a larger portion of his head with greyed hair.

The book on his belt gave off Kong Jing's aura.

'Did she give Mark the Grimoire with all the spells in her mind?' Ebony looked without much curiosity. If that was the case, then Mark might be more dangerous than everything he'd faced since he returned to Elcra.

A second feeling with Mana Discern told him that the chance was low that this was the piece of craft that Kong Jing made to evolve from Grandmaster to King. It felt too normal but it now made sense why he couldn't feel this book until Mark was right in front of him.

Ebony's eyes landed on Mark's spear longer than they did on the thick book. 'It'll break.' Shaking his head, he dismissed the thought of the spear in his hands instead.

He wasn't opposed to using a spear anymore but every spear he looked at, he judged that they would break. All except Quasar.

He wasn't talking about breaking like Icicle, the spears wouldn't have any bits left for them to regrow and repair even if they had that ability.

'I might as well use my body as a spear. Fine, I'll make an active skill for it.' Ebony decided on the spot that that would be it.

Distracted while walking in, Mark finally shifted his eyes to Sophia before his alertness rose.

"Get away from her Ebony!" Mark chugged a glowing potion in a hurry.

"Get away from him Ebony!" Sophia's bracelet reformed into two-needle stilettos.

Both of them were in fighting stances in a moment.

"She's a member of the Jaded Parasites, a shady character!"

"He's an abnormality with a shady background. Wielding runic technology beyond measure, the Empire's pioneer for runic liquids that work and a forced copy of a Domain user. A mage fighter with hints of wizardry background, he can't be a native but he has a native family!" As someone who deals with information, Mark must have stood out to her.

They yelled at the same time but it was easy enough to hear them both out.

Ebony watched as they escalated the situation between each other.

"Don't listen to her words, she tricked me once with them. What are you doing here?" Mark pointed his spear at her.

"None of your business." Sophia 'secretly' moved the metal around under her clothes.

"You stole my manuscript, give it back."

"Don't have it."

"Should've known there was no point speaking with a Jaded Parasite member. You won't escape this time, stay out of this Ebony!" Mark smashed his spear's butt into the floor.

Ebony blinked once, he didn't expect Mark to take action and attack Sophia immediately. He allowed Mark's runic circle to form on his house's floor. This wasn't his new house and he wanted to read the runic circle.

'We were naive, it's not Will enhanced and can't be considered a Domain.' He judged when all of Mark's abilities were augmented by the circle trapped within the constraints of his house walls.

He was trapping Sophia in.

"You're wrong Ebony. There is Will, subtle and flimsy but it's there." Dusk corrected him in his mindspace.

"I don't sense it." He replied honestly. Sophia wore more metal on her body than it appeared from her Quest Hall dress outer garments.

Mark held the upper hand with his heavy spear's frontal charge. Sending Sophia across his garden but she ripped herself forward by controlling the metal she wore and prevented herself from crashing painfully into Ebony's reinforced walls.

Both her metal stilettos were dented but they waved like a liquid before getting back into shape.

"Mm, but it's there. I'm unsure if it's the runic circle forming a Will, or Mark himself." Dusk confirmed once more.

"The Korun language doesn't deal with Will, or any other runes we know." Mark was a diligent and hardworking man, Ebony admits. But he found it hard to believe the man could manifest Will. The temperature rose to enhance Mark but Ebony's garden was under his protection.

A look at Mark's spear-wielding allowed him to understand that the man never slacked on training his body and technique.

'A proper spear dance to spin his runic circles into a spell for attack. That spear can cast more than 3 predetermined circles now. It has individual symbols and Mark draws spells into existence with this spear dance of his. Mistake...weakpoint, too many ways to break his spell-casting dance.'

Mark flung fireball after fireball from the tip of his spear swings while every upward swing conjured earthen walls to defend himself from metal spikes jabbing his face.

His fighting style was quite different from decades ago and was well-polished. While he had the advantage in speed, power and spell variety Sophia was a lot better and aiming for weaknesses. Her 'talent' was showing while Mark's experience and effort to chase up to talent shone through.

"Stop that irritating bending Ironshade." Mark frowned when his spear was moving against his control.

A metal spear it may be, but Mark properly imbued it with his mana. This gave the weapon something similar to a person's magic body to resist external mana manipulation but it was much weaker compared to the natural magic body.

"Then stop raising the temperature, my hair's gonna catch on fire." Sophia was having difficulties breathing while the metal on her body was maintained with her mana.

'She's not good with environmental effects while being decent with understanding battle. Mark still doesn't get battle but he's honed by it.' With Mark's obvious advantage in power and speed, it was almost pitiful how long it was taking him to land a clean hit on Sophia because he never did until Sophia was running low on mana to prevent her metal from melting while also imbuing her equipment to withstand hits from Mark.

To be fair, Mark's mana capacity was even smaller. The potion he threw on the ground reduced the mana consumption of his false Domain, a good area of effect spell.

When Mark was about to drive his spear into Sophia's shoulder, Seven Flickered into its path and grabbed the spear handle. Steam rose from Seven's hands but the hot spear was stopped short of being driven into his new business partner's shoulder.

'Surprisingly hot. His body can handle this much heat? Seems almost equivalent to two tier 4 augmentations at level 500. He was taking it rather easily, he's improved a lot. As expected from Sister Jing's nominal apprentice I suppose.'

Seven obtained a fresh towel and passed it to Sophia to wipe the char on her while passing her a potion and cream for burns. The fireballs she was forced to take did quite a number on her but her clothes were fine which proved that she protected herself with mana well enough from the fire onslaught.

"You don't seem to need introductions," Ebony stated. They seemed to know each other well enough that introductions weren't in order.

"We do!" They yelled in unison.

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