Squatting in the corner of Kong Jing's workshop, Mark and Hector whispered to each other. "Can't you get your master to whoosh us home?!"

"You overestimate me, Prince. I'm barely a disciple!" Mark quipped, his hair a mess.

"We gotta find a way out!" Hector held his head in desperation, deep eye bags haunting him.

"Why are you complaining, you've been getting way stronger with skill evolution almost monthly." Mark frowned in annoyance.

"These people are crazy, mad, insane! They think I'm an elling golem that is supposed to be reassembled after breaking down from pressure. If I didn't have my family's potions, I'd long suffer irreparable injuries! They don't seem to care about injuries but I surely do!"

"I…I was tossed into spars too, even though I'm just here to complete a research project. These-these damned people already stole my runic liquids methods. Though, I'll gladly sell them for the wealth of information and techniques they've been teaching me. But no! They just saw my potions, and poof, they deciphered every step and ingredient without even drinking any!" The talentless man was beginning to see a true gulf in abilities.

Prides crushed, Mark and Hector knew the benefits of staying here but they'd had enough. They needed a break.

The Xengs didn't hide techniques if they could and most of them freely shared what they deemed as common knowledge.

More so when Kong Jing brought Mark around, everyone else they met was an elder. Teaching them, lecturing them. Mark was in a knowledge paradise but it was also torturous.

Mark had worse talents than Hector. He was genetically challenged against the remnant auras, even with how much the Xengs were trying to suppress.

He was normal.

A wisp of overflowing life force here could bend his knees.

A breath of air could blow him away.

Falling on the floor would cause him an injury instead of leaving a print in the soft, fluffy soil.

If he didn't power his leather armour and heat himself for his enhancement, he might have difficulty breathing. The air was thick and heavy.

He couldn't hide in Master Jing's workshop forever because Kong Jing herself would be thrown outside her workshop as her aunts and uncles didn't like to see her shutting herself in a dim and stuffy room.

"You guys want to leave? Why didn't you say so earlier? Pack up! We're leaving." Kong Jing placed her hands on both their shoulders.

Jolting from the sudden appearance of the space mage, Hector fell on his butt while Mark was merely surprised. He was used to her abrupt intrusion into his space.

"Alright, I'll give Ebony a call." Hector furiously nodded his head.

"Stop! Are you dumb, little prince? Don't you understand that little brother of mine?" Kong Jing's mask's centre circle expanded, she was keeping their space extra secure from her Clan's listening, "that brother of mine is one of them, he won't help us escape this dreadful place. He would be questioning us why we would not want to train!"

"You're right, so what's the plan?" Hector slapped himself silly, he almost forgot who the one who brought him here was. And he was nice enough to gift the man one of his most prized collection!

"The two of you are guests, you can just say your greetings and are free to leave but neither of you can get down by yourself. Both of you can't fly and even if you can slow your descent, you'll be easy pickings for any aerial monster. I can deal with those problems for you, but I can't leave. I'll be running away from home. The other Clans won't care but my Aunts won't let me go so easily. We're on the same boat here so you better help me out, they won't be as harsh with me if there are guests around to protect my image."

"What can we even do?" Mark asked realistically.

"You have your little grimoire Mark, use them. I'll compensate you. As for you little prince, your chaotic elements had already shown promise in tearing space. As long as my captor is Second Aunt…you have a chance of catching her off guard while she's making clothes. I will tell you when I see her focused on her craft."

"Is that all to the plan? I'm just a measly Grandmaster, your Second Aunt's a level 1000 Emperor for who knows how many centuries!"

"Don't worry, Second Aunt uses space magic in threads and is an expert in intricate manipulation. I'm way better at wide-area spatial control. I'll keep both of you in my mask, you can use your punch or your grimoire inside my mask and I'll send the effects out. That will catch her off-guard for sure. Compared with my other aunts and uncles, she's the least reactive to combat means. She's slow." Kong Jing tapped her temple twice in a mocking fashion.

"What if your other aunts and uncles step in?" Hector got worried again, the plan seemed to have many holes in it.

"I've escaped many times, they won't bother! And my mom's not home so now's as good a time as any." Kong Jing urged.

"Then what are we waiting for? Let's go!" Hector stood up and hit his head against the stairway they were squatting under.

"Come back here, write your letter of formal leave, little prince. I'll send it to the Shi after we leave."

"What about me?" Mark took his grimoire out, flipping through the pages for a suitable spell.

After Kong Jing changed her evolutionary craft idea, she gave the grimoire idea to Mark as an assignment and he marginally impressed her. His idea was quite different from hers where the grimoire would be filled with every runic spell combination she knew.

"You're my guest so I can take you away. Little prince here is one of the Shis guests, it'll be disrespectful for him to leave without saying a word. Those fossils care about this more than you would think." Kong Jing dipped into her Mask's energy more, feeling anxious about whether anyone was peeking in at the moment.

After a hasty letter of respectful gratitude for the hospitality, Hector looked up at a half-sized circle on the mask of the famed crafter of Elcra, then at his fellow 'captive'.

They nodded enthusiastically in tandem and started the great escape.

'If Ebony's gonna brag about his escapes for a minute, then I'm gonna brag about this one for the next century!'

❅❅❅

Quaking Impact - Infuse mana into any physical or mana based attack, enabling them to penetrate deep into the target or spread apart within the point of impact. Mana embeds itself in a stationary position and quakes violently. Mana embedding increases in strength by 500% + 5.0% Intelligence per level. Strength and speed of vibrations increased by 400% + 5.0% per level.

Consumes MP.

Classification: Sound Magic - Physical Technique

Mantle of Reservation - Manipulate gravity mana to form a protective mantle around yourself or a target, selectively reflecting or allowing external forces to pass through. The mantle reacts dynamically: the harder an object or force pushes against it, the stronger the repelling force becomes, countering with up to 950% + 10.0% Intelligence of reflective power. Taming the nature of gravity by 600% + 10.0% Intelligence, enabling you to impose order and dictate the interaction between incoming forces and the mantle.

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Consumes 7200 MP/Min.

Classification: Gravity Magic

'Both have a reduction in mana cost. I'm getting better with mana efficiency control. Mantle of Reservation sounds a lot different and the refinement base value shows a refinement as well on top of the mutation. Quaking Impact no longer gets a weaker effect if I don't kick.'

Ebony took a shot of the multibillion-dollar potion.

It wasn't some physique-enhancing potion. Just a simple healing potion that worked even on partial mana beings and someone of his effective constitution. He was lucky he was just a Grandmaster and there were still effective potions for him.

He didn't have to pay for it, it was under the Xeng's education support funds. He was eligible for it along with Shi Ling.

After he turned into a proper adult, an Emperor ranked creature he could set aside some funds for this every so often too.

Even Ning Xin and Kong Jing's food and material funds came from this account.

The Xengs weren't great at making money. So, families who couldn't support their children with the best-received help from other families, and then other clans.

After the fourth generation, they made an official repository for all Xeng children managed by the Yu Clan.

Clans aside, all of them generally hated when their children couldn't have the best of anything from food to clothes and finally training.

This repository or childcare fund was different from their treasury.

Their public treasury held items, weapons, amours and other unique artifacts that people literally challenged Saints to the death for but then were donated after it was no longer useful for them.

It was a dusty storage that they only opened to newer Emperors every couple of decades and recently every couple of centuries.

Still, there were still quite a few Xengs who weren't Emperors yet so the treasury would be open sooner or later.

Chassis healed, he sat still and further grew his mireloom. The method he used now no longer required him to always wait with a full mana pool.

Ebony siphoned mana from Dusk's storage and had the Domain Core help by using Will to forcefully push extra mana into his chassis and internal factory. This sped up his ability to level his Unique Skill exponentially.

He was using a lot of resources to make this training happen.

A Saint sleeping outside the 'room' in the dungeon they were in protecting him from the dangers of the Xeng exclusive dungeon.

Time elemental mana ores were exceedingly rare. No amount of money could buy it.

Hector had once mentioned using a small piece on Tova. It was something passed down through the generations in the Lord family, something obtained from Lacuna Expanse.

The most 'common' place that one could find a Time elemental mana ore was dungeons.

The Xengs sadly didn't have any time elemental mana ores left for him, even if some individuals had some they had no reason to give it to him. This dungeon also hasn't produced any for a long time.

But there was no need, the dungeon on Sky's Edge didn't follow Elcra's time scale. It was born elsewhere and followed the time scale there.

The room he was kept in was a box, his new cage.

The only difference was that this cage was the only thing keeping him alive in this dungeon. Just barely, but he was alive.

Chugging multibillion-dollar potions every hour because the room doesn't permanently keep him alive.

A spear was impaling creatures that Ebony couldn't see or hear thanks to his cage, but there was a spear out there.

To say he wasn't curious would be a lie.

He wasn't even allowed to see the dungeon portal outside nor allowed to find out where the portal was on Sky's Edge.

Being boxed up before he was brought here, he didn't see, hear or sense anything in or out of this dungeon.

All he knew was that a certain spear and a certain aunt were near him and his pet tree, boxed up along with him. A box big enough inside that he could train unrestricted.

His Aunt's voice was the only thing that could come through the box besides whatever this alien energy was hurting him.

"I wonder if this makes me older than Xin now," Ebony muttered to Dusk. Xin was a few months older than him but a time differential dungeon could change that.

"No it wouldn't. You don't age here." Shi Tao replied to his mutterings.

"What does that entail exactly? Time's not moving?"

"Don't talk nonsense. Time is moving, we just don't age. That is the rule here. Your skills haven't levelled once here, have they? We can't level here. Even if you do push-ups, your muscles won't grow no matter how much you train here. You're overloading your chassis thing but it hasn't grown at all has it?"

"But-"

"Stop thinking so hard, it's not complicated. We don't grow or age here. Why did I bring you here? Time is moving, otherwise you wouldn't be moving. You don't age or grow, but you retain something. Do you remember how you appeared on Elcra and your skill levels were leveling fast? This dungeon allows us to simulate the same situation where your actual 'skill' is ahead of your skill level and overall ability."

"If time is moving, we are aging by staying here. I am thinking, existing. Time has passed, so I am growing and aging, my body and mind is just restricted."

"No, time is indeed moving but you are held back here."

"That's the restriction."

"That is the rule. Think of it like your Will, there is a rule here that stops your aging."

"I don't think you understand what I'm trying to say," Ebony argued.

"And you don't understand what I'm trying to explain to you. It's okay, you will understand when we leave."

At an impasse, they were both insistent that they were right in theory.

He just lost to the urge to focus and go back to feeling the sensation of mana overloading his chassis.

Once again distracted when he felt his channels smoothening and getting used to a greater degree of mana.

How is he not growing?

Both his body and mind were changing, his thoughts were changing. He was using energy. He could get hungry.

Shi Tao had to be pranking him.

He was told time was a lot slower than it was in standard inside but not the exact time dilation.

Since he was in no rush, he checked his internal factory again. Having already designed millions of new designs, he didn't bother doing anything to change his skill now.

He was well aware that he couldn't change anything. He lacked the strength of mind and Will to edit whatever was in here tighter than they already were.

As for more complex designs of the same amount of material, he had no guarantee they would produce more efficient results or destroy whatever he'd built.

It was a pity he was disconnected from his Clones and network this way.

Sparking with lightning, he fought the mass of energy hurting him.

Zapping it, freezing it, compressing it with gravity, he kept it sealed. Well…keeping himself sealed in ice to enhance his healing also trapped the energy inside him but it did keep more of it from entering.

'It's quiet. No indiscernible murmurings? That's rare and Lunar Bioclock isn't working. So no stars or celestial bodies nearby. There are murmurings in other dungeons so it's not just because I'm in a dungeon.' Ebony discarded the thought, it was a pity but the generic skill was hardly a priority to train.

He was just so used to hearing and also cutting out the inane and demented mutterings of celestial bodies that it was almost fresh to have them completely silent. He had tried to understand them but they had absolutely no meaning to him. It was the same on any planet he'd been to, his old cell currently sleeping on his wrist also couldn't stop him from hearing them.

As much as he would've liked noise for his Core Skills training, these alien murmurings weren't enough to even disturb his mental train of thought so they were just white noise to him that he could silence out anytime.

"QUASAR!" Ebony's very soul shook at the yell, his mana chassis collapsing inwards from a mere shout.

Unaware of what was happening outside, he was more confused than scared of what showed up. "Sending a Life Reaper and spirits of agony on my nephew…haven't seen one with so much guts in a long time."

"Can you shut up?" Another voice calmly directed to his Aunt.

Ebony felt another mind caressing his body. It was a weird feeling, the mental power was so palpable that he felt hands massaging his mana chassis to repair and protect them from the crushing aura of his Aunt.

"You're here. You must know. Tell me who."

"Son of Winter hunted a Nebulian down. Mandated agony and misery."

"Where?"

"Dead."

"I'll get Zhao Sui. My newp-"

"Hmm, I'll take care of him. Go."

"Quasar, come get Zhao Sui with me." Left behind, Ebony could only hear that his entourage was about to change hands.

The pause made had him cocking his head at what he heard next.

"Let's go to hell."

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