The additional strengthening of spells worked weirdly for him. With purity and density hitting their limit after the staff filtered his mana, he didn't know how more mana could strengthen the same spell up to 180% of its original effect.

Almost doubling the power of most of his spells, after all his self-augmentation. Projectiles flew approximately 1.8 times faster, shields were 1.8 times tougher, and gravity was 1.8 times stronger.

The mana cost of maximum strengthening was around 2.1 times of the original mana cost of his spells. This was very cost-efficient.

Making a new spell and tossing more mana at the problem wasn't a direct increase like mana density. He could make a shield gigantic with a lot of mana but the strength of the shield wouldn't necessarily improve as much as his mana dumped into the spell.

'No runes, it's enchanted instead. Matches the no growth for direct power trait of the crafter.' He'd read many books on enchantment, they were the more studied art of magic on Elcra compared to runes.

However, the pros rarely outweigh the cons compared to runes. Perhaps that was just Elcrian enchantment's technological advancement being insufficient compared to Kong Jing's runic teachings.

Ebony couldn't find the flaw of using this weapon. He could even use it to whack someone, it being much tougher than Icicle.

The staff was 1.82 metres long. Its body was pure black twisted wood that glittered a little with fragments of crystalline structure. The 'glitter' was dull and absorbed light instead of reflecting.

It was hard to tell if this was a mixture of wood and a crystal made by crushing stars together. The twisted wood entwined itself from sharp tip to head, hugging the core of its structure. Half the size of a fist, a perfect sphere. A rod that looks suspiciously fitting as a spear since the tip of the core was the body met and sharpened to a point.

Still, if he really wanted to use a spear this was too short as a proper spear for his current frame.

The orb had been transparent, but it now took on a dot of dark blue-purple hue, contaminated by Ebony's mana and elements of ice and gravity. It was still mostly transparent, but the growing centre would take over the whole orb soon enough. He did run mana to convert to lightning too and it was also strengthened but not to the same degree of arcane, ice or gravity.

Funnily enough, the staff's greatest effect was on his sealing magic. Perhaps because his sealing magic was a combination of almost all of his magical capabilities from arcane to elements to Will.

Now the experiments got interesting when he tried to imbue his Will into the staff.

It was like his Will got lost the moment he tried to imbue it into the construct. Not exactly lost, he could still feel it, but it felt like it was sent very far away.

He got so engrossed playing with his new weapon that he lost track of time.

"Why do I see a dark glint in your eyes?" His wife pulled on his ear for making her wait at the dining table for more than a minute.

"Nothing of the sort." Ebony passed the staff to its new owner, Dusk.

It was extremely powerful, that was for sure. But Ebony didn't hesitate to have Dusk take it.

His new plans would be injected into Dusk over the next few years. No matter how he saw it, the staff was best suited for Dusk.

Dusk lacked an actual core, its power source was merely a big container for mana. The staff on the other hand easily surpassed the power source's capacity and Ebony had never found or heard of anything that could take Will like so. He hadn't finished enough experiments, but his mind was already made.

Dusk would integrate itself with this gift of his.

"You and your experiments…well, I feel like you just made a great decision. Whatever it is."

"I'm giving my staff to Dusk permanently."

Over dinner, his wife brought up Teheil and her true goal there. How she used to have some kind of worm trapped within her heart for years but she fully consumed and mutated her Physique before their wedding.

She mentioned being confused as to why it suddenly became easier to kill the worm permanently and her Intuition feeling off for unknown reasons.

Why did she let the High Priestess go despite the betrayal. She returned a life for a life, she was saved by the High Priestess once, fed for years and she returned the favour with the High Priestess life.

Being the Symbol of Might had nothing to do with her decision.

The 17th hour marked their dinner time and usually never lasted more than an hour regardless of how much food was on the menu. They would have another training session up to the 20th hour going from a light workout to an intense end.

Their personalized training field was a real pattern changer. He was training so much more efficiently and intensely with its help.

Ebony was able to replicate the training methods that his mother scribbled down with the help of this field. By his estimation and the gifts on Conditioning by the Shi and Ning for both body and mind, he had no doubt that his training method should be qualified as a Tier 6 technique and so was his wife's. After their modifications for it to fit their personal fighting style.

The couple were both surprisingly germaphobic when it came to their room and bed. They weren't strangers to being covered in mud, grime and blood and they wouldn't bat an eye when forced to be splattered all over with dirt but precious time every day was spent on cleanliness.

They had room-specific sets of clothes, loungewear and outdoor wear. They wouldn't touch the bed till they washed up one extra time and wouldn't return till they washed up again.

After another shower was supposed to be time they spent together, watching movies with Hex available, entertainment was never lacking. Training combined spells in relaxation.

That should've been what it was but, every silent moment in close proximity seemed to end up with both of them checking each other out. The memory lights were deaf on the couple's ears.

Actively exercising and exploring each other till the 2nd hour when the day repeats.

"This can't do!" His wife, all washed up sat in front of the bedside mirror with Ebony behind her.

Ebony saw his father doing this so much, it felt surreal for him to be standing in his position.

Xin didn't let him do much of the housework saying he tended the garden but he technically only had one duty, taking care of her hair.

He'd watch his father brush his mother's hair every single day, now it was his turn but he took care of styling too. Unlike his mother with shoulder-length hair, he was presented with a bigger challenge and also more options.

Married Xeng never left the house with loose hair, even the laziest or most careless of men would tie a small braid somewhere on their wife's head. There were some exceptions, those with dead husbands would let their hair down or those unmarried.

This wasn't only Xeng culture actually, it was quite common around these parts, amongst different races.

"What can't?"

"we-uh, we're too distracted, we need some rules."

"We are spending a lot of time together but I wouldn't call it unproductive." He leaned forward while testing a new braid pattern.

"Baack up!" She blushed and pushed his face forcefully. She had slowly been getting resistant to getting too close physically due to how that ended up all the time.

With her Convalesce state, her fake resistance was cute.

"I need to sleep! I'll do my duties but you need to let me sleep. We're setting a limit to our activities or it's affecting our training."

"Mmm. I'm listening." He answered as seriously as he always was. Trying his best to work her hair while she checked herself in the mirror. Since she didn't use makeup or any products, she was being helpful by not moving around.

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"How about…6, no 8 hours maximum a day. Uh-we'll test it." Ebony waved his hand above her head, she started to steam out of her face and head again.

"That's how much we've been spending." He replied but that got her to turn furiously and glare at him with her burning face.

He pushed her face back to the mirror and continued braiding, "We'll figure things out." The truth was, they spent many of their noons with each other instead of cooking or reading so her concern was real.

"Something is at the door." She changed the subject abruptly.

"We've been receiving some letters."

"You never told me."

"We had more important things to do."

After getting pinched, he took the physical mail they'd been receiving.

"This one's from the Royal family, we've been invited to a ball." He summarised the letter.

"Invited to a ball??"

"A formal event, dinner, speeches and dance. Not a toy ball." Ebony was amused that the languages managed to match so perfectly for this misunderstanding to follow.

"Sounds tiresome and I don't know how to dance so let's not, what's this ball even for?"

"Official ball for the victory against the Tetramyth."

"It's been so many years!"

"It's not easy to get all the Nobles together and they just announced the war and victory to the public last week. I never learned to dance either but I thought we'd go."

"You want to go to a social event?" She sounded surprised that he wasn't lying.

"I'd get to see you in a different style of dress."

"Keep your hands and eyes off and don't get too touchy in public."

"This letter is from Mallory, for a tea party in two days." He knew she would go so he continued to flip through, "some of these are congratulatory messages from our neighbours." Their wedding wasn't exactly a secret with all the hustle and bustle.

Another benefit of the social event known as his wedding was that pretty much all oversea--out of planet bounty hunters dropped the ball and gave up on his bounty. With literal hundreds of Emperors and incognito Saint entertainers most with brains and eyes knew to turn around.

However, Sophia proved her words right. There were still a small number of them who hadn't given up, either drunk on the day of his wedding or didn't do their homework on who the Xengs were. Basically, he was overestimating the intelligence of evolved people.

Just over the past two weeks, 4 of them finally decided to act on it. All of them could separate his clones from a real person and all of them pinpointed his home. So they saw him returning as a chance.

Seven, his Number had already delivered all of them to their previous home. They didn't get a meter past his gates and fences.

Oplot was true to his words, no more Imperials, Jaded Parasites or not went after his bounty.

At least these attackers were all King ranked, with higher mana regeneration their sentences being sealed would be shorter.

They were studying him and he did the same to them, all of them were from this Sector. So they were mana based which made things simpler, it would be troublesome if his captives didn't regenerate mana but some other energy.

Two of the sealed bounty hunters were Oreads, the Nymph race a subordinate force of the Elves in some way, they worked individually. At least none of them were Nereids who were ocean or sea Nymphs. As they were supposedly a type of nature spirit, they had quite a strong resistance to ice magic in comparison to the dominant races on Elcra.

Ebony didn't know much about these individuals but their natural mana regeneration was like an Elcrian Archmage constantly having tier 4 meditation on. His aura's effect on them was greater than it was on humans so their sealed term should be much shorter. If he recalled right, they were from one of the forces that were currently allies with Elcra thanks to their relation with the Elves.

Tier 4 meditation wasn't something most Elcrians had, perhaps those Ducal families with a mage lineage had.

The other two were a pair of dwarves who were once from Elcra but left through Lacuna Expanse, they had some fame and Ebony was able to find their traces in Elcra's history. The pair of Dwarves were brothers. Notorious bandits from the time the Empire wasn't united under Navin's rule.

No town or city barriers, no all-round healing that Tidal has and frequent monster attacks, dungeon breaks and aerial bombardment or stray spells.

Bandits ran amok back then and these brothers had not changed their ways over the past few centuries. They used Lacuna Expanse as their intermediary and mapped out routes to multiple Worldcores nearby.

Moving between 3 to 4 Worldcores, they've lived on robbing and plundering all this time, bounty hunting was a side gig whenever they had good targets. Ebony was conveniently within their working range.

With the map they used to bail themselves with, about a quarter of their sentence was reduced. He had Sophia estimate the price of the map with her intelligence network.

Unable to get past a meter from his fence, they were no different from children who accidentally kicked their ball over. It was hard to feel the need to kill them if they had so little capability to act on their desire for his life and bounty. These bounty hunters didn't even have killing intent, when they came knocking, all they were thinking about was money.

Honestly, it would have been a lot easier if they just had killing intent. He wouldn't have to deal with all the troublesome work and interaction if they did.

He'd hoped this was enough for the rest of the bounty hunters to leave him alone, they should have some sort of surveillance in place even if they weren't in Dusk and his Buffer's surveillance range.

One didn't necessarily need to be present to scout and good hunters knew not to stick their tail out. At least they weren't incapable in this regard.

After their morning training where they focused on themselves, they went for a flight into space. Since his wife wanted a change of pace from their physical intimacy, they returned following their ancestor and aunt's advice.

He wanted to bring along the two Saint's gift boxes that were unopened but his wife felt that there was no need so he left them with Dusk, a safer place than if it was with him.

The value of these two boxes no doubt would be the highest of all the gifts. It was hard to put a price on the Wen and the First's gifts and it'll probably be the same way for these two boxes. The reason for this assurance was partially because of 'face' they couldn't give anything worse than the younger generations or they'd look stingy.

They arrived at Shi Tao's temple, where his wife shyly greeted her in-laws and seniors. "Healthy glow, good. Thinned life force and stamina. Did our granduncle mistreat you in any way?"

"Yes, you can tell us. We'll tell grandauntie or great-grandmother herself and they'll teach him a lesson." Shi Ke of the 5th gen assured.

"No, he's a charm," Xin replied with a shy smile.

"Are you sure? Although you have a shining complexion your thin stamina is telling us he's being too much on you, stamina is one of the Shi's redeeming features, so I imagine you're not taking it easy."

"n-no, he's trying to be gentle, I'm the one who-" She quickly blushed answering reflexively

"I'm still here." Ebony wasn't quite sure how to interact with his nieces and grandnieces who were probably hundreds to thousands of years older than him.

"Make yourself at home greatuncle, no one else is around. Ancestor is somewhere on the island." Shi Yi waved him off. It seemed like his cousin Shi Qiang wasn't around.

He was forced to listen to the three ladies chat his wife up. 'Since when are they so chatty? Is that how women get when they're around each other?' He didn't know that extended to the Shi, but it seemed like it did. The only confusing part was that the topic of the conversation couldn't seem to pull away from their personal physical activities.

"Uncle be a dear and don't eavesdrop, we'll give her some tips and techniques. For your benefit too." Shi Han of the 4th glared softly.

"Don't worry granduncle, being mismatched in physical ability is common. Once you build a permanent Bond, your marriage dilemma and sex life won't be a big issue in the long run. If you have nothing to do then just go read on Tamer Classes and types of Bonds."

"Mmm." He replied without much thought

Seeing how interested Xin was, he left them alone and dived into the premium library. Taming was never high or anywhere on his priority list so he hasn't read many books on them.

However, he did know about Bonds. For example, Xin's internal status supposedly had a Bond listing down her twin swords. Her mask didn't count as a bond since it was literally part of her.

This was proof that her swords had living spirits ageing and the growth process was very different, it was not linear and may not necessarily be related to their age at all.

Bonds gave creatures the ability to instinctively understand each other with fewer communicative or informational cues. According to one of Hex's anonymous census, about 2.8% of married couples longer than a century had Bonds with each other. This was in the news and the journalist equivalent was an employee of Hex.

Online news wasn't something he ignored completely but most of the readily available news was essentially useless. Hex Region had its own 'central' and the Sector that they were in didn't have a journalist so there were no reports on newly discovered Worldcores, large asteroids to avoid or a spatial swarm of monsters. The occasional sighting of a Void creature usually made headlines.

However, Bonds were rather common amongst naturally born twins or people who fought cooperatively long enough. He was pretty sure the Imperial Elite members who could take Navin on in large numbers had Bonds with each other because their teamwork was nearly impeccable even without anyone shouting commands.

Paying up millions, he climbed up the spiral stairway surprisingly high before he found the highlighted book.

There were hundreds of types of Bonds. Physical, mental, spiritual and even soul were some of the common types.

Master-servant Bonds between Tamer's and their tamed beast.

Life-Life Bond that could be forcefully cast between two parties that connected their life and death.

Equal Benefit Bond was a Summoner's technique when contracting the spirits they summoned. Of course, that was only for some summoners, there were summoners who didn't need to bond with the creatures or spirits they summon or use a Master-servant Bond spell like a Tamer. They had many overlaps.

There were even excerpts about very few examples when certain people managed to Bond with inanimate objects without sentience which was previously thought to be impossible.

It was information good to have but non-essential. Regardless of what type of Bond that could be, the common benefit was the ability to understand the other entity more instinctually except for forcefully cast Bonds, those against one's will.

It was only a matter of time for evolved creatures to build bonds with close partners.

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