Recently, all Ebony had been reading up on was history around the Hex Region and general history of the universe as they know it.

This was knowledge in extreme abundance, it might be accurate to say that history was the knowledge most widely covered in the library. The key difference between the history books found in this mighty online library compared to Elcrian history was how religion and types of faith were deeply tied to most.

There was also close to nothing about Elcra, but since they were a young Worldcore, there was nothing shocking about its unknown state other than the fact of extremely few presence of Faith.

Hardly any talk of Gods or the like of a higher existence, which was almost a certainty for history on other Worldcores that developed a sentient race.

The topic of Gods was everywhere in history.

He wasn't sure where Miss Wiggles was bringing them, but to keep Xin busy, he took out snacks that were dry and hard to chew to keep Xin's mouth and stomach busy without letting her bloodlust consume her Gluttony. It was the simplest method to keep her conversationable when she was in her current state; if she was eating well, she might not even need his aura to calm her.

Sensing her gaze on his arm again, he closed in and raised her collar to wipe the crumbs of her lips while squeezing tight. The squeeze pushed out the blood stored in her mantle for her to sip on. There was no need to let the two bodyguards see their private act.

"Not fresh…"

"Hold on a little longer."

"A little? How long is a 'little'? Till we get back onboard in three to four weeks?"

"Won't be long."

"I don't want to wait. I want you now."

"You mean my blood right?"

"What do you think?"

He relented. She could use the recharge of energy, and there was no reason to reduce her stock of his blood when he could make as much blood as he wanted within his body.

Not anywhere close to how much her body produces, but he could regenerate as much as he wanted, and they would be filled with mana. They did lack life force in comparison, which may have been the whole idea for her, so he wasn't the unlimited blood bag she desired.

Perhaps it was his fault for sealing his wound instead of healing it earlier. Thawing the ice, he filled her a cup and let his flesh and skin heal.

"This snow and cold are unnatural. It's not winter." Ebony reported after noticing the difference in environment on the ground and up on Miss Wiggle's back.

"It's not a spell someone cast or a monster's physical ability either." Xin's intoxicated look was hidden behind her mask and he felt both pity and thankful for the mask now.

"We can confirm that this appears natural." Aethel backed no one up with his suit's information.

'Appears natural, not a spell cast but not winter. A lingering aura or effect of some creature or high rank material?' Ebony tried not to put much faith in his guesses when it came to unknown environments, it was better to plan for if he was wrong.

"Hex, are there people here? Caretakers or whatnot." If the owner was present, he might as well ask if communication could be possible so no conflict would arise by misunderstanding.

"Harvesters are not scheduled to arrive in another 3 centuries, give or take. So no, we are not aware of any 'people' and since these are our lands, no Spirit would have come from the Spirit Realm unless they also work under our God. However, they may be stragglers that came in fashion not to dissimilar with yours. We do not strictly control access since this place shouldn't have been seen in normal space."

"I see." Ebony ruled out magical constructs that produced snow periodically after confirming with the owner that this place was left untouched by technology, magical or not.

"Honey, I want it as a lol-lollipop? Extra frozen." The gluttonous lady's aura and Intent kept rising as she remained in her state and drank another quarter cup of his blood.

He froze his blood, shaped it into a round tablet, moulded heat resistance runes and chill runes before adding 0.2 point of Will to crackle into frostblaze once it hit moisture and for the blood to dilute itself over to maintain the popping frostblaze.

The bloodlolipop should last a few hours this way. They had experimented with this not long ago and this could curb her gluttony over a longer period.

Her aura beamed in delight as she almost snatched it out of his hands and dipped the candy in a hot chili sauce she prepared before popping it in. The stick was to prevent her from chewing or swallowing, but it was merely a weak deterrent.

His curiosity about the source of the ground's thin layer of snow and the unnatural cold coming with a gentle breeze had him spawn a couple of Scout Pigeons with a Wolf Explorer's mana and Will resources to leave Miss Wiggle's back to investigate.

'Follow against and along the gentle breeze, it is pulling or pushing a flow of mana to generate this breeze.' He guided his spawns.

The signs from the ambient mana made it simpler, as he had a direction to follow. His Rimeforged Apparitions can easily feel the wind by vibrations in the mana. The gentle breeze was both pulling and pushing at short distances continuously, so it was hard to say what was causing it or if it was being directed in a certain direction.

Mana doesn't move like that naturally and he'd only noticed it after Miss Wiggles brought them towards this place.

'Is Miss Wiggles also going to the source of this phenomenon? Her perception might be greater than mine, or it's her specialty as an evolved treasure hunting pig.' Ebony saw his Scout Pigeons fly around before going directly ahead and behind Miss Wiggles.

Miss Wiggles saw his miniscule construct and almost stood on her hind feet in response. "Hey, I'm not trying to get ahead and steal your prey. I'm just getting a better lay of the land." He patted the moving mountain and sent his voice with sound magic to her ears kilometers away from where they were sitting.

Two hours into Miss Wiggles' morning walk which didn't lose to his Flickering without Domain buff in traversal speed, she bent down to take a bite of a particularly lush forest. Chomping a hole clean, like eating grass from the ground directly.

"She finished digesting and using the energy from the giant she ate just now." Xin was on her second lollipop.

'She's going through the candy faster than I thought. Might have to adjust flavor and density according to her irritation levels.'

"Sir and ma'am, we're going into really dangerous territory. The ambient essence just keeps rising, and we aren't even on the ground!" Aethel yelled for attention.

"We really don't want to meet any wild Saint beast." Azeloth tightened his grip on his axe, slime leaking out of his suit's gauntlet a little more. The weapon was either treated by his slime or Azeloth could control what his slime corroded.

"Stop." Ebony's Will infused voice shut the Toddium bodyguards up.

Were they trying to rile his wife up with excitement in her current state?

Monsters and beasts were in the end, monsters. They always had stat advantages but hunting them was their specialty. There were always ways to kill something strong but dumb.

If Dusk were at higher capacity, he could just hunker down and freeze anything to death. It wasn't like most creatures could continue to regenerate mana to toughen their skin and bones while they were using mana.

The only caveat was his ability to freeze them or their ability to just walk away from trying to destroy Dusk while he hid inside.

As for dropping Dusk onto a creature, it'll more likely just destroy Dusk. Ebony had little frame for reference for how strong they were, but if he took the Xeng's compliment, the previous Dusk was surprisingly tough. At least tough enough that few of them, even if the Shi were at his rank and level, they would not be able to break it without immense effort.

Ebony did not have the confidence to survive against a Boiler Knight in real combat. For that reason, he didn't truly think he had a chance against a Saint.

Even a monster.

However not having confidence didn't make either of them hide in their hole. It wouldn't quite be 'living' if they were constantly stopped by their fears. Perhaps this mindset made them seem crazy to people since this was behavior that put aside natural preservation.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

"Hey. Imprint me with one of your stamps." Ebony requested the blood and life force magic enhancement spell.

"Not yet, it burns energy. I can regulate blood mana, but you can't and I can't get through your magic body even if my blood infec—blesses you. I'll do it at an appropriate time."

"Wouldn't it just burn my own? I can regenerate."

"Burns energy in blood, life force especially. Just leave the timing to me."

Relying on her Intuition, she was right that there was no need for him to waste energy on a buff he didn't need now.

His blood was lacking in life force, it was mana dense instead so her spell wasn't a perfect fit until she either found a way to control her Imprint over his magic body, he managed to reduce his resistance to her mana signature so that her spells work more easily inside him or she can use Intent to control her spell in a very complicated manner that he does for Will.

As they moved forward, Miss Wiggles shrank over time but sped itself up to keep up its pace. It shrank fast, and their viewing height was merely hundreds of metres off the ground within the next couple of minutes.

At this size, Ebony could support its movements with a tunnel of repulsion and Miss Wiggles easily adjusted and made use of a familiar elemental mana.

'Miss Wiggle's gigantism doesn't consume her mana, her mana pool is still as vast and filled as it was before…or is her gravitational pool making it hard for me to sense the accurate fill percentage of her mana pool?' Ebony squeezed his feet subconsciously.

His new boots which were torso sized had shrunk, perfectly hugging his leg. He hadn't had the chance to make use of them because they didn't have obvious passive abilities other than being very comfortable and virtually indestructible, absorbing all his force and transmitting it to the ground as if he weren't wearing boots so they weren't worn out easily.

They did have active usage to give him a burst of speed, but he couldn't activate the enchantment.

With his understanding of enchantment, he pinpointed the reason to be the lack of required energy to kickstart the enchantment. Runes that require a certain purity of mana would just be weakened when fed with lower purity mana, to a degree.

Enchantment doesn't activate until the minimum requirement for fuel is met. It had little to do with mana density, as far as he could tell, these boots could even take solidified mana as fuel to activate their enchantment.

If his new staff that Dusk was inhabiting now didn't have their seals, he would probably face the same issue with it.

There were two enhancements on the boots, one that would assist with movement speed that he couldn't activate yet and another that he could.

The one that he could activate converts all momentum into kinetic energy at the point of contact. He could activate with a slightly complicated maneuver of mana to power up one of his kicks.

It doesn't consume much mana other than the activation cost that was essentially a drop in the bucket; on the other hand, it consumes stamina. A lot of stamina would be directly drained from his feet.

The sensation was rather similar to chains and cuffs that absorbed mana and stamina to make prisoners weakened all the time. The stamina required was equivalent to a few hundred Flickers in a row compressed into a single moment.

With Ethereal Fluid Blitz building up momentum, he could unleash it all into a single kick that would kill his momentum, but his tests with Xin showed that it was worth it. Not dissimilar with Crystalline Avalanche with a sword, but less destructive and more piercing due to the directed force.

Perhaps stamina also had purity levels, and if his stamina was purer, the consumption wouldn't be that high. He wasn't complaining since he could activate one of the two enchantments now, so his stamina must have met some minimum quality requirement.

While making blood candies with the blood mage, his mind was at the front with the Scout Pigeons. Something was accumulating over their bodies.

Light snow.

Before, the ground was covered by a thin layer of snow, but it wasn't snowing. That changed.

'Do I really not have snow perception? That's very odd when my Ice affinity is already at such high degrees.' The Scout Pigeon sensed through vibrations about the accumulating snow that froze to their bodies.'

The first sensation was a chill down the Will in the Scout Pigeons.

What in the world was this mana?

It was freezing up the veins within the ice construct and his very Will was getting stunted. The ice construct wasn't affected by frozen joints or muscles and could continue flying through manipulation of its icy body, but they were getting stiffer.

Ebony was losing control over his constructs even with the Will imbued. He pushed more Will through the length of Will Relay Buffers to erase the override of the Scout Pigeon's control.

"Brace. Something here has extremely high ice mana affinity and is also actively attacking my construct's Will. Unless it's just the environment being harsh." Ebony recognized that certain environments just weren't friendly to the living, and he currently couldn't tell if the mana was ambient or belonging to a creature.

If it were a creature, then this creature had already filled the entire distance they've covered so far with their mana and even further beyond because there was no additional mana signature.

"Will? Your constructs use Will?" Aethel shut himself up after telling himself that this pair weren't Grandmasters, so it shouldn't be too surprising that a mage could use Will.

Miss Wiggles took a few trots to reach where his Scout Pigeons had been before they slowed to a stop completely. He watched Xin's hair zap and stood up at the edges.

"Two of you can back off if you want." She warned their bodyguards.

"And the two of you can come with us, we don't need to do the exact opposite of what we should be doing." Azeloth put his feet down and leapt from the now tiny piglet to stand in front of the party.

"This is how you get stronger." His wife explained, but she didn't expect others to understand.

"We strongly insist, sir and ma'am." Azeloth was joined by his brother.

"Are you trying to stop us?"

"Merely to achieve what we're paid to do. Keeping the two of your young asses alive. I'd say this is as far as your selfishness goes. We were already fortunate to survive after getting detected by a Void Tardigrade. If you want to explore please do it after our contract terms end."

The lollipop stick that was equivalent to Dusk's trunk miniaturized, snapped, and her candy was crushed between her teeth.

Ebony put a hand on Xin's shoulder, "I admire the work ethic. But the traveller and explorer in us doesn't allow us to stop for a mere contract, one that I paid for. If you'd like, you may follow. If not, I would not see it as a breach on your end if you just wait here for your captain to arrive with the assault force."

"Just--just give me a second to make a call. That's a bit of jamming, but I think I can make a call."

'Professionals have standards…should I just fire them so they won't risk their lives?' Ebony got a bonk on his head from a knuckle. He thought he saw a tinge of black return to his wife's eyes. "Sorry, even after I said I will deal with the talking."

He almost chuckled; this was too small an issue to apologise for. "Did you think me mute?"

"You certainly wish you could be, so that it's quieter."

"I suppose if you speak for me, I can hear your voice more."

"No more flirting. Please save that for private time and place."

"CAN YOU TWO LOVEBIRDS PLEASE KEEP YOUR MANA MIXING TO YOUR DAMNED SELVES FOR ONE MOMENT, I'M TRYING TO WORK HERE!"

Ebony's lips twitched; he imagined a wide smile on Xin's expression right now when she whispered to him.

"Next time we have a trip, let's hire them again. They have guts. I'm pretty sure I just beat him up yesterday."

"I suppose we shouldn't risk flimsy lives…"

Ebony tried to link up with Eidolon and managed to leave a message to Sophia, giving her the two brothers' names and basic information and asking her to offer them a job at a high price if she had to. 'Oh right, she's getting trained by Na now, so she can't be contacted immediately.'

Ordina, or Na the Guardian and manifestation of the dungeon, still couldn't leave its confines of the dungeon without dying out quickly.

The parasitic plants he got for Na were in the midst of growth. With a dungeon to parasite on, it shouldn't take too long for a suitable species to grow strong enough to support Na's outdoor exploration.

"Our brot-captain would like to speak with you…sir," Azeloth added the last part after an angry glare at him for making their jobs harder than it should be.

"Can you hear me?" The voice wasn't rough in any way, but it did feel like they spoke with something clogged in their throat.

"Clear," Xin replied to the voice coming from Azeloth's suit.

"Stay still. If you want excitement. If you want a fight. I can give those. Wait for a week. If you want to explore, do so when our team arrives."

"Or what?" Xin replied.

"If I find both of you alive, I'll have to kick some common sense into your tiny human brains. If you're dead, we'll find your bodies. I'll give them a kick. Then we send whatever's left of you home. Kids should stay at home if they don't have self-preservation hammered into them." The call cut off with a zipping static of mana.

"Are all your brothers like that?" Black pointed at Azeloth while addressing Aethel.

"My older brothers…generally. But there are a lot of us." A wry smile crept onto Aethel's face.

"I'm beginning to like your people," Xin commented.

Lips separating slightly when his jaw loosened, Ebony was trying to figure out if she was translating what he was feeling or if that was her thoughts.

"Honey." She tugged his sleeves.

He cocked his head at her call.

"Can we keep them nice and safe?"

Dusk dropped out of the sky and smashed onto the Toddium brothers without a moment's pause.

He raised his hand to pull Dusk out of the tree frame and pushed his Will through when he realized the Toddium brothers' astronaut suits seemed immune to freezing.

Unfortunately, there was no such thing as immunity.

Their bodies quickly refracted out of sight as they turned invisible along with the tree. Ebony had been making massive improvements to his ability to make things invisible by refracting light as if nothing was there.

"Let's take a break here." Ebony raised the idea. It would not harm to get himself more time to regenerate mana and toughen Dusk's tree form up more. As it stands, they could use a better safety net.

"You're so reliable." She read his emotions of unease and desire to give them better security. It was also out of consideration for the Toddiums, who showed surprising concern. If not, the emotion detector wouldn't have decided they were good people.

"…"

"Heheh finally shy? So cute, I love that." She pinched his cheeks to widen for a peck and a deep embrace.

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