When it came to kills, natural potential notifications usually came for 10 sets of 10 level increments. For a level 500 Grandmaster, a level 600 kill was 10 sets of increments that would warrant a notification from what Ebony referred to as the Ubiquitous Providence. Or just one, if they never killed anything from 500 to 599.

The next ten came in 25 level increments, after the first 100. Which would mean a level 850 King would give them every increment in between.

Ebony believed that even without these 10 or 25 increments, they actually still had Natural Potential increments. It just never registered as something the Ubiquitous Providence bothered with. Just like eating, drinking and breathing.

In all likelihood, the pattern continued for the next set of 10. 50 level increments. If he managed to kill a level 1350 creature, he might get the next 10 sets of increments to his Natural Potential.

Since this was in relation to one's maximum level at their evolutionary stage, it was only going to be less possible as they evolved.

A Saint's level range was no longer a secret to him since they had two at their ancestral home.

Journeyman: 0 - 100

Master: 100 - 300

Grandmaster: 300 - 500

King: 500 - 750

Emperor: 750 - 1000

Saint: 1000 - 1500

Demi-God: 1500 - ??

Was about how he summarised it. He was pretty sure a Saint evolves into a Demi-God, and they were also equivalent to Mythical creatures that his cousin was remotely fighting while attending his wedding.

Vent tagged along on their return trip when their ride arrived. The ship had internal holes that were being patched after they were consumed by the void but it was operating with no issues.

"Thanks for opening this space up, Hex."

"We wanted you out, too. The crew has already been contracted to forget this place exists. As for you, as long as you don't divulge this information, you can keep your memories."

"How about Vent?"

"...Untouched."

There was truly not much to do on the planet. His partner had busied herself with hunting, cooking and refilling her energy reserves all the while, to distract herself.

Without any reason to stay behind, they boarded the ship without delay.

The Worldcore who was crying day in and out from pain had no mentality to send another Saint to them throughout the wait, and he wasn't waiting around to test that. As for treasures on the planet, neither Miss Wiggles nor Xin was excited. Understandably so if Hex occasionally harvests the Worldcore of its natural treasures.

Miss Wiggles sulked when it didn't get to eat the fancy box that Vent had, but she probably long forgotten about that after the Soldier and the constant snacking every time she opened her eyes.

"Sir, shall we continue on the original path to Cinderash?" A dog-eared attendant greeted him.

"Honey—" Xin looked at him with her hands grabbing his waist and gripping his robe tight, "can we go home now? I can't take it much longer."

'I lost all the mana I prepared for Gearhart to the Void Tardigrade, so its not like I can do anything to him.' Ebony made an excuse that he didn't need. He might have been regenerating, but he was technically out of mana by his definition. Not a moment passed on the planet that he didn't need all his mana.

Hitting above their weight class was not easy for them.

Going home after a nice trip was also part of the joy of travelling.

❅❅❅

01.11.5554, A month ago.

Seven ran his hand through the ice tendrils he had as hair.

He took upon himself a rather interesting job of being a teacher, an instructor.

Ebony gave very simple directions for his clones when it came to non-essential priorities to allow them to develop in a different way from how Ebony himself would grow. This grows their Will more efficiently. With dozens of clones, Ebony doesn't change much with all their experience.

The Apparitions may experience a life, but all of it returned to Ebony would have the man feel everything diluted. All of their Will was a mere fraction of their main body but over time, they will change.

Regardless, Seven had the same idea. If he was going to have students and teach whatever class he'd like, then he preferred one that wasn't focused on martial arts, mana manipulation or any of his elemental magic. He just wanted to make the strongest.

Hence, Seven had to develop a test for those who decided to take Mallory's advertisement for his class. He needed to filter out those not serious about getting stronger.

Mallory was the acting headmistress of Tidal Academy, a word from her was easily spread.

New courses opening at any time in the year was a common thing, and they didn't have predefined terms other than a yearly holiday period in the winter. Many classes still continued, but certain instructors who brought their students out of the Capital halted their class as if Winter wasn't the best period for survival training.

At her discretion, she teased him by using his old titles known by the Imperials and the minor 'achievements' in war against the Trolls and Tetramyth.

The Imperials generally didn't look highly upon hybrid classes like Ebony's feats suggested, from a close-range fighter toa mage to a support class behind fortress walls. After all, true specialisations are where the strongest of each profession usually comes from.

Ebony never denied that, but synergy comes in many different forms.

All in all, that wasn't very impressive of a portfolio except for the 'Domain Mage' prefix she gave him since Elcra barely had any and those that were were mostly Elves who didn't teach at her academy.

Seven didn't mind even though he couldn't cast a Domain himself, even if Kings came to his class, he didn't really need a Domain to prove himself. Their home Turtle Fort, and most of the Apparitions were shut down in hibernation and the entire continents Will Relay Buffer was running a mana absorption channel, so he had mana to spare.

Still, less than a twentieth of the main body's regeneration since the Will Relay Buffers weren't exactly absorbing and purifying mana from the whole continent, and the transmission to the Turtle Fort had a lot of mana loss. It was even stored outside the Capital City because Navin's barrier would absorb ambient mana as well. Unless they purified and converted it to ice mana as close to Ebony's properties as possible.

And he didn't need to worry about Kings, he specifically asked for Journeymen or Unclassed, but didn't mind anyone more evolved. With Kings being the most evolved people on Elcra, with the exception of 2 Elven Matriarchs that never leaves their home forest and some Xeng taking a vacation at Xienor, he highly doubted they would go to class taught by a Grandmaster.

The title of Domain Mage meant a lot to the Imperials; they saw it as the peak of magic mastery. Amongst thousands of Arch Mages past and present, there were hardly 1 or 2 human Domain Mages. In fact, there should only be 2 now, and both were old enough to kick the bucket soon.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

That was still impressive for baseline humans. A good Domain Mage typically rises from Emperors for humans due to lacking Will from a King.

From the Numbers expansion activities, they already knew who and where these Domain Mages were. Ebony gauged them as expected, to have Budding Domains. They were far from the level of the Elven Domain that was built by numerous Elves over generations. Just like Dusk, these human mages had to build a Domain individually. At the same time, these Domains protected the owner more reactively than the Elven Domain which had multiple owners.

Seven and Ebony's criteria for a student were quite simple. As long as showed they wanted to grow, that was enough for them.

Three days after Ebony left on his honeymoon's continuation, Seven stood on an open field within Tidal Academy's massive campus grounds. It was as big as a small country on Earth. The Capital truly had too much land to spare.

"Mallory." Seven Flickered to the host's side and refracted his body into view.

"You're here…in that ghost-like fashion again." The headmistress was dressed to the nines as usual.

The people who stood before the headmistress were mostly spooked by his sudden appearance.

"This is a lot more people than I was prepared for, and I was prepared." Seven mused, why were there exactly 600 younglings here?

Further to the side was an entire gallery of people.

"Many of them are family members and friends from knights and imperial mages that personally know you." She explained. The gallery was made up of these people with some of the strongest auras that one would see from an Imperial.

"I know." Seven had the mental profiles of every person present pulled up through the Will library stored in the Turtle Fort. It was limited since Dusk wasn't around, but this information wasn't crucial enough to store in his limited Will capacity so all the Numbers centralised the information.

'Scholarship, huh? Nice to see that they never stopped training.' Seven nodded to himself at the familiar faces from Piercing Tempest Academy.

"I'll cut to the chase." Mallory's soft but powerful voice spread across the fields. As a mana manipulator 'genius' who made herself a partial mana being just by studying his Physique, she was also a sound mage. "This is Instructor Ebony. As of today, he is our Academy's Rank 1 instructor. I have high hopes from you."

She really kept it short.

Seven knew that the instructors had internal ranks here, and rank 1 was pretty much the top. Students under higher-ranked instructors also had benefits, so this must be Mallory's method of incentivising them to try harder to be a student of his.

He stepped forward and got straight into it. "I believe you've read or heard that I'm not specifically teaching techniques or spells.. Only pure combat." Seven waited for those scant few ice mages who wanted advanced ice magic spells to turn tail, those warriors and rogues who wanted to learn his movement skill.

As expected, they were already here, and none turned around.

"Sir!" Multiple hands were raised, but one brave loud mouth was heard.

"What is it that can't wait, Masline the Fourth?" Mallory identified the speaker for him.

"I thought you would be a King since you claim to teach us to be stronger than anyone but you're not even the strongest instructor."

"Masline.. Good senses, I am indeed not a King. I see, I suppose a test goes both ways." Seven understood where the boy was coming from. He was going to test if they 'wanted' to be strong, to test if they could really go through his class, but he wouldn't take the words of a stranger.

Although he had no need to prove himself, as a form of equivalent exchange, he was ready to be tested by them even if he wasn't exactly begging for them to be his students.

"My father says he won't let me learn from someone weaker than him." The Noblemen's descendant haughtily pumped his chest up.

"Does anyone else have a similar arrangement?" Mallory smiled as if she expected this.

There was an unsurprising number of hands raised. This seemed to be a common happening around these parts.

"That's right!! I'm not letting some unknown man tell my daughter how to fight if he doesn't know how!" A tall wolf-beastmen roared from the gallery. He restrained his life force in case the headmistress, Crown Princess, felt annoyed by him or harmed the young teens.

A Beastman Duke himself came to his daughter's interview. Ebony liked the priority the Duke placed on family; few amongst the Nobles did the same.

All the Dukes were King-ranked, and this man was no different.

Duke Entras, War Ram.

Known for his unstoppable charge and leading his team in large assaults against the Trolls in the war, the previous war and the one before that. He was 798 years old this year, and his 4th daughter was amongst the teens applying.

'That's old for a beastman, might have taken some life extending potions, but Wolf subtypes usually have high Vitality and his Physique might be tuned to lifespan increment.' Seven mentally looked through all the profiles of the family members of the people who raised their hands.

Duke Entras had a higher level than Navin himself, at level 702 he was one of the highest-level individuals on the planet. If he dived into Purple or Red dungeons more, Emperor was in sight for him as long as his lifespan didn't run out, and he could push his genetic limits for the skill level requirements through training and more.

But as long as evolution wasn't considered, they knew that level meant little. The Beastmen Archduke wasn't that old or high-level either and beastmen chose their Archduke by strength.

'Didn't plan on wasting mana today.' Seven internally complained about the test.

An Apparition like him didn't have nearly enough Strength or speed to deal with Duke Entras. The strong Duke might even be able to crush their icy body with his forte of charging.

"Do all of you consent?" Seven let the family members and some hired bodyguards stand forward onto the field.

"What consent?" The Dwarf was irritated by the random question.

"You are dissatisfied, unsure. Let's not waste time." Talking was inefficient when both parties knew what they stood for. Mallory, the ever considerate and smart princess, cast her barrier over the students before they requested.

"AR—" The hasty beastmen in the group tried to explode forth, with Duke Entras taking the lead.

"I shall explain the test." Seven addressed the teenagers while waving at Mallory.

She placed her arcane barrier away. 'Mallory hasn't stopped improving.'

Seven took a deep breath, receiving the mana he lost after decompressing himself to freeze and sealed everyone with discontent. It was tough, their magic bodies prevented direct freezing, and he had to chill the surrounding area in a single blast, wait a fraction for the chill to get into their magic bodies before he could funnel as much mana as fast as he could to seal them up.

Shaking his head, he recorded the time it took for him to freeze each person.

A couple of them were still fine and dandy within and could struggle with their mana, but they were externally sealed. Seven was impressed by themselves, the Numbers and Ebony.

While he had ice, gravity his basic fighting ability and mana manipulation, they all felt like hand me downs that he was naturally talented with. Sealing magic, on the other hand, came to him naturally even though neither of his parents had specifically trained for.

Sealing magic seemed uniquely his.

It was his strongest defensive spell. One used offensively and supportively.

It encapsulated everything he needed. Putting a target down, shutting them up, and stopping their undesirable actions.

The frostflame targeted the mages' mana and froze the warriors' muscles as deep and fast as they could. All the students could see was a glassy layer over their guardians while they sparkled with a cool glow every once in a while.

When Duke Entras was about to break free with an active skill using stamina, his figure was shot into the sky by gravity. The rest was grounded.

'His muscles are hard to freeze, even with frostblaze, either a bit of Physique refinement or his natural evolution naturally poured his potential into his muscles.' Seven realised the redundancy of his thought.

Refinement of Physique was likely from the natural adjustment of his Potential to begin with. He couldn't assume the man didn't have manual control over his evolutionl since it wasn't as rare for Grandmasters compared to a Master's evolution.

With muscles still active, the trained warrior could still activate active stamina skills. It remained to be seen if he could do anything about that now that he was propelled into the air.

Falling from any height wouldn't kill the Duke unless gravity magic was used, so he wasn't worried about the man being sent out of his range.

With the Relay Buffers carrying on the spell, they tunnelled the man out of the Capital City. Without a foothold, the warrior with weak external mana conjuration couldn't resist the tunnel's pull. 'I'll send him to the Glades, should take him weeks to return unless he doesn't care about exhaustion.'

Seven might be able to travel from the Glades to Tidal within a few days if the conditions were right but it was a distance that took the average Imperial months to years of travelling by the average carriage. That time spent has also been shortening due to tamed rides being higher and higher level over the generations.

Beastmen typically had strong bodies and weak magic and it was no different for Duke Entras.

His means of resisting certain spells were so weak that he couldn't be taken seriously by many Ducal families who emphasised mana control. But for internal mana control, he was better than most beastmen, resisting Ebony's seal and even almost breaking free in less than a second.

Seven was lucky he borrowed some Will from his fellow hibernating Numbers for a faster reaction and manipulation speed.

The stunned teenagers didn't understand what was going on, looking at the strong gallery standing there without making a move at Seven.

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