"Are you comfortable revealing so much skin?" Ebony eyed the evening dress that Mallory custom ordered for his wife.

It was made of a thin, 3 layered fabric that covered most of her body except a deep V-shape cut on the back.

"Elcrian beauty standards for women are an unblemished back. I don't really care what they think but…does it not look good on me? Scarlet stood with confidence and spoke with a tease in her voice.

She fiddled with the hair he had tied for her this morning. He should've let it down instead, but she wouldn't let him change it anymore.

"You look amazing." Ever since their--mutual exploration of each other down to their base desires and understanding of each other's emotions. She seemed to have become more stable.

Black and Red's personality blended together noticeably and she was more like her confident old self, regardless of which state she rests at.

"I would feel better if your focus is on me...you're just thinking about all the strong people we'll meet today," Xin mentioned after reading him.

"Not 'just' that. I'm condensing my Will to replicate Entity Evanescence and enhance my Refractions as much as possible." Ebony didn't feel any pity that his Priming did nothing to his Will.

It was after all, an energy he barely knew how to use other than packing it tight and tossing a task for it to perform. He simply had no training method for it other than the Numbers and himself just growing older and experiencing life.

"Huh? Why?"

"Don't worry about it. Anyway, are you sure you'll be fine? We can evolve at the same time. Your ancestor and my Aunt Tao will watch over us, whether or not we do it at the same time." Ebony changed the topic to his statement of being ready for evolution after this ball.

He was ready to wait for Xin since he wasn't exactly in a rush.

Since his Aunt Tao and the Ning Saintess would be around to help them with their evolutionary potion and preparation of the environment, he didn't see how safety was an issue. He trusted his Aunt enough to scrap the thought of her killing him in his evolutionary sleep.

"I want to be there when you wake up. I want to watch you evolve. You know the death rate during evolution slowly increases the more evolved we are…I don't care how strong our family is, I want to be the one protecting you. Don't say silly things, you don't trust my Ancestor to keep her hands off me either."

It was true that he wanted to be around her, awake while she evolved as well.

Unlike him, who had better balance between his Class, Sub-Class and Profession. Xin required some work on her Profession as a chef.

She didn't exactly cook all her opponents while fighting, although she did start kicking her wok around while fighting. She liked his gift a bit too much and didn't want the wok to break, but it was durable enough for easy hunts.

Xin stood close and adjusted his collar, a matching suit to her dark red dress. He had his arms around her waist, 'secretly' casting his Will to make her form, figure and skin look as hazy as possible to everyone but him with a bit of light refraction, a bit of transferring the effect of Entity Evanescence onto his mana and a heck of a lot of Will.

He had already charged every bit of Will for one week since they were busy satisfying each other's lusts, not letting his Will capacity drop below 95% for the greatest recovery rate into this stealth effect spell.

A spell backed up by roughly 3000 points of Will should trick even those with Tier 4 or 5 Identify Type Skills.

His Numbers could hide their identify as a clone to people with Tier 1 Identify and trick some Tier 2 Appraise, depending on individual perception, refinement of the skill or a better mana based perception. He was able to simulate how the amount of Will of a Number could affect others' perception of them.

This was one of the reports that his Numbers collated for him in the past, when he just returned from Teheil, and it let him simulate the usage of Will for his stealth skill and how effective it would be.

The large amount of Will required a large amount of mana because mana could be saturated with Will, just like how Dusk's tree size used to be related to how much Will was imbued.

Luckily, space wasn't a concern. His wife was covered with a mist like ice mana for tens of kilometres. He kept it as compressed as he could to get its full effect while also extending it to as many people as possible once they go outdoors.

The effect of Entity Evanescence was extended to his mana so that those mages with their mana perception couldn't perceive themselves being surrounded by a misty thin but disgustingly dense mana. They would probably sense something, but it would just feel hazy, just like how Xin's physical form would look hazy to the eyes.

Ebony had the skill tested by Miss Wiggles, so it should work.

If they were using something else other than eyes and mana perception, then it was out of his hands.

Opening their door and their senses to the outside world, both of them watched nature pour down.

A droplet of water splashed onto Xin's boots and the edge of her dress, which lightly dragged on the ground. The rain water didn't touch her or her clothing, not with Ebony around.

Although Mantle of Reservation easily blocked rain, Ebony felt an irksome feeling when her shoulders dipped ever so slightly.

Icicle flew from its resting stand into his hands, and Ebony flipped gravity around as Crystalline Avalanche was launched forward with a powerful fling of mana and shockwave.

The wave of mana that tore through the air and touched the rainclouds dragged gravity mana up in the air before repelling the clouds as far apart from his slash as they could.

The physical wind pressure cut apart the falling rain. The dirty water in front of them froze all the way to their destination.

Ebony took her hand directly, Elcrian couple style. Leading her down the steps at their door, her frown turned into a gentle but wide smile as they slowly walked, leaving tiny ice dust following their footsteps.

As for all the buildings and people in the way, they only felt a cool but strong gust of wind. Except for the obvious parting of clouds and sudden loss of rain, and the fact that their destination was a full city away in Earthen distance standards.

It wasn't long since he got his Priming and the surge of mana he was generating, so he had all his mana fed into his Bracelet for money instead of transferring it to Dusk sitting at home. They already reabsorbed the Turtle Fort that didn't see any action, so Dusk was running on empty.

He might see some of Elcra's strongest people today, but he still didn't want to mentally injure anyone because he had leaked some mana out that he hadn't gotten used to controlling.

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Last he or Seven checked, Tikal Entras and Lennings Lord couldn't even see Seven Flickering until they reached their destination, and their body reappeared from the Flickering. Much less react appropriately if you didn't consider Lenning's reactive mana or Tikal's charge and ability to directly tear Seven apart if he could land a direct hit.

If the old Archmage of royal descent and one of the strongest vanguard of the Empire could only do that much to a Number, then he saw it essential to be careful with most people.

They could pose a major threat to Seven since Lennings could cut mana transfer out to limit a Number, but in Ebony's opinion, that didn't mean much with him present.

He'd gap his Numbers quite a lot in many ways. His only disadvantage would be that he didn't treat his body as disposable, and that he couldn't exactly turn into gaseous mana or teleport himself through Will. Though he could do that last thing in a more limited fashion, his main body could still die, and he would have achieved nothing but escape nowhere.

He already duelled with his wife a few times after Priming himself but…neither of them figured out if he was 'bleeding' out anything new. She didn't notice anything special, so he was still lost on that Martial and Simulative Aura.

Although his Wife hasn't Primed herself yet, she was very close. Or so her Intuition spoke after she got pissed losing to him in their recent duel.

Anyway, she had gotten her Conditioning to Tier 5 long before he had gotten his Priming.

An all-stat increment that worked on him before all skills was fantastic, powering all his spells noticeably.

The elemental and mana tolerance gave him the ability to almost fully Domain Augment himself to the limits of his mana. Without dying or disintegrating into nothing, even with the Intelligence increment.

Going on their walk, he took the chance to walk her around the food streets they hadn't walked through in some years.

Neither of them stood out despite the dress or the suit. His presence was always extremely weak as long as his mana was out of the equation. Black also did not exude any lethal aura, so they were just a well-dressed couple, not uncommon in Central Tidal.

He shook the slight confusion and eye-rubbing off the pedestrians and stall owners' eyes with a bit of Will to soothe their minds and make them overlook the hazy figure that his wife should look in their perception.

This way, it didn't matter if her mask was on her hips like how Veronica or the other married Xeng ladies wore their masks. He gave himself a pat on the back for finding a compromise since she didn't want to hide her face anymore, as a way to show off that she was taken.

Ebony also no longer had to watch numerous ogling eyes whenever she wasn't wearing her bodysuit that compressed her figure and womanly assets.

Still the most useful item was the addition to their Myriad Bracelet that made them normal again. It was what he used when they went kayaking. Getting overlooked was a lot easier when moving amongst people.

"10 skewers of each flavour. Thank you." Ebony ordered after Xin tugged his sleeves thrice and pointed to the Ashclaw raptor skewers.

"How spicy would you like them?" All 3 flavours he served had a spice level.

"2 of your spiciest and 8 spicy for each flavour." Xin took over to answer.

"Comin' right up!" The cheerful old man had his wife wipe his sweat off his brow while he grilled over the smoky fire.

They were on their way as soon as they got their order. Xin fed him from the spicier-flavoured bag while they walked.

Ebony who was always on guard, even after turning themselves as normal as they could be, saw a group of people walking towards them.

'Too deliberate.' He could tell that the young girl leading the group was walking towards him on purpose from her steps, direction, pace and intent.

'This seems familiar.' Ebony and Xin walked past the leading girl, and she slowly but surely pushed her shoulder to bump into him as they passed by each other.

The exact same scene as his youthful days, first time in Tidal.

'Is shoulder checking some kind of trend?' Xin was focused on eating and mumbling the recipe of what she was eating. Some Master-ranked girl who pushed into Ebony's Mantle of Reservation hard enough to send herself flying across the street and crashing through a stall selling tiny trinkets and women's accessories wasn't enough to catch her attention.

'Let's see, Noble. Marquis Ravelle. A rogue class lineage known for their close-range dagger arts and poisons. She's Serafina Ravelle, granddaughter of the current head of the Ravelle family.' Ebony found her profile through Dusk. He was near enough that a Will Relay Buffer as an intermediate wasn't needed.

He didn't think that even after making himself inconspicuous, there were still problems looking for him. Was this just luck, or did this random noble girl have an issue with him?

She was spewing so many nonsensical screams, and her entourage was familiar with her outbursts and didn't act on her ridiculous commands of 'kill this peasant!'

"Young miss! Please calm down," one of her younger entourage members patted her sleek dress down.

"And you sir, you did not have to be so forceful on a young girl." An old man closer to them berated Ebony.

"Huh?" Xin snapped out of her food discovery when she heard the blaming tone from the white bearded man dressed like a mage. Her tone matched his but was filled with more threat.

Red wasn't surfacing yet, so it was still tame to Ebony but he noticed that her 'normaliser' was off her bracelet.

They might be Grandmasters, but their presence alone was nothing like any Grandmaster one would see on Elcra. Not to mention her Vitality was at an all-time high in her Convalescent state.

It was not all that interesting for Ebony to watch the old man get stunned and suppressed by an Intent-filled 'huh'.

Seeing how the entourage had to apologise to the stall owner and they cleaned up in record time, they were experienced with this event.

"Get lost!! I'll kill this peasant myself!" When none of her entourage listened to a word she said, she took it upon her own hands and pushed them aside.

She boosted herself forward with a movement skill, backed by an active leg enhancement with mana. Backed by a wind elemental boost and further boosted by an enchantment on her boots.

Watching her bursting at him in slow motion, Ebony's lips twitched ever so slightly.

She condensed her killing intent and sent it at him.

'Real.' Icicle spawned in his left hand and sliced horizontally.

Xin was about to break out of her Convalescent state, but didn't even go through half of it before he held a frozen head in his right hand.

Serafina's quickly freezing body sealed and prevented Yvette's healing to act and maintain her life force. With a quiver of vibrations, her entire body was frozen down to the bones and shattered into more pieces than grains of rice in their household dinner.

"I thought…you've gotten soft over time but I'm so happy you didn't." Xin softly smiled.

It was honestly refreshing to him. He had had enough with all the bounty hunters who loved money more than the pure intent of killing him.

From Cinderash to Teheil and back to Elcra, people usually wanted him alive or money more than his life. To sense killing intent so pure and direct was pretty much a rarity to him nowadays.

His wife's killing intent just wasn't all that real anymore, no matter how serious she made it seem; they both knew that it was lacking purity since she didn't want to kill him. That was an advantage he had over her stun tactic.

'A Master that can condense her killing intent and consciously send it at their target to stun them for a fraction of a second before landing their strongest blow. I suppose the Ravelle family is a family of assassins.' Ebony thought nothing of it.

It was no different from decapitating a monster with pure killing intent, and it was far easier for him when his opponent wanted his life from the bottom of their hearts.

"I just hope this won't sour Yvette's mood." His wife muttered.

The Life Queen saved Xin before, and he knew they had a positive relationship with each other. Xin even went to her table to interact with her and the royal family during their wedding.

The Life Queen made it a mission that she didn't allow any killings to happen within Tidal.

Ebony placed the frozen head upright on his palms. Serafina didn't even express confusion or pain because she didn't know what had happened, even after her head was removed.

She was dead, not sealed.

A notification confirmed that.

Placing her head into the frozen old mage's shaking arms, Xin took the words out of his mouth. "Send her home, our condolences for her lack of education. If they want revenge, as a family would, they can find us but please let them know they will face the same result."

Cocking his head and looking back, "Are you a mind reader now?" She said exactly what he wanted to say, and she was wordy while doing so, which was unlike her.

Their figures and aura slowly blurred away, and the entourage that was locked in place by Xin's terrifying aura gained the ability to move long after the couple made their way to the ball.

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