"You were so cool just now. So swift-woosh." Black giddily grabbed onto his arm tightly as they found the stadium-like building ahead of them.

He didn't know how to react. There was nothing to be proud of for him, but her getting giddy while praising him did feel good.

The building they headed for had glass windows and ceiling, shaped like a massive sports stadium. It had to be massive to hold all the people for the event.

The Empire's population was huge. The number of Nobles, Freelancers and other individuals such as retired fighters who fought during the war against the Tetramyth, were all invited.

The royals, archducal and ducal families aside, there were some people Ebony was interested in seeing in person.

There was a famous summoner who dealt with the Saint Spirits that meddled with war against the Trolls. But, she was Elven, and if she wasn't metaphorically living under a tree, she would know Ebony and Xin, who carried a Xeng mask.

No warrior, swordsman or knight was of interest to him. Elcrian techniques and skills generally didn't hold much substance to him anymore.

Mages were a mixed bag.

Tamers were also interesting, but the strongest tamer in Elcra's current generation passed away against the Trolls many years ago. The war before the attack on the border cities which Ebony took part.

As for Freelancers, there were a couple known for more varied skill set that aren't seen from noble lineages.

"Honoured by the Rejuvenator, Fourth Order Mage - Grantor of Vigour, Wellspring of Wisdom and his partner--"

He didn't expect an announcer to project his voice to the entire hall and introduce him and Xin's entrance. But, seeing how the man did the same for everyone in front and behind him he didn't bother with it too much.

Black was not bothered by the lack of her introduction.

'He seems confused about who I brought. I guess my spell is working.' Ebony saw that Xin didn't care and entered without clarifying.

They walked straight towards the person who invited them and the people they were most familiar with. Mallory, who was interacting with some nobles and Hector, who was not far behind, eating from the display buffet while chugging some wine after every few bites.

He had many eyes on him. Female eyes of appreciation and desire.

Ebony was now familiar with the look.

Despite Hector's rough manners, his handsome appearance was blinding many ladies who clearly weren't combatants and were here as guests rather than direct invitees.

Mallory immediately noticed them and broke off her conversation to head towards them instead of continuing her interactions. The nobles awkwardly waved her off, but it was clear they wanted to continue having the Crown Princess's attention.

"Hey Mallory, thanks for the dress and suit. I had to kill someone from the Ravelle family just now, in the city. No offence to Yvette." Ebony said the first thing that came up in his mind.

The Crown Princess, who was about to greet them, had her wine glass shake and almost spilt a drop, breaking her elegance for the first time.

"Honey, that was too strong for a conversation starter." His wife patted his chest.

"I see." Ebony heard her and nodded. He trusted she knew better since she was surprisingly chatty when she was with her friends.

"It was self-defence." His wife clarified for him.

Mallory was speechless for a long moment, but she picked herself up soon enough. "Let's not talk about that here and now."

"Heeey!! Ebony, Scarlet! Come try this stuffed roast turkey!" Hector waved the leg of turkey he held in his right hand while keeping his drink steady in his left.

Mallory shook her head when that call was all it took for Scarlet to join him while the two remained.

"Thanks for your help with Seven."

"No, thank you."

That was everything he had to say to her and she didn't pick a new topic either so he let himself get dragged over to the food aisle.

It didn't take long before a drunk Commander Wil joined them and Athena to be introduced in as the 'Wild Stake'

The war did her some good because she was level 500. Despite participating in the same war, few in the hall achieved the same.

Commander Wil, who evolved into a King was comfortable in the mid-500s.

While the small group kept his hands, mouth and ears busy he had Mana Discern scan the early arrivals.

The Number's perception and detection were outdated, and there was much more he could learn in person.

Their mana, essence in general. Their body shape. How they walked and carried themselves.

He asked himself the most basic question. 'How would I beat them?' Hence, his simulations began as Mana Discern and observation was put to work.

For many, it didn't matter if he didn't see them use any skills or spells. There was not much to simulate when the majority would collapse under a simple gravitational magnification or even just a fractional mana leak. Although he might be wrong, should they have sufficient stealth skills or was far beyond his senses, the chance was low with Perception being one of his highest, if not the highest stat, thanks to his Core Skill.

His current estimation was that his Perception stat alone could ignore active mana stealth skills Tier 3 and under, no matter how refined or even if it was over level 1000 and directly perceive most details about an individual's mana. As for non-living objects and items, they usually didn't have active stealth.

The attendance was trickling in, but so far, only 2 Freelancers seemed like they could withstand his leaking mana even if he let it all loose. Worse of all, they were both Discerned as a crafter or some type of non-combat class that wore a high-quality Obfuscation jewel that interrupted his Mana Discern. It wasn't surprising, there were certain classes of crafters or support magic users that has to handle extremely dense and pure mana for long durations, even compared to combatant classes.

The hierarchy in terms of how well someone could take high-density mana exposure was a bit obvious. The nobles were placed together with the freelancers or people contracted by merchant groups, but they joined the war. The Count, Marquis and Ducal members all had a certain level of training against mana exposure.

There was a dungeon with relatively high mana density in Tidal, and the town within had a training room that condensed mana even further. This room was ordered to be designed and made by one of the Elven families a few generations ago and was open to the public,c but it was mostly booked by the nobles.

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Once again, the power of money. Despite the technology being outdated and these training rooms being made for many dungeons to lower mana cost, not many decided to use their functions. After a certain point, there simply wasn't a reason to train against high-density mana exposure.

That was what the general populace thought since mana density only went so high, no matter where they were on Elcra.

The nobles, on the other hand, knew that any mage, especially an Elf, could take advantage of that fact by sending a condensed blast of mana into a target's face and head. A simple stun technique could be the end of anyone since it gives a mage proper preparation time.

As they were part of different races, they weren't dumb enough to leave an advantage that the Elves could take advantage of so easily over the generations, and they trained for that sole purpose.

That was too much effort for Ebony, he didn't have to target anyone if all he needed to do was let his mana free. If he wanted to use it as an attack or distraction, he had fully compressed mana within his Chassis, ready to be released any time, and he didn't need any compression casting time when fully compressed versions were stored in his body.

The family of Light mages was one of the more interesting groups of people to Ebony. He knew of a few light spells after seeing them in action a few times.

Similar to lightning magic, once cast, he did not have a chance of dodging. But before casting, it was easy to deal with. Be it predicting trajectory, interrupting spell with mana, or just guarding. Lightning hit far harder than light, but light spells had more variety.

Some heightened the heat capabilities of light.

Some light spells and magic weapons he'd seen had light that passed through mana by sieving through, making most elemental shields useless, this included earthen shields. Metal armour usually melted or tortured the person wearing it with molten metal over them.

Because the light could go through mana, a Knight's enchanted armour was as simple as a metal block to a light spell, and if compressed or Fortified in the right way, they could easily melt a piece of metal. A warrior's mana imbuement to strengthen their weapon and armour also didn't work because light simple goes through all that and targets the base construct of armour.

However, so far, these highly anti-magic light spells were all weak in destruction or damage potential compared to other elements used by another person with a similar Intelligence, skill tier and level.

'Only the Marquis and Ducal families have a larger majority of people who evolve with fully 250% fortification from Journeymen to Grandmaster. But even the Archducal families do not have many, if any that have a King perfectly Fortified.' He excluded the Elves because few of them were even in the hall at this time.

The boost of whatever Fortifications there may be was significant; it was hard for Ebony to take people who weren't perfectly Fortified as a threat, but he did take every creature seriously regardless. If not, he wouldn't have gone through the trouble of simulating a thousand battles with each of them.

'28 people present are a threat to the Numbers, 3 if my Numbers had the backup of my mana regeneration. Dwarven Archduke… As expected, he is more specialised in blacksmithing rather than fighting. Beastmen Archduke Medina Fyre—she's a seer and uses foxfire, Mana Discern doesn't give me enough information about her to make an accurate simulation. That's her husband….he's noticeably weaker than she is. Archduke and Archduchess Lucretius, hmm.' Ebony watched the highest nobility walk in together.

The Dwarves might have decided on their Archduke after someone won or lost a drinking game.

The Beastmen were simple, they selected their Archduke by power. Pure and simple.

The Elves probably chose their Empire's spokesperson based on lineage and social hierarchy.

However, Ebony didn't think the Elven Archduke was ranked high in their society. He had a feeling Lucretius was roughly equivalent to Orren Wit, the Frost Elven village chief in relative status.

The true nobles of the Elves were all concentrated within their main Forest. They wouldn't be in a city.

Most importantly, Ebony barely felt a sliver of the Lucretius couple's Will in their secondary Domain within Tidal's premises. Sure, they might be younger, and the forest in Tidal might have been built up by their predecessors of the same family but it still stood that their Will was too faint.

As for having Will so strong that he couldn't accurately measure them, he also doubted that after comparing it against Vent's Will.

'Huh…now that I think about it. Is the reason Ful's sap and flames are so potent due to Will? I never could perceive Will in the past, so perhaps. And Gen's blizzard spell…even though he was also a Grandmaster he's also over ten thousand years old, and Will is closely linked with life experience, in other words, age. I see, is his pain increasing Fortification also enhanced by Will, the desire to inflict pain upon his targets, even if they cut off their pain receptors?' Ebony felt like he had answered a question he'd never asked.

It brought up another question. Was the reason his body adapting to a new Physique because Ful Willed that to happen?

Even if his old human body supposedly had the genes of a mana being, would just taking a potent drink of sap activate his Physique or mutate it in such a—designed manner?

Did the past people who attempted the Physique mutation die, or didn't have the correct Frostblaze Physique because their genes, their mana, couldn't take the pressure of Ful's Will?

Ebony—he didn't quite like what he just thought of. It was one thing if it happened naturally and another if he was changed into this version based on someone else's design. He looked at Xin and decided he needed a lie detector when he asked Ful if his current Physique was forced onto him by design and not a natural change.

Going into his mindspace with his 'body', he was at his core, where 3 burning light cyan flames sat.

They were packed with his Will, each with a singular purpose to strengthen or condense the effect of Will.

Preservation.

It bolstered the magic he believed to be uniquely his talent, sealing magic.

Diametric Unity

It better unified hot and cold flames, and mixing with heat would not harm his cold flames as much as they do. This was a work in progress since heat and cold were on polar opposites and they still hurt each other's mana when two flames meet.

Sequester.

His first project when it came to his Frostflames Fortifications. He started trying to create this property in his flames before he even tried using Will to do so.

These 3 flames in his mindspace were relatively new, but he'd been creating a frostflame spell or giving his flames this property ever since he was intrigued when training with his mother. Or, well, Qua within the Infinite Variations.

He'd met with absolute failures all this while. Even with all the books he brought and read from Hex, he didn't know how to manipulate mana, ice and combusted ice to give it the property he had in mind.

The Skill that helped him the most with learning the property he desired was Entity Evanescence but—it's effect seemed to be dissipating. Ebony wondered if his resistance was getting high enough or the caster's Mandate was getting weaker.

Whatever the case, he found initial success after utilising Will, learning from how his mana changed after Will was introduced and then reverse-engineered it to manually manipulate his flames in that general flow. Most of his mental processing capabilities were placed in this mana manipulation training over the simulations against the ball's guests.

'Evolution huh…Arcta just feels right, but I feel bad for going there only to evolve. It's like a vacation home at this point.' Ebony used to think that environment, elemental, and mana densities could be adjusted, and location didn't matter.

Superstition.

But he was hit with a sense of unease when he imagined himself evolving at home. It was deep down…from his very soul.

'I guess the elders weren't talking nonsensical superstition. Is Muse coming? I need her to check if my soul eye is frozen.' Ebony didn't want to evolve in a less than perfect state, and the only person he knew who could meddle and heal the soul was Muse and probably Yvette. But 'seeing' the soul seemed to be a Muse-only ability from the list of people he knew.

His eyeball didn't hurt anymore. His perception of his soul was rudimentary at best.

There was no harm in getting the soul healer to take a look at him.

Besides, he wanted her to listen to his Resolve's Cadence and give her teachings once more. According to her teachings, this was putting his emotions ahead of melody. He should pass.

'I should try mixing Resolve's Cadence with my essence for the soul roar attack….' Ebony sent experimental thoughts out to Dusk and had it post the job to the notice board for his Numbers to experiment. He charged them with the Will required for casting Resolve's Cadence.

The hall also cut mana off, but many double doors were wide open to welcome guests in, so it wasn't hard to send mana and Will out.

"I think you'll like this one!" Xin held up a fruit tart to his mouth.

"What about me, what about me?" Athena had no embarrassment asking for her share. She was pushed away by a shy whack but the closed-ranged archer who was built like a Greek goddess took it well.

Seeing smiles and feeling the joy his wife radiated, it was worth every bit of trouble creating the illusion spell and coming out to a social event.

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