"Woah! This training field of yours is awesome!" Hector yelled from within the field he was trapped in.

"That's specifically made for us and doesn't have targeted functions for you." Ebony saw the tiny figure in compressed space move around with gravity magnified up to 150 times.

Although he had seen Xin from outside the field many times, it was still an interesting sight. Hector should be just in front of him, but he was extremely far away.

What's awesome is that Hector's punch has evolved again. So did his footwork and technique in general.

'He builds on all extremes, and the only weakness he has left would be endurance, but he should probably be able to beat a large majority of the monsters on Elcra with just that punch of his.' Ebony didn't think many could survive Hector's godly enhanced punch. Its weakness used to be how predictable and evadable it was, but Hector covered that with his footwork and matching speed.

Also, his barrage style punches which were multiple of his Panch, almost took away all routes of dodging if he had the high ground. It also drained him at record speeds.

'A finisher that confirms the destruction of his opponents.' Ebony lacked something like that if he excluded his plum bombs.

Those required too much charging time, and it was also more powerful only with Xin's help.

He'd once again reached the point where he had more mana than he could exhaust in a single moment.

Moving their house out of the city was tough enough; getting to Hoarfrost Glades would take at least ten days by his rough estimation.

Ebony had his Numbers spawn around the friend he was going to introduce to Hector but this friend of his was crushing his Numbers to dust every time they spawned.

As if it wasn't enough that he was destroying Ebony's Will Relay Buffers for no apparent reason. A large gap in Hoarfrost Glade's network was opened thanks to his ape friend.

'How's Apa even searching for my Relays? Those are inactive and I don't pulse mana through them often.' Ebony might have underestimated Apa's perception abilities.

As for the reason Apa was crushing his Numbers to dust, it was probably a greeting back pat, but his Numbers can't survive Apa's back pat. It was a waste of mana to keep trying, and with the Relays broken, they had to spawn further away.

Apa's twitch musculature and reflexes top his Number's Flicker by a large margin. Surprising, to say the least.

He was pretty sure one or two Numbers were exploring with Apa. The sudden improvement from Apa should be the reason it was trying to get Ebony's attention.

He'd never figured out if Apa had a Class or not, but from how un-monster-like the Apex Apes were, they probably never took in much of Elcra's Essence. If they succeeded in removing their reliance on their original Worldcore's Essence, there was a good chance a few of them had Classes.

Having studied monsters and what the Imperials thought to be 'Aberrants' from the God of Knowledge's library, the process was similar to pretty much any Worldcore. Although the Imperials did have a misunderstanding about two types of monsters.

The type that consistently aimed to slaughter and eat people or anything with essence that didn't draw its source from the Worldcore were monsters that tried to surpass their genetic chains due to drawing their power from the Worldcore's Essence.

These monsters could only get as strong as the Worldcore and their solution was foreign essence. They usually have extreme tendencies and are stronger than the average monster in terms of pure stats. Typically, their extreme stats and tendencies rise proportionally.

Extremely few monsters could fight against the instinct of taking in the Worldcore's Essence, and even fewer learned how to remove and purify themselves.

Gen didn't go through that process, he was a descendant of a creature that was grafted together.

Numerous races that had weird body parts were born this way, keeping traits of their ancestors back when they were monsters of the Worldcore they were born on.

After a few more generations, the Apex Apes may evolve into an intelligent race able to get Classes the moment they turn of age.

Fortifications would be worth losing stats over.

Watching Hector have fun while studying his improvements, Xin prepared tea while he read a book on hairstyles for oval-shaped heads. She let the leaves seep in water and took a seat in front of him.

The conjured ice arms on the table flipped the pages while his hands dexterously played with his wife's hair. She hummed an unknown tune and took a bucket of fried turkey legs out to munch on. To be specific, flesh from a [Thundercluck Featherbeast].

Although it came from far away from a civilisation that bred these, farm animals weren't as delectable as wild ones, according to Xin. Their auras were exceedingly weak while they were alive as they were bred and grown to an Emperor. So they only served as snacks at best.

Still, Ebony had to thank Hex's recommendation to find a supplier for high-ranked meat. Breeders and farmers who could effectively and sustainably grow domestic Emperor-ranked meat couldn't be found anywhere within the Sector.

Food expenses were high. Easily 20% of his daily earnings at the moment, more so due to delivery.

The ancient adage of 'You are what you eat' held significance.

Ebony didn't let that piece of wisdom slip and splurged on food.

Mana Metabolismic Circulation was working overtime to keep up with the food he was served.

'Ting' 'Royal Frost Sovereign Tea consumed. Ice mana affinity is temporarily enhanced by 15%. Wisdom increased by 0.002% for 4 hours.'

This tea was crucial for learning about the differences that ice element affinity does to his control and his spells in general.

When Xin drank enough of the tea, she had a 2.8% increase in Wisdom and it lasts 6 hours. Ebony was now sure that the notifications had different precision depending on their personal perception and understanding of the state of their body.

Drinking more did change the duration, a higher dosage also changed the increment. What was wonderful about this brand of tea was that their bodies couldn't build resistance to it in a short period, so it would be effective on them for a long time.

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"Ell! You're going to the Glades aren't you?" Hector stopped his boxing session without warning.

"Mmm." Ebony answered.

"I'll look for you, gotta pick something up in another City real quick." Hector waved around for the release controls to exit the training field.

After he wiped himself off with a towel, he shirtless hopped off their floating house and towards the nearby City they just passed.

His wife smirked, "now we have some private time."

"What do you want to do?"

"I'm a bit sweaty from the dance and puppets…let's take a dip!"

"Oink!!" Miss Wiggles liked water.

It didn't take long before they were in their underground swimming pool. Miss Wiggles paddled around gently and quickly fell asleep.

"I would like it if you looked at me more."

"I do." He cocked his head in confusion.

"I mean…you can admire the body I'm trying to show off here."

"I feel pressured for eye contact."

"If I'm not embarrassed, you don't have to be. You can look wherever, whenever. Let your eyes be honest, if not, I'm just sensing your desire and your eyes don't act on it. I feel stifled even if you're not."

"I'll try."

They had a swim. A tan under her blood orb of flames. A shower together.

And they let their home fly on slowly as they alighted.

Ebony checked that he wasn't losing any soil and earth before they met with Sophia who he had been carrying forward with gravity.

Sophia was dishevelled and exhausted, but in one piece. Xin took care of the greeting.

For some reason, Sophia was extremely polite towards Xin. When the three of them were together, she might even ignore Ebony as long as Xin said or did something to get her attention.

Together, they went back to Tidal where the puppets fought. Without his house of course.

Sophia had better tracking skills than Ebony or Xin. She had worse sight, smell and mana perception, but that wasn't all to tracking.

Not to cause Yvette any trouble, Ebony used a weaker version of the Will-infused spell to hide Xin's figure on all three of them.

They didn't even stop at the gates to record their entry.

If Yvette came to kick him out by force, that was a different story.

His wife explained what happened to Sophia.

"Any clue who raised my bounty?" Ebony questioned.

"Give me a day or two."

"Call or inform my Numbers."

"About the business. I-er, I borrowed more money in your name." Sophia came clean.

"I'm aware," Ebony replied. There was no way he wouldn't have known she borrowed from Eidolon.

"What are you planning to do with that worldcore you bought?" Xin asked for him.

"Basic agriculture produce and mana purification facilities."

"I get the agriculture. Where did you get mana purification technologies?" Xin knew all about Ebony's desire for a farm.

"It's not the best, but the Empire has those. Regardless of efficiency, we can get started. Since the entire worldcore is yours and there are no people, there's no reason not to use all the mana.

Sophia went into detail about her actions so far and her immediate plans.

She had gotten in contact with the Autodeep Dwarves. The robotic engineer specialist Dwarves.

They weren't willing to sell their skills and knowledge on repairing their products, but were open to let her hire an independent engineer for maintenance and craft. Instead of the usual service model of hiring their services to fix any worn-out machines.

Negotiations were ongoing about the farming robots, the types and quantity that they wanted and the price discussions.

So much so that Sophia had been studying and refining her negotiation skills under the Merchant class.

Ebony's farm on Elcra was doing okay. The herbs and spices he wanted at high quality needed time. While their normal produce had an average harvest for the Elcrain soil and farmers.

Selling them wasn't hard or so Sophia made it sound.

Either way, he wasn't very interested in how she sold them or who she sold them to. It was just normal produce till they slowly implemented the minimum quality to be Rare and Epic.

Once they got larger quantities of Ancient quality soil and the robotics they desired were purchased and delivered.

All in all, they were in a deficit due to the borrowing of money and near-future expenses with the Ancient-ranked farming robotics.

Her concern was a spy and thief getting sent to them as the operator or mechanic amongst the Autodeep Dwarves. Ebony left that to her.

"Honey you can go on ahead, I'll catch up." Xin pushed him away.

"Ahead where?"

"I don't know. I'm sure you have plenty of things to do." She grabbed Sophia by the elbow. "I'm gonna go shopping with Athena and Mallory later. We have plans all week!"

"Sure." With a snap of his fingers, all the Numbers in operation around Tidal was alerted. His Will Relay Buffers actively scanned the Capital City more frequently with mana pulses.

Ebony Flickered out.

'Why was Sophia looking at me with tears in her eyes? Oh well.' According to Sophia, her teacher Na went into hibernation all of a sudden. Hence her break from training.

They suspected it was the parasitic plant that took root in Na's body was evolving.

On the way out, he picked Hector up.

'Now to calm a raging Apex Ape.'

Tracking Apa down wasn't hard, but getting to him took time, as there was an ongoing blizzard in the Icy region. Blizzards in Hoarfrost Glades were not gentle, and Hector was sneezing even with fire enhancements running through him.

When they did find Apa, the Apex Ape was tearing into the body of a Berg Mammoth. Papa Berg Mammoth.

The one and only that had been a constant in Hoarfrost Glades for centuries if not longer.

And Apa was eating it.

"Oh, those eyes." Ebony recognised the frenzy in Apa's eyes.

"Oh what?"

"It probably doesn't recognise me at the moment. Go, Hector. Time for your punch out." A tingle ran down Ebony's legs, and he rushed to Flicker a Quaking Impact kick against Apa's twitching punch to Hector's head.

A spike of pain ran through his spine.

'Skill evolution? This is more than double of his previous strength, a high base percentage increment.' Having his mana vibrations torn through, Mantle of Reservation pushed back and even hurt his bones.

Ebony had barely managed to nudge Hector back with the reflected Mantle that Apa forcefully pushed out of his spell formation. His magic body has improved vastly after the long fight with the Stygian Frost Elemental.

He should have easily caused Apa some damage with Quaking Impact, but it didn't look like he did.

"I see Apa. Your berserk state evolved along with your punching mastery and active punch skill. What else..." Ebony popped his ankle back in place. With possibly 3 skill evolutions behind this single punch, Ebony called dibs on their rematch.

"You can wait for your turn." Ebony had his lip tugged as he told Hector to back off.

"NO WAY! You've been leaving me out long enough!!" Hector vehemently denied. His body glowed with elemental intensity that didn't lose out to Ebony's Augmentation. "GAAHAHAHAHA!"

Unknowingly, the Ape's frenzy had infected the two of them, and they ended up in a three-way punch-out.

"AAHHHHPAAAAAAA!!!"

Two tiny fists barrage rammed into a larger pair with a flurry of kicks that came along with flaming petals.

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