Ebony felt no disturbance when he entered the Budding Domain around the Fortress. He tested and noticed that he could push the Will back and augment himself with Will at full effect. Except, he couldn't push his Domain out to 'steal' some territory smoothly and his Will was immediately tackled by ten other Wills.

His Will capacity before evolution was around 935 according to his calculations, now shown on his status. Will Capacity Fortification should've brought it up to 4675, but his sensation and status confirmed that it was at 6075 instead. The only conclusion he came up with was that 280 base was directly increased due to his evolution itself. The capacity he had as a King was higher than it was as a Grandmaster. Including the Fortification, it would bring him up to the current capacity of 6075.

As long as he maintained his Will above 5468 points, he generally regenerated about 16 to 18 points of Will per minute. Approximately 18% of base capacity per hour. Will regeneration was not linear, and even at the same percentage, it could fluctuate. This regeneration rate was also different from what he was used to; it was higher. Even though there should not be a Fortification for it.

'So weak?' Hyperlucid Atelier confidently gave him an estimate that he needed 2 minutes to gain a foothold of 10 metres in diameter against all 10 Will pressuring him. This foothold will be stable enough that it wouldn't shatter under all 15 present Wills, at a cost of roughly 1.3 Will per minute. This was extrapolating the 5 Wills that didn't attack to have the same strength so there was still a good measure of uncertainty.

Not only were they weak, their Will's got tired quickly!

Did they exhaust their Wills recently to build this Budding Domain?

Ebony once again appreciated the Ning Saintess, increasing his Will capacity using the injection of memories. He'd basically experienced thousands upon thousands of years of second and third-hand combat while still being young. These Elves didn't have that opportunity, and their age did not help their Will grow significantly. In any case, if all they did was stay in their Domain and train or slack, their Will wouldn't grow fast.

'I see, this is a good chance for less experienced Domain mages to build a fresh Domain outside of strengthening an existing one.' Ebony also appreciated people who went out of their way to train, even if they were a thousand years older than he was.

Ebony had 1 experience with building a combined Domain. But that was Vent supporting his Domain, and they didn't build rapport or effectively combine their Wills for a multiplicative strengthening. Vent also had a stronger Will than any of these Elves, not even close.

Did they not have someone equivalent to Vent?

That was a pity.

He was hoping for another strong target to strive to beat amongst the King-ranks.

Duke Lucretius was a younger Elf that had mana aged 500 to 600 years old. He did not have the Elves' usual good-looking countenance. Dark circles around his eyes, bloodshot whites.

If he wasn't misinformed, the Duke's wife was killed by a member of Lure. Best-case scenario, her soul was taken, and her body was kept alive by the Elves through their plant and healing magic. They were good with life magic in general.

Worst-case scenario, it was too late, and her soul was consumed or used beyond recovery. Or her body was destroyed, and they didn't have a way to return her, even if they could get her soul back in one piece.

"To what do we owe the pleasure of your visit?" The Duke was not in the mood for pleasantries. Ebony had removed his invisibility before he entered the reused Fortress. It was hundreds of times quieter and less occupied now that their war was over.

"Pardon the intrusion, I have no business with your training plans and will not interfere. I have business with the Tetramyth instead. If there's nothing else, I will get going."

"…wait."

Ebony waited, not offering any audible reply.

"Can—" A spike of foreign mana spiked at the duke's head, and he shut up. "Never mind, if you won't interfere, we'll leave each other alone."

"Mmm."

'Was he trying to ask me for help, but his seniors didn't like that, did they? They must care more about my relation to Xengs than they care about how I'm one 'blessed' by mana.' Those were the looks of a desperate man.

Using microflickers, he headed towards one of the portals far in the distance. They were the Arcanite Cortex Formicidae, the mana-absorbing exoskeletal Tetramyths. Around their portal was their camp.

Luckily, they had a mind-mage capable ant present or he would have to speak without getting vocal replies. He'd used microflickers so they could see him coming and wasn't immediately taken as hostile.

The Emperors had intelligence equivalent to a child but in certain ways, they were smarter than a human child.

"Don't come any closer, human. Speak your intentions." The voice was not childlike, it wasn't human like at all. But it wasn't alien enough to scare him.

Interestingly enough, he couldn't hear their voice until he extended a thread of mana out to mesh with the foreign thread. Their mind mage was extremely weak. This mage was connecting him to another ant, and it was this ant's voice he heard. The mind mage was just a connecting bridge.

"I do not stand with the people you're currently training with. I come here to ask for a separate deal. Something more barbaric."

"You offer another battle? How many? Are you part of this offer?"

"19 youths, you can send 10 to 50 thousand. No, I will not slaughter your kind unless they come at me again."

"Do not waste our time with crumbs of biscuit." They knew what biscuits were.

"I am aware this is too small a scale for Masters of your kind. I offer you food in exchange. How much food would you say twenty million of your kind requires per day?"

"For younglings, a hundredth of their mass in equal-rank flesh per day to sustain. Twice that to grow. Thrice that for expedited growth."

This Ant was disclosing more information than he presumed. Perhaps they were not as smart as he gave them credit for, or this was information extremely easy to obtain.

"Food for twenty million of your Masters, enough to grow for every day the battle is conducted. For under a hundred thousand of them at all times. To the death, at their own expense. I will not retaliate if any of these 19 get killed in response. I expect the same from your Saint." Ebony knew how much a Master ranked Tetramyth of their subspecies weighed. At the size of small to large dogs, they weighed around 120 to 180 kilograms, depending on the individual.

Taking the average, they required 3kg of Master ranked flesh per Ant per day. 60 million kilograms of Master ranked meat per day. It was no wonder the Tetramyth was forced to tackle whole worldcores for food.

Where was he to find 60 kilograms worth of meat? Per day

"Mother's attention will not be caught by the death of mere millions of Masters. Human, I remember you. Mother had taken note of you. Are you…What you humans call, rich?"

"…You can say that." Being taken note of by a Saint?

That was not good.

This was a race of super Ants, not a wild monster infected by the Will of a Wordlcore. They had a racial or lineage skill that gave them the powers of their army. A wild monster with barely any powers that a proper Saint should couldn't even be placed on the same pedestal. Although…this Saint was likely extremely young and apparently couldn't kill Oplot.

The danger might be less than he assumed, but he cannot forget that perhaps Oplot never fought, and they diplomatically solved things. The man was known to have a strong background after all.

"We are aware of this thing called…a discount? If you provide us with higher-ranked meat, we can lower the amount. If you are open to trade, we can show you a list of the materials in our treasury for the price of food equivalent."

"I am open to negotiation." Ebony did expect the ability to make a deal since the Empire and Elves were doing it, but he did not expect open trade.

They were obviously desperate for both quality and quantity of food. Obviously enough, eating higher quality flesh would help this 'monster-like' race of creatures grow both physically and in hopes of Potential changes. They can eat far more than normal people and it might show in terms of their evolutionary potential gain from food.

High-quality meat was in high demand and low in supply. Their rarity made them worth a lot more. 60 million kilograms of meat sounded like a lot but a giant monster can serve a lot of meals. Generally, the higher the rank, the higher the creature's muscle density, in turn, their nutritional density.

Ebony had a few streams of steady food supplies now. It wasn't possible to get millions of kilograms of Ancient-ranked meat per day within Hex along since not every Worldcore was Ancient-ranked. The number of merchant groups that handled meat in those qualities and quantities was few. But King and Grandmaster - Epic and Rare rated flesh was more abundant.

Their conversation was straightforward, the way Ebony liked.

This subspecies didn't just need meat, they were trying to be sneaky and asking for monster meat from scaled creatures. They were looking for organic chitinous materials, better yet if they were high in mana purity and density.

'Trying to evolve or lower the Potential requirements to subconsciously control their evolutions to bleed into strengthening their exoskeletons? Divine races sure know how to play with evolution, even if they are distant offshoots.' Ebony wondered if they were interested in mana scales he could produce but he was not about to feed them his mana and make a Tetramyth evolved with his mana.

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He didn't really mind making a few Tetramyth specifically evolved to be resistant to his mana. But what if something greater got a hold of his mana in future?

It was a risk he was not willing to take. Feeding Ordina with his mana was already a risk that he took to grow a worthy rival.

Other than those, they were also okay with plants high in metal elemental mana. A wider range of ingredients made it easier to source them.

He could easily find merchant groups on Eidolon that dealt with these ingredients within Hex. Getting food delivered from outside Hex would be a waste of money in large amounts.

'I feel bad, paying for divine ants to kill my students.' The things he would do for a good death battle for his students….

At the same time, the Tetramyth was basically selling the lives of tens of thousands to feed millions. Ebony did not care about what the Tetramyth felt about selling their lives, he didn't see it as buying their lives or the experience they would feed into his students. Because it was questionable whether his students could kill any of the Master ranked Tetramyth at their current state.

They might kill a couple but it would be more of a struggle to stay alive under the combined effort of thousands.

He was a good trainer.

His mother tossed him into the wilds with bears and tigers.

He tossed his students to ants in a semi-controlled environment.

'Now let's see what this treasury of theirs contains.'

Ebony was spoiled for choice. This subspecies' Saint was clearly working hard on numerous Worldcores. There were so many unknown materials he'd never seen or heard before. It didn't mean those were good, just unknown. Likely from an unowned Worldcore and untainted by civilisation.

'Can't they use Eidolon?' Ebony was sure that a Myriad Bracelet could be customised for the Tetramyth. It wasn't like they were not smart enough to use it either. The Saints and above clearly were intelligent enough to communicate with other races.

With this sea of materials, they could trade for their own food with relative ease. A random Worldcre is filled with more materials than living creatures after all.

Ebony had never seen a merchant group or individual trader related to the Tetramythians.

"Why aren't you trading these for suitable food through Eidolon?" He sent a direct probe.

"Most of it has to be kept for tribute or internal trading with our mother's sisters."

'They have more than enough subspecies of each other, it would make sense to only trade within their race for suitable materials and ingredients without strengthening other races.' He did not uncover any big secret but wasn't disappointed.

Most of the list he was shown comes with a short description of their rarity, elements and basic properties. They were also essentially useless. Whatever Worldcores these Tetramyths had gone to, few to none were Ancient-ranked. Raw materials didn't excite him as much as they would a crafter.

Ebony memorised the list and told the speaker that he would consider it. The list would be sent to Sophia, and she would decide what they needed. It was good to buy raw materials with desirable properties and toss it onto the Worldcore he was now an owner of. This also meant he was the owner of all the Dungeons on that Worldcore and they could nurture Dungeons to produce specific material if fed correctly.

With the outlines of their deal settled, Ebony had to borrow or make a location for the training. He absolutely did not trust the Elves enough to ask them to summon a forest, which was pretty much asking them to take the lives of his students into their hands as they extend their Domain.

He also didn't want to conjure an icy forest. The Tetramyth would likely not accept that as a neutral move.

He needed to give his students a fighting chance. If they were out in the open, they were just waiting to be killed.

Thankfully, the Emperor in charge of communicating with him took initiative. "Shall we build a more suitable battlefield? Our younger troops need experience navigating limited spaces."

With that Ebony spent a full day discussing how the builder ants could move mounds of toughened earth. And they transplanted trees big and small from their portal, delivering alien flora with the peak of manual labour efficiency. The battlefield took up about 500 square kilometres. A very small, contained land area that wouldn't interfere with whatever was going on with the Empire. This was also relatively deep within the Arcanite Cortex Formicidae territory.

That kind of area was overkill for Journeyman but it would leave plenty of spaces, artificial caves and burrows where his students can hide. The Tetramyth can train their ability to hunt hidden creatures. Both sides were satisfied with this arrangement. With a couple of thousand King-ranked Ants, and a few Emperors, the modification of 500 square kilometres of land into a designed battlefield was over quickly.

He knew the precise abilities of their kind they were prepared to send at his students.

Of course, Ebony did not spend a day here. He left an Apparition after a few hours and left for dinner long ago.

The Tetramyth in charge of communicating with him was clearly out of the norm. It spoke clearly, concisely and did not have trouble understanding human norms. Its grasp of the Gia language was around level 6 to 7, an impressively high number for a creature said to have the intelligence of a human child not older than 3 to 5 years old.

Ebony's language skills were capped at level 14, excluding the runic language, which was not a 'language' per-se. At level 14, there was basically nothing new to learn about the language, except maybe tricky wordplay that the skill level did not help one avoid.

Most languages were known to truly be capped out at level 14.

Beyond level 14 was when languages held more observable power.

They had some rules set, but Ebony denied the request to sign a contract. He didn't expect them to mention a contract, and he was not about to sign anything they produced with mana.

The rules regarding how he couldn't kill them in droves or they would retaliate in full force or that he couldn't give the 19 fighters a magic spell scroll or any item of his that would allow them to wipe out their people. Nothing drastic, it just showed that both sides knew what each other could do to a group of Master ranked Tetramyths. It didn't matter even if they numbered a hundred thousand. Within 500 square kilometres….that was just 1 spell required now. 500 kilometres in any direction is also well within his mental range. A simple gravitational magnification can squash them all.

If he did overly protect his students, they might just sic a hundred Emperors on him. If these were empowered by their Powerhouse, with an unknown number of Emperors hibernating. They would be more fearsome than any creature in terms of physical stats. When it came to numbers, the Tetramyth had never lost. The fewer battlefronts they were on, the stronger an individual Emperor could be as they didn't have to split their powers. With the war settled down, their individual elites could be propelled to greater heights.

He wasn't worried either way. Pure stat difference did not scare him unless they knew how to utilise it, and this unknown subspecies was nothing to be afraid of if they didn't manage to kill him over a decade ago.

After dinner was personal training.

Ebony did not want to test the stability of the earth and couldn't train to his heart's content here, so he used a shortcut to a suitable training spot instead of Flickering home from Tidal to the Glades. He went to the place that took external visits through warps. got a warp scroll and sent himself to the station in space.

After that, he Flickered out of the artificial atmosphere and took out a scroll from his bracelet. One of the many gifts from the Kong Clan was scrolls that generated a space that was cut off from where he stood. They gave him a large crate worth of paper; every piece was one of this scroll. These scrolls weren't all that amazing. There were different-sized and duration ones. The one he used shouldn't last more than a day, and it would not collapse from internal damage unless it was specifically targeted or was capable of tearing fortified space.

His training routine lasted 40 hours because he was blending into his newly evolved state.

His Priming would have to be slightly adjusted once he got home and back to his custom training field.

With the shame of lack of control scrubbed off, he bought another warp scroll and returned to Elcra.

In less than a hundred hours of Priming and testing, his confidence in understanding his King-ranked body and skills had risen past his expectations. For some reason, it was as if he had these stats, these Fortifications, this Will for a long time, and he settled back into the groove of having something he never had.

Perhaps that was the difference between a King and a Grandmaster.

It was all beneficial to him and he didn't complain.

There was one complete unknown, and that was the trait of deconstructing his flesh and infusing it into mana chassis and Will to be transported, then reconstructed. What about his soul?

There were too many unknowns to test this unsupervised.

Discoveries about his Coreflames felt like rediscoveries.

First of all, thanks to his Physique increasing Will potency with flames, the Will required for any imbuement with freezing flames were multiplied 15 times over. Hence the power. Hence, the unbelievable consumption.

His subconscious usage of Fabrication of Frostblaze Embodiment with Preservation strengthened his durability to heights he could only wish for in the past.

The subconscious usage of all vibrational attacks with Diametric Unity for a small boost was the most Will-wasteful one so far.

As for gravity infusion into his body, it was truly doing a whole lot of nothing. He didn't even know why the gravity mana was doing that. It was not achieving any noticeable purpose and definitely not augmenting him in any way. At least this had no Will usage.

Ebony conjured a plum and a gravity vortex using only the gravity mana conjured from the dense ice of the plum itself. For a minuscule amount of gravity mana, the vortex within was a lot stronger than it could've been. Other than the increase in effective Intelligence and Fortifications, there was a qualitative boost.

'Conjuring gravity mana just by pure quantity of my mana now might not be far-fetched any more.' With the volume of mana he regenerates, at a high base density and purity. He might just directly manifest all his liquid mana, and they would provide some gravity mana. It was insignificant in the past, but with gravity's current strength or around Tier 4 to 5 equivalent gravity spells, this small amount of gravity mana might be able to pull off effects that can hurt another King.

He was already generating mana. Mana had mass. It didn't make sense to him thermodynamically. The food he ate might be dozens of kilograms a day if he was forced to eat that much, and it might be extremely energy dense, but did it equal as much mana as he regenerated?

The math was unlikely; he was regenerating too much mana for there to be any sort of conventional energy balance and conversion.

Ebony's food requirement did increase after this evolution. Noticeably so, actually. About 15 to 20% should he be in a resting state indefinitely. There was no need to consider if he was actively training, as that would cause anyone's sustenance requirements to increase. However, his resting state burns extremely few calories. A lot lower than a normal human, it wasn't enough to cause concern.

This increase in requirement was due to his vitality increase. While he did increase his Constitution to match it, he meddled with his life force regeneration a little more to handle the weakness he gets should he lose a body part and rapidly regenerated them.

Ebony let the internal ice mana of the plum explode into spurts of flames and infused Diametric Unity. Out of the 3 flames, Diametric Unity had the longest imbuement time. It wasn't as smooth to be infused into flames and manifested into a working property of Will. After sensing his Will in effect, he started to pump mana and vibrate them at maximum intensity to build up heat.

It was working well so far.

When heat mixed with cold, they neutralise each other. One would end up with something hot, cold or neither.

Diametric Unity was made to change that dynamic. It wasn't there to hold the heat and cold separated and only forced them to interact upon command at the same time, it was there to force both heat and the lack of heat to cooperate in one blast of energy.

When he was satisfied, he tossed the plum on the ground. He was already back in Tidal. And this 2 metre radius around him was his Domain. Anyway, the plum only used a tiny amount of gravity mana, it wouldn't be a big explosion and he made sure to exclude the plum from his Domain's strengthening, only using the Domain to contain the explosion.

The results were subpar. 'Might be because of the limited heat I can produce with vibrations or that I made this Will to handle Xin's fire.'

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