"Thanks for cleaning the kitchen!" Scarlet's first destination was the kitchen.
"You sound excited." Ebony noticed the movement of his facial muscles.
"I have inspiration for a new dish. Will you taste it?" Somehow, even without being able to see under her mask, he was sure she was smiling at him.
"I'll eat anything you make for me." Ebony imagined flowers blooming but it was just her pulling out box after box filled with foodstuffs vegetables, meats and more. The kitchen wasn't small but more than half the ground space was filled up and stacked up to his chest level. The tabletop was fully covered by smaller paper bags as well. There were huge bags of salt and smaller amounts of various spices.
'No wonder she had to do quests to fund her travels. It doesn't seem like she gets an allowance. Most of her mana ores are spent on food…' He had passed her some Blues and whatever Greens he had on hand since he couldn't possibly make her pay for his portion as well. A Blue should've been more than enough for months worth of food for two with change to spare. It shouldn't have been possible to spend so much for two or three people.
Ebony helped to unpack new sets of wooden cutleries that were probably going to be left here even after they vacate the rented building. Placing her food storage and keeping cartons of fresh ingredients into the right type of storage.
"Don't keep those, those are for the sauces." She didn't even point at a box but swept her finger through multiple boxes.
"And those for dinner." She pointed at some of the smaller paper bags.
Fortunately, many of the boxes were filled with fruits that she was planning to do a whole array of stuff. From sauces to jams she could store to increase the flavours and dish variety when they were out in the field. She only got meat because dungeon monsters shouldn't be eaten otherwise she would've preferred fresh meat from hunts and only have some as a backup. It was harder to find wild vegetables depending on the environment so she always had a huge stock.
The average preservation storage wouldn't be able to keep them good for long but it was not something she would have to worry about.
"I called sister Jing, she'll be coming over to deliver more preserve boxes of every type when she's free." Scarlet informed him. Ebony would have to agree that there was no such thing as having too much food stocked up after almost starving to death.
It was just perfect since he could ask her what she wanted at the same time.
After sorting out all the proper storing, he helped by conjuring another table for her to fill up with bowls where she measured different amounts of the same ingredients. He was also her mixer because all he was doing for the next hour was mixing ingredients in bowls.
The next hour was questionable bliss.
"Ahh" Scarlet held a spoonful of a reddish sauce to his mouth without thought. She got so into her experiments that she wasn't as shy or bashful as usual. It was an incredible experience the first few times with her being a little awkward with feeding him but she already had experience feeding him when he was injured so she didn't mess up.
The problem was getting stuffed with the same sauce, each with slightly different amounts of different spices or ingredients and being asked which was better. There were many other sauces that were going to take days or weeks or so she said. According to her, he was going to have to test the soy sauce equivalent and another 3 to 4 types of unfamiliar sauces that she was already using in her cooking.
"How many variations of the same sauce are you making? Some of these taste almost the same."
"I don't know, maybe two or three hundred a day. I didn't change the amounts much so they taste very similar."
She was a perfectionist when it came to taste buds.
'I'm going to taste two to three hundred of almost the exact same sauce over the next few days…' Ebony then remembered she was making more than one type of sauce and then looking over at the many boxes of fruits for jams. He wished for the best for his taste buds and stomach, even if tasting required a small amount eating that many variations was definitely unhealthy.
It was the first time he saw her writing, it was her personal cooking notes. Each book is labelled by the sauce or jam name. She placed them on a clean table at the side of the kitchen and didn't really touch them much, only recording some numbers down after each tasting test. She didn't want to dirty her hand so it was mostly memory work before writing everything down in one sitting.
She didn't make hundreds today since it was time for her to prepare dinner.
Ebony didn't care to spoil their alone time and just plated Mark's portion and said he would call him after they ate together. Under the premise that he was busy with his research. The man was probably too engrossed anyway. He had the body of a Master and not sleeping or eating for a day or two wouldn't harm him in any way.
'The portion size is the same.' Ebony still ate as if they were fighting day in and day out in the dungeon without complaints. Maybe it was just a feast to celebrate clearing Ordina.
"Scarlet, let's go for a walk after I get Mark down for dinner," Ebony said after they finished eating.
"..." She didn't reply and looked like she was about to pout. He could see since she hadn't hidden her mouth.
"What's wrong?"
"I…cou…you.." She stuttered multiple times as if she couldn't form the right words.
Ebony waited patiently.
"I would like it if you called me Ning Xin…" Scarlet gathered her courage and looked back into his eyes.
"Hmm? Is that your chi..Xeng name?" Although he already heard Kong Jing call her little Xin, it was the first he heard of it from her.
"My name is Scarlet Rhael Ning Xin. I'm a half, my father's last name is Rhael and my mother is part of the Ning family."
"Bridal battle?"
"Uh..mmm. Grandma told me they only came to a draw many times but after about a hundred thousand draws and a thousand proposals, my mother caved since she already liked father after a few fights. She just didn't care about losing to him to marry him…" Scarlet's voice turned really soft and she got fidgety.
"Hundred thousand, a million or ten million, I will defeat you and ask for your hand." They have a long life ahead of them. He was in no rush. Their custom suited his thoughts, how can he protect her if she's stronger than him.
He thought of this proposal for a while now. 'Asking for your hand' adds another layer of depth to them and he was quite proud of coming up with it. Although they didn't really word out and define their relationship, he kinda felt like they were practically dating. He could be wrong but he had every intention to marry her despite the short period of time they have spent with each other. There was still much to learn about each other in this period of time where he was weaker than her.
She was clearly stunned but she didn't only feel happy about it. The silence was deafening and Ebony couldn't help but get nervous, it was pretty foreign to him that his heart was racing.
"I won't lose to you." Scarlet ultimately smiled and stared back defiantly. She didn't want to say these words at first since she didn't want to reject him but there was no way she was going to back down. He couldn't hope for better words. The confidence and passion in those burning eyes of hers must be what made him unable to look away from her since the day they met.
"So, Ning Xin?" 'Sounds distant."
"Little Xin…" 'We're about the same age right? She's not exactly little in any way either…'
"Ah Xin?"
"Xin?"
She was silent ever since called her out.
"Stop! Just Ning Xin or Xin is fine, the others are too embarrassing!"
"...Okay."
"How about you? What's your full name? You're half too right?"
Ebony cocked his head. She probably drew conclusions from their similarities in childhood.
Then he felt as if a spike stabbed his head and subconsciously held his head.
'What was that? A headache?'
"What's wrong?"
"...Nothing. I think…I had one but, I forgot what it was. I'm just Ebony Rime."
"Hmm…" Scarlet pondered hard for some reason.
"What are you thinking?"
"I didn't think much of it before but 'Rime' sounds familiar. Maybe grandma would know more." She wiped her oily lips off.
Ebony already knocked on Mark's study room door with one of the ice sculptures in the house and transmitted his voice telling him dinner was in the kitchen.
They continued chatting as they washed up the numerous dishes used.
"How does the Xeng society differ from the imperial one?" Ebony was pretty curious.
"Weird question. We're not that much different. Like the imperial noble lineages, children tend to be more talented at what their parent's Classes were. I didn't get the chance to learn under their teachings for long, so my skills aren't as refined as the others. I do have my mother's tier 6 Conditioning training regime but other than being a Journeyman whose body isn't strong enough to do that training, my sword style is now probably slightly different from hers so I only used it as a reference for me to make my own training regime." She wiped the wet dishes that he passed to her after washing.
"...Tier 6?" Ebony blinked twice at the casual show-off.
"Yeah, she was a Sword Empress when she gave birth to me. My father was a Grand Arch Infernal Blood Mage but I didn't show much aptitude for blood magic when I was younger as compared to fire magic so he got me to focus on fire magic since I didn't have much mana." Scarlet added on.
"I thought there weren't any or many Emperor Class people." Ebony knew for a fact that the current King and even Emperor was publicly known to be King Class and they were supposed to be the strongest few people known. They got dressed and left the house without checking whether Mark came to eat or not.
"Oh, my father wasn't from Elcra. My mother left Elcra after reaching Grandmaster Class, returning to the main family that the Nings are based on. Elcra is one of the fastest growing worlds but it's still young and there's just so many better options for faster growth." She continued dropping bomb after bomb of information that needed time to digest. Both of them were fully equipped with their weapons.
"Do the Xengs have universal reach?" He didn't have to slow down his steps on purpose since she walked fast too.
"We're a small faction but pretty much all the important figures know about us." They didn't set a destination but both were subconsciously heading to the Quest Hall.
"Is there any particular family that uses the spear?" Ebony tried poking around. His parents are most definitely not normal people and there was a high chance they were here and his mother had too many similarities to the Xeng.
"Spears are common weapons, many families use them." Ning Xin walked with her hands behind her back.
They were in a private duelling ground under the Quest Hall before they knew it.
Not going about it too seriously since it was just an after-dinner exercise.
"I have to ask. Tier 6 Conditioning, if we follow the trend 0.01%, 0.025%, 0.05%, 0.10%, 0.25% and finally 0.5%...does it really passively increase stat by 0.5% each level?" Ebony swung hard to push the feather light twin blades to do a flip to counter its momentum.
"Mmhmm. Now you know why we need to train and condition according to our own Class. At an Emperor's level of 750 for example, they would have a 375% higher base stat passively if they maxed their Conditioning. Oh yes, Conditioning is one of the few types of skills that can drop in level if you don't train for long enough." Scarlet used the relaxing tempo to acclimate her ability with blood magic, her blood halo whipped out at the same time she was pushed away to keep him busy.
Ebony already knew about Conditioning skills being able to lose levels but hearing the truth about how much of an advantage one would have with a high tier Conditioning was just cementing on why one should train hard. How the hell would anyone who didn't have a good Conditioning skill going to match someone with one?
He also experimented with his gravity magic, pulling his blade towards her or a certain part of her body to him. It was not possible for him to cast Chaotic Repulsive Membrane on her so he wasn't able to increase her defences from a distance. It was like how it was incredibly hard to control water, air, bone etc of another person. Pulling Icicle towards her was easier but the membrane on it also works to repel his gravity manipulation over it. He still hasn't been able to make the chaotic flow orderly, it might have been easier to pull his blade towards the target if he could improve the membrane.
It wasn't hard to get around since he had already gotten very good and fast at turning the spell on and off on his greatsword alone.
Her blood whip wasn't able to get past his membrane but the heat in them was easily transmitted. His shields would not get out unharmed if he used it to block the boiling blood.
"Why do you keep it as a halo above your head?" She got heated up and started putting pressure on him. He would usually use his shields, footwork and prediction to keep up but decided against it since his swordsmanship needed work.
"It's easier to manipulate. When I was in that blood realm I had to be on the lookout for spiders dropping down all the time so it was more convenient that I had some blood above my head." Ning Xin stopped her swords short after almost touching his robe dozens of times a second.
"Wouldn't fire be more mana efficient for you?" The bulky and heavy Icicle made things difficult for him against two thin and fast swords.
"It was a good chance to train blood magic and the blood mana there was so dense it was not that draining on my mana pool. Since I can't conjure blood mana yet, I didn't see a reason not to use the chance to improve my manipulation." She tried to fight off one of his shields turned sculpture with her blood whip.
"I think it's much more effective in a disk or halo form." Ebony commented after his sculpture splattered the blood whip for the tenth time.
"I feel so too, it's easy to control. I'm just trying all sorts of things out. My turn to ask questions." It seems like she was just improving her manipulation.
"Mmm, go ahead." Using the flat body of his greatsword was the easiest way to block and then find a chance to counter after a lag in offence. It was just too bad there was no such thing as a lag in her offence. One sword flowed after the other and covered the gaps in attacks and she only ever got faster and stronger instead of getting less aggressive.
"Why sword? You're clearly far better at hand to hand combat." She asked the question she had for the longest time. He could clearly hold his own against Hector without his weapon.
"...When I just arrived, I didn't have any weapons and the first monster I faced was a huge boar and then being chased by a wolf pup. After that, I saw massive turtles. Coincidentally, the first weapon I got my hands on was a huge frozen leaf. I got the greatsword mastery and seeing how monsters tend to be huge I didn't exactly imagine punching them to death like Hector. Don't laugh…I just thought it would be cool and since I had the mastery skill there was no reason not to improve on it. I didn't want to give it up after picking it up." Of course, another reason was that the weapon stuck in Ful appeared to be a sword grip and he thought he could one day use it if he managed to pluck it out. Seeing that, he saw no reason not to learn to use a sword.
The final and most important reason didn't escape his lips.
"Where are you from? I was born on Elcra and since my mother was not really welcomed in the Ning family after marrying my father, an outsider, without losing to him I have never been out of Elcra either."
"I'm from somewhere called Earth. I think."
"You think? I never heard of a world called Earth. Is it somewhere with thick earth mana?"
"I'm doubting it more and more, I have always thought my parents were normal people. They made me think I was normal too. By normal, I meant I didn't know about magic, skills, classes and what not. So no, I don't know whether it had thick earth mana." Ebony was knocked back when he clashed with both her swords as she got enough power to push him.
She was visibly confused by his words but it wasn't enough to break the flow of their relaxing night spar to digest the dinner they had.