"So one day you just blinked and found yourself in Hoarfrost Glade?"
"Pretty much. Do you believe me?"
"Why wouldn't I?"
Scarlet Rhael Ning Xin was clearly copying his habits in speech and actions as she tilted her head to the side cutely.
Ebony had essentially told her the summary of his entire life.
It was not a surprise to her when he said he had been a quiet child.
It was a mega surprise to her that he had never used magic or mana until he suddenly appeared here.
First of all, according to him he was less than 2 years old and was already made to meditate. That was downright nonsensical and almost the most unbelievable thing he said. The most unbelievable part was actually being able to meditate and even at all times after just a few years. She still couldn't do it well…
He was made to believe that was normal hence, everything 'normal' to him clearly wasn't normal.
Next was that he never really learnt how to fight. Just beaten, thrown into the wild and had sparring partners found to fight him. He reiterated being beaten was a skill and why he was so good at evading despite being slower was just a pure reflex of getting beaten too much. Other than body conditioning exercises, he wasn't taught any style. Although he did try weapons since he wasn't prohibited from using them but other than the general proficiency with various weapons he never got far with them. For some reason, he was shy about talking about swinging a sword.
He then went to an academy called an elementary school?
No one talked to him and he didn't talk to anyone either. The adults kinda ignored him as much as possible. He was exempted from 'sports' or exercises because the adults were told he had a weak physique unsuited to play with the other kids. Always being covered in bandages brought about many concerns and people went over to his house to check on him and his parents.
He would train after school and study at night along with some kind of competition against something called a 'computer'. He never found it weird since that was how he was brought up.
Then he went to another school after a few years. He was older, old enough to know that he was different from others. He didn't have bandages wrapping him up and was allowed to play sports or other physical activities. That's when it was obvious that his physical ability was higher than anyone his age. He was just better at controlling it after ageing a little. Some other kids still accidentally bumped into him while playing ball and they got injured, fortunately only a light fall.
The kids didn't like his attitude even when he apologised when it wasn't exactly him who bumped into them. He had the same dead expression after all though, he didn't seem to understand the reason. The injured kids and their cliques ostracised him but that was nothing new. Apparently, his no-care attitude made them push their luck and they started playing pranks on him.
Although he said they started to 'bump' into him more and more often accidentally, she didn't even need to be there to know it was no accident. It was quite cute that he still really believed those were accidents. The 'accidents' slowly stopped because more and more casualties were appearing in his class after they bumped into him without him realising.
He was caught up in a lot of meetings with those kids' parents with the adult in charge of physical education. He said all the parents were nice and understanding after his father came and replied to all their complaints with an "mmm" so that must be where he got it from. When he explained that he had worded it out himself to notice how weird it was that the other kids' parents went from anger to compliance in a blink of an eye.
Other than an occasional skipping of school to be thrown into different environmental wilds, he didn't really feel anything out of place. According to him, the number of days in a year and hours in a day was different too but that was no surprise if he was from some other world. The universal standard was different from Elcra as well.
Then he went to another school after a couple more years. There were kids bigger and stronger than him and he finally believed his parents saying he was physically average. His mother just taught him how to exert more speed and power. His parents argued about who was helping him more, whether it was his mental training or physical one that allowed him to show much more strength than his physical body suggests.
At this point, he already knew it was weird that his broken bones heal without lasting injuries. Medical technology supposedly wasn't good enough to do that and they didn't have healing magic.
There were outgoing people who tried to chat and get close to him and he was able to make a few friends. It was also the period of time most people found trouble with him. He didn't understand why there would be groups of schoolmates asking him not to be so arrogant when he didn't know them or sometimes the person they told him not to get close to. Hearing the names, Scarlet could guess they were girls and the guys didn't want Ebony to get close to them.
'Of course he'll attract 'flies',' she thought.
Apparently, fighting was a no go but self defence was okay so he made sure they were really attacking him.
"None of them really wanted to hurt me, they only swung their limbs around awkwardly. It would be rude to walk off so I usually played along by evading until they were tired out and left after telling me they'll come again. More and more people came to play with me, it was quite fun compared to being ignored." She couldn't help but laugh when he said that.
She couldn't tell which was funnier, the fact that he believed they were trying to play with him, they were really trying to beat him up but couldn't even touch him, that he even stayed to dodge until they were too tired or that he thought they brought more people to play with him. She could sympathise since she didn't have kids to train or play with too but she had Kong Jing who was practically her sister.
He suddenly turned silent when he talked about this period of time and held his head again. She was a little worried, it appeared to her that there were problems with his memories and only certain parts. Like how he couldn't remember if he had a Xeng name.
"...From time to time, there would be strong martial artists visiting and I would spar with them. Some used weapons, some didn't. Usually someone around my age or older, I won most of the time." They already stopped their light spar at this time and were getting ready to leave the scarred duelling grounds.
"There was one…two fights I lost. A bald monk-like guy or maybe it was a nun, I couldn't tell. It was weird that his or her wooden staff seemed to strike me from another direction than its swing. His or her staff broke after hitting me enough and gave up but he or she was the only one I couldn't actually beat." Ebony looked at her with slightly widened eyes. Time seemed to pause as they remained still as he stared into her eyes. Then he smiled like she'd never seen before.
"Not only, I guess. This confirms it."
"What confirms what?"
"My memory has gaps I didn't know. The other person I lost to wore this." Ebony moved even closer than he already was and tapped her mask twice with his index finger.
"Xeng? What did his mask look like?"
"Can't recall. My memory is foggy about his mask."
And then he turned 15 which in Elcra's years wasn't really 15 and undertook the 'Trial' which they already talked about. His parents disappeared as if they left on a trip like usual but they never showed up in front of him again. He just continued his daily life as if nothing much changed but the biggest difference would be that he wasn't beaten up on a daily basis anymore.
He took care of himself but when he 'graduated' he was a little lost since he had no direction in life. Not knowing what to do he randomly picked another school to go to because that was the only natural thing he thought he should be doing. She wondered what he needed to study when the world was magicless, he said it was some kind of crafting or 'engineering' of the body.
The days of this school went pretty much the same as his previous schools except no one really picked a fight anymore. He had a close friend or two but he didn't say much about them. Then he finished this school too and was looking for jobs when he suddenly appeared in Elcra.
❅❅❅
'Missing parts of my memories? Interesting.' Ebony was very interested. He didn't expect to get another spike of pain in his head and remember some stuff.
'What cheeky parents I have, they think I'm some kind of robot?' He was referring to how he didn't just have one or two pieces of memory missing. He actually remembered many more 'spars' he had. These opponents he didn't remember used magic. He had no memory of any of these magic wielding opponents.
That was to say his parents regularly erased, no, sealed his memory after every one of those fights where his opponents used magic. Normally, one would have many things to want to say to the people who treat them like that but Ebony wasn't the type to question what he couldn't change.
He was most curious about the Xeng he lost to. The only thing he still couldn't recall should be his mask. He remembered it was a man who wielded a single longsword, more like a katana than Sca…Ning Xin's longsword. He needed to get used to the way of address.
The Xeng he lost to had the best control over magic compared to any other of his opponents, practically another limb to him unlike most awkward young mages. He used earth magic if Ebony remembered correctly.
Ebony was pretty sure no one had a Class though, most had similar physical and magical capabilities of regular humans. Well, maybe the mages had a Class and some levels since they were slinging more spells around than an unclassed human should be able to.
'Ooh, the after battle incense wasn't to 'relax the mind and speed up body recovery' it was making me lose my memories of at least a couple of hours during my sleep.'
The location of his spars and the wilds he was thrown into was weird too. He was always brought around in a car with pitch black windows or he would just wake up in the wild after sleeping in his bed the night before.
Ebony kinda knew why he never felt much out of place. His personality has just never changed much. He probably didn't care where he was, who he was sparring against, what they could do or even if the previous day felt shorter. He usually just thought 'time sure passes fast while meditating' which probably made things simple for his parents.
They returned to see untouched plates, Ning Xin was about to storm up in anger for letting her food get cold.
"I'll get him for you, you can use the bath first." Ebony distracted her. There was only one bath in the house and they had to take turns after all.
He joined Mark in his study again since she was going to take some time. Through whatever means he had, there were more drawings splayed around. Somehow or the other, Mark was able to derive the runes under the surface layer bit by bit even though he wasn't able to see inside it and he didn't break it apart to check it either. He was sure since he could sense in real time with his perception of ice mana.
Since it was a team effort, he shouldn't withhold so much information from him to speed things up. Although he might be using some of his skills which may gain experience through trial and error Ebony was sure he wasn't going to mind. There were multiple copies of the same thing so he just took one and either drew or wrote notes according to his senses on what was different.
Mark saw the changes he made after he wrote on one and passed him more. He had split it into areas like the head, arms, legs, chest and belly. It was hard to draw in 3D and Ebony wasn't much of an artist, he gave up after the first one he passed to mark and used ice control to conjure just the 'veins' of the golem for them to visualise.
Mark cursed once but was too busy being entranced rather than blaming him for wasting his time. He wasn't really angry since he didn't think there was such a thing as wasted time studying runes.
Then Ebony conjured a doll with the runic veins in it and one without. Pumping a trail of his mana into it to attempt to activate the runes. He gave it a constant flow of 1 mana per second and let both of the dolls punch each other as hard as they could.
He already knew it wouldn't work even before their punches landed on each other. It wasn't because there was no glow since the glow could have been from the topaz portion, the high intensity of mana it used or just the golem's anatomy to show that it was alive. Runic symbols don't necessarily glow because they are activated and couldn't be used as an indicator that it was working.
Ebony knew it wasn't working because he could feel his mana just flow through the pathways without being 'expended' or 'absorbed'. There was no need for a constant flow since it wasn't being consumed at all.
The excess mana that didn't enter the doll slowly dissipated into the surroundings as Ebony fought over control with the surroundings. It was a standard exercise to strengthen control over one's own mana and not allow the world to absorb it. He was pretty good with it according to the Frost Elves, the types of skills he had helped. Both Frost Mist and his sound magic which required him to mentally hold onto his mana that was far away from him without it dissipating.
Even if he let mental hold over his mana go for over a minute, he would still be able to drag it back into his control as they wouldn't start dissipating immediately now. As if the world knew the mana didn't belong to it. It was different in different areas and in dungeons as well.
Since there was no consumption of his mana it was obvious nothing was activated.
"It didn't work. My mana isn't consumed."
"Have you tried the outer layer runes?"
Instead of replying, he just converted the runes on the runic doll and tried out the same thing. It failed again and he tried it with the full runic structure combined only to fail to activate again.
"This centre part near its belly, I don't recognise it." Ebony made the runic veins without the doll again and pointed.
"...Me neither."
"Do you think it's an element specific rune? Maybe it's specified for 'frost-topaz' mana." Ebony made an educated guess.
"Highly possible. It's the core and where the runic ends converge, the power source."
"Do you know any three dimensional elementless power source rune that can take its place?"
"...What do you think I am? This is the first I've seen runes that work in a humanoid shape monster too. It much more complex than the inscription or engraving that I'm used to. I had the chance to see some runic works that have their very internals moulded to include runes but I haven't had the chance to break them down to study them nor are they humanoid-shaped. Although elementless is the most common, I doubt the runic internals of a weapon is all that similar to an inscription. It's not even a language I'm familiar with."
"Oh yes, we're dumb." Ebony realised late but not later than the runic mage.
"What?"
"You collected the earthen-topaz golem's topaz parts. They might be able to power the runes up. I can produce ice mana if it needs it. If the earthen mana inside affects it I guess we need to find some way to extract that out."
"That. Totally slipped my mind. I'll go get them." Mark facepalmed and ran off to his room just across the hall. Beside his room was Ebony's and across his or beside the study was their resident chef's.
"Eat dinner first, I'll be washing up. You should wash up too, you stink." Ebony said. He was pretty sure Mark would listen this time since he needed Ebony for the experiments. He hadn't cleaned himself up even after leaving Ordina
Mark walked down just in time as the angry chef came from the bath on the first floor after he walked into the kitchen where the food was. Ebony went down for his turn but she stood in his way. She was in her one piece dress pyjamas and her hair was not dried properly. They already established the no boots policy to Mark which he really didn't care much for, he already knew it was Xeng culture, he was really casual in his own workshop as well so it was not an issue for him.
"Don't walk around like that." Ebony said what came to mind as usual.
"Like what?" Busy blocking the door, she was confused by the statement.
"...Wearing so little. I made some clothes for you some time back. You can have them if you'd like, they're mostly normal clothing to wear casually and not for battle though. I did make sportswear too and tried to make mould durability and heat resistant runes so maybe you would find it comfortable to exercise in." They were work in progress and he hadn't made anything he thought was perfect enough for her but the words came out before his mind could process what he just said.
"Oh…okay." She drove her feet into the almost polished wooden floorboards shyly.
"Can I go in now?"
"Wait!"
She ran back in and shut the door, staying in there for another 5 minutes.
"What were you doing?" He had to ask since she appeared no different with her hair still moist.
"Ge…getting rid of the smell. I sweat a lot…" There was a vent or opening that led outside on the wall near the ceiling.
"Aw. You always smell good. Your sweat included." Both of them blinked twice or thrice at Ebony's words.
'That came out weird.'
"Pervert!"
Instead of a slap or a punch, it was as if her hands were holding her sword poised for a thrust. He was not on guard against her and without any enhancement since he wasn't wearing his robe and was training Reinforced Mana Chassis he was a lot slower and weaker than her.
"Ow!" She was still the one that cried out in pain as she put pressure on her wrist in an awkward position. Despite her higher base strength, her arm thrust motion was part reflex and Ebony's Constitution was off the charts for a Journeyman. With a fully compressed mana pool that was topped off, he had way higher Constitution than even Wisdom.
"I'm sorry! Are you okay?" Her hands dodged his when he moved to hold them.
Ouch.
"Perv." She already slammed the door of her room as it echoed out softly.
'Inconvenient culture…'