The gun shop he exited was called Burst Arms, their logo had been a rifle and a pistol crossing each other. Cielfast city was a small city, according to what he found out by asking the nice lady at the fruit stall this branch didn't have very good business recently. She asked for some ice in exchange for a discount after seeing his ice scale armour.
He imagined whoever was in charge probably had the makeshift prison cell built in a quiet city so that they were not easily caught. Seeing how there are forges in the shop, a little noise wouldn't be suspicious.
He bought plenty of pyrulas since her apple supply wasn't in yet. The date had been 15.14.5536, which was the last month of the year, if he remembered correctly he was locked up in the middle of the 7th month. It was actually faster than he imagined, especially when he actually felt the bottleneck at level 199. He calmly ignored the feeling and continued bloating his body with his own mana.
It was a little unfortunate that he didn't have his myriad bracelet which meant he couldn't call anyone since his callstone was gone too. It was a little surprising that all his Blues were still in his bag, did his caretaker not take it or did he not look through his bag? Maybe he thought it was a normal, thin bag.
This meant he had no idea where Ning Xin was, his first thought was to meet back up with her. He really doubted that she didn't try to look for him after he disappeared for so long. The chances that she was still at Trailane Plains weren't high.
His first course of action was still to get a new myriad bracelet and callstone but the callstone was useless without all his contacts. At least he could hide his excess mana. With the cuffs draining his mana and stamina, he had to ask the myriad bracelet maximum drain speed but the employee didn't even know because no one really needed to know as they mostly never had enough excess that exceeded the bracelet's limit. They would have to check with the records or even ask the manufacturers and he didn't have the time to wait so he just quickly left the Z&Z here.
'Oh yeah. This is Mark's workplace, I should find someone he knows here and see if I can get in contact with him. What was the name of his company again? A potion place right?'
"Excuse me." He stopped some random guy, feeling a little bad to stop the one-legged man mid hop. He was even one-armed.
"...Ebony?" The coarse voice said.
"Hmm?" Ebony would be lying if he wasn't surprised the person he stopped knew his name. The dirty haired and skinny man actually smiled.
"It's me… Chris."
"...I see. I heard you were dead, glad to see you still fighting. Wanna go for a drink?" Ebony said so since he could sense the sword and huge axe tied to a rope on his back.
"...Yeah, Chris is dead. I go by Mongrel. I'm actually right about to leave the city after I stock up on some potions. Do you need any? I have a friend who works at this store, thanks to him I get a 5% discount at this branch."
"Potion store. Perfect. I needed to find someone and I was about to ask for directions to a potion store. I forgot the name but I'm pretty sure they have a monopoly over his runic imprinting fire potion" Ebony wasn't really interested in the name change but the man changed. It was obvious even to him.
"Huh? Mark, Mark Rost?"
"You know him? Small world. I might not need to go to the potion store then, I lost my callstone can I call him using yours? Assuming you have his link."
"Sure." Mongrel was surprised at the coincidence too, he had become close enough with Mark to exchange contacts.
The call went through in a minute or two, Ebony passed a Blue over. The least he could do was pay for the call since Mongrel's equipment looked a little worn out.
"Mongrel? Make it quick, I'm a little busy."
"Mark, it's me. Is Scarlet there?"
"Ebony! You're alive, I mean, you're out and about!"
"Yes, you knew? I just got out but my callstone's gone so I couldn't contact anyone. Answer me."
"I got a call from Scarlet a few months back, informing me of your situation. She's apparently all the way over at Tidal but that was months back. I'm not sure if my callstone can reach her if I'm the one calling but I'll try now, call you back." Mark hung up immediately.
Ebony followed Mongrel to the potion store while he waited for the call back.
He asked about the others, finding out that Top really died and that Mongrel didn't know where the others were dispatched to.
Mark called back to ask where he was before hanging up again. Ebony randomly conjured a scale helmet to hide his face as well so Chr-Mongrel was probably recognised his voice quickly.
"I uh, informed them. They should be on their way to you."
"Them?"
"Yeah…I heard Scarlet call her sister something. I also heard some threats like wanting to knock some sense into you so yeah. Glad you're doing well, my research is doing really well too. You might want to make a stop here."
Mark kept things short, he was probably having fun with his research.
'...I should get out of the city quickly.'
"It was nice to see you again, Mongrel. Good luck with your evolution."
"...To you too."
Ebony quickly left for the main road and swiftly moved past carriages and beasts that pulled them.
There was one problem.
If Kong Jing was here to 'knock some sense' into him, it wouldn't be like the lightning 'punches' that were supposed to keep him undamaged. Most buildings in the area wouldn't be able to survive what was coming at him.
He was glad he managed to make it outside the city because he already saw a figure in the air.
A tiny shadow was thrown at him at breakneck speed.
It was Icicle, his greatsword. He attempted to catch its grip but he didn't manage to stop it before it stabbed into the ground right in front of him.
"Sorry Icicle, you'll be next in line." He let go instead of picking it up and opened his arms wide for the charging flash of red.
He released the ice scales on his robe, letting himself fall back and feeling each other's warmth.
❅❅❅
Kong Jing held her punches, glad to see no injuries on this little brother of hers. Cielfast city, she had been here before. She narrowed her eyes on the newer shop where it should've been empty only to sense her little brother's gaze. Those dead eyes seemed to say 'I'll do it myself' and so she let it go for now.
She should've guessed. She should have but they never came to mind as she kept focusing on who did the kidnapping and didn't even imagine that he was contained by another entity. She never did find out much about them either and with Ning Xin only having fully recovered not long ago, she only just started personally looking into it. The younger woman was surprisingly calm despite being fully aware of what had happened. Too calm.
So calm that Kong Jing got even more worried since she didn't speak much even to her. This reunion put her mind at ease. At the same time, she had seen Yvette at work once or twice. She didn't bother calling out on her that Ning Xin was taking such a long time to 'fully' recover.
'What is grandaunt's planning? Is there some kind of grand plan she's scheming or was there benefit in letting little Xin slow down. Or is it more about Ebony?'
'Well…guess I'll give him a beating some other time.'
❅❅❅
"I missed you too." Ebony said after a few minutes that felt like seconds. They simply hugged in silence for the entire duration.
"Mmm." Ning Xin sniffed.
"Are you okay? Your heart is beating slower than usual." He wanted to bring it up since the moment he noticed
"I'm okay. My Core skill evolved with a tiny mutation and there is a small complication."
He didn't like the word 'complication'.
"What complication?" He pushed her out of their pleasant hug and looked into her bright red eyes.
"It's nothing to worry about. It's called Rampaging Mortal's Pulse. Basically does what my Core skill has always done, increasing all my physical stats all round but by 5% I guess by 1005% but no longer increasing supply of vital energy by a hastened blood flow." She paused, perhaps pondering on how to explain her skill.
Putting ramifications or complications aside. She could basically push all her physical stats up by 10 times and the only problem would be her Intelligence and Perception being far too low to keep up.
"Instead, my heart would stop and condense vital energy then pump it all out at once. The small complication is, I can't really control how much I condense it and unlike my old tier two version which takes time to build up, once I try to use my core skill I can only go all out. Just like the old version, even if it strengthens my Constitution, with my base constitution my heart, brain and basically all my vitals would probably pop in no time."
"So you're in a state where you can't use your core skill now? Does that permanently change your heart in any way?"
"That's the little problem, it can turn on by itself if I'm very angry or have strong emotions. I doubt a strong positive emotion will cause it to start though. I'm currently using blood manipulation to keep it at a constant calm while continuing with meditation practice."
Kong Jing finally understood why she had been so silent and calm. This girl never bothered to tell her something so important in months and told her little lover the moment they reunited. She would teach her a lesson but add to Ebony's beatings instead since she never hits her little Xin.
"Are you ready?"
"Ready."
"Lady's first. You said location has both symbolic and practical meanings."
"I wanna go home. Sister Jing can help me set up a surrounding with higher fire mana concentrations. You'll want to go to Arcta right?"
"Yes. Ah, then I guess I'll have a very strong bodyguard this time."
"Mmhmm. This bodyguard and chef will require you to get ingredients with me and never be out of sight."
"Can I have the honour of temporarily taking up the role of your bodyguard?"
He already realised that she was only carrying two wooden longswords at her hips. Staying by Sister Jing's side, she didn't really need to carry lethal weapons at the same time, these wooden longswords were sharpened and still lethal in her hands. For someone who loves their swords, he could only imagine something happened to her dear swords as well.
"I would prefer if you can at least take care of yourself."
'...Ouch.'
"Yes ma'am"
"Have you made me wait enough? To Xienor?" Sister Jing asked the both of them. During this period of time, she had fully focused on improving the control and potency of her space manipulation. She could 'gently' move living things even without a layer of mana protection and also go a much further distance with a single spatial leap.
"Can we make a stop at Plainston? It's about the runic body engravement idea." Ebony didn't forget how useful it would be if he could permanently strengthen his physique if it worked.
"Oh that…well, let's go and see what you have for me first." Kong Jing wasn't very hooked on the idea.
He took months travelling from Fourth Tide to Plainston, Cielfast wasn't too far away from Fourth Tide.
Plainston was in sight within two hours, tops.
The house had been turned into a complete lab and workshop. Kong Jing approved.
"Mark?" Ebony called from the front door.
He could hear some books falling deeper in the building.
"Weren't you in Cielfast City?" The dark rings around his eyes were so deep his face could keep children awake at night.
Ebony gestured to sister Jing who invited herself in and started looking through everything of interest in the house.
"What the!" Mark wanted to complain about someone flipping through his notes and touching his equipment but wasn't able to stop her. He was stunned by her quick grasp and question.
"You made this? Not bad, I wouldn't have thought of it." The craftswoman already understood what was what even without reading through the notes and just by looking at the potions.
Mark also noticed the mask but didn't really care about that, it was the Grandmaster Craftswoman status that caught his attention. Then he realised this was the woman who taught Ebony.
"You can tell what that potion does?"
"Not the full effects with a single glance but generally, yes. Let me guess." She flipped to a page on a book with a diagram of a human body. "This is your runic formula for the increase in durability and toughness of the body, putting aside how low its effect and efficiency is, you did a decent job changing the original formula to one that fits most people's mana, I'm gonna guess it's the most suitable for you since I don't see anyone else here."
Mark nodded.
"This bottle of yellowish orange potion, truly creative. I'm not sure of its side effects and I doubt you are either but drinking this will allow the entire runic formula to be imprinted into the consumer's body. This is not the complete product and the runic formula would only be temporary and dissipate once its energy runs out."
'That is…different from what he said he was trying to do but make sense with him being both a potion master and runic scholar. Was the armour idea scrapped because he had no trustworthy blacksmith?'
Rather than scrap, Mark would take it as a delay. He didn't see armour to be very useful for them compared to actually working on the body. He used the same principles for his self inscription runic potions after all.
"That's one of my bigger problems, I haven't tested it on anyone and monsters wouldn't really give me reliable data."
Kong Jing directly uncovered her bottom mask and chugged the potion, not waiting for any protests.
"Hmm…" She closed her eyes and pondered.
"Ho…how is it?" Mark was a little nervous despite his confidence that it should at least be safe to drink even for a Journeyman.
"A little salty and a bitter aftertaste. A bit like dirt." She didn't sound like she was joking.
Ning Xin wasn't about to try the thing anytime soon.
"Tastes aside, it dissipated fast due to my physique but I got the important details."
Mark scoured for a fresh page on one of the many notebooks around.
He wrote down the effects she stated it to have and how long she deduced it would work on a relatively normal person.
The trial version was said to increase constitution by at least 220% for as long as the potion effects last, there was little to no control over its strength to lower output but that wasn't exactly a downside. The side effects turned his smile upside down. Supposedly not just muscle fatigue but actually tearing muscles throughout the body and cutting into the bones. None of them was seen from her body of course.
Kong Jing was never stingy with her knowledge, going all out and discussing with Mark. Her insight was an eye-opener for him.
Ebony helped Ning Xin with preparing dinner.
"Do you have any cravings?" She asked, mostly because he hadn't eaten any good food for a while.
"If I had to pick, I guess some good old curry." He was pretty sure it was a thing here from reading.
"Curry…I've never made that. Curry leaves grow deep under the ocean, I doubt anyone's selling it. We might have to search for some ourselves one day." When it comes to ingredients, she knew better.
As for this world's version of curry leaves growing under the ocean? That was news to him.
"Can I teach you how to swim?"
"Of..of course. Why?"
"What do you mean why? We'll have to be able to swim to search underwater."
"I mean, why do you want to be the one who teaches me?"
"So that I can see you in a swimsuit. More importantly, so that others don't see you in one." Ebony didn't really think before he spoke, just saying what came to mind.
"Swimsuit? Is there some kind of armour made for water?" Ning Xin cocked her head at the unfamiliar term.
"You can say so. I can make a few samples for you to check them out."
"Okay!"
"You're willing to try on the clothes I made for you now?"
"...Only if it's not so revealing."
"Well…"
Ebony's silence caused her to flush and poke his sides only for her finger to hurt.