"Ebony?" A voice that he didn't expect to hear called him out.
"Koawe? How are you doing?" Ebony was surprised to see the Frost Elf in Tidal.
"Perfectly fine thank you." Koawe smiled as he always did. The Muse who hasn't introduced herself hid behind Ebony.
"What are you doing in Tidal?" Ebony asked.
Koawe's smile widened.
"Well, our village's guardian beast is giving birth. She will be staying in Arcta in her younger years, I'm picking up some things useful for a young…animal."
"Arcta has a guardian beast?" It was the first he heard of that.
"Not Arcta but we will temporarily have one since it'll be taking care of her baby. Would you like to see her? You can take the chance to visit the village kids." Koawe explained. They had another village deeper in Hoarfrost Glade.
"Hmm…I'll think about it. Why did you come here then?" Ebony wondered if Ning Xin was up for it. They could be spending their time more productively but he thought it was a good chance for them to stop and add their stats. They were lacking in that regard as they couldn't get used to it fast enough.
"You mean this Gorpede? I was waiting for my junior for a chat, he just arrived and told me I could take some of its materials. The flesh and blood should be a decent present for both the guardian beast and her baby."
"Your junior?"
"Navin. Ah, we studied magic under the same master in the past." Koawe dropped a fascinating piece of information.
"So you were a barrier mage?"
"Not at all～I gotta get busy before the best parts are taken. Say hello to Scarlet for me." Koawe wasn't planning on saying more, he made his way to slice a piece of the king-ranked monster.
The Gorpede was impressive, more than a quarter of its body has been sliced and torn into little by little but it still had enough vitality to deter most people.
'The barrier king is even more impressive though. It's alive and awake but not even moving an inch. He's not even in the vicinity anymore…' Ebony was immensely curious about the methods Navin used. Also, what kind of magic both the Empire's king and the Frost Elf had in common? Identify was too weak to see past their hidden status.
The Gorpede's vitality finally started to weaken when more than half its body from tail up was gone. Ning Xin had to take a break twice while she manipulated the blood to her mask, she ran out of mana and the Gorpede's natural body resisted her blood manipulation like any other creature's natural ability. He believed her blood mana manipulation must have levelled like no tomorrow.
'I should suggest to her to try to manipulate my blood just to train her manipulation. That would be interesting, I might even get resistance to blood magic. Hmm… maybe she can help me use her heart acceleration skill on me if she can really get full control over my blood.' Ebony started to get interesting but dangerous ideas.
"I'll look for my junior, if you decide to come back to Arcta look for me at his mansion. I'll likely stay for a few nights." Koawe had taken 2 segments of the insect's body and his knapsack looked packed. It appeared that his bag wasn't that large compared to Ebony's.
Koawe didn't tell him the location of Navin's mansion, but he would assume it wouldn't be hard to find.
Thousands of crates and glass or crystal jars surrounded the area. The sealed jars were mostly filled with blood, maybe fat or some unknown fluid from the Gorpede. The scales, flesh, legs and organs were all segregated and there were runic preservation circles drawn on the floor and also the containers themselves.
The huge group of people didn't question the three of them sitting on the monster's head. They came and went and he saw many different faces of different races. The Muse fell asleep on the table he brought out after eating candy so that was one less bother. It wasn't until the next morning that the Gorpede died, both him and Scarlet gained partial experience but not even a single level. The Gorpede had been level 642!
'There were close to a thousand people who came to take a piece, the experience must have spread too thin.' There was also the fact that he didn't even hurt the Gorpede much. Ning Xin not even gaining a level must have meant that the constant draining of blood barely hurt the Gorpede too.
Less than a third of the Gorpede's body was left and Ning Xin wasn't about to stop until she got every drop she could. It was early afternoon when all that was left was the head which was completely drained.
Ning Xin fell and he was watching closely enough to catch her. She was drained, not in the same way the Gorpede was.
"Let's go." She didn't rely on him for long.
"Where to?"
"Yvette's house."
"I forgot you knew the Queen, perfect. Koawe should be there too, he invited me back to Arcta to see their guardian beast, apparently giving birth."
"Koawe? At the Lord's mansion?" She was referring to their weird family name.
"Yeah, I was surprised to find out that the barrier king is his junior under the same master. He's not a barrier mage though."
"...No wonder his presence is so unsettling."
"Hmm? You seem somewhat afraid of the barrier king too, do you know what kind of magic they use?"
Ning Xin looked around but he gestured that he silenced their conversation. Then he remembered the sleeping Muse was a greater sound mage than him, so he brought her to walk away before they continued chatting. Hopefully, the city wasn't crawling with sound mages that could break through his film of mana to eavesdrop on their conversation without him noticing.
"If my grandma wasn't lying, the barrier king is a curse mage. I don't sense the same sense of creepiness from him compared to Koawe though, I suspect Koawe's Class is heavily cursed based instead of a Sub-Class or Profession."
"Curse magic, cool. What does curse magic do?"
"I don't know, the range of effects is too wide and even random depending on the person who cast it. That's why we exterminate them from the face of existence if they were an enemy. The current generation of the Empire's King and Queen is special. Especially the Barrier King."
"Why so? I heard him say no one would die inside Tidal as long as the Life Queen is here." That seemed like a huge flex to him.
"Generally speaking, she's still just a very good healer. An important asset but nothing compared to the value that the Barrier King has shown. Or so my grandma told me. Tidal has about seven hundred thousand layers of barriers and if she didn't lie to me, the outer layers are choked full with curse magic so that if one so much as pokes the barrier, they get a curse inflicted on them."
"What kind of curse?"
"...I don't know either but with so many layers, I don't really feel like finding out. The Barrier King's abilities are greatly sought out by even Saints and Demigods. They don't even dare to destroy the Empire anymore. The Life Queen's healing ability only heightens Tidal's worth."
"So both of them are already famous even outside of Elcra?"
"I wouldn't know but I suppose so. I don't know much more than you regarding worlds outside."
They finally got to somewhere with people, the royal family's mansion was so far they would have to take weeks at a car's speed. Fortunately, there was flying transport that they could take. They might hit someone with their current poor control of flight so they took a ride on a saddled bird. The ride was pretty costly compared to a land drawn carriage, about 12 times more expensive. It wasn't until sunset that they got to the humble mansion, their ride didn't dare to land directly in the mansion's garden so they had to walk from a distance away. A designated landing spot about 5 km away from the mansion was built.
Ning Xin led the way.
'I would assume the entire population would want to move to Tidal if they were basically guaranteed their survival as long as they made Tidal their home.' Ebony thought. There were plenty of dungeons within Tidal's landscape and plenty of empty lands for more people.
It was as if she knew what he was thinking, "I think the general populace doesn't know that one doesn't die as long as they stay in Tidal. Just rumours of people saying they got killed in the city but didn't die. Most would take it as a joke or assume a healer came to the rescue quickly. As for the barriers, every town has sufficient protection at this point."
"Clearly insufficient. Navin was going around inviting people to move to Tidal."
"Hmm. I think it might be the 'big thing' that's going to happen that my grandma told me about before she left Elcra."
"I see. Navin didn't appear to be in a rush, we should still have time to charge to 300."
"I think we can make a stop at Arcta soon. We have too many unspent stat points and I don't know how long I need to consume and digest the blood I got."
She showed him her bag that was almost spilling out with red crystals. The majority was the Gorpede's blood while 1 or 2 was from the ball that used to be the Earthfly Queen and the beetle queen, she had a difficult time draining the compressed blood but not as much as when she tried to drain Gorpede's blood as it was alive.
"Shouldn't you have levelled from that?" He expected her to play a sufficient role at killing the huge centipede.
"...It was regenerating blood faster than I drained it."
"That is some potent vitality."
Ning Xin had a spring in her feet when she heard that.
The stronger the blood the more beneficial for her.
"Actually let's just go back with Koawe. I want to see Kiva, I heard babies forget quickly. When we get used to our added stats we can go for tougher dungeons and it would be more efficient."
"Sure."
It didn't make sense for them to hold onto stats anyway. Adding all of them was only logical to fighting stronger opponents. Most importantly, he can stock up on frost plums.
Before long, they stood in front of the gates of the Royal family. Something or rather, someone stood in between them and the fenced gates and it wasn't the guards.
"How rude! You just left me sleeping there with hundreds of stinky blacksmiths surrounding me!" The Muse had both her hands on her hips as she harrumphed at him.
❅❅❅
"Bleh! Couldn't you bring us directly onto land, Kong Tian?" Veronica spit the unknown blood out.
Ning Min took her time wiping the red fluid from her hair.
"Sorry…I could barely lock onto the questionable coordinates of 'around here'." Kong Tian the space mage didn't have a drop of blood on his body.
"What's wrong?" Ning Min asked her cousin who was looking up at the red sky.
"...There are no stars. The Blood Realm is disconnected from the Astral Realm, I can't divine well." Veronica wasn't wholly helpless yet but her strongest abilities were basically sealed. A poor or unstable connection might be more accurate since that was how she even managed to find the Blood Realm.
"The space here is more stable than any dungeon I've been in. Although it means we won't be able to travel far in a short period of time, I can locate our bearings better." Kong Tian was fascinated, he never had such difficulty manipulating space before.
It was honestly frightening that the Blood Saintess's realm had space more stable than his own realm spell. He was the pure space mage here! Although he hadn't created his own permanent realm yet, he couldn't wrap his head around how the space mana around him was so resistant to his mental touch. His spatial abilities were weakened by at least a dozen times.
"I don't think I can bring us out." Kong Tian said honestly, it wasn't that much of a challenge to enter but the stable space made the reverse more than a simple challenge.
"What!" Ning Min would still insist that she was a calm and collected individual.
"Are we at least hidden?" Veronica asked as she dipped into her mask's abilities to try to connect to the Astral Realm.
"Yes, I'm certain she doesn't know we intruded. I made that our priority, at least, we shouldn't be detected through space. We can still be visibly spotted."
It was a stealth mission where they intruded but didn't want to appear as intruders. None of them were fighters.
They were on a small island and Kong Tian was certain the Blood Saintess wasn't here. Everything from the ground, trees, sea and sky was red here and they wore similar colours as an extra precaution.
"Great. She's not away. South." Veronica managed to glimpse the general direction they should go and that the Blood Saintess was present.
"Give me a minute." Ning Min walked to the waters and raised her hand toward the sea.
In about a minute a weird fish with a large flat body swam towards them, they walked onto it as their ride arrived. Under Ning Min's control, they got themselves a grandmaster-ranked ride. It wasn't much but it would do as a ride.
With Ning Min's mind magic, they wouldn't have to worry about a couple of monsters. Veronica brought the right people. The fish brought them out onto the sea. Kong Tian and Ning Min's overflowing essence both worked together extremely well to make them undetectable so they were undisturbed by creatures.
Veronica focused on connecting to the Astral Realm, looking up at the sky as a habit while she sat on the fish. Ning Min was complaining to Kong Tian that he could've helped keep them dry from the bloody waters too but her voice suddenly cut off.
She blinked and forced her eyes wide open the next instant, she didn't dare to look away but her other senses couldn't detect movement from Ning Min, Kong Tian and even the fish she was riding. There was no wind and the gushing waters stopped.
Her panic increased slowly as she was staring into the pair of eyes staring through her own.
'Why…how, little Xin.' Veronica blanked out at the shabby red mask on the man's face.
"Oh..uhm hello." The deep voice cracked as if he hadn't spoken for awhile.
"Why do you have that?" She steadied her voice.
"Yes, hello? If uh, you can hear me. Then good."
Veronica frowned. The man wasn't looking at her, just staring at where her eyes originally were. She moved aside to see the man remain still and facing the air.
"Nice to see you? An..anyway. I just want to say I don't know what kind of deal you're planning to make but, no one liked the consequences of the deal you made. Make? Making? Uh yeah, have a good day? Night? See you…sooner? Don't make her cry."
The sound of wind and waves reentered Veronica's ears together with Ning Min's ongoing complaints with Kong Tian.
Veronica stood right up and scanned the endless blood sea to no avail.
"What kind of future do you see now?" Ning Min was familiar with Veronica's antics, she wasn't fooling around.
"Ah Min, slap me."
Veronica skidded against the surface of the sea for a long minute.
Ning Min was incredibly happy at the chance but was only faced with a harder slap.
Kong Tian sighed at the increased efforts he had to put to hide them.
❅❅❅
"Who is this…sassy girl?" Ning Xin pointed at the Muse.
"I don't know. Wait, here's some candy." Ebony shook his head in reply. He quickly searched his bag for candy when he saw that she was about to make some noise again. He was too slow, unable to find any candy left.
"Soul magic." Ning Xin wanted to draw her blades but she was in front of Yvette's mansion and the cries weren't an attack as far as she could tell. It took some time to get candies out since her bag was pretty full.
"So what's your name? I'm Ebony, she's Scarlet."
"Huh. Can't you Identify me? I changed it to my name. Nevermind, I'm Muse"
'That's her name? Is she an npc?' Ebony wondered if she was just lazy to introduce herself.
"Why are you following us?"
"Just you. I told you! I will cleanse and purify the tumour in your soul!" She stomped the ground, she didn't like having to repeat herself.
"Why?" Ebony didn't understand her motive.
"What tumour?" Ning Xin grabbed Muse's shoulders.
"OWW!" Muse screamed.
The guards standing nearby actually didn't move even though Ebony was able to feel that the scream was both bordering a mental sound attack and a weird pang of pain that he couldn't get used to. He guessed it was his soul getting hit.
Ning Xin felt the feedback from her mask, she stuffed candies into Muse's mouth and apologised for hurting her. She got the hang of dealing with Muse really quickly.
"Something weird is stuck to his soul. I don't know what, but I will cleanse it." Muse happily sucked on the sweet candy in her mouth.
"Is that weird thing harmful?" The temperature around Ning Xin rose.
Muse stopped making sucking noises, "Don't you feel weird?"
"I don't know what you're referring to, I didn't even know that there was something stuck to my soul."
"Uhm but, don't you want to remove dirt stuck to your body. It's the same thing, whatever is there is not part of your natural soul. I don't see how it's useful and it definitely isn't making your soul stronger. I don't really know what it's doing there either. Never seen something like that." Muse drew circles with her feet.
"Please remove it for him." Ning Xin asked.
"Hehe! I demand sweets."
"Why have you been standing outside my gates for such a long time, Scarlet and Muse?"
Ebony saw a pink-haired lady past the opened gates, he was also familiarised with the Life Queen's appearance so he greeted her politely. Seems like the Queen knew who Muse was and maybe the guards were familiar with her too. The two girls received a head pat. How enviable.