"You were right but I don't think there's space for us." Ebony saw the colourful rain of spells, arrows, cannons and even beams of concentrated mana.
"Then we make space." Ning Xin said it as a matter of course.
The gate guards are visibly nervous due to the ongoing battle far behind them.
They stopped by the gate so that they weren't seen as invaders and showed Commander Wil's badge.
"Let's go to the western side of the wall. We can join their artillery mages."
"Oh, I forgot to tell you I got a new mana capacity skill."
"What?"
"You know my mask is part of me? Yeah, we can store excess mana and life force inside. I figured out how to do it a while back. I can sense the vague link between me and my mask a little better."
"...That mask is really impressive."
"It's still a few years old okay, I haven't given it that many abilities yet. It's just has a couple of convenient functions and a really durable piece of amour. Energy storage is a basic ability we can give once we feel the link with our mask."
"What are some things sister Jing or your grandmother's mask can do?"
"I don't know about grandma but I think sister Jing definitely has some ever-expanding spatial storage that is also a storage of spatial mana. We don't really share all our abilities with each other…" She implied the oddness of sharing the details of many of their skills with each other.
"Can you materialise your life force as some of the Trolls can?"
"Not yet but I can manipulate it around and over my body already. I don't have as much Vitality as they do so materialisation will have to wait."
All soldiers had to have some kind of ear protection, it was deafening near the walls and they were standing on it. The effective range of their magic defences doesn't seem to exceed 12 or so kilometres. The artillery mages probably had training for tossing spells over a long range but accuracy was definitely a problem if they didn't have a literal sea of targets.
It was a bit of a waste of mana as far as he could tell, many of the spells weakened noticeably by the time it reached the Trolls who were being held around the 9km mark. Their Shamans were dealing with the ranged bombardment and were slowing pushing their vanguard forward. It was quite the sight to behold, a sea of brawn and muscles covered the horizon.
'How did their numbers increase so much?' He wasn't that good at estimating numbers and most of the scenery was explosions, smoke, dirt and blood.
"Look. Radiance Envoy, level 385." Ning Xin nudged him to look at a special piece of equipment and the man behind it.
The Light mage was conjuring a massive beam of light and directing it into a cylinder almost 10 metres in diameter. It was probably glass or some crystal that helps to concentrate or focus his magic. Dozens of fire mages were near the man and removing the effects of heat or their own men would melt just by standing near the beam cannon cylinder.
"Can you directly manipulate heat?" Ebony casually asked a question he knew the answer to.
"Don't be silly, fire mana is being generated there. They are just removing and storing it into fire mana ores." The mana ore that she referred to was a large orb that was clearly enchanted like their trailer's battery that can store more mana than its size or rarity suggests.
"Can you sense how hot the light beam is?" He got curious, the beam of light was blinding but both of them could look at it directly. It was very uncomfortable though.
"Almost as hot as our liquid flames." His gravity sphere can compress her flames till it was liquified. This 'liquid' spreads out and burns far longer even without fuel such as oxygen. Personally, her mana compression was still a little weak to make liquid fire.
"So no touching."
"...You can get resistance. I'll have to be patient…hmph!"
"Really!?"
"Not now! We have other targets now."
"Right. Let's find somebody in charge."
❅❅❅
They were good boys and girls. Searching out for General Impes instead of joining the soldiers directly. Admittedly, they were dumb and naive. Many lives were on the line and Ebony did not want to challenge the Empire's authority. Ning Xin also understood that she hasn't reached a point where she could disregard the Empire like her grandma does. The power range amongst people of the same rank was extremely vast but her Intuition was informing her that few present could threaten them. This General lady was one of them and maybe a couple of Commanders.
These 'Commanders' had nothing on the old man Wil so their military rank may not directly translate to their strength. If old man Wil was part of the military he would definitely be a General in terms of combat strength.
'As expected, there aren't any King-ranked fighters.' She glanced around but the low number of King-ranked people wasn't too surprising.
Even the absolute lowest requirement for a Grandmaster to evolve was for the class skills to be 550 and the fortification buff for 1.1 times is so low that they wouldn't be that different from a slightly stronger Grandmaster. The Imperials regard those that picked a 1.5 times evolution as elites and 1.25 as average. The majority had taken 1.5 from Journeyman to Master and then 1.25 to Grandmaster if they were even capable of reaching level 300 in their lifetime. Most nobles with 'money', equipment and skills could easily go from unclassed to Master with 1.5 times while Marquises and above reaching Grandmaster is only natural. They also had higher standards since they had the resources and practically everyone should have taken 'maxed' out evolutions.
Even she wasn't sure how many more evolutions she could go with a 2.0 times requirement. Now she needed her top skills to reach level 600 but the next would require her few skills to reach 1000. Needless to say, that shouldn't be an issue since they could hit far above their levels now.
Every individual can sense their own 'talent' better and better as they evolve. She knew that even without any additional Natural Potential her fire manipulation and sword mastery can reach about 560 to 570. It seems like Ebony's perception of this 'talent' wasn't as sharp as hers so he didn't get a good estimate of his highest potential at the moment.
As for most of her Class Skills, they could reach 450 without any issues. She didn't even think she needed any additional Natural Potential to get her Class Skills to that level. Her Sub-Class and Profession might have difficulty breaking past 420 and 410 respectively.
Birthed by two peak Emperor-Classed it was natural that she had the talents to almost reach the same heights, anything more would depend on her own efforts. It was obvious to her that Ebony's parents were both Emperor-Classed as well.
One's parents might have an inhumanly powerful body but their child would at best have slightly higher base stats compared to others of the same race. Their child's stats may not even stray from the average. Most of all the powerful genetics were hidden as potential as people called it. Hence, the reason why nobles usually stayed powerful and the weak stayed weak. Those bound by their 'talents' needed a great deal of effort to break out of their spiralling weakening of genetics.
Physiques were another form of endowment but in any case, all of these advantages would be weaker than both parents combined. Talent, physique and many other traits of one's parents would be diluted by a fair bit. It wasn't as if a child would inherit everything from their parents either. Lazing around was a one-way trip to wasting every advantage one had for having accomplished parents.
From the little that she was allowed to learn, the Xengs had a relatively short history. They didn't have many generations and her grandmother's grandfather was the oldest in the entire Ning clan and one of the 3 Saint Classed that they had. None of these 'Saints' had children after they evolved to that rank. It was basically impossible for a child to be born between two people of a vast power difference. Even the fertility rate of Grandmasters was extremely low and the Xengs as a whole had a far lower fertility rate compared to these Imperials or other races with low fertility rates.
'Now that I think about it, why is it so?' She had never been interested in studying and fell asleep whenever she listened to boring talks or lessons. The child of a pair of Saints and above was referred to as 'Higher-races' and was a group that she was repeatedly warned to beware of. According to her Grandma, there might be a couple of these children on Elcra.
'I wonder how long grandma would be gone for?' She started to miss her playful grandmother.
Ebony might have attempted to control and hide his overflowing essence as much as possible so that people around him wouldn't freeze up but she couldn't care less. The change in her Core Skill meant that her blood flow was more consistent till she charged up life force and her Vitality wasn't exceptionally high but her overflowing Vitality had the effect of causing other's bodies to feel hot even though the surrounding temperature doesn't change.
She took some time before she figured it out, getting closer to the Frost Elves helped her figure out what effect her overflowing essence had.
Currently, the majority of the Master warriors amongst the soldiers be they knights or any other close-ranged class below level 230 would feel their lungs burning as they breathed and enough to hinder them considerably. 250 and above wouldn't have their capabilities affected but enough for them to feel discomfort. Those that had fewer points in Vitality had it worse but they wouldn't feel the effects if they stood far enough.
The Grand Knights guarding the general's tent weren't excluded from the bestial intimidation wafting out of her but they weren't intimidated. With her around, Ebony was completely overlooked as his presence was almost non-existent.
"Can we enter?" She would've barged right in if Ebony didn't speak up.
"One moment."
There weren't that many individuals who had the right to protect the high-ranked military personnel and these 2 seemed to recognise both of them. She couldn't say the same for them as she had no clue who they were. She didn't sense anyone inside the tent other than the lady General as far as heat and scent signatures go. The tent could block magical senses but neither affected her.
"You may enter." The Grand Knight doubled back out.
She was stunned by the amount of paperwork the General was facing when her soldiers were defending the wall.
'How boring!'
"We will join your artillery mages." She initiated the conversation before the man beside her said anything stupid.
"Great. As long as you don't go down the wall or cliff." The woman didn't even look up from her paperwork. Her hands were gliding across so fast that she had to have some kind of scribing skill.
"That's it?" The toneless voice questioned. Fervent Intuition informed her that he was surprised that they didn't face any rejection or harsher rules.
"There's nothing else to do, might as well make good use of your firepower and excess mana. If you dare to jump down, that's none of my business. I won't send any soldiers to save you."
"Fair enough. Do we need some kind of written permission?"
"Just walk up there, find an open spot and start firing. If anyone's dumb enough to stop you they would be dead, demoted or fired soon enough. If there's nothing else you can leave."
'I guess not even I would go down there…' Ning Xin recalled the uncountable giants not too far away, pushing a step or two forward as they dallied. The overflowing Vitality from even a single of those Trolls shadowed her own, millions of them and the entire city could feel a constant pressure on their bodies even from their current distance.
They left the General's tent and she was glad she didn't have to feel the irritation and annoyance coming from the lady anymore. Her hand jerked forward and grabbed the 'excited' expressionless man's wrist.
"Don't you dare think abo…no, you better use your head. If you jump down I swear I'll follow you." She had to take her words back because she needed him to think rather than the other way around.
'It worked.' Even with her inhuman control over her entire body, she couldn't stop her heart from getting excited. Fervent Intuition sensed how hard the expressionless man had been hit with her honest words. She didn't doubt that she wouldn't have the presence of mind to stay on the wall if Ebony thoughtlessly decided to meet the Trolls by himself.
She's been picking up more emotions from him but she didn't like it. He was mentally disturbed by something he couldn't vocalise and it wasn't as if she could read minds with Fervent Intuition. The only good thing was that it was helping his meditation greatly.
She just hoped it was worth the trouble. A sense of uncertainty welled up in her. She hoped that he wouldn't change but she knew they both had to change. They were both too naive.
❅❅❅
"I forgot to ask, did Koawe contact you?" Ebony turned around and peeked into the tent again.
The Knights winced at the rudeness.
"No. Uncontactable." General Impes wasn't bothered by his intrusion.
"Any updates on Arcta?" The floating and self-firing bows haven't come back to his side and he didn't see any of them around except for one sneakily following him.
"I sent some people to request their help yesterday. They should get back to us by today. Be a dear and go lay waste on our enemies."
He retreated before a pen or paperweight flew at him.
"She's angry right?" He was pretty sure he guessed right.
"Almost." She gave him a pat on the back.
"What's the update on wild Trolls on the mainland?" He asked the Grand Knight.
"Barely any was reported. Other than a couple of unlucky parties out in the field, the towns and cities should be safe."
"Alright, thanks." He stopped disturbing the guards and left for the walls.
Turning to Ning Xin, "Let's go for target practice".
"Umm, none of my skills can reach that far." She replied shyly.
"You never sit still and train your spellcasting after all."
In all honesty, to call her a lightning, wind or blood mage was a stretch. She used all of that only to strengthen her close combat capabilities. It was rare to see her 'waste' mana on utilising her elemental affinities to their greatest potential. General Impes had been absolutely right. They shifted past the crowded wall top, took an empty spot and no one cared. With the exception of asking them not to take up space if they weren't planning on attacking.
"I'll help you for now but it's time for us to refine our spells." Any projectile spell can easily leave a mage's mental range of control but with a Master's Intelligence a range of over 9 km was too much unless they had skills that made spells retain their power over a long distance. Basically, any random projectile spell would improve range as it levelled but Ning Xin never cared for such massive range spells.
"But… there are so many people watching."
"And?"
"They're going to see my spells hit the ground…or scoff at my weak spells."
"Look at that, they are beginners too."
He knew that the girl was proud but it never came to mind that it would be an issue. There was a line of level 130 to 170 mage soldiers that were firing spells onto the battleground or into the corrosion cloud above them. The General or some other commander might have copied his idea. Although they didn't make a mark on the cloud and any physical matter or elemental mana simply fizzled out of existence, it was fantastic for skill levels.
"Let's go there." He dragged the slightly resistant girl over and they started with him setting up a Guided Path that would propel her spells. The 'path' had a diameter of 1 metre, more than enough for the lesser spell caster.
"This is the perfect opportunity to make our spell ideas into skills. What was that?" He couldn't make out the words she mumbled in protest.
She waved her arms up swiftly and cast her multi-elemental spells up into the sky. He used the Guided Path himself since she didn't want to.
His accuracy was terrible at first since he was so used to absolute control over his mana and magic but it wasn't hard to adjust Guided Path a little.
For some unknown reason, Ning Xin was obviously annoyed as she burned the corrosion cloud and riddled it with all her magical capabilities.