Ever Frost
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Chapter 37: Upgrade
🕑 Added 2022-07-21 09:07:00 +0000 UTCEbony made a sphere of mana not unlike his compression training, pushing as much mana into without compressing it. The sphere expanded to his limit of more than 5 metres, he kept pulling everything back into as small a sphere as he could then pushed it to its limit again.
It apparently helps with expanding his range, at the same time training his Mana Compression. Using Frost Mist Perception Sphere would help train the skill and Ice Mana Manipulation at the same time. Multitasking to the limit, he also increased the strength of gravity around him, pulsing it to extend his range as well.
He didn’t want to cause a commotion with sound magic but found that he could just stabilise the surrounding mana at the edge of his control to stay unmoving and sound wouldn’t pass through. Essentially soundproofing his sound magic.
For the heck of it, to increase his number of casts sooner or later he casted his Ice Sword and tried to reform it from the start again. He wanted to remove the air bubbles in them, he needed to restructure the ice mana that constituted it.
He didn’t study materials or design and didn’t know what internal structure would make a strong sword.
His Layered Ice Carapace was modelled after Gen’s and the progeniturtle’s shell. He visualised and created it step by step, scale by scale, the ice mana within it configured and structured to withstand blows from outside, with the curvature of it changed many times from trial and error.
Maybe he should use an image for his Ice Sword too. But what image? He couldn’t think of any so he did a simple restruconstruction of its internal structure. Just making them neater and closer together so there aren’t air bubbles in them.
When he could he would force a fifth cast over and over, frost mist took one, gravity took one, sound took one, Ice Sword took the last. The fifth was using Layered Ice Carapace, to increase the speed of cast if possible, the second objective was to cast one as thick as possible from the get go.
He couldn’t cast compressed spells from the get go yet but it should be possible. He may have made some mistakes in his calculations of how much mana went into his spells and how much stronger his spells get by getting compressed. He doesn’t always have time to fully compress a spell after all. He was getting faster but it wasn’t nearly fast enough to his liking.
He wasn’t going to put his shield down in the dungeon so he at least wanted to double check how much mana he can squeeze into it and estimate its strength.
Layered Ice Carapace at level 39, [80% + (39x2.5%) + 30% + 20% + 10% + 5%] = 242.5% Intelligence. For 5 layers.
Sheer Mana Compression at level 82, 82 x 2.5% = 205%. Did he double this for the 100% increase in mana compressibility previously? 205% x 2 = 410%.
5 layered carapace requires 750MP/2 = 375 x 5 = (1875MP x 410%) + 1875 = 9562.5 mana for a full powered shield.
Compressed effect + original effect = total effect (242.5/100)x410 = 994.25% + 242.5% = 1236.75%. 101 Intelligence x 1236.75% = 1249.1175
‘...does it really have the effect of 1249 Intelligence?’ Ebony doubted his calculations quite a little.
The number seems a little over what he expected. Furthermore, his mana was twice as resilient or tough. No wonder once fully compressed, the Rhoats could barely damage them.
He obviously didn’t have so much mana to compress in a 2 to 3 minute duel with Scarlet so it was still understandable it got sliced.
He wasn’t able to keep up a fifth cast but it didn’t stop him from trying. Ebony meditated as usual in his trance state magic training till he heard his door being knocked. He mentally dropped his ice sword and shield, ice, gravity and vibrations of mana settling down.
“Are you trying to freeze the building?” Scarlet was standing beyond the door in her usual garb.
“...No.” Ebony didn’t realise that just because he pulled his ice mana back didn’t mean the temperature of the surroundings wouldn’t be affected. He could tell that she was folding her arms under her mantle, silently waiting for an explanation perhaps.
A wave of heat slapped his entire body and the room heated up considerably.
“I’m sorry, I may have gone overboard with my practice.” Ebony said to the people that walked out of their rooms and were looking over too. His honesty somewhat appeased the people. Maybe they liked the cooling chill on a hot summer day.
Scarlet asked if he would like to spar. He obliged. He hasn’t trained his body for the day.
His routine changed again, he would have breakfast in the morning. Train his magic till the evening, spar with Scarlet in the public training square if it were just physical and no magic was used. His own physical training after that, then dinner and magic training again till bedtime. Requiring less and less sleep before he was fully rested.
He asked Scarlet if there was anywhere he could train out of sight without bothering people.
The Quest Hall should have built such facilities that he can pay for. It was like the duelling grounds but a smaller, more personal space. They should have a few of such rooms underground already.
It was a little more pricey so he made sure to use only regenerated mana, keeping his pool full he can charge his ores when he was doing his physical training.
It might get suspicious if he trades in mana ores daily but he did have a meditative class and he could say he didn’t spend much of his mana. Obviously, he made sure that the Quest Hall didn’t or doesn’t spy on the people using the training rooms.
Fortunately or surprisingly, they had laws against that and the Quest Hall was a government agency of sorts.
He couldn’t do anything against the unknown person divining him who may or may not be spying on him right now.
The magicless sparing with Scarlet did wonders for him and his mastery evolved on the second day.
‘Ting’ ‘Class Skill Single-handed Greatsword Mastery evolved into Flowing Greatsword Mastery’
Flowing Greatsword Mastery - Mastery of a greatsword with enough fluidity, balance and deftness to disregard its large, bulky size and heavy weight. Strength decreases by 20%, Agility increases by 10% while wielding a greatsword single-handedly. Strength increases by 20%, Agility decreases by 10% while wielding a greatsword with both hands. Fluidity, balance, stability and deftness increases by 1.0% per level.
Battle Hum has also mutated into Battle Song after 3 days. Basically, he didn’t need to hum to produce the same effects though he could still hum it out.
Battle Song - Cast songs of battle with mana vibrations, musical melodies producing minor effects of increased stat of 0.01% of Intelligence depending on melody per level.
Consumes 30MP/Min
Classification: Sound Magic
He didn’t know what ‘songs of battle’ meant but he knew it referred to the different bgms he tried imitating. The good thing was that even though he only knew how to play the piano it wasn’t like he was playing an instrument.
He just had to recreate a certain sound he remembered and he could ‘play’ another type of instrument. It wasn’t easy but he was just sitting there when he was magic casting so he had time. The increase in mana cost wasn’t all that much.
When Mana Vibrations hit level 25 too he got a prompt for a Sub-Class. Bardic Mage, its requirements being Mana Vibrations and Battle Song hitting level 25. Despite all the effort his Battle Song didn’t level past 31 after days and Mana Vibrations was slowly rising past that but it didn’t seem likely to hit 50 either.
He got a simple gravity spell from what he did called Magnified Gravity Field.
Magnified Gravity Field - Increase the gravitational pull towards the ground by 1.0% per level
Consumes 250MP/Min
Classification: Gravity magic
The skill effect was not within Ebony’s expectations. It doesn’t scale according to his Intelligence stat. He brought the question to Rowent and it should be due to the fact that all he was doing was guide the elemental mana to do exactly what it does already. He wasn’t making the mana do something else that was out of its nature with the power of his mind.
It was pretty pointless now since it only adds weight to himself which may be good for training but the effects in battle have yet to be seen. Especially with the mana cost, Ebony focused all his training on being more mana efficient with gravity mana so that he could get a mana efficiency fortification.
With that mana cost, it was difficult even for Ebony to train the skill much, even if that was the cost for a 5 metre radius calculation like his Frost Mist Perception Sphere. His range expanded to 6.5ish metres over the week. Since he couldn’t rely on this skill to hit level 25 anytime soon he tried to think of different things he could do with gravity.
His control over gravity mana got stronger but he still couldn’t form a sphere of gravity mana with nothing in it. Gravity mana forcefully travels where it wants or where it's supposed too. Since controlling surrounding gravity mana was too costly and he couldn’t separate and control an individual body of gravity mana, Ebony was down to the gravity mana his body was…producing?
His vocabulary for something he didn’t completely understand was limited.
He either had a set amount of gravity mana according to his mass which spherically revolved from outside his body to inside, or, as he had mass he produced gravity at the edge of his mass’s influence that pulls anything towards himself and disappears the moment the mana reaches his body. He preferred the first line of thought.
Ebony's bright idea was to let gravity mana on his or from his body to do the opposite. As light and weak the pull was, there was a force of attraction. He first forcefully slowed down the pull to his body all around. He succeeded pretty easily, he kept it up till he managed to completely stop the gravity mana to stop moving towards him.
Obviously, it wasn’t like he was antigravity or anything. He was still getting pulled towards the ground, he was just no longer pulling anything towards himself. Clearly, with how weak the original effect was, stopping the pull didn’t do shit.
Reversing the direction of gravity mana instead, that did things. And oh was it fun. The skill name was not funny though.
Repulsive Body - Reversing the flow of gravity of your body to repel matter. Has the effect of 0% + 1.0% Intelligence
Consumes 50 MP/Min
Classification: Gravity Magic
There was nothing repulsive about his body right?
It was a little weird that there was a 0% but it informed him how weak the gravitational pull towards his body and that the spell itself wasn’t all that strong. Spells he had so far usually had a starting stat value like 70% or 80% Intelligence or something similar.
It was a ‘body’ skill yet sadly not body enhancement magic. Well, it wasn’t like his body was strengthened so it kinda makes sense. Though the word was ‘body’ it wasn’t like he was repelling his clothes and greatsword, he could easily extend the reversion of gravity mana to his clothes and sword.
He was probably subconsciously already doing that since the gravitational pull of them was incomparably weak, practically non-existent.
When he formed the spell he was reversing the gravity mana from all his clothing without him realising anyway. The spell doesn’t do anything noticeable at the moment but he was loving the idea of pushing or repelling attacks when the skill gets stronger.
The range of where gravity mana starts or where it reaches from his body was extremely small. Unlike the ground or planet which pulls even birds down. It was only a fraction of a single cm from his body, he could increase the range but focus on the speed and strength of the reverse rotation and also mana efficiency.
Despite a week’s worth of effort none of his gravity classified skills reached level 25 yet. He might have spread himself a little thin even with how much mana he had.
Because of how Rare rarity mana ores or Blues were, trading Greens for them were not on a 10 to 1 rate although the amount of mana within them was equal. The rate here was 18 filled Greens for a single empty Blue there even had a limited amount of Blues they could trade out. It didn’t matter much since no one would do such a foolish exchange.
Not even Ebony. At least not yet, his regeneration wasn’t so bad he needed a Blue which could hold up to 100,000 mana.
He was going out of town today. He wanted to concentrate and get his Sub-Class as soon as possible but his greatsword was in such bad condition it was a few steps away from breaking, snapping or shattering.
The most decent blacksmith was probably a dwarven smith that runs his shop in the closest city, Teld City. It was also the only city in these plains.
It was 2 towns away but not actually too far if he were to go straight and directly there. He has saved up more than enough for a simple repair or maintenance but not if he were needed to get a new, better one.
Of course, Ebony tried just using his Ice Sword as an alternative but it snaps or shatters with strong impacts even when fully compressed.
While ice itself wasn’t all that hard or tough with magic it was certainly possible to make it as strong if not stronger than crafted weapons.
Easier said than done as all weapons were made by smiths or crafters with Classes, skills and fortifications to back them up.
The distance was a little more than from Arcta to Plainston around 2 gurs which was about 10,000km but there was no hill in between and there was even a dirt road all the way there. He wasn’t supposed to run on small roads at his speed but he shouldn’t get lost as long as he follows the road.
With his speed and stamina, he can get there in less than a day with time to spar. The trip to Plainston took so long because of the heavy cargo and then travelling the ‘safe’ route through Bubble Hills. A rough estimation of his speed based on skill level and Agility stat was about over 250m/s there was so much error here that Ebony didn’t bother too much.
He didn’t know how to calculate air resistance and drag, how much slower he was with his robe on and everything. If he remembers correctly the speed of sound in air was 343m/s. Pretty sure Scarlet was much faster than that but there weren't any sonic booms or breaking of the sound barrier when they fought. Well, if every warrior above level 100 were to produce sonic booms with every move the world wouldn’t be a very nice place to live in.
Clovis’s apt answer to ‘what about the laws of physics?’ was “what’s that?”. Ebony has learnt to blame things on the presence of mana and magic.
Ebony informed Scarlet he wasn’t going to spar with her today and left town when the gates opened at the 6th hour. He also extended his rent of the inn’s room to a month since he was going to be there for a while. Their daily spars had been helpful for his sword fighting training. Scarlet’s mastery of the blades was something Ebony could only hope to reach one day.
With or without magic, he was always on the defensive. It was the same no matter how he changed things up. He usually gets better at fighting the same opponent by getting the rhythm and habits down and countering them.
It was the first time he didn’t get much result from his adaptations. It just didn’t matter how he changed the way he approached the battle. Her speed was one thing but her sword mastery or style alone trumps and adapts to his changes just as well. That and she was also changing her battle tactics as she fought Ebony, on the fly. Ebony could hope for no better opponent. Rival.
Ebony travelled without practising his magic for once. When he tried carrying a full powered Layered Ice Carapace it was too heavy to lift with a single hand or even with both hands. It would slow him down if he played around with his sword too. He took the chance to charge up his robe’s mana capacity.
The standardised gate opening hours for cities and towns were from the 6th hour to the 26th hour in the Empire.
Stepping out of the gates after double checking which road to follow from the guard, Ebony could see many people at work. Earth mages, all past a level 100 were surveying the area outside and waving their wands or staff from time to time, chanting. They were making sure the earth was able to handle weight without collapsing but there was supposedly not much to worry about in these plains.
The stone mages had started laying out a thicker and taller wall. Plainston was going to expand into a city, the noble in charge was either going to be changed or something, Ebony wasn’t sure. The person in charge of the walls was an old level 300 great stone mage or so they say.
He was churning out the stones, either through conjuring them or compressing and making sure the delivered stone was up to the required standard. Doing it alone was not possible even for a mage of his magnitude, he was overseeing the whole operation of all the mages. Not sure where all of them came from but the Empire sure was taking a new dungeon seriously.
A long line of merchant wagons and caravans were getting their cargo checked before entry. From foodstuff to materials to equipment.
The town was getting noisier and busier by the day. The number of normal fighters, non-apprentice, was increasing and other than the wall builder mages Ebony had also started to spot an Elven mage here and there. The standard of equipment he saw on people was slightly better than what he used to see.
The town was overpopulated and according to Scarlet, the number of jobs was at an all time low. Monsters throughout the plains and forest were being overhunted. She had to go further towards the hills or even another town for her daily monster hunt.
More and more fights were occurring between parties and individual freelancers as well. It was nothing unusual but the situation will only get worse with the increase in competition over a decreasing number of jobs. Plainston was a relatively safe and quiet town to begin with. Until the dungeon opens there is not much the Quest Hall or government can do to calm the people down.
The town guards were getting new blood sent by the higher nobles or Empire themselves. The current ones would either have to be redeployed to other towns or undergo another round of training. They would not be capable of keeping order in Plainston otherwise.
It was a pretty pleasant trip to see the sights. Of course, there wasn’t much to see, just the grass on the land and clouds in the sky. There were hardly any stray monsters near the roads and Ebony would pass by travelling merchants, parties and Runners.
Parties most likely took escort quests from smaller individual peddlers or merchants towards Plainston for a quick buck before they arrived. The smarter ones stayed in other towns doing small jobs, waiting for the news of the opened dungeon. It was too late to buy land in Plainston now since they already stopped the sale of land for now.
[Runner]'s main job was delivering parcels and packages. Communication was possible with the callstone but some urgent or small items that can’t wait for a merchant or peddler were delivered through their services. Some companies like Z&Z obviously had their own contracted [Runner]s.
Unsurprisingly, they were faster than Ebony or at least as fast as him. Other than movement skills they pick up skills that help protect cargo or increase the amount they can carry. Those and a whole lot of stealth and tracking skills, the good ones anyway, according to Fergus. It was another popular Class together with miners. If anything like a monster attack happens they have a high chance of getting away after all.
His robe only took about 2 hours to fully charge before his mana was overfilled into his mana ores. Thinking he shouldn’t waste time, he casted Repulsive Body. Sadly unable to benefit from body enhancement magic 100% mana efficiency. When he stopped moving, it was able to repel wind by a tiny bit but travelling at his speed, the repulsion didn’t do much yet.
The trip was uneventful before the City of Teld appeared in his sights. The walls were much taller and thicker, it looked like it could actually stop monsters. The traffic wasn’t so bad and they had more manpower, Ebony was allowed in smoothly after paying the fee, it was the same as the current Plainston’s fee.
The city guard was kind enough to point him towards Brand’s Blacksmith. A relatively ‘young’ dwarven blacksmith that runs his own little store with him as the sole blacksmith. They say humans have the shortest lifespan followed by beastmen, dwarves and elves. Beastmen only had a tiny bit longer estimated lifespan than humans and dwarves roughly 1.5 times that of humans.
Brand Balke was Top’s acquaintance or friend that he recommended seeing how Ebony was looking for a blacksmith. He was a self made blacksmith who made it to level 100 with self learnt techniques which was pretty rare that he was able to run a store in a city with self learnt techniques.
The city was a lot larger than Plainston but the roads and buildings were orderly. The store was nearer to the outskirts of the city, but not that bad a location.
It was like a small shophouse, two storeys tall. There was a human girl tending to the customers who called out a welcome to him as he entered. Ebony could hear the sounds of consistent hammering from outside.
The shop was displaying an array of short swords, long swords on one side, bows on the other. The centre had a glass covered piece probably displaying the smith’s best works. He was a weapon smith as their sign board was the picture of a sword, bow and arrow and hammer. No armour was on display either.
The centre had a huge silver-coloured war hammer propped up, on its side was a greatsword sheathed in its black scabbard there was a large gem on the centre of the sword or rain guard. There was also a red coloured wooden recurve bow with 2 red gems above and below where one would hold the bow.
Ebony couldn’t Identify them, guessing it was the glass at work. It seems like it was possible to stop identification-type skills.
“Welcome, sir. Perhaps I can help you find what you’re looking for?” the lady came over and asked after settling the other dwarven warrior looking between a hammer and his pouch.
“Repair and maintenance. Greatsword.” Ebony replied.
“Boss Balke is currently working and you might have to wait until he’s done for him to appraise your greatsword.” the lady explained.
“I’ll wait and look around first.” Ebony said. There were a few battle axes and maces but the majority were war hammers, swords and bows. Not a single wand or staff was present.
Most of them were close to what Ebony remembered a bastard sword looked like. Ebony saw that most warriors here that used swords were equipped with a one-handed sword and a shield. Those that carry larger swords like Chris and Ebony were rarer at least amongst human warriors.
The larger beastman warriors preferred heavier classed blunt weapons if they didn’t have a sword and shield. Like a mace or battle axe. Ebony has only seen dwarven warriors carry war hammers or axes.
There was another bearded human warrior waiting in the store like him instead of looking at the wares. A short and buff ball of muscle came out with a sword and handed it to this human warrior. They talked about his blade for a bit and the human took out his pouch and paid for it before leaving.
“Hello, can you take a look at my greatsword? How much would repairing it cost?” Ebony walked over just as the dwarf sat on a chair behind the countertop. He pulled his weapon out and left it on the countertop. The dwarf frowned possibly due to disturbing his break but stood up and climbed up a step or two. A stool or step was hidden behind the counter.
[Blacksmith Lvl 102]
He passed the level 100 Class Evolution. Balke unsheathed the greatsword and gave it a look, taking out a tiny hammer from his front leather apron pocket and lightly tapping the body and edge of the blade.
“Gahh! Wha tha’ell have you been doing tha this baby? The compression skill and techniques used is pretty darn good. This is Xeng make ain’t it boy?... Ice… I see, ya fool. This is just normal bronze, if the smith didn’t do a good job with compression it would have shattered long ago. Ya put ice mana into it didn’t ya? The bronze might be a little resistant to cold but ya overdid it, I don’t know how long it has been subjected to ice mana but the bronze inside is a step from completely breaking apart.” Balke the smith didn’t look at Ebony weirdly unlike most others. He could tell Ebony pushed ice mana or some mana into it which harmed the internal structure of the blade.
“Can it be repaired?”
“...it won’t be worth it. The material itself isn’t that compatible to be used with ice mana. I could restore the blade itself to the same levels of compression, probably more. But I don’t have such delicate control over its internal structure. It will need to be reforged. Even so, it won’t be able to handle ice mana the way you have been pushing it. It’ll shatter in battle sooner or later… my advice would be to get a different weapon or you can have this upgraded if you don’t want to change.” Balke seemed confident in repairing it, the end product would not be exactly the same though.
“...what upgrades would be appropriate?”
“Well… ah say upgrades but there are not many materials bronze can work with... Since yer an ice mage I would say making an alloy with icerock steel for toughness and durability, it is not uncommon and pretty affordable with us being so close to the glades.
Verglas aluminium is considerably tough in an alloy and will naturally absorb ice mana onto its surface, I can even make it self compress the absorbed ice mana to a small degree.
This will keep its internals safe and as a natural ice type material the alloy would be much more resistant or acceptant to ice mana. It's rarer but I won’t need to use much of it.” Balke listed the materials he thought would work well with ice magic and practical enough such that the materials can be found.
Icerock steel was tougher and more durable but with Ebony’s usage of ice mana, he was going to need his sword to be able to withstand a lot of ice mana. He was also worried it would interfere with his injection of ice mana if it absorbs his ice mana to its surface.
“How much ice mana do you think it’ll be able to take before it starts being damaging to the blade?”
“Eh that’s hard to say, there’s factors like your Intelligence, skills and class fortification to take into account. The more verglas aluminium in there, the more ice mana it can withstand. If ah really had to put a number the highest limit would be 500 mana of a normal ice mage using a Common rarity piece, perhaps.” The numbers seemed horrible to Ebony. That was just the number to safely use it so it wasn’t as if he could push more mana into it.
“Are there any other options? One that can withstand a lot of ice mana and not just push it to its surface.” Ebony asked.
“Aye, but the main body of this greatsword is just made of common bronze. The resultant alloy would be either too fragile or brittle if you use a much higher quality metal. It would be a waste of good quality metal too, may as well make a new sword altogether. Meditative ehh… adding a pinch of tungsten rime to the verglas aluminium bronze alloy could work to counteract the absorption of mana. It is highly receptive to ice mana and can make it as durable as if icerock steel was used.”
“That’s fine.” Ebony liked the nice coincidence of rime.
“Ah’m not finished tungsten rime is a Rare quality material at least, it’s bloody rare and just as expensive. You are better off having a new sword made from scratch. Ah can make a Common one that is stronger and tougher and still be cheaper than the tungsten rime itself.”
“Can it be similar in dimensions to the current one? A straight, flat, double edged.”
“...nay. I don’t know how the Xengs make a blade so flat and straight that doesn’t bend or snap under pressure. Curved swords should cut better but... I say reforge but I would keep its structure the same, the verglas aluminium and tungsten rime will merely be an addition.” Spouting these words seems to have taken Balke a great deal of effort.
“I want to upgrade it.”
“Fine! You stubborn brat! I can get the verglas aluminium but you’re going to have to find tungsten rime yourself. The zees may have some hidden around somewhere but it’s gonna cost ya I tell ya. My services plus the verglas aluminium will cost… 16 Greens.” Balke complained and calculated.
Ebony wanted him to use the maximum amount of Uncommon rarity verglas aluminium without compromising durability so that it could withstand more mana. Still, the material itself should have been more than 5-7 Greens in cost.
“Thank you, please get the verglas aluminium. I will be back when I manage to obtain tungsten rime.” The ‘zees’ or Zzzs that Balke referred to was just Z&Z company. It was a household name on the continent. Ebony was pretty sure he heard them transporting some when he travelled with them so they should have some.
He left for the branch in this city, they weren’t hard to find. They did have tungsten rime. Even the smallest pebble, smaller than a standardised ore fitted in the myriad bracelet cost 1 Blue and 32 Greens. That was only because they were so close to Hoarfrost Glade the prices spiked up the further away they got. It wasn’t a metal but a shiny cyan crystal.
They only kept a small handful in this city store and most of it was transported further and deeper into the Empire for people that actually demanded these rare materials. Ebony only had enough to trade for a single Blue. He went to the city’s Quest Hall which was much more bustling than the original Plainston’s hall.
He traded in his Greens for a Blue. He started charging the Blue and remaining Greens he had. To Ebony it was only a matter of time before he could afford it. He was too lazy to look for an inn so he just went to the public training square to do some physical training. He would have rented a personal room under the Quest Hall if he was practising magic.
A quick mental calculation told him he needed over 50 hours to fill up a single Blue including the 75% mana transfer efficiency. A lot longer than he planned to stay but he had no choice. He didn’t stop his trance like physical training, sword swinging, dancing and kicking unless his Greens filled up and he went to exchange them again.
On the second day, he was getting some weird looks, weirder than normal.
On the third day, people started calling out to him. Long periods of exertion was good for his Core skill too. It seemed like Peak Performance has reached its limit for a while now, getting stuck at level 36.
His Flowing Greatsword Mastery which reached level 67 over the week of sparring with Scarlet levelled twice more, hitting level 69.
Two-handed Power Stab was rarely used against Scarlet since it only opened himself to attacks and only levelled twice in that week to 42. Ebony used the 3 days to practice it over and over again, finding a way for his footwork and sword mastery to flow and close the opening that he leaves himself by stabbing out with his whole body weight. It levelled 5 times hitting level 47.
Treading Step levelled thrice in the week, once during the travel to Teld and another 2 times in these 3 days. Now it was level 66.
Deep Persistent Meditation that slowed down in levelling due to its high level, hit 119.
He quickly went to get the tungsten rime that was still available and brought it to Balke. Balke was surprised Ebony really came back with the material too. He can work on it immediately and would take at least 6 hours. He didn’t really need the entire pebble, the alloy may not be able to take the entire pebble or so he says.
Ebony took the time to finally practice Repulsive Body again while he walked around the city and checked the sights and what the city had to offer. The thing about gravity magic was that there was a set amount of gravity mana in every entity, body or object with mass. He couldn’t conjure gravity mana like he did with ice mana yet.
He manually reversed the flow of gravity, increasing its speed as much as possible showing little to no observable effects. He used every imaginable trick he could to be more efficient with mana.
Micromanaging every single point of gravity mana was not the right way. Controlling gravity mana to push out from a central point and letting it flow itself helped a bit but the gravity mana would flow back normally after a short while if Ebony no longer mentally reversed the mana flow.
The city was a lot bigger than he thought. His stupor-like walk felt like a minute had passed when he found himself standing before the blacksmith’s store again.
His meditation really messes with his time perception, it made a 3 day continuous training seem like a short while has passed. He probably wouldn’t be able to tell the time if he wasn’t charging mana ores.
“Whooh. Here. Ah don’t know how or what the Xeng craftsman did but they crafted it with improvements or upgrades to be put in place. The compressed bronze could take up more verglas aluminium than ah expected and the resulting alloy was able to saturate almost the entire piece of tungsten rime. Only powered remains are left of it.” Balke ruffled his dirty sooty hair with his blackened hands. He placed Ebony’s greatsword on the countertop.
Ebony drew it to see that the dimensions of the blade didn’t change at all. The body of the greatsword was originally dark brownish red or reddish brown now the blade seemed translucent pale purple.
Balke showed Ebony the verglas aluminium, it was a translucent silverish metal while the tungsten rime was a cyan crystal. Their addition clearly affected the colour of the greatsword but it wasn’t so bad.
Tungsten rime was actually a by-product of the glacial tungsten antler elk magic. They would find tracks of where they fought before and the remnants of their magic or perhaps physical attacks causes tungsten rime to be left behind. The really rare stuff would be the glacial tungsten antler itself though.
According to Balke it was only possible to keep its dimension due to him having a higher compression skill level than the original smith.
There wasn’t much of an increase in weight since the aluminium was not all that heavy. Imbuing ice mana into it should no longer cause it to be damaged by too much or at all. It was sharpened and the chips and scratches were all gone, even having a light polish.
Ebony paid up the price Balke first stated, even though he said he used more material than expected. He thanked Ebony for the chance to work with a Xeng craft. Ebony left him with the powered remains of rime too, he had no use for it.
Ebony quickly sped back to Plainston with Repulsive Body and Battle Song casted.
