'Ting' 'Generic Skill Longbow Mastery mutated into Adaptable Bow Mastery'
Adaptable Bow Mastery - Mastery of many bow types with a focus on accuracy. Accuracy with a bow increases by 50% within 300 tres. Slightly improves accuracy and accuracy effective range per level.
It was common sense that skills don't increase the strength or speed of arrows since that was dependent on the weapon. Unless mana or other energy were infused. Ebony didn't bother blowing up the training bows with his mana.
To begin with, he barely spent much ti on playing around with a bow every day. In just 4 days, he got the current untiered skill. He found their warehouse and took the different types of bows they had to make the skill more versatile.
The wider the range of capabilities a skill has, the higher their value or so Kong Jing told him. This combatted Clovis's theory that more skills ant more dilution towards where Potential could go in a sense.
These days, he was back to studying since he had access to Kong Jing's library again.
The craftswoman had no ti to teach him the universal language and there were still plenty of other books he had yet to read or fully understand. He spent most of his ti editing runes that he used the most and expanding his mana capacity since he didn't have to spend them outside of donating them to a mana compressor.
In terms of training, he used the lightning mana ores he bought to get more proficient with lightning manipulation. He could shoot an orb of lightning and hit a target within 10 tres with no issue, even a moving target. Pathetic compared to his other repertoire but it was improving.
The elders such as Korta simply didn't entertain sparring or duelling with them. They were a bit too far away in power and the Frost Elves didn't fancy fighting them.
At least, they watched over a contained field that allowed him and Ning Xin to do their daily conditioning. They were very interested in observing his freezing flas and he got to ask them about domains in exchange. They didn't believe he could summon a domain and when he did, they nodded their heads because it was as they expected.
Surprisingly, out of Korta, Christy and the one that shall not be nad, only Christy could make use of Will the way he could. That was the most shocking for them. Christy lent him a book about the usage of Will but it was full of philosophical nonsense that didn't make much sense to him. He didn't even want to ntion that it was just an 8-page notebook that talked about how feelings, emotions and life experiences fueled Will.
However, it did tell him why the elders were surprised he could use it to such an extent.
First of all, feelings and emotions?
That was sothing he was slightly disconnected from until he ca here.
Life experiences?
He was less than a child in their eyes. Even to himself, he didn't think he experienced much in life. It was mostly a life of training and repetition. Sure, he was put into deadly battles from ti to ti but he was brought up that way. He experienced much more just travelling from Arcta to Plainston.
He didn't manage to get back into the ntal simulation again which was a pity but it had only been 4 days. Of course, he didn't forget to recreate all his ice spells and work on how he wanted to improve his physique but progress was slow on that end.
It was extrely relaxing, it felt like he was on vacation.
Ning Xin was cooking and experinting with ingredients all day outside of their daily conditioning. He was the test subject for every experint. As her blood continued to condense, the amount she could eat and drink increased. She didn't get any less energy efficient but her storage and capacity for energy increased as the days passed.
However, her digestion speed was still the sa and she could now be chewing on food the whole day without getting full. The Jetfin's blood was going to be finished faster than he anticipated. According to her stat growth, the Jetfins had Agility as their highest stat. Constitution and Vitality followed after. The ability to increase her stats despite being unable to level up was quite unfair but it made him concerned if there was any backlash to it.
He also made more batches of frost plum wine with her. There were a few dozen different mixtures and ratios sealed up and they were still concocting more every day. He was going to make the best plum wine to exist.
Their bags were emptied out and passed onto Kong Jing as she said she could vastly improve capacity now that she 'wasted' half a year working on her space magic and learning a new rune language.
In a day or so, the planks of wood he ordered would be ready and he could swap out the trailer's fra with a more durable material after moulding his version of toughness runes on them. The trailer was just sitting out on the road without a power source since that was removed as well. Kong Jing took on a lot of projects.
The strongest Frost Elf, Vent Ly never ca back, perhaps that had never been his intention. The village didn't look any different after the illusion was cast. However, ambient ice mana concentrations were almost as high as the Icy regions of the Glades.
All thanks to the presence of 3 King-ranked Frost Elves excluding the few crafters who didn't have such a strong effect on the environnt. Apparently, it was just their naturally high affinity to the ice elent that attracted the elent to gather around them.
It was no longer awkward between him and Xin which he welcod but sothing was out of place and he couldn't put his finger on what it was. Whatever it was, it felt like a positive change compared to the strained and awkward interactions. Especially because Battle Song was fixed!
He was able to get the full buff and it was gaining levels pretty fast despite the safe environnt as if it was catching up to his actual proficiency with the skill.
The next 3 nights were spent moulding runes on the wooden planks he obtained for a trade of his future plum wine. He hasn't slept these days. The resting cycle of his body was changing and Xin was similarly preparing for a change in her sleep schedule.
The wood that he was advised to use was Ash Avium Wood. The wood mage also had a plantation alongside the plum farm. He compressed a 300-year-old tree into planks for Ebony and it was known to be hard to detect by sll and was tough enough to withstand weight, high speeds and even absorb vibrations.
He used 2 entire trees but the wood mage didn't think it was a pity since the trees were still considerably young and only Uncommon in rarity.
In exchange, the wood mage studied Icicle for a day. Icicle didn't glow for two days after that and Xin told him that it was upset and happy at the sa ti. Upset that Ebony just passed the greatsword around and happy because the wood mage treated it with care. "If Icicle could talk, it would say sothing along the lines like 'that was a nice bath'" was the comnt he was left with.
Another 3 days were spent swapping out the trailer's fra as Kong Jing was busy and could only spare an hour a day on it. The power source was placed back in and their backpacks remodelling was completed.
He couldn't tell how big it was but there was so much room after placing back all their things they could at least put 5 to 7 tis what they were carrying depending on how they packed and arranged their belongings.
Sadly, she didn't do anything to the weight reduction runes as the material of the bag limits what she could do with it. If they were to carry more things, it would actually weigh them down which was more of a concern for Xin.
The peaceful days were everything he could have wanted but he felt the urge to move, to improve. As quickly as possible.
❅❅❅
"Curse of Regression, I've managed to stack 4 layers on Old Hag and multiple other curses on 2 of their Patriarchs so they won't be a problem within another week. If Navin were present, I wouldn't have to go so far." Koawe woke up and bragged.
The said curse was supposed to make an individual lose their levels, skill levels and stats over ti. It was troubleso and Ebony didn't want to be a target of said curse. Although he was as straightforward as usual, the ever-smiling Frost Elf didn't answer him when he asked what the cost was.
According to the little Ning Xin knew about curses, the cost for strong or unique curses usually wasn't mana, life force or stamina. So common ones were sacrificing lifespan or stats. A certain portion of one or more stat would be locked out until the curse was dispelled or the target was dead.
The rarer ones were to sacrifice a portion of their health, mana, stamina regeneration or maximum pool till the curse was dispelled. This was usually preferred since the caster wouldn't be weakened in terms of power.
To stack multiple curses and have it continue to run ant that the caster would always be in an incomplete state since they would definitely have to sacrifice sothing till they stopped the curse.
Distance usually affected the cost but that didn't appear to be the case or Koawe would be weaker the further his target went. Every combatant was simply buying ti and protecting Koawe during their battle. Since the Trolls could constantly leach Vitality from their people, killing them was close to impossible when millions upon millions were getting fed off.
Ebony wasn't able to tell if Koawe's mana pool was decreased or his regeneration was affected in any way but the Curse Mage was bound to bed the entire ti. It was a very debilitating type of magic but if the cost was so heavy, he felt a bit safer to know that not just anyone would curse people for no reason.
Furthermore, Wisdom or general magic resistance played a part in increasing the cost for the caster and the Trolls had close to nonexistent magic resistance.
'Although Koawe is a Grandmaster and not a King ranked existence and he managed to curse 3 or more of su…were the patriarchs' Emperors? Never mind, maybe the cost isn't all that high after all or the Trolls were just really easy to curse. His cast speed is slow and there are usually conditions to et, I'll have to act fast if a curse mage is against .'
3 weeks had passed since the village illusion had been set up. Their robes and clothes were ready but Xin's bodysuit was only done yesterday. They spent a day saying their farewells to the villagers they were closer with and had a feast with the Thoyas. The vacation truly helped relax the mind and body.
During this period, he made a chess board and the pieces to introduce a new ga but it actually wasn't new. The Frost Elves knew about the ga. That actually confused him but didn't shock him. The Thoya's didn't know about it but Christy and the one that shall not be nad did.
He learned a new word in Elcrian and associated it with chess. To them, it was a very old board ga. The knowledge that the ga of chess was a common point just proved to him that Earth was not unreachable. The ga was sohow introduced to Earth, it was unlikely the other way around.
He was also made to recall that he wasn't a great player. Thankfully, he was able to beat Xin without much trouble but she wasn't interested in the ga after 3 or 4 matches. The elders hinted that chess wasn't supposed to be a normal board ga but didn't know much about the ga's history either.
"Can't you stay any longer?" Roya softened her voice unknowingly.
"Sister Jing is about to leave and we can't exit without her. We can't stay for years." Ebony squatted and patted Kiva's head. The baby girl was hiding behind her mother's calves and barely even reached the tall woman's knees. She had just escaped the grasp and embrace of a masked human that had a similar body temperature to them.
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This ti, she didn't cry or stick to them. "Be good Kiva, listen to your parents and don't be lazy."
"I'll bring delicious snacks next ti we visit." The masked woman similarly squatted in her new battle gear.
Unexpectedly, it was not fully fabric and contained a card-thin layer of scales woven under the fabric. Her battle gear consists of a tight-fitting shirt and pants of the sa make and design, plain and pitch black in colour. Her signature mantle was more of a winged cape that was supposed to act as the base of her conjured wings so that they didn't clip.
The crafters put so much more effort into her outfit because the cape could transform into a sleeved mantle which was the default setting. However, instead of bright red it was dark crimson almost matching her hair and was almost black now. It wasn't made of leather but it had that leather jacket texture when it ca to visuals but silky when it ca to touch.
They have not allowed him to see it in action but he guessed that the colour would take on the hue of her flas once imbued with her mana or activated. Her bodysuit didn't have any visible difference except when she put it on and he noticed her chest deflating. 'Compressive tights? The effect isn't that much to be magic, it went from XL to M' Ebony didn't think much of it, a more streamlined body was indeed more beneficial for a speedy swordswoman like her.
Just like him, she had a new pair of combat boots made of so dungeon monster leather. The only difference was that her boots' soles were springy while his was practically rock solid. Once again, a good pair of boots was his favourite piece of equipnt. He went through many pairs of boots, finally obtaining not one but two great pairs. They had excess materials and each of them had an additional pair as a spare.
His set of robes was almost exactly the sa as his previous set in terms of design and even functions. Just stronger and more potent, especially its capacity.
Similarly, he hasn't tested its defensive capabilities. Unlike Ning Xin, he did not get special clothes that matched the armour. He made his own with their frostsilk cotton, all it could do was withstand his frost flas and that was more than enough for him. 'And she has 5 sets of the black shirt and pants, favouritism…'
If there was sothing to be said about the masked swordswoman's new look, it was that her cuffs similarly had faint plum petal designs that could only be seen if soone focused or had really good eyes. It was the first ti they donned their gear together since his set was completed first.
The masked swordswoman bumped into him and whispered, "Now we match."
"Indeed." He answered as a matter of course. It was unlike her to state the obvious.
He shifted his feet to dodge a foot stomp. She stomped away to Kong Jing with heavy steps. 'what was that about?'
Halvis and his son were busy tending the fields and they silently waved each other goodbye. 5 years was a very short ti for them but nothing was certain and it was clear to the Thoyas that they frequently put themselves in considerable danger.
But 5 years was about as long as he had been living on Elcra so he was actually going to miss the bear who hugged his leg to sleep like a koala. The baby that sat on his shoulder when he was reading. Watching Clovis improve his combat sense every day. Listening to Roya nag and Halvis giving him lectures on soil and seed quality and conditions while they had tea and snacks midafternoon was a pleasant pasti.
"We're leaving!" Kong Jing yelled at him to hurry up. Kiva quickly put her hands on top of his and rubbed her own head furiously, "co back soon bada!" The baby beca slightly chubbier thanks to nibbling on all the experintal dishes and snacks the human chef made. It was a healthy chubbiness compared to the bony figure she used to have.
"I hope you rember us when we et again." He didn't try to smile because that scared them when he attempted to do so before. He turned and walked towards the space mage.
"Roya, it was nice eting you." Kong Jing said her farewells before a cold forest appeared in his sights.
"Alright, I'll drop you off and leave for Clatter Rattle." Just as she said that they appeared within the city walls of Plainston. "I'll be staying in Clatter Rattle for the foreseeable future since it's easy to get most materials there. Take care of each other."
"Wow, her teleportation really improved drastically but she sure ran off quickly."
"Haha, didn't you notice how embarrassed she was?"
"Why would she be?"
"I think Roya might be her first crafter friend. At least, I don't think I heard her say that it was nice eting another artisan before. Not that I would know for sure."
"Alright, anyway let's stock up." They spent another half a day searching for the best cuts of at and freshest vegetables. She was less enthusiastic when they were in the Z&Z mall and stocking up on ration. Preservation and ice magic could only keep food fresh for so long and the expanded bag ant their supply could and should last longer.
Daily necessities such as soap were also bought in bulk. The departntal-like store was promoting the recent improvents to body wash, hair and skin care and all that.
The masked lady quickly separated from him to a shop on the won's floor but not before he got her opinion on what had the most pleasant scent. The mall was 7 storeys tall and quite rare for buildings on Elcra. The quick expansions must have been due to how successful the city and Ordina were.
"Is the manager or boss Andel around?" He asked knowing that Andel had left for another town long ago. As expected, the response he got was that the employee didn't even know the na Andel. Recalling that the company also dealt with armour and weapons albeit known to be lower quality than what a dedicated weapon store could provide, he went to the weapon store to take a look.
The weapon displayed right in the middle was a spear.
'Hmm…' He stared at the weapon.
A free employee walked up to him, there were five such employees but few custors. Probably because they were better options despite the lower price offered here. Not to ntion, people don't change or shop for weapons every day.
"How can I help you, sir? Is there any particular weapon you're looking for?" The female employee was a head shorter than him and had shiny silver hair which was relatively rare. He rudely Appraised her without permission.
[Record Keeper Lvl 98 | tal Mage Lvl 33]
Ebony was a bit surprised when the silver-haired woman's eyes shot up and glared at him. 'I've improved, I can tell she's pissed or annoyed.' he praised himself internally.
"My apologies, I an no offence." He gave no further apologies since he knew it was commonplace to Identify people.
"...Please keep quiet about it. Kehmm" She cleared her throat and got back to clerk mode.
"Well, just bag up one of every weapon type here. Actually, never mind. Just get everything you have in stock."
The clerk who was secretly a tal mage blanked out. "Wh-what do you an?"
"I want to buy everything." He picked up the only greatsword on display but it was too light and he was worried they would be too fragile. There were only Common-quality weapons on display with the spear as an exception.
'I'll try to get as many weapon masteries as I can, that would be a fun pasti.' It wasn't as if he hadn't tried using other weapons before.
"Heh," She scoffed as her clerk facade fell off montarily before she went back to 'normal', "I'm sorry, we have thousands of weapons in stock."
He cocked his head, "Why are you sorry? I can wait, just pack it up. Or you can bring it out, I can store it."
She started to call for other employees to help when she realised that he was going to take everything they had in stock.
As for other freelancers, that was none of his business but it actually didn't occur to him that Z&Z was where poor and beginner freelancers went for cheap but sowhat reliable weapons. He only agreed not to clean out their stock when the tal mage got a manager over and explained it to him.
They even had crossbows and guns but these were the shabbiest of the bunch. The price range for small weapons like daggers and knives was only between 8 Greys to 3 Greens. Cheap compared to items of the sa quality in a blacksmith's store.
Weapons were not cheap, he rembered saving up for days to upgrade his weapon. Putting aside he paid for Rare materials funnelled into a lower quality weapon. Larger weapons were in the dozens of Greens and guns were the most expensive, followed by greatswords and then bows. Thousands of weapons only cost him Blues that he lost count of.
He hasn't charged up empty mana ores in a long ti.
They brought out crate after crate as two employees did the maths to make sure they didn't miscalculate. He packed up the crates after glancing at the wares when they opened it for him to check it. A hundred Blues were already in their hands even though the price hadn't been finalised. It was a deposit to reassure them he wasn't running away with their wares.
The manager was talking to him and there was an ard party acting as custors. They were terrible at acting. So bad, they didn't even rember to hide their badge as an elite escort party. Far higher level than Top's party used to be. Only one was at 200 and the rest under 180.
He assud they were just here to guard the employees instead of chasing after robbers.
"What are you doing here?" Xin found him, probably through scent. Once again, he was able to observe the freelancers stiffen up the mont her feet stepped past the…lines. Just like many malls, this was a display store and there wasn't a blacksmith or smithy connected so there were no doors.
There was just sothing about her presence and aura that caused people to get wary. Personally, he felt that she was consciously doing so.
"Buying so weapons to play around with, I wonder how many masteries I can get if I spent an hour every day."
"I don't understand why you want to waste that ti that could be better spent improving what you have."
"Just for fun, I can just multitask. Actually, I can just let my Models train with them. Does that count as training my personal army?" He realised that he might be committing a cri.
"I doubt so, you can only control a few at a ti and they are quite weak."
Sweat rolled down the escort party's back as the tall woman scanned her eyes over the store. The employees didn't feel anything out of place.
'She's right, I shouldn't be wasting ti on weapons I won't be using. I can test out if actions my Models repeat are able to get skills. If that's possible, I should take a look at the skill books section. Even if they aren't any good, I won't be wasting my ti on them.' With that, he gave them ti to check through their wares and left for the skill book storefront.
"I'll go take a look at the mory light store." She had a bag full of mana ores to get whatever she wanted.
❅❅❅
Ning Xin went to the store that sold won's products. She already had enough clothing but she was here for skincare products. Even if no one saw it, she took care of her face after getting acquainted with Mallory. Restocking on hand creams and whatever she was advised to use.
Once she was done, she followed Ebony's scent but saw a booklet placed at the side of a clothing store when she walked passed. With her sight, it was not hard to see the title despite the distance and size of the booklet.
'Weight, sizing and asurents? Is that a book for employees to gauge custor's size?' She didn't know why her feet changed directions and entered the clothing store filled with dresses.
"Good morning! How may I help you?"
The loud and chirpy clerk was enthusiastically pushing sales onto her.
"I was just curious about that."
"Ah, go ahead. Our boss bought that from a rchant that runs a chain of won's clothing tailors from all over the continent. She said all won would be interested. You can use that changing room." The clerk giggled. That confused her. What was so funny and why did she need a changing room to read a book?
She didn't dare to resist the weak woman's push in case she injured her and obediently went behind partitions. It had mirrors, a chair and hooks to hang clothes. There was also a scale. That was when she realised she was guided here to asure her weight.
'Let's see…' She ignored the scale and sat on the chair before flipping the book open
- Average unclassed human female
Average Height: 33 gers (165cm)
Average Weight: 9.5 Tivs (47.5kg)
'I guess being over 34 gers tall when I ca of age is a bit above average but 9.5? Lies!' She recalled weighing over 13 Tivs at that point in ti. She continued to read and found out that the book even had averages for all the races on Elva, even subcategories of beastn.
Unable to stop her curiosity, she stepped on the scale after putting her bag down. She almost jumped when she saw the needle fly from left to right. Controlling herself from destroying anything, she waited patiently only to be shocked by the lies that the scale was telling her.
'42.2 Tivs?! That's not possible, this scale is faulty. Wait, it must be my clothes and mantle.' Ning Xin completely missed out on how brilliant the clerk was. Unconvinced at the value. As she stripped and asured herself, she took off more and more pieces leaving her in her bodysuit.
'33.2. That's better but…' She got dressed at inhuman speeds and sat down again.
Flipping to the page for Master-ranked females, the average weight was only 17.6 Tivs. She hurriedly scanned the pages and was glad to find a section for female warriors but similarly horrified that it was still only 22.8 Tivs.
'No, it must be muscle density. My strength stat is quite high…and I compressed my blood. Of course, I would be heavier. It's definitely not how much I eat. I ate less recently…' As for her height, she was also slightly above the average female Master warrior but not enough to affect the weight reading by more than 10 Tivs.
She wasn't able to find any more evidence in the book to prove that she was not heavier than she should be. Only more evidence to prove that she was…fat.
The waist asurents. The calves and thighs. The chest. The shoulder width. She was able to prove that she had a larger fra than most but wasn't far off when it ca to warriors. They even included the peak value recorded. No matter how she calculated, she couldn't deny that she was heavier not solely because of her stats or compressed blood.
'With a slightly heavier set of equipnt, I should really cut down to balance…I am not fat! It's just the compressed blood.' Incensed ditation kicked in and she cald herself. She tried to think about combat instead and logically psyche herself into thinking that the extra weight would slow her movents. Now that her bag contained more than its weight reduction effect, it was an actual problem or so she told herself.
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