Ebony had the free time to notice that he hadn't stopped levelling ever since he woke up. He knew about the evolution spill over, but it was getting out of hand as he was already level 532. This might be what Kong Jing experiences after her evolution. The levels barely mattered. He didn't even have full control over his current stats. There was no need to allocate his new stats yet, as it wouldn't come into full effect immediately anyway.

He used this opportunity to modify Phantom's Flicker to his new body and capabilities.

Since his mind and mana weren't in shambles anymore, he used a gravity tunnel as well. He didn't want to leave the Turtle Fort for too long. His movement speed has increased dramatically. Xin shouldn't be able to see his back even if she used every bit of energy she had.

'I'm benefiting a lot from Flicker by excluding myself from air resistance.' In this world, air resistance wasn't the only impediment to acceleration and speed. There was also ambient mana, and plenty of other ambient energies. Phantom's Flicker allows him to slip through these, and this includes just about every obstacle to increased speeds.

Besides leg work, he had pretty much incorporated this ability into all his movements. His physical attacks, be it with a weapon or his fists and legs, seem to blink around almost as smoothly as it would a Flicker. He couldn't do that if he wanted to use Crystalline Avalanche on any of his physical attacks. Since Crystalline Avalanche gave his attacks a lot more punch, he had been using it over this application of Flicker into attacks.

Ebony was left embarrassed again when his Flicker created some wind pressure behind him. A few hours was too short, no matter how accelerated he was getting used to his body. There was much more power in his augmentation than he was used to.

"Hey."

Na's perception might have improved a lot. The dungeon immediately found him when he entered. He used an excessive amount of mana against the Power Demon so he had no excess mana to leak. The strength of his mind was helping him compress mana far beyond his old limits. Not just that, his mana purity seemed to have increased so much that he wasn't fully sure how much compression he could pressure his mana.

"Na?"

Ebony did not see a Dungeon Guardian or anyone receive him. He was pushed into their usual secret floor and left alone.

"Take them away, I'm busy creating a King-ranked golem for myself."

Ebony couldn't ensure these Demons would stay sealed without his constant charge of mana, and he wasn't sticking around for long.

'I left Dusk with the mobile fort, it should be safe for a while, and my network is setting up nicely. I can make it back in time for anything I sensed. Xin can call me through Eidolon if she feels danger before I can.'

All of his fresh mana had been charged into Dusk since he woke up so he hadn't had a full mana pool yet.

A dungeon would be a good place to let his mana loose; at least he could better check how his mana changed. He hadn't had the focus to check when he exhausted the city barrier. The dungeon walls would eat his mana and feed Ordina, and wouldn't affect the wildlife, so he could be less cautious with his control here.

Increased stats were the easiest to get used to.

New Fortifications were a whole new world to discover.

Internal first.

The quick fix he had for mixing lungs would have to do for now. He doesn't have a biological design for new organs on hand. Even with all his simulative abilities, he didn't exactly plan for tossing organs aside and making new ones.

He recast all magic Skills and compared them.

When that was done, he sat down and checked his internal factories.

'The mana spheres are choking up my factories?' Ebony found out why he was feeling a little uncomfortable. He thought it was just the after-evolution weakness, but his Unique Skill was clogging up.

Initial troubleshooting had him realise that each mana sphere that was to be worked on was too pure, and the previous mental programming he did was running in the background. It was not made for his new mana, causing the processes to slow down. Although it was a more complicated skill, optimising his factories wouldn't take too much time. He could change it in his mindspace, and not much time would pass outside his mind.

He just edited it to match the original efficiency. Further optimisation would have to wait till he wasn't in a state of emergency.

By then, he had excess mana. As a side project, he cast a dome to create a prison for these Demon Emperors. As long as he made it thick enough, he might not have to stay here and still be able to keep the Demons trapped here.

"Don't worry, I don't plan to keep you here forever. When I'm back, we can spar a bit for Na to learn your skills. Ah, don't escape. Remember what happened to the Blade Demon? All of you have as much of my mana within your bodies."

'Weird…they had pretty clear killing intent. I should kill them, but why don't I feel like it? Ebony didn't spend any more mental resources thinking about their fates. He needed to understand his capabilities more so than some weak Emperors who can't deal with a freshly evolved King like him.

Ebony trusted Tuffock's assessment when it came to a fight. The one that said he didn't stand a chance against the Estacy Lord was Hardock. Tuffock didn't say anything about it.

Hector and Mallory did well keeping up and were very strong Grandmasters in their own right but they weren't quite at the proficiency of combat that could keep up with him and his wife.

The stone and petrification mage trio was a different story. He had a feeling they were still keeping up, if not ahead of him when it came to fighting strength and instinct. He realised where this came from. Age.

Tuffock trio felt old despite their looks.

Now that he knew a little about their situation, he believed their souls were old. Perhaps after getting torn out of their bodies and mixed into one, they were reset to Unclassed, and they each shared one body to regain their old skills. They must have retained all their fighting experience as well, and it would explain why their skills had so much power if they were originally already highly refined. To the limits of all the lower tiers.

Once again, he ran his Fabrication of Frostblaze Embodiment. This time, he stopped his Will from flowing out. It was time to dissect why he was making these unfamiliar moves so naturally.

Hours of testing later, he concluded that it was his new Fortifications of Flames of Frost Synergy and Intensity with Will.

He simply didn't understand why he was making so many new mana manoeuvres of all his elements and even his martial arts.

Even Resolves Cadence felt so…heavy compared to before. Wisdom now got the full effect of Resolve Cadence, no longer having a reduced buff from his support skill. It was so good, Ebony was tempted to have it as his Core Skill, but he held back for an eventual Coreflame-related skill, or whatever directly strengthens his Will.

Next was his Domain.

His Will was greatly strengthen. He believed he should be able to push the Tier 3 Budding Domain into a proper Domain. The skill might as well have been stagnant since he got it. While his skill level rose, and he frequently increased his mana efficiency, he had never fundamentally strengthened his Domain. There was nothing he could do. He'd ask and read, but it all boiled down to not having enough muscle. His Will couldn't output what was needed for a proper Domain and was merely a seed of a Domain.

His cousin, Shi Qiang's husband Shui Feng was a water Domain mage.

A Domain was considered a territorial type skill. It wasn't supposed to be mobile, and no matter how mobile Ebony's seemed to be, it was only a matter of time before it was anchored. Or so he was told.

It was a type of skill that was generally the hardest to evolve to higher tiers because it was too broad and wide in its capabilities. It was one skill doing the job of a handful, to dozens and maybe even hundreds of skills all in one skill.

As for Ebony's style of casting a Domain over himself for augmentation, Shui Feng called it unoptimal. Ebony was genetically poised towards this direction but even he had realised that calling upon the Will to strengthen himself took time and a mental state change.

It didn't make a big difference before but with the growth of his Will, a full effect took a lot of time to fully utilise Will to the best of its abilities. But this was where the Nings shone. Will gathering and swapping from one to another was typically a mental exercise. With his mind's base capacity, this didn't appear like it would pose a problem anytime soon.

The real reason it was not optimal was not the speed but the strength of Will. Once Dusk had Unfading Will at a greater volume than Ebony's maximum Will capacity, it would have a greater Will regeneration rate than Ebony himself. This was also one of the marks of a Tier 4 Mature Domain

A proper mage was their strongest within their Domains for a reason.

'Lacuna Expanse's portal is covered in a Budding Domain.' Ebony was back outside the dungeon and found that his Scout Pigeon had reached the World Dungeon's portal.

The Budding Domain was barely a few months old, nothing to worry about. He'd identified the master of the Domain easily, and the core of the Domain was a stone statue of a hooded woman. No facial features could be seen, but it was a statue of a feminine humanoid.

'….Don't tell me.' Ebony dived into Eidolon and searched the library and online forums about religious figures. The speed he could browse Eidolon vastly increased with his mental speed increase. It was a joke to think he could fully utilise Eidolon now, so that wasn't a limitation.

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'Unknown. But using the figure of an individual as a Domain Core means she's at the bare minimum a Saint and one that's capable of lending power to her 'believers'.' Ebony couldn't find much about Domain Cores, but he managed to find out using a statue basically confirms that the individual used as a Domain Core was more than mortal.

Chances were, the individual was more evolved than an average Saint. Not even the Saints were usually able to provide any power to random people.

Angels were an exception, along with exceptionally powerful Saints.

It went beyond symbolism.

Actual power in various forms can be drawn should they provide a satisfactory exchange. There were also posts about children or descendants of these religious figures not needing any exchange; they just had to ask and they would receive.

The most common form of borrowed power was mana or a spell of some sort that they could get the Domain to cast.

Treading into a Domain protected by the figure of an unknown figure was…not advised.

If he was lucky, the people kneeling and praying to the figure were completely unrelated to the figure. That would mean they had to pay a price to borrow power.

If he was unlucky, the prayers might be direct descendants and had the favour of a mighty God, for all he knew.

'So that's how Oplot's Guardian Knights were pushed back.'

Right now, Ebony should be targeted by misfortune. If Oplot had been pushed back when they barely had a Domain, he didn't think his chances were good now that these people had placed a religious statue. If he hadn't been present and it was due to his trainees' lacking abilities, it wasn't the worst case scenario.

'I wonder if that's the figure of the Saint that put Tuffock trio into one body…or higher up, whoever the Saint is an Angel for.' By logic of these Lure members' presence, there was a good chance that it was the Angel. If it were who the Angel prayed to, the Empire might need divine intervention to kick these invaders out.

This increased the odds that the Domain dealt with souls, a territory that Ebony didn't understand anything about.

Elcrians were extremely disadvantaged here. They didn't have any heritage dealing with souls throughout the Empire.

Muse wasn't human, at least not a pure human.

And the Elves apparently didn't have any families native to Elcra that mainly dealt with souls either. That was the domain of Dark and Ash Elves, not the Wood Elves or Frost Elves present on Elcra.

The bright side was that not all their opponents could manipulate or attack souls directly either.

Understanding that his current chances were low, he had the Scout Pigeons dive and root themselves. Slowly creating a new tree, but one that blended into the environment.

Looks like he needed preparation before he could hunt the one who stabbed his wife.

By now, he had found the three Frost Elven Kings, and they had told him about the trespasser in his house. The armoured man who had impressive stealth abilities should be nursing his wounds right now but he was strong enough to take on all three of them, along with his wife and a very weak Dusk.

Ebony should be moving back to the Turtle Fort, but his feet weren't moving there.

'Is this impatience or anger?'

No sonic booms.

No wind kicked up.

Looks like he couldn't just let this slide nor prepare. No, a few hours of preparation should do.

The crystals used for Will Relay Buffers will have to be completely overhauled. They had too small a limit for both Will and the mana transfer rate, a mere fraction of what he could output.

Oddly enough, he found Xin ambushing him not far away from Ordina. He had not noticed her moving here. Dusk was stuck on her back, but it didn't inform him of her every move.

He saw her sitting on a sleek motorbike…hover bike. Leaning forward to lay on the vehicle and letting her hair cut through the wind.

'When did she get and learn how to ride a hover bike? And it's fast but the mana it's spewing out is terribly impure.' Admittedly, he was busy watching her ride her bike to intercept his path rather than questioning how she avoided his perception till she got so close.

She was very cool riding that bike.

Dusk dumbly provided gravitational boosts, which gave her as much speed as she wanted. To be fair, now that it was back in operation, it was obvious Dusk was going to support her however it could. That was how he created his Domain Core.

She probably depended on her foresight and came to stop him. 'More likely to join me…'

As high as his confidence was when it came to surviving, it didn't translate to his ability to protect her. Either way, even if he had gotten much more powerful, it didn't make her any weaker. She could protect herself. He wasn't opposed to her presence.

In any case, she faced her attacker once and lived.

Was he weaker than the 3 Frost Elven Kings? He didn't think so.

Except, he was hoping for a little payback of his own.

He was soft. His local reputation didn't cause any fear. The public feats of his only made the majority of Elcrians think twice, while the nobles curbed any violent tendencies because most knew he had a relation with the Xengs.

As for his external reputation, it was non-existent.

Thinking about how just about nobody picked a fight with the Xengs now, Ebony realised he seemed like easy pickings. It wasn't an issue for a Grandmaster and might even be expected, but if some random guy was going to trespass his Domain, stab his wife and enter his house with boots on at any time, that was simply unacceptable.

For no reason at all, Ebony believed that if he continued to seem like easy pickings, worse was going to happen than the casual breaking and entering, and almost slaughter of his family.

He didn't like fame. It was annoying in all sorts of ways.

But he needed deterrence. He'll have to modify Dusk accordingly.

'Got an empty skill slot. Probably an aura or a Will skill.' He'd planned for his fourth Core Skill slot to be an all-around Will-enhancing skill, so his class slot was either going to get an Aura skill that was already late to obtain or he could try to push Will Relay Buffer into his Class.

But Will Relay Buffer, as useful as it was, didn't have much priority in his Class Skill slot. Even an aura skill seemed a little unsuitable.

Divergence, then convergence. That was the general order one built and grew their skill set. He had sufficient diversity, and Will was so broad and flexible it was allowing him to handle almost any normal situation.

King ranks not just Elcrians, but throughout the universe, was the stage where most mortals prepare for their very last evolution throughout their lives.

The Xengs, however, had a slightly different viewpoint on this stage. They saw it as an intermediate to their actual building stage at the ranks of an Emperor. All in all, they didn't think the King stage was as important as the Grandmaster or the Emperor rank. If he didn't gain enough during the King stage, he could recover when he was at the Emperor ranks for….possibly thousands of years if any of the Xengs were an indicator.

What about Potential?

There was some secret he didn't know, but he was given the impression that there was a way to allocate or use Potential without evolving once reaching the ranks of an Emperor. Perhaps an item, a natural ingredient, a potion or something along those lines.

He hadn't found anything like that on Eidolon, so he had no proof this was possible. Hex was also unwilling to reply to him when he asked about this. Going completely silent to prevent him from doing any guess work from its reaction.

'Right, I need to get Sister Jing's lifespan syringe to check how many years I have left.' It would be troublesome if he only had a year left to live. It surely didn't feel like he was ageing by the minute, so it shouldn't be that bad.

He simulated a battle with Shi Ling, a proper fighter Xeng of the Shi Clan who was also the only other one in the King rank.

'Far.' Shi Ling's bodily strength was nonsensically immense. She didn't use elemental magic or magic at all. Her Diamond aspect skills were quite an unknown to him. As Aspects were generally a large question mark to begin with.

The other Shi members he had seen so far didn't spar much with him, or at all.

He didn't know their skills well, and they didn't show much during their game festival. That was just them playing around.

Shi Qiang never showed him any magic or any elements.

Shi Tao used the flexing of her palm muscles to send his previous self, fully augmented against the wall.

He picked a more reasonable short-term goal of beating Shi Ling before moving on. He had the most data on her after all.

A contest of physical ability was futile; he was too far behind in that regard and would have to depend on highly compressed layers of augmentation to even come close. But he could see her battle instinct and martial skill in close combat were something he could overcome. She was not much older than he was, and he had already learned that she hadn't gotten a Tier 6 Art on the path of the Formless the last he saw her.

He had a bit of insight into Shi Qiang's mastery over her body. She seemed to be a weapons expert, also formless. He'd guess most of the Shi went on that path due to their superior bodies and fighting instinct. She would be a good practice simulation if only he saw more of her abilities.

'I'll have to go back to Infinite Variations whenever I can.'

The hoverbike drifted to a stop ahead of him, but the rider already leapt off.

Clasping his cheeks with one hand, "Urgh, even your face is like steel." His wife complained and squeezed his cheeks harder before patting him down.

Her eyes finally rose to meet his.

Then he saw and felt her intent. Ready to kill…fight him.

"Did you just feel like murdering your husband?" That was a hint of real desire behind the look she gave him.

"N-no! I just feel what your Priming aura thing is more clearly now. It excited me a bit, and I was already warmed up for battle…" She coyly slammed her fist into his chest when he embraced her. He held the reflection of vibrations back in time.

It seemed like Martial and Simulative Aura gave whoever looked at him a sense of the simulations of him fighting them, to the death. For Xin and anyone who immediately gauges an individual if they could beat each other, it was not anything new. Xin already does that, hence she didn't know what his Martial and Simulative Aura was. For people who weren't battle nuts, this Primed effect of his extends his simulations onto them. They saw how he was imagining a fight with them and every way he killed them in his mind, as long as he was simulating it within his Hyperlucid Atelier.

When they were both Grandmasters, she didn't feel this because both of them knew how to imagine a battle with each other. There was nothing new to her.

Now, her battle intent was ignited when she saw him, and she was able to tell she was seeing more accurately and more variations than she usually could.

It was most direct when eye contact was exchanged but also worked when people just looked or sensed him with whatever perception skill they had.

"How can you leave me right after we met up?" She must have calmed down from the raw emotions she felt on the battlefield with too many deaths, and Athena's current state.

"…" He didn't go far, and she needed space. Thinking back, it appeared like that was the exact time he should've been by her side instead of running off.

"You're also starved after not eating for 7 months," She smiled, clearly not serious about her complaint.

"I had two vials of your nutrient soup stock." His argument was weak because his body was still in a starved state. Fighting the Demons took a lot of mana and strength. Energy that had to be converted from sustenance.

Sustenance that he didn't have in his body.

His life force must have shown signs of hunger.

"Sit and wait. Let's eat together." She pulled out the wok he had gifted her and set up her outdoor cooking station.

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