‘We’ve done it…’ Percy exhaled as he allowed the constellations in his mindscape to separate again.
He and Micky had created all the tools necessary for their artificial advancent. They had already learned how to draw unit cells of sufficient complexity inside their cores, settled on a design that they were happy with for the final enchantnt, and figured out how to shrink and solidify the runes into the correct size.
It would still take a while to piece together the inner shell for each of their four cores, but there weren’t any more impossible challenges for them to overco. After that, the only thing left would be to activate the enchantnts and hope that they worked as intended.
‘We have,’ Micky echoed. ‘I suppose it’s ti to send another clone to the Vault.’
Percy nodded. It would easily be another year or two before he raised his grade, but he could work on that while the clone was away. He had to et up with tatron and Kassorith while he was still a Yellow, otherwise the titan would realize that he had advanced centuries before he was supposed to.
Of course, before returning to the artificial world, he and Micky had to make sure that they were ready for the grand competition. If they failed to climb high enough to earn the Void Decree, they might never get another chance to acquire an extra mana core.
‘Let’s wait for the clone to return from Ruby Heart first,’ Percy said. ‘If the strange substance proves compatible with human and Thess’kalan biology, we’ll have another ace up our sleeve.’
He felt that the odds of that happening were decent, since every living creature in the alien ocean had been able to absorb the material into their scales. Then again, Percy didn’t have scales, nor did he know what the red material might do to beings from other planets.
Luckily, his clone was about to deliver him a large sample. Unlike the ritual ingredients that he had brought back from Thess’kala, Percy wouldn’t be limited to just a couple of doses. That would allow him to experint freely, without having to take any unnecessary risks with his main body.
If he confird that the material was safe to ingest, he hoped to gift a portion to all of his friends… and non-friends. Permanently enhancing Kassorith’s physique wasn’t ideal, since Percy still hated the Thess’kalan’s guts, but if this was the price that he had to pay to obtain a third mana core, he wasn’t going to complain.
The clone didn’t keep Percy and Micky waiting too long, arriving a few hours later. Burrowing into one of Percy’s spectral scars, it injected several months’ worth of mories into both his and Micky’s minds. Most of that ti had been spent in the space between worlds, with only the past few weeks having been on an actual planet.
As eager as Percy was to begin experinting with his prize, there was sothing that took precedence. It had been a while since he’d last checked his Status, and he had just registered a pair of brand-new Masterful spells.
___
The Lone Wanderer
Aspects:
[Percival][Mictlantecuhtli]
Mana cores:
[Mana core 1P – Yellow – Soul][Mana core 2P – Yellow – Pure][Mana core 1M – Green – Beast][Mana core 2M – Yellow – Ice]
Domain:
[Dead Winter – Empowered]
Bloodline:
[Clone] – Create a copy of yourself. Effect varies by affinity.
Blessing:
[Blessing of Permanence] –Enhance the durability of your soul.
Mutations:
[Sovereign’s Eye] –Draws from the cumulative knowledge listed in the Status to enhance one’s vision, allowing them to discern details previously unseen.[Greater Thess’kalan Physique] – Greatly enhances one’s physical strength and the toughness of their body. Greatly enhances one’s resistance to high or low temperatures and sharpens their thermal sense. Greatly enhances one’s resistance to toxins.[Dead Winter Elental] –Uses ice mana to regenerate, shapeshift and sustain one’s body. Allows every part of one’s body to interact with souls.
Spectral traits:
[Weaving] – Boosts one’s proclivity in manipulating one-dinsional structures.[Insomnia] – Eliminates the need for sleep.[Scribing] – Boosts one’s proclivity in expressing aning onto any written dium.[Mimicry] – Boosts one’s awareness of their physical appearance, as well as their ability to maintain or modify it.
Mindsets:
[Ludwick’s Compass] – Set ntal checkpoints anywhere in the world. Instinctively track their location as you move away.[Shimring Constellations] – Group your senses and mories into separate identities. This artificial segregation can be freely bypassed.
Spells:
[Spectral Art: Parasitic Connection – Refined][Hybrid Art: Chaleon’s Skin – Refined][Spectral Art: Internal Seal-Crafting – Masterful][Spectral Art: Intimidation – Masterful][Spectral Art: Cauldron of a Myriad Screams – Masterful][Spectral Art: Instantaneous Formation – Masterful][Wild Art: Sovereign’s Encroachnt – Masterful][Hybrid Art: Core Bestowal – Masterful][Ultimate Art: Symphony of a Dead Winter – Extre]
Alchemic principles:
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[Extraction] – Separate and condense an ingredient’s essence.[Pacification] – Delay an ingredient’s activation rate.[Redirection] – Adjust an ingredient’s effect.[Deattunent] – Prevent multiple conflicting ingredients from reacting with one another.[Bonding] – Enrich an ingredient with crystallized pure mana.[Restructuring] – Alter an ingredient's phase.[Scaling] – Brew a greater volu of ingredients at once.[Compression] – Elevate an ingredient to the next grade.[Consolidation] – Infuse multiple similar ingredients into a concoction while eliminating the redundant alchemic steps.
Decrees:
[Phoebe’s Decree] – Grants access to your Status.[Iapetus’s Decree] – Grants a bloodline.[Moirais’ Decree] – Grants a second mana core.[tatron’s Decree] – Open a one-way portal to the Vault of Magic at will.[Ea’s Decree (Modified)] – Augnts and enhances your Status. Grants the Sovereign’s Eye.[Obatala’s Decree (Modified)] – Augnts and enhances your Status. Allows you to effortlessly deploy your domain in its strongest state.
___
‘I guess we’ll call it a tie,’ he thought with a chuckle as his gaze brushed over Intimidation and Internal Seal-Crafting.
His little competition with the clone felt even sillier now that they had rged, but didn’t people say that a person should only ever compete with themselves? Percy just took that to a whole new level.
Both Spectral Arts had the sa root, though Percy was pretty sure that he would have still registered Internal Seal-Crafting as a standalone spell even if the clone had arrived before he and Micky had completed it. After all, it was distinct enough from Intimidation. Either way, he expected both entries to eventually rge into the final version of the spell that he was going to raise his grade with.
With that out of the way, he turned his attention to the newly retrieved spatial seal, examining its contents. Leaving only the Zelesian bead inside, he emptied everything else into a tall pile of needle-grained powder that shimred in a red light.
Since the seal he had brought to Ruby Heart had a capacity of a thousand cubic tres and the clone had filled most of it with the substance, the pile was about six tis as tall as Percy, nearly burying him alive. He was forced to use his domain to hold the wave of powder at bay, stabilizing it into a pyramid-shaped mound.
A pool of seawater spilled out of its base, soaking Percy’s feet, as he had failed to completely filter it out of the material. Had he been in his house in the settlent, he wouldn’t have dared to empty his seal into his living room, but he was currently in his cavern in the hive. There was plenty of space, and he wasn’t overly concerned with keeping it clean.
‘Ti to see whether all that trouble was worth it,’ he thought, eagerly scooping up a handful of the material.
The needle-like particles pricked his skin, though they didn’t stab deep enough to draw blood thanks to his two Yellow cores and Greater Thess’kalan Physique. Even so, he knew that consuming the substance would be dangerous without the body of a beast. His throat and stomach weren’t nearly as tough as his flesh.
After pondering over the problem for a couple of minutes, he used his reinforced mana to create two large, cylindrical constructs. Dropping so of the red substance between them and spinning them against one another tightly, he used them as a mill to grind the particles into fine powder.
His hastily put-together constructs weren’t great for the job, so he passed the material back and forth multiple tis before he was satisfied. That was fine. Once he confird that the substance did what he wanted it to do, he could spend so ti perfecting and scaling up his tools.
‘Nephthys, can you please send a Starry Worker?’ he asked his familiar through the cord, promptly receiving a ntal nod back. ‘Preferably one that’s close to evolving,’ he added after so consideration.
Percy would have to test the powder on a mammal before daring to consu it himself, but the goddess had countless disposable subordinates readily available, so starting with them wasn’t a bad idea.
Soon, a fox-sized wasp flew into Percy’s cavern, landing obediently by his feet. Its glossy carapace sported the familiar black colour of its species, spotted with countless glowing dots.
Percy briefly considered handing it the ground powder but ultimately decided against it. No need to waste it. The bug should be more than capable of digesting the unprocessed version of the substance. Passing the creature a second handful taken straight from the pile, he watched it happily ingest it, waiting patiently for the results.
A few seconds later, the wasp shuddered and paused mid-al, seemingly in pain. Percy was initially worried that he’d poisoned the poor thing, but his concerns were put to rest once the Worker’s exoskeleton brightened slightly to a dark red colour.
‘That’s a good sign if I’ve seen one!’ Percy thought, the corners of his lips curling up.
Emboldened by the seemingly beneficial changes in his test subject, he gave the wasp an even larger helping, observing its carapace as it continued to light up with every other bite, slowly assuming a ruby-like texture and colour that reminded Percy of the aquatic animals that had perated the alien ocean.
Thankfully, the Starry Worker didn’t grow any scales. Percy had been worried about mutating himself into a scaled monster, but it appeared that his concerns had been unfounded.
The beasts on Ruby Heart had probably already possessed scales. It looked like the exotic material simply latched on to any chitinous body part it could find, reinforcing and improving it without altering its shape.
After the bug had devoured about as much pure powder as its body weight, its shell stopped improving. At that point, its exoskeleton looked almost identical to the material itself, indicating that it wasn’t possible to absorb more than that.
‘Great. At the very least, it should be useful for Nephthys and her mother. It should also enhance Kassorith’s scales, though I’m not sure if it’ll do anything to his bones,’ Percy concluded. ‘Even if it proves useless for everyone else, the trip won’t have been a complete waste.’
Percy wasn’t going to feed the material to every single Starry Wasp in the hive, but he was more than happy to give so to the royal bugs for added protection. The Starry Queen was large enough that it would probably take Percy and Micky multiple trips to Ruby Heart to fully upgrade her shell, but that was okay. The Violet beast had already done a lot for them, so he didn’t mind repaying the favour.
He just hoped that beasts wouldn’t need to eat more powder every ti they evolved to the next size. Thankfully, that was sothing that he could easily check once the Starry Worker advanced.
Storing the rest of the powder in his seal again, Percy made his way towards his familiar’s chamber, eager to see how it would change her body. At the sa ti, he made a ntal note to request a few critters from Freddy the next ti the Honey Roll vendor entered the hive.
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