Chapter 682: – Cradle |
Percy separated his mind from Micky’s, tiredly falling back on his bed. There was still a lot that they had to unpack, both regarding the spell itself and the changes that it had brought to his body, but he decided to take a moment to revel in his achievement.
‘We’ve done it! We’re the first mages in the universe to force a core advancement!’ he exclaimed through the cord, his heart racing.
Technically, it was possible that some remote faction had also succeeded without anyone knowing, but Percy felt that this was the kind of thing that even the Void Hand and their rivals would have been hard-pressed to keep under wraps.
Admittedly, he could already tell that his promotion wasn’t without its flaws, but the fact that Phoebe’s Decree had treated it as a true advancement meant that it was close enough to the real thing.
‘This is even bigger than the Aurora Dew or your ability to pass the Moirais’ Decree to your hosts. We’ll have to be careful about who finds out,’ Micky warned.
‘Of course.’ Percy sent a mental nod back.
His elixirs could also elevate a lesser spring into a greater one, but the cyan powder was a secret that the peak factions were likely already aware of. Furthermore, the process of producing the ingredient and mixing it with stable beast mana was quite simple.
As for Percy’s ability to give people extra mana cores… it wasn’t necessarily less impressive than forcefully promoting them, but it was something that only he could do, only to one person at a time, and only by essentially stealing the achievements of other people – namely, the Moirais’ triplets.
The Cradle of the Savage Gods, on the other hand, could potentially change the lives of countless people, and was entirely the creation of him and Micky. They had pieced the intricate spell into existence after weaving together insights from several different places: the Huehuans’ boosting art, the Vault’s magiscript, the Felmarans’ pre-casting, the Atlanteans’ spherical cauldrons, and the compression principle that the Amenthei had discovered.
If there was one thing that Percy didn’t like about the Cradle, it was that his Status had named it a Spectral Art. This was usually a badge of honour, as it indicated that a spell was more powerful and exotic than it would have otherwise been, though it was more of a liability in this case. It implied that those without Percy’s traits would be hard-pressed to learn it, which wasn’t ideal, since this was meant to be a direct upgrade of the Dance.
Percy could still potentially help one of his relatives promote their cores after possessing them and crafting similar seals inside the organs, though he would first have to grow more proficient with their affinities, and then spent months coaching them and preparing for the advancement.
This currently made the spell even harder for him to spread than the Moirais’ Decree, though he understood that this was temporary. It should technically be possible to construct the seals without the Scribing trait, but it would be a monumental challenge for even the most skilled enchanters.
Without the Insomnia trait, the Cradle’s users would have to learn to keep their boosting art running while asleep. This was another limitation that wasn’t a complete deal-breaker, since Micky had figured it out in the past, but it still made the spell less accessible.
‘I suppose that the day we manage to get rid of the words “Spectral Art” from the spell’s name will be the day it can be considered a direct upgrade of the Dance,’ Percy reasoned, though that was more of a long-term goal.
Funnily enough, his Status hadn’t registered the Cradle as an upgrade of the Dance, because the latter had already previously fused into the Carnival and, later, the Symphony. That said, it was clear that Percy’s boosting art remained at the core of the spell, arguably playing an even more important role than Internal Seal-Crafting or Intimidation.
As the fusion of three Masterful spells, the Cradle was undoubtedly at the very pinnacle of the tier, much like the Carnival and the Symbel of the Savage Gods had been before merging into something even stronger. However, the Cradle didn’t overlap with the other upgrades. It existed in its own lane, and could hopefully be used in parallel to the Symphony, once Percy and Micky were done promoting their remaining cores.
Outside of the enchantments that had been necessary for the artificial advancement itself, Percy and his fellow aspect had included many auxiliary runes into their unit cells.
The concealment runes, combined with controlled-reversal runes, should allow him to tamper with how others perceived his grade. After playing with the enchantments for a few seconds, he confirmed that he could mask his core by making it appear at Red, Orange, Yellow, or even hide it entirely.
Alternatively, he could do the opposite, posing as a Blue, Violet or White – to potentially intimidate an opponent that might be too difficult to fight – though it didn’t seem like he could pretend to be a demigod just yet.
Initially, he had been worried that this ability would have been restricted to the core, but wouldn’t extend to his channels. Thankfully, he had since come up with a way to solve that problem. He simply had to peel off a few seals from the organ, replicating the minuscule grains and letting them propagate through his channels. That way, he could circulate them through his body and spread their effect to the rest of his mana network.
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He had also included heat runes that he could use in a similar manner, freely warming up or cooling down his body, and lightness runes that he could use to make himself slightly lighter or heavier.
Finally, he had incorporated soul resonance and purification runes into his unit cells, and he was planning to add copies of the corresponding elements to the other cores, to hopefully make all of his and Micky’s mana types slightly more potent, while also giving them some resistance to demonic infestations.
After his clone’s performance in the void tournament, Percy knew that the purification runes weren’t omnipotent, but this was all the more reason to try and squeeze out every drop of power he could from them. Instead of merely applying them to his weapons and armour, it wouldn’t hurt to directly add them to his mana itself, before he even allowed it to leave his core.
Whether this would be enough to protect him from the corruption or allow him to cleanse an infected creature more easily remained to be seen, though Percy didn’t regret giving it a shot.
‘Hmmm… is it me, or does the promotion still feel a little off?’ he wondered after examining his body for a few minutes.
Percy felt that his strength and lifespan had increased as much as they were supposed to, though the core itself felt like it was still halfway between Yellow and Green.
Perhaps that was only to be expected, since the impurities that had prevented it from naturally advancing were still technically lodged within its crystalline walls. The promotion had strengthened it enough to resist the monumental pressure of the next grade, but its ability to absorb and produce Green mana still felt somewhat muted.
If it hadn’t been for Percy’s boosting art helping the organ, he could tell that it would instantly revert back to Yellow – if it didn’t explode and kill him first.
Deciding that it was better to test his limits while he was still in a safe environment, Percy slowly expelled some mana from his core and channels, feeling the changes. Fortunately, he could get rid of nearly half of his current reserves without anything bad happening, but the mana began feeling slightly unstable when he tried going lower than that.
‘Okay. It’s not ideal, but this is something I’m going to have to live with,’ he said with a sigh, having honestly expected some downsides from the beginning.
With any luck, once he upgraded his second core as well, its feedback would push his body closer to the true Green grade, allowing his mana networks to remain functional with even less mana.
Another issue was with the boosting art itself. Percy’s core and channels could create and handle Green mana without too much difficulty, though the grey wisps burning outside his body were less effective. Percy’s external flow was visibly comprised of a mixture of Green and Yellow mana, making him notably weaker than he would have been after a natural advancement.
‘The Cradle essentially boosts my core by a grade and a half,’ he concluded after a few more tests.
It was like he had jumped from a Yellow with the Dance to a Green with just Circulation. If he deactivated the external flow and only kept the internal one, he would be more like a regular Green, or like his previous full strength.
It was a bit of a bummer, because it meant that Percy and Micky were limited to a single artificial promotion per core. They had known that this would probably be the case, but they had held some hope of being able to repeat the process endlessly – using their Green mana to reach Blue, their Blue mana to reach Violet, and so on.
Evidently, that had just been wishful thinking. They would have to cross the rest of the Colour realm the good old way.
Fortunately, Percy’s artificial advancement shouldn’t interfere with his regular core cleansing. The network of seals coating his core was full of holes and grooves that he could loosen at will to let his elixirs seep into the organ itself. Since the seals were made entirely out of Percy’s own mana, the deattuned beast mana shouldn’t damage – or even interact with – them in any way.
Percy had even included an alternative setting in the controlled-pressure enchantments that he could activate to damage the walls of his core like the Cascading Cracks technique did, exposing their flaws and helping him target them with the beast mana.
Part of him was itching to test that functionality right away, but his core had suffered a lot of damage during the promotion, so it would be safer to give it a few days to recover before doing anything else. Losing a few cleansing sessions was a small price to pay, given the colossal step closer to divinity that he had just taken.
‘Awesome. Now we just have to do this three more times – preferably before Machaon decides to attack,’ Micky said.
‘Four,’ Percy corrected him. ‘Don’t forget about Nephthys.’
Technically, it should be five, since the reincarnated goddess had two cores as well. However, they had decided to leave her beast core alone for a while, until they confirmed that the promotion would stick without issue.
If the Ruby Princess’ first core advanced to Blue, it would force her body to evolve. Should the seals fail later and cause her to revert to Green, she would probably die, since her body would lack the mana to sustain itself. Micky also possessed the beast affinity, but he could manipulate the size of his body at will, so this shouldn’t be a problem for him.
‘Make that seven then. If the Void Decree works for all three of us, we’ll each get another new core,’ the Huehuan said, making Percy smile wryly.
They knew that upgrading their new cores wouldn’t be as urgent, as they would start off multiple grades behind the others, making them practically useless in the fight against the patriarch of House Asclepius. Percy and Micky weren’t going to neglect them, but they wouldn’t be in a rush to promote them either.
Outside of their own cores, Percy might try helping out a few of his relatives at some point, though promoting Archibald’s first core to White was the only project that might be worth the effort in the short-term – assuming that they could make the process perfectly safe for his grandfather. The Starry Queen was in the same boat, though she had the same problem as Nephthys, and Percy would rather not put her life at risk.
He sighed, realizing that his next few years would be quite busy.
Covering his first core with seals had taken way longer than he would have liked, though he hoped that he and Micky would get the next three done several times faster. Everyone else would have to wait, and maybe he should be lumping his familiar in that group as well. Her strength wouldn’t be enough to turn the tide against Machaon just yet.
Either way, they still had a few other pressing matters to take care of before they got started with all of that. Two of his cords were shaking violently, indicating that his clones were about to return, and they had come back from Maradion bearing quite the assortment of gifts.