Chapter 683: – Gains |
One of the first things that stood out as Percy’s wisps fused back into his soul was how easily his Status finished assimilating Ningirima’s Decree. Something seemed to click inside his head almost immediately, resolving the conflict between the two pieces of divine magic.
While Percy hadn’t been worried that the process would fail, he had expected it to be at least somewhat uncomfortable, and to last longer than a couple of seconds. Evidently, the clone’s copy of Phoebe’s Decree had already done most of the work.
‘It feels a bit like how a spider pumps its prey full of venom, to partially digest it before even consuming it,’ he thought.
It wasn’t the most pleasant analogy, but it did make Percy wonder how important his bloodline’s role had been in the evolution of his Status. He didn’t want to downplay Phoebe’s contribution too much, since her Decree was undeniably more adaptable than other mental-types, but it might have never grown to this point if Percy had lacked the means to devour new Decrees in multiple stages.
Back when he had tried to assimilate Ea’s Gift, his clone’s Status had broken down entirely. After reuniting with his main body, he had regained access to an intact version of Phoebe’s Decree, essentially giving his Status a second chance to repair itself and absorb the mangled mess that had returned from Atlantis. Even under those favourable circumstances, it had barely succeeded.
Nowadays, the situation wasn’t nearly as dire. Percy’s Status had grown powerful enough that it would probably have an easy time absorbing new Decrees in anyone’s hands. Even so, that initial step might have been the key to everything else that had followed.
Shrugging, Percy decided to place all matters and speculation regarding Phoebe’s Decree on hold. Part of him itched to pull up his page right away, but it would make more sense to do that after processing the rest of his gains.
Next up on his list were the clones. After placing a new one in his familiar’s body to resume his training with lightning and acid mana, he sent out two more in random directions, asking them to do whatever they wanted.
With all the greater springs that he had recently marked, on top of several other important tasks that had been begging for his attention – such as his long overdue return to Melodia – Percy might have been better off planning some deliberate adventures. However, he was too busy with other matters to care about that right now, so he didn’t mind letting his clones wander aimlessly for a while.
With two Yellow cores, he had been able to support a maximum of six clones, though three had been permanently occupied by Micky and Nephthys, leaving only the three that he had just created. Now that his soul core had reached Green, he should be able to produce a seventh cord – or a fourth clone.
His limit would keep increasing as he elevated his second core to Green and hopefully activated his third core. The bad news was that he would have to split his spatial seal into more than four pieces again, which didn’t make for the neatest division. The good news was that a hundred and twenty-five cubic metres of storage space were still more than enough for most purposes.
After ensuring that none of his counterparts were idle, Percy shifted his attention to Ishkuria’s gifts. Her token was something that he should probably just store in a dusty corner of his seal for the foreseeable future.
Intentionally approaching the titaness after Kassorith’s defection came to light would be incredibly foolish, so Percy would rather avoid it unless he found himself in some kind of dire situation that could only be resolved with Ishkuria’s assistance. Still, it was nice to have the option of reaching out to her. Percy wanted to pay the titaness back for her kindness one day, even though she had only helped him under false pretences.
Moving on to the least volatile of the wooden boxes that the goddess had given him, Percy counted how many first-generation teabags he had. His original plan had been to claim a set of five leaves from the tournament, give one to his host, have himself and Micky consume one each, and keep the remaining pair for a rainy day.
Now that Ishkuria had given him more than twenty, he could afford to be a little more generous. That didn’t mean that he was planning to go around giving the teabags away, but he didn’t want to be too stingy with his friends and family either.
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‘I think we should skip Elaine and Archibald for now,’ he told Micky, getting a nod back.
As close as he was to his cousin and grandfather, Percy didn’t see much of a reason to prioritize the Yellow-borns, nor was he planning to return to the Camelot province right now.
‘I suppose that the two of us, Nephthys, Nesha, Orin, Freddy, and the Starry Queen can each drink one, which should leave us with sixteen doses. We’ll hold on to those for any future familiars or the people we meet on our travels,’ he decided.
His girlfriend and mentor were obvious choices, while the Violet wasp had already done a lot for Percy and shouldn’t have much of her lifespan left. Considering that her presence was still required to keep the hive under control, that she was one of Percy’s greatest assets in the war against House Asclepius, and his most prolific source of royal jelly – for now, at least – this was also a no-brainer.
Freddy was the most controversial choice, since he and Percy weren’t that close. The plump Honey Roll vendor had already received way more from Percy than he had ever asked for, and didn’t seem to harbour any ambition of attaining divinity, so nobody would complain if Percy skipped him. However, Freddy was the only other Red-born on Remior that Percy knew somewhat well, so Percy had felt an odd sense of kinship with the guy ever since their early days in the Alchemists’ Guild.
‘Having access to Honey Rolls a few thousand years from now won’t hurt,’ Percy argued with a wry smile.
Micky scoffed. ‘We’ve just invented a complicated inner shell that allows us to forcefully promote our cores – something that nobody has ever managed to do before. I think you can handle the Honey Roll recipe…’
‘Screw that! It wouldn’t be the same,’ Percy replied, leaving no room for debate.
After sending his fellow aspect a pair of teabags for himself and Nesha, Percy and Micky spent a few minutes preparing and drinking a portion each, feeling the effect almost immediately.
The wave of vitality rippling through the Huehuan’s crystalline body was far more pronounced, since he hadn’t consumed a second-generation leaf before. The tea should have tripled his remaining lifespan, which was probably why it felt quite similar to an advancement.
Percy wasn’t as lucky, the consumable only extending his lifespan by a relatively modest fifty percent. He wasn’t going to complain about that, as he had received the rest on a previous occasion. Also, this was technically his second boost today.
While he still wasn’t sure how long Micky was going to live, he should be able to calculate his own remaining lifespan. After taking his second core, the first-generation tea, his Gloomy Dawn, and his artificial advancements into account, he was confident that he had comfortably extended his life enough to reach the Clear grade with time to spare.
‘I guess I’ll take a moment to go through the math after dealing with the Void Decree as well,’ he thought.
Before he got to his main reward from the tournament, there were still a few other things that he had to take care of.
Percy carefully stored the second wooden box that Ishkuria had given him inside his seal, planning to deal with it when he had more time. He was honestly more excited about the opportunity to work on a calamity affinity than even some of the Decrees that he had claimed from the alliance, yet he understood that this would have to wait.
He wasn’t even done with the prerequisite affinities yet, and mastering the storm element was easily going to take several years, even with help from the Inimit deity’s learning aid and his familiar’s Divine Spark mutation. At the very least, Percy wasn’t going to touch that project before he was done with his artificial advancements.
Speaking of things that titans had given him, Percy also had the seeds and recipe for the sludge that could fully conceal a person’s mana core that he had purchased from Metatron. He wasn’t in a hurry to cultivate those plants, but he understood that having some of the substance at hand might become important soon – depending on how the Void Decree worked.
With many of the smaller things out of the way, there was only a spell upgrade and four Decrees to go over.
There wasn’t much to say about the Adaptive Arsenal. Percy was happy to have taken another step forward with magiscript. Getting more experience in applying his knowledge on the fly would serve him well in the future, but there wasn’t anything urgent that he needed to do about it.
Kerfyl’s Decree was a fun one. Initially, Percy had felt slightly conflicted over picking a utility Decree instead of something that he could have used to blast Machaon to smithereens. It was still entirely possible that his decision would come back to bite him in the ass later, but he didn’t regret it.
If not for the soul contract, he seriously doubted that he would have managed to strike a deal with Zurvanai, and the gains from that were infinitely more valuable than any active-type Decree.
This was without even mentioning all the doors that his contracts would open in the future. Much like Ludwick’s Compass, Kerfyl’s Decree was the sort of thing that would allow him to better leverage his most important asset: his bloodline.
On a different topic, Percy was quite excited about finally getting a chance to play around with the Penitent’s Decree in his own body. It was the first prize he had claimed on Marador Prime, yet he hadn’t found many opportunities to use it while possessing Kassorith.
Percy and Micky would have to replace their blood before they could do anything else with it. While that wouldn’t take up too much time, any additional experimentation would have to wait until after their artificial advancements, but Percy wasn’t going to complain about having another interesting project on the horizon.
And then there was the biggest reward of them all: the Void Decree. As soon as Percy’s clones had returned to Remior, he had been able to tell that the Void Decree had followed him home.
He still had to perform a few tests before he fully understood the nature of his grand prize, but the mere thought of awakening his third mana core made Percy rub his hands in anticipation.
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