Chapter 687: – Saint’s Eye |
‘I’m not sure what exactly it does,’ Micky admitted.
Percy was testing the changes to his Sage’s Pond in the settlement, while Micky was doing the same in Twilight City. When they focused their willpower on just one end of their shared existence, their range seemed to expand by another kilometre in every direction, bringing the total radius to three.
Percy wasn’t sure how much of that he owed to the upgraded mutation, since he had just undergone several relevant changes. Once again, he couldn’t help but appreciate how his Sage’s Pond was quite possibly his single most scalable ability.
Each core promotion directly sharpened his senses, but also strengthened the domain that he shared with Micky, indirectly feeding more information into the Masterful spell. If that wasn’t enough, it should also keep growing alongside their broader understanding of magic and with every additional entry in their Status, on top of any direct upgrades to Phoebe’s Decree.
Given their recent gains, one might argue that a fifty percent boost in range wasn’t all that impressive, but that would be a somewhat misleading conclusion. In terms of volume, the Lone Wanderer’s secondary domain now encompassed over three times as much space, and he still had three more cores to promote in the near future.
If he ever decided to activate the Void Decree or acquire new aspects, the Wild Art would undergo several additional rounds of tempering. Once Percy and Micky were done filling their veins with spiritual blood, they would hopefully obtain yet another major way of expanding their territory. However, they had yet to understand what exactly had triggered the evolution of their mutation.
‘It has to be the ability to detect corruption. I can’t think of how else Ningirima’s Mercy could have interacted with Ea’s Gift,’ Percy replied with a shrug.
It was the most reasonable assumption, as well as a possibility that they had considered before their return, though it appeared that they wouldn’t get a chance to confirm it until the next time they came across a demonic infestation. Neither their environment, nor the people going about their daily lives within it appeared any different to Percy’s senses.
‘Pity we didn’t have that on Robari. We could have saved so many lives…’ the Huehuan said with a mental sigh. ‘Do you think it’s done the same to our domain?’
They would have to do that anyway if they wanted to store a more powerful version of their domain within the transparent marbles, and it wouldn’t hurt if this also happened to impart the artifacts with a mysterious quality that made them more effective against the infected.
Percy and Micky hadn’t found an opportunity to use the objects ever since they bought them from Metatron – which was probably a good thing, because charging them was annoying. However, it was better to have them and not need them than need them and not have them.
With that settled, Percy felt that he had a much better grasp on his recent acquisitions.
Unfortunately, most of his upcoming projects would have to be placed on hold until he and Micky were done applying the Cradle to their other cores, though replacing their spiritual blood was one of the few things that could be done at the same time.
While Kassorith had complained about the pain involved with the constant destruction and regeneration of his soul, Percy didn’t think it was a big deal – at least not compared to several other sources of soul pain that he had experienced in the past, such as acquiring his spectral traits or using his bloodline half a million times to give new cores to the Blue wasps.
He and Micky should be able to do this passively while forging the new seals in their remaining cores. They already had to keep their boosting arts perpetually active, so they would never run out of soul mana to mend their injuries, and fully replacing their blood would only take a few days.
Percy didn’t think that they would get a chance to experiment with the new resource for another year or so, but even having the ability to recover faster might save their lives during their battle against Machaon.
‘On that note, it might not be a bad idea to spend a couple of days upgrading our cauldron and brewing some Blue-grade tattoo ink,’ Percy said.
In theory, Micky – who was now fully capable of performing alchemy – could have done that while Percy was working on his cores, but they would need to finish promoting Percy’s pure affinity before they had a strong enough material to forge the tool with.
‘You can work on that when I start my own advancement,’ the Huehuan suggested. ‘You’ll be done by the time I need help.’
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Percy nodded. The early parts of the Cradle were the easiest to use, so his fellow aspect should be able to handle them by himself. After covering more than half of the crystalline wall of his core with tiny seals, Micky would have to be more careful not to damage the existing constructs as he produced more, which was when they would have to cooperate.
Since Percy had just upgraded his first affinity, it might have been fairer to do one of his friend’s next, but alchemy wasn’t the only reason to prioritize himself. The Huehuan already had a core at Green, so they weren’t in a rush to raise another.
They didn’t want to push Micky’s original affinity to Blue by itself either, since it might lack sufficient support. Due to his ability to freely shrink his body and efficiently convert ice to beast mana, he should have long left any stamina issues behind, but it never hurt to be careful. Most of his spells and mutations required ice mana to function properly, so merely having a larger and stronger body wouldn’t help as much in a fight anyway.
Also, Percy’s promotions allowed him to send out more clones, which was all the more reason to get them out of the way.
Thus, both of the Lone Wanderer’s aspects returned to their rooms, concentrating on their training while paying some attention to the outside world – mostly to keep track of the political developments on Remior with help from Nesha and Orin.
***
While Percy and Micky were holed up in their living quarters, the world hadn’t stopped rotating. For the past decade, the noble Houses had remained relatively calm, with most of them focusing on developing their mages and their territories.
Most families had suffered heavy losses in the years prior to Percy’s emergence, having fought several bitter wars against their rivals during the lead up to the blossoming of the Lotus of a Myriad Rivers.
Consequently, the nobles had been forced to stop killing each other and spend some time licking their wounds or consolidating their gains even before the overwhelming changes that House Avalon’s most talented son had brought upon their world.
The news about the cyan powder and Machaon’s treason had greatly shaken everybody – commoners and aristocrats alike. Several families had openly cozied up to House Avalon and the Alchemists’ Guild, trying every trick under the sun to procure more Aurora Dew for their mages.
Every noble House had imported Percy’s advanced metallurgy and construction techniques into their territories, while also commissioning House Etna to upgrade their enchantments through the use of the new magiscript knowledge that Percy had publicised, all in a bid to accelerate their development.
Whenever a family took advantage of Percy’s teachings, they furthered his influence across the continent, giving Archibald an additional modicum of leverage over them. After all, it was impossible to collectively shove their heads in the sand and pretend that all of this otherworldly knowledge had popped out of thin air.
Consequently, most patriarchs were smart enough to read the writing on the wall: House Avalon was already well on its way to becoming Remior’s eighth Great House – if it couldn’t be considered as such already.
As for Percy himself… he had already become something even greater – a mythical existence that had changed their world more than any mortal before him, and who showed no signs of slowing down anytime soon.
Even so, the other Houses weren’t in a rush to get involved in his war against House Asclepius. They didn’t see the need to risk the lives of their own mages, nor the territory that they had worked so hard to conquer. Certainly not to stand against one of the already-established Great Houses, whether they secretly condemned Machaon’s crimes or not.
Regardless of who was in the right or who would win in the end, a single mishap could bring disaster upon their families. Besides, if Percy was truly as powerful and talented as he appeared to be, they felt that he should be able to handle his own battles.
House Avalon had gathered just enough support to be able to stand tall against their enemies, on top of having grown quite powerful on their own. It was common knowledge that Percy was as strong as a Violet, and that many of his relatives – including Archibald – would probably be able to use a boosting art like Percy’s own, to fight a full grade higher. However, that didn’t mean that their family was ready to invade Machaon’s lands or try to extract him from his territory without the home advantage.
The opposite was also true.
Most believed that House Asclepius was still the stronger side, but Machaon didn’t yet have the numbers to completely ignore everyone else and invade, nor would the rest of Remior sit by and watch as Percy got killed while his life was still tied to the survival of the Starry Wasps.
This was why the disgraced patriarch had spent his time keeping his head low and trying to rid himself of his most pressing disadvantages. He had revealed a few months ago that the Starry Princess under his control was alive and well. With the secret out in the open, he was free to procure enough resources to feed the bug and keep her healthy.
Machaon had no intention of returning her to the Fungal Spire just yet, nor could the young insect establish a proper colony without access to the miraculous environment of her foremothers, yet she was no longer at risk of starving, and Percy’s life wasn’t as indispensable as it had once been.
In addition to alleviating the worries of the other Houses, Machaon was widely believed to be working on some kind of secret weapon of his own – something that would greatly improve both his personal power and that of the few allies that he had managed to gather, so that he could finally crush the opposition and put an end to this war.
Only Percy’s most trusted friends and relatives knew that he was working on his artificial advancements, so nobody else was aware that he was just a few months away from having the power to strike first. However, given how rapidly Percy had grown prior to that point, everyone probably understood that he wasn’t just sitting idly while his enemy was getting ready to kill him.
With very few Houses willing to officially pick a side, and with neither of the major players ready to make the first move, the continent remained in a state of faux peace as Percy and Machaon raced to complete their preparations in secret.
If an outsider visited the planet, they might fail to spot the undercurrents of tension brewing beneath the strained smiles and reluctant trades. The natives knew the truth. They braced themselves for the inevitable clash, hoping that they wouldn’t get caught in it.