The Lone Wanderer

“Another one.” Micky said, carrying an oversized rat carcass in his talons.

The distraction caused Percy to mess up the rune he was trying to carve on the snake’s body, prompting him to click his tongue in annoyance. Sighing, he shifted his attention to the new corpse, scanning it via Mana Sense. There was an Orange star rapidly dimming in its sternum.

“Micky… I said Yellow beasts only… I wish I could preserve all of them, but I don’t have the time. At least, not while keeping up with my other tasks.”

Percy had way too much on his plate lately. Besides piling up the dead animals for their operation, he also had to brew elixirs for the group, to keep up the appearance of a professional blacksmith for the townsfolk, and to work on his new spell. Orange beasts just weren’t worth the effort. They’d only give Micky a fraction of the mana when the time came.

“I’m trying.” the bird cawed in annoyance. “Yellows are getting harder to find.”

“Alright. Just drop it in that circle for now. I’ll mark it later if I have the time.” Percy said, pointing at yet another preservation rune carved on the ground nearby.

Shimmering in a faint teal colour, it was much larger than those he drew on the creatures’ flesh. And it wasn’t the only one. It was surrounded by dozens of similar circles. Most of them had Yellow carcasses lying on them, only a handful having Orange ones instead.

Had somebody paid close attention to the bodies, they’d notice all of them were covered from head to toe with even more preservation runes. That said, Percy had run into diminishing returns after trying to double down on the enchantment. The runes he carved on the bodies already accounted for over 80% of the effect, so the additional circles underneath them were just icing on the cake. Still, he wanted to preserve every last drop of soul mana they could extract from the animals, to maximize the odds of his experiment working.

Three weeks had already passed since his return from the Vault. He and Micky had amassed over thirty corpses in that time. Sadly, a quick scan via Soul Vision revealed that the first souls were crumbling already, the silver flames over halfway gone.

Evidently, even the specialized variant of the preservation rune he’d mastered had its limits. While it greatly delayed a soul’s decay, it couldn’t stop it entirely. It merely slowed down the process, stretching it to a little over a month. Still, their stash was already diminishing as fast as they were replenishing it, which meant they wouldn’t gain anything by waiting any longer. Percy would have gone for it already, if there weren’t a couple of things he was holding out on.

“Are you sure House Tantalus hasn’t simply given up on this place?” Nesha asked.

It had already been over two months since they killed the most recent group of Yellows. The enemy House had remained silent in that time. He and Nesha were growing less and less certain those bastards would send a Green after them. He guessed Baldy must’ve done an even better job pressuring them than he’d expected, as they didn’t seem to have the luxury of delegating one of their elites to hunt Micky down just yet.

“I think it’s worth waiting a few more weeks. If they do send us a Green, it’ll help me massively.”

Not that he was looking forward to fighting the powerful mage – it was certainly going to be dangerous – but having another high-grade soul to toss into the mix might just make the difference between success and failure.

Half an hour later, Percy finished carving the runes on the last two carcasses, deciding to finally call it a night. There was still some time before he had to go to bed, but he wanted to work on something else too. And he wasn’t the only one rushing his preparations.

“How are the new traps coming along?” he asked.

Nesha had already incorporated the control rune within the traps, and she was currently busy scattering them all over the Grisly Bog, preparing for the ambush.

“Well, I’ve verified I can control them remotely, though they still break after closing and opening a few times. But that’s not a problem, is it? We only need them to close once.”

Percy nodded, though he didn’t say anything. If they could catch the Green off-guard, they might be able to sever a leg or two. But that was a big if. Each advancement greatly improved a mage’s reflexes, sharpening their senses. Even if their opponent failed to notice the traps, they might still be able to escape before Nesha had the chance to close them.

In fact, Percy had given her multiple slabs of stone engraved with concealment runes to place above her traps, to hide them from Mana Sense. It wasn’t as good as incorporating the runes directly into the enchantment, but neither Percy nor Nesha were skilled enough to do that just yet.

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‘I suppose we’ll just have to pray it works…’

Bidding Micky farewell, the two headed home. Suffice to say, the Grisly Bog was already full of traps and preserved bodies by now. They no longer even bothered to hide them – they couldn’t. If one of the townsfolk decided to veer into the swamp one day, they’d instantly realize something was off. Luckily, nobody besides Percy or Nesha dared set foot there anymore.

Reaching their house, they took turns washing up outside, before entering their new bedroom. Percy and Nesha had taken a break from their other projects back when his clone was still studying in the Vault, expanding their humble hut a little. It was still rather small, but at least they no longer had to sleep in Percy’s workshop, sparing them from breathing in the forge’s fumes all night long.

That said, Percy wasn’t planning to go to bed just yet.

Pulling all the soul mana from his sternum, he released it out of his pores, emptying his first core. Then, he switched his focus to his abdomen, drawing some pure mana from it, directing it to his sternum.

Naturally, he was going to work on his new spell again.

The Vault’s books were extremely helpful, but it still took a lot of effort to master a new spell – even a Crude one. Percy’s Status had yet to register it, despite the significant amount of progress he’d made on it over the past few weeks.

‘Let’s see… I’m supposed to control the rate by which I feed the foreign mana to my soul core…’

Converting mana from other affinities to one’s own could be likened to digesting a meal. In this analogy, pure mana was the “easiest on the stomach”, but that didn’t mean Percy could dump everything in his first core all at once and expect that to work. If he pushed it too far, he could damage his core instead, giving himself mana poisoning. Should that happen, both his capacity and regeneration would drop massively for a few days – a situation best avoided.

On the other hand, if he played it safe and moved too little pure mana into the core, he’d just needlessly slow the conversion down. Much like with a core’s purification, this was all about finding the right balance – something that typically required a lot of trial and error.

Luckily for Percy, he could skip a lot of that due to being the owner of both cores, making it several times easier for him to determine when his first core was saturated. In fact, he’d already realized a rudimentary version of the spell weeks ago – he was currently just working on improving it.

‘Tonight, for sure!’

Ignoring the beads of sweat accumulating on his forehead, he concentrated on the delicate process, carefully fine-tuning the mana flowing from one core to the other. When the time of the experiment came, he’d have to do this with Synchronization active. For now, he was happy taking it easy though, wanting to perfect the spell first, before adding to the difficulty.

‘5%.’

Activating Mana Sense, he watched the droplets of heavy, corporeal mana transform into the softer, ethereal variant, subtly taking advantage of his understanding of both affinities to guide them along – another area where he had an advantage over other pure users.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

‘10%.’

At some point, Percy realized his pure mana was about to run out, the flow between the two cores slowing down to a trickle. But he didn’t let that distract him, as he redoubled his efforts to improve his efficiency, hoping to finally reach the first milestone.

‘15%.’

His second core finally dried out, the flow halting completely. Though there was still a sliver of pure mana left in Percy’s body, swirling inside his first core. The organ gnawed at it greedily, causing this last strand to shrink at an alarming rate.

‘Have I failed again?’

Yet, just as the final dregs of cyan evaporated, one final droplet of silver fell, splashing down with the rest, the Status finally pitching in to announce Percy’s accomplishment.

[Congratulations! You have mastered a new spell: Self-bestowal – Crude!]

Percy couldn’t help but grin as he stared at the notification. This wasn’t his first spell, nor the most impressive, but registering it filled him with relief. He knew he was on a timer to get everything ready before the enemy scion finally arrived in the town.

‘There’s still room for improvement though…’ he reminded himself, as he gauged the soul mana in his sternum.

In the end, he’d managed to replenish about 20% of it. This could be considered good by Remior’s standards. But not by Percy’s. He’d already cheated extensively to get here this quickly, by being both the bestower and recipient of the mana. Based on everything he’d learned at the Vault, he was confident he should be able to reach 30% in due time. The only question was whether he’d get there soon enough.

“Did it finally register?” Nesha asked, startling Percy.

It was only now he realized she was still awake. She was playing with that black butterfly of hers again, making it fly above her palm. It had improved greatly over the past few months too, both its shape and its flight looking a lot more elegant than before. It didn’t even leak that many motes in its passing anymore.

“Yes.” he nodded. “How about yours? Is it Refined yet?”

From what she’d told him, her Status had already registered the spell some time ago, though she hadn’t stopped working on it. Percy was actually a little impressed by Nesha’s growth – both as a mage and as a person. He’d certainly never expected the day would come when the lazy girl would stay up this late, practicing her magic alongside him.

“Why are you looking at me like that? I just don’t want to get killed by a Green mage because some Red-born idiot decided to go on a war against an entire House by himself.” she rolled her eyes, probably realizing what he was thinking. “And no. It’s still Crude. Though I can make a few of them at once.”

Percy chuckled at her quip, but he knew she wasn’t wrong. An Orange trying to stage an ambush against a Green was probably unprecedented in the entire history of Remior. He was definitely playing with fire. One wrong move, and he’d lose everything.

‘But I won’t let that happen. I’ll make sure we win. House Tantalus is nothing more than a stepping stone for my ambition.’