Percy pulled up his Status to check the new entry at the bottom of the mutation section.
___
Mutations:
· [Saint’s Eye] – Draws from the cumulative knowledge listed in the Status to enhance one’s senses, 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.
· [Ruby Bones] – Reinforces one’s bones.
· [Dead Winter Elemental] – Uses ice mana to regenerate, shapeshift and sustain one’s body. Allows every part of one’s body to interact with souls.
· [Grey Panoply] – Selectively reinforces the most rigid of one’s body parts.
___
The wording of Grey Panoply was interesting. Micky’s version of the mutation appeared to be even more general than Kassorith’s – probably due to the fact that the Huehuan could apply it to all sorts of alien physiologies and body parts. Percy’s gaze couldn’t help but linger on the word “selectively”, however.
“Do you think you can reverse it, after all?” he asked his fellow aspect.
Micky tried it. His grey scales didn’t change colour, but Percy could still hear faint snapping and shifting sounds coming from them, as well as his friend’s bones and fangs. A few seconds later, the noise stopped, before restarting again – seemingly in reverse.
“I can remove or reapply the transformation at will,” the Huehuan confirmed once he was done. “It looks like we were too cautious.”
Percy nodded. They’d considered the possibility, but they hadn’t wanted to risk Micky losing the opportunity to practice repeatedly with a body that had lacked the mutation.
“What do you think about my Greater Thess’kalan Physique?” he asked.
Micky shifted back to his Huehuan appearance before responding. He even went so far as to alter the colour of his body to that of regular skin this time, clearly feeling more comfortable looking like an actual person than an animated statue of magical ice.
“Muscles and organs are far more complex and diverse than bones and scales, and I don’t have nearly as many examples to study,” Micky said with a sigh. “I suppose that there is no harm in trying, but don’t expect me to copy it in the next few months.”
“That’s fine. Split your time between that and Shapeshifting Sentries as you please. Nephthys and I have our own tasks to work on, as do the rest of our clones and allies,” Percy said.
At least, Micky wasn’t going into this project completely blind. He had access to the memories of both Percy and the clone who had possessed Kassorith before, during, and after undergoing the ritual. He could also study Percy’s experience of living with the mutation for over a decade and cross-reference it with hundreds of humans who didn’t have it.
The Huehuan didn’t even need to perfect the mutation – even making his body slightly stronger would be better than nothing. When Percy figured out how to tap into his ancestral lineage and use the final set of ingredients, Micky would have another chance to study the process.
While Percy wanted to improve his own mutation primarily so that he would be able to handle his familiar’s acid mana a little better, there were two main reasons why he wanted his friend to do the same.
Micky was a beast. His fighting style largely revolved around his physical strength. Mutations were even more important for him than other people. On top of that, Percy needed his friend’s help to produce an even stronger form of ice mana.
Through his Crystallization, Reinforcement, and Phantomspun Silk spells, Percy had figured out a way to turn his phantom mana into an extremely durable and flexible material to craft his equipment out of.
Unfortunately, Micky still didn’t have any good weapons and armour of his own – just the shoddy tools he borrowed from Percy. Due to his inability to generate enough phantom mana to properly maintain, repair or replicate them, and his soul-freezing ice mana twisting their form and harming their structural integrity, the Huehuan had to fight most of his battles practically naked.
Regular ice mana just wasn’t strong enough to rely on, but the augmented variants that he might produce inside his body after copying Percy’s mutations might be a different story.
‘Maybe I can further improve my silk, or combine it with Micky’s mana to develop even better materials,’ Percy thought.
It had been years since he had woven his own Cloak, and his magiscript skills had climbed to a whole new level. The problem was that researching new configurations for his materials was an arduous and time-consuming process, and Micky hadn’t even perfected his own version yet, so it made no sense to begin experimenting with flawed ingredients.
This would have to wait until Micky was done.
Bidding his fellow aspect farewell, Percy left his residence, making his way toward his family’s camp just outside the settlement. He walked casually, to give his clone a chance to return from Gallimus.
When the new bundle of memories reached him, he understood everything that had happened in outer space and the Sapphire Pavilion’s venue a lot better. The knowledge that Aje had shared about the Concept realm was fascinating, while the prizes that the clone had won from the auction were even more so.
As excited as Percy was about the karmic compasses, he decided not to act on them immediately. He still wanted to visit Melodia before heading anywhere else, and he didn’t have enough clones to send out on multiple trips.
In fact, he technically didn’t even have one, since he had left clones in Nephthys, Elaine, and Archibald – to work on their artificial advancements. Percy had wanted to leave one in Galahad’s body as well, on top of reserving at least a single cord to grant the Moirais’ Decree to the allied nobles.
Unfortunately, Percy couldn’t afford to delay giving everyone their new cores, since they needed to start cleansing and practicing with them as soon as possible. He also didn’t want to stop his interstellar adventures entirely, so his uncle was the one who had drawn the short end of the stick.
‘So many things to do, and so few clones to do them,’ he thought with a sigh. His promotions to Blue and the new cords they would grant him couldn’t come fast enough.
The good news was that some of his recent purchases didn’t require any of his cords.
Reaching his grandfather’s tent, Percy found Nesha and Galahad inside, discussing alliance logistics with Archibald.
Apologizing for interrupting the meeting, Percy summoned hundreds of intricate boxes from his spatial seal, stacking them on a tall but neat pile in a corner of the small tent. His girlfriend and relatives watched him with great interest, though they didn’t ask any questions, since he had already informed them about his latest haul.
“I’ve sorted them in descending order of their remaining duration,” Percy explained once he was done. “Start handing out the ones on the left, since they’re due to expire sooner. The colours of the treasures are pretty self-explanatory, so there shouldn’t be any confusion as to the affinities they grant.”
“I don’t know if I’ll be able to use every single charge optimally with this little time, but I’ll do my best,” Galahad warned.
“Of course,” Percy replied, having no unreasonable expectations of his uncle.
House Avalon, the Guild’s strongest combatants, and the nobles scheduled to reach the Fungal Spire in the next few weeks would obviously be given priority. The last group would also be provided with small batches of treasures to bring back to their families, to help spread out Percy’s gifts. House Etna alone had a couple thousand mages, while the other five Houses easily totalled over fifteen hundred. The Alchemists’ Guild had a lot more people than that, but only a fraction of them were both powerful and experienced combatants.
After all was said and done, Percy expected to have around five thousand candidates to receive the treasures. Since most of them would hopefully acquire a second core as well in the near future, and roughly twenty percent of the cores would possess the pure affinity – thus requiring a pair of new elements each – Percy estimated that they would need around twelve thousand charges.
However, not everyone would receive the Moirais’ Decree or reach the Fungal Spire in a timely manner, and there might be elements that they needed more or fewer charges of, so he felt that paying ten thousand tokens for the treasures had been a good compromise to minimize wastage. Any mages who got left out or who joined the alliance later would have to wait for a future batch.
Once Nesha and Galahad reassured him that they would handle the rest, Percy turned his attention to his grandfather, taking one final affinity-changing treasure out of his spatial seal: a worn notebook that contained a pair of glossy silver sheets.
“Is that what I think it is?” the Violet asked, seeing through his grandson’s intentions at a glance.
Percy grinned, tearing out the first of the two pages and crumpling it up into a small ball before handing it over. “Eat up, gramps. I can hardly wait to have another person to share all this responsibility with…”