Percy’s gaze narrowed. ‘What do you mean “taken from you”?’
Sol sighed. ‘It’s complicated. We tried our best to hide the ring – Zoris taught us how to conceal the traces of the blessing from our mana, and we avoided showing our new traits in public as much as possible. The problem was that we couldn’t ignore our abilities entirely. The whole point of acquiring them had been to use them for the benefit of our people.
‘Our community is small and the three of us who had survived the expedition were at the centre of everyone’s attention. As you’d imagine, our people also happen to be quite experienced at recognizing when another person is under the influence of a trait. Eventually, others noticed things that couldn’t be explained by our publicly-known skillsets and started asking difficult questions. I blamed everything related to the blessing on my Beacon trait and you – the otherworldly visitor who had already helped us so much – but the other Green-borns aren’t fools. They realized that the three of us had manifested our new abilities one person at a time, years after bidding you farewell or returning from the Mirror Lake.’
‘So what?!’ Percy asked, unable to keep a hint of anger from spilling into his voice. ‘Did those ungrateful pricks just forget about everything that we’ve done for them and steal the ring by force?’
‘Not exactly,’ his host said, hurriedly shaking her head. ‘There was no violence or coercion involved. Everyone respects us greatly for bringing the Dance back and saving our cities from the verge of collapse. We’ve been hailed as heroes, hence our leadership positions. But the other Green-borns did apply a lot of soft pressure to get us to share the blessing with them, arguing that the survival of our civilization was on the line and that we shouldn’t have withheld such an important advantage from them. We explained that the ring didn’t belong to us and that it contained the sentient remnant of an ancient deity. We turned their requests down for as long as we could, though Zoris eventually agreed to pass the concept to just the Green-borns, to get them off our backs.’
Percy grimaced, realizing that the situation was a lot messier than he’d initially expected. He didn’t blame the Melodians for being desperate to build their strength up in any way they could, but them discovering the ring and passing it around like a mindless tool was precisely the outcome that Zoris had spent millennia trying to avoid.
Reduced to the immobile form of a tiny artifact, the former deity lacked the power to escape from the grasp of even the weakest mortal. He had generously agreed to grant his blessing to the survivors of the expedition, but the number of recipients had already swelled by a factor of ten, and Percy doubted that this would be the end.
Would the Green-borns even be willing to let go of the ring a few decades from now, when they were done spreading the concept among their ranks? Or would they suddenly decide that they also wanted Zoris to help their relatives and Yellow-borns out?
‘This stops now,’ Percy declared, leaving no room for debate. ‘I’m all for helping your people, but not at Zoris’ expense. The elixirs and spells that I’m giving you are plenty.’
‘Of course.’ Sol nodded. ‘This was our consensus with Zoris as well. He just wanted to buy time until your return.’
Percy simultaneously felt honoured that the disembodied god had placed such trust in him, and guilty that he’d taken so long to come back.
The good news was that retrieving the ring shouldn’t be too difficult. The Melodians couldn’t exactly leave their planet or leak the ring’s existence to the rest of the universe even if they wanted to, nor could they advance in the next century without Percy’s elixirs. Sol had probably taught them how to cleanse their cores without beast mana, but they would never be able to keep up with his own rate of progression.
Dealing with a few greedy Yellows and Greens was well within his power. Even if it hadn’t been, he could have just returned after another promotion or two, when nobody on the barren world would be able to stop him. His main body’s advancements didn’t directly strengthen his clones much, but they were usually accompanied by lots of smaller discoveries and upgrades such as Micky’s Shapeshifting Sentries spell or access to more potent phantom mana.
Getting the artifact back without spilling blood was the only tricky bit. Percy wasn’t above executing an arrogant Green-born if necessary – it wouldn’t even be the first Holy Child to get in his way – but he’d rather not weaken the natives further when their civilization was at such a critical state, nor sour his relationship with a faction that he was planning to cultivate into future allies.
Melodia was uniquely suited for that purpose. While Duwa’s people would also make for excellent allies and trade partners, they already had a developed planet with its own gods and titans at the helm. Meanwhile, Sol’s world was akin to soft clay that Percy could potentially shape however he wanted.
‘Lead the way. I want to meet this Tonett – who thinks he can drink my elixirs and still demand whatever else he wants from me afterwards.’
Sol chuckled. ‘Tonett’s a woman. She also happens to be Latt’s great-grandaunt and a three-hundred-year-old mage who has led our people through some of our darkest times. You have every right to be pissed off, but please try not to be too heavy handed with her. She’s not a bad person – just a little stubborn.’
Percy rubbed the bridge of his borrowed nose, already feeling the incoming headache.
Before Sol had the chance to exit her house, he instructed her to always keep the Dance active from now on, and Micky to start drawing seals inside her first core, explaining his intention to grant her a pair of artificial advancements.
He’d been planning to do it anyway, but he now had another reason to ensure that Sol remained more powerful than the rest of her people. Percy would rather deal with somebody he trusted, and getting both of her cores to Violet would go a long way toward that goal.
After confirming that the Multitasking trait allowed his spectral companions to focus on their assigned tasks while still being able to do other things, he unfolded his sensory domain outwards once again, scanning the surrounding neighbourhoods. Reaching Tonett’s city would take a while, so Percy figured that he might as well take advantage of the trip to study how the Melodians lived.
The buildings were prettier than he’d realized earlier. There was no developed branch of runecrafting on Melodia, so their houses were small and constructed purely out of mundane materials, but their foundations were firm and set in a thick layer of stone buried several metres below the surface, while their walls and pillars were carefully arranged to balance internal space with stability.
The exterior of the buildings was decorated with intricate engravings that depicted Melodians fighting against beasts of all shapes and sizes. Percy wasn’t surprised by that, as it was the main activity that had defined most of the natives’ history, as well as a way to honour their fallen heroes. Perhaps Rei’s figure was also carved somewhere in this town, but Percy couldn’t recognize any individuals from the engravings.
Something similar was true of the Melodians’ clothes. This wasn’t Percy’s first time on their planet, but he hadn’t possessed his Sage’s Pond during his previous trips, so he’d never registered how well the natives’ fabric was woven or how its very texture was adorned with microscopic letters that a lower-graded mage would have struggled to make out without squinting.
Carefully examining the text, Percy realized that it listed hundreds of names of presumably-dead Melodians. Studying those on his host’s uniform carefully, he spotted a few that he recognized. Mi – Sol’s father – was among them, as was Rei, Sik, and dozens of others that Percy remembered from the expedition.
‘Their culture is actually a lot more advanced than you’d expect – given the small size of their cities and the fact that they’ve been fighting for their lives,’ Micky said.
Percy mentally nodded. It was especially notable if he considered that these people didn’t even possess any affinities that could be used for construction. If somebody had told Percy about Melodia without him ever visiting, he would have pictured a bunch of primitive villages and people using simple tools of stone and bone, not unlike those he had seen in the barren world with the floating cats.
‘It must be because of their spectral traits. They have tens of thousands of people with supernatural talents that allow them to specialize in all sorts of crafts.’
Even though the peak factions had thousands of times as many people and were also aware of the existence of spectral fiends, Percy wasn’t sure that there was any other place in the universe with so many soul affinity users gathered together.
It wasn’t just their clothes and structures either. Percy spotted teenagers playing musical instruments with the skill of seasoned experts, artists painting portraits that looked more realistic than life itself, and potters shaping clay into dishes and cups so beautifully crafted that Percy would never dare to stain them with food.
A proud smile crept up on his host’s lips as she caught him gawking at the handiwork of her kinsmen, though she remained quiet, allowing him to watch to his heart’s content.
Sol didn’t head toward the wall immediately. Being the responsible leader that the once-immature girl had grown into, she first sought out her subordinates to alert them about her absence. The dozen-or-so Green-borns under her command weren’t pleased about their leader leaving the city in person, but she refused their offers to accompany her, insisting that she would be safe enough and move much faster on her own.
Only once the woman had arranged for the city to continue functioning without her did she exit through the northeastern gate, running along the lake’s shore toward the neighbouring settlement.
Percy and Sol got attacked by a few packs of Orange and Yellow beasts on the way, yet the Melodian slaughtered them easily with a few slashes from her spectral sickles. Percy knew that his host would have been fine even without him, but spotting the approaching creatures from hundreds of metres away and predicting their every move through her Sage’s Pond had further trivialized the journey.
It had been around midday when Percy had first entered his host’s body, and the bright yellow sun had yet to set by the time they reached the next city. The guards bowed their heads politely at their heroine’s arrival, letting her pass without issue and giving Percy hope that he might be able to retrieve Zoris’ ring peacefully, after all.
Sadly, his optimism only lasted until he saw the hulking beast of a woman that his host introduced as Tonett.