Percy and Micky carefully observed the wildlife, slowly learning how various critters moved and acted. They didn’t know whether any of the species native to the jungle would be present inside the cities, but understanding the unique biological traits that were common on Tenefyre should prove useful regardless.
The most interesting candidate to emulate was an airborne critter just barely longer and thicker than a human’s index finger. Percy had yet to see even a single specimen that was quite as large as his fist-sized sentries, but the size was close enough that nobody would think that his minions were anything more than slightly oversized outliers – especially if he compressed the spiritual blood he poured into them as much as possible.
The tiny beasts resembled slugs, though their gelatinous skin was covered in lots of thin, metallic flakes. Percy dubbed them “flying caterpillars” due to their shape and the way they moved. By vibrating their bodies at a high frequency, they caused their scales to clap against the air in a way that generated thrust, propelling themselves forward at mind-boggling speeds. By copying the creatures, the sentries would have an excuse to scour the planet extremely fast.
‘Our scouts are supposed to stay intangible and invisible most of the time, but they can still be discovered if they enter someone’s domain,’ he reasoned. ‘It wouldn’t hurt to give them a believable shape and behaviour.’
Having the sentries constantly fly faster than arrows wouldn’t always be convenient. Especially when Percy and Micky needed their minions to stay still and spy on somebody in the middle of a town. That was why they picked a few slower and less conspicuous creatures as well – to further enrich their arsenal of possible Tenefyrian puppets.
Micky and, by extension, Percy had grown a lot better at mimicking creatures that they had never personally possessed. The transformations could use some work, yet they didn’t need to be perfect in this situation. The locals shouldn’t be too suspicious of a couple of random pests flying around their towns, and the sentries didn’t need to be structurally sound either – they just had to look convincing on the outside, since they weren’t meant for combat or any physically demanding actions.
Once they felt confident in their creations, Percy and Micky willed all but one of the sentries to scatter in every direction. They kept a single minion by their host’s side within the small cave, because its superior sensory domain would help keep the snail safe. Percy also made sure to regularly feed the creature small amounts of nectar, to keep it calm and healthy throughout the journey.
An Orange beast didn’t need much food anyway, so whatever raw ingredients Percy had brought with him should last for several months. Having to go out and hunt would have been too annoying and risky. The local fauna shouldn’t pose a threat, but it would be an issue if the intelligent natives spotted the strange snail.
Both the jungle and the scattered volcanoes seemed to stretch for hundreds of kilometres in every direction, reinforcing Percy’s speculation that they covered much of the surface of this planet. Thankfully, the sentries moved quite fast, so the first one didn’t take more than twenty minutes to stumble upon a fairly large town.
The settlement was over twenty kilometres across, making it over four times as large as those on Melodia. Most buildings were at least four stories tall, with the tallest ones stretching for hundreds of metres into the sky. Everything considered, Percy estimated that the town could comfortably house at least three million people, and it likely wasn’t even the largest city on the planet.
The buildings were fashioned entirely out of metal, likely due to the abundance of minerals that its inhabitants harvested from the volcanoes. The closest one was located just outside the city’s eastern border, casting its deep shadow upon the townsfolk since it was currently early in the morning.
‘I’m guessing that these people used to be a lot more fearful of the volcanoes before inventing the technology to suppress them,’ Micky noted from back inside the snail’s little cave.
Percy nodded in agreement, picturing a sky covered in toxic clouds and lots of powerless mortals desperately fleeing from rivers of magma and hordes of starving beasts. But this world was already a greater spring, so those days were probably long behind the Tenefyrians.
Either way, Percy intended to study the local architecture during this trip, since this was his first time being able to explore a greater spring at his leisure. He’d had to deal with Kassorith and adhere to a tight schedule during his trips to Thess’kala and Marador Prime. Also, he hadn’t possessed the Shapeshifting Sentries spell at the time.
Scanning the Tenefyrian buildings was admittedly low on his list of priorities, as it was something that would happen passively while he focused on more important tasks. Remior didn’t have the same abundance of precious minerals as the greater spring either, so the locals’ techniques might not be too relevant to his people.
That said, Percy’s homeworld was about to enter a period of rapid development – especially once the war with the Great Houses was over. It would be nice if he could draw inspiration from various different sources to accelerate humanity’s technological advances. They would have to rebuild their infrastructure from scratch to incorporate the Vault’s magiscript into their everyday enchantments anyway, so they might as well borrow whatever else they could from Melodia, Tenefyre, and lots of other places.
At the very least, Percy intended to rework the entire system of noble Houses that they currently had, and end the barbaric wars that had plagued his planet for millennia once and for all. He understood why Phoebe and her subordinates had set their world up like they had, but there were other, more civilized ways to achieve similar results.
As hateful as Rhaziel was, Percy had to admit that he’d been impressed by the Proudheart Academy on Felmara. He also felt that the tournaments that the Void Hand used to train, identify, and reward their most talented mortals were more effective than wanton slaughter.
Hell, even the Vault’s challenges were rather interesting. Leaving aside Metatron’s callous and disgusting ways, Percy could conceive of a benign version of the titan’s creation that wasn’t built atop the desperation of starving, abused, and inbred children.
‘Something to keep in mind, I suppose. I’m curious to see what we can turn Remior into a few centuries from now, though my most pressing task is still to grow my own power,’ he reminded himself. ‘The rest won’t matter if I end up killed by Machaon or some powerful god I pissed off in my travels.’
Before his minion even phased through the town’s outer wall, Percy spotted the first of its residents. Like he had suspected, the natives shared similar biological traits to the other creatures on the planet. Much like the tortoise from earlier, their body was largely contained within a large, centralized shell. The metallic structure was shaped a bit like a human’s torso, complete with short, hollow tubes for each of their six limbs.
Four slimy arms, a pair of equally gelatinous legs, as well as a long neck stretched out from the openings, ending in hands, feet and a head. The Tenefyrians had no visible joints, muscles, nor bones, but their palms, soles, and the underside of their fingers were coated with flat metallic plates – likely to give them a firmer grip to handle tools with. Their heads were smooth and slightly wider than their necks, their faces adorned with two pairs of beady eyes and a cross-shaped opening that likely functioned as a mouth.
Out of curiosity, Percy scanned a few of the nearest buildings until he spotted a person sleeping inside one of the rooms. The slumbering Tenefyrian had retracted the soft parts of their body into their shell, making themself appear like a cute toy.
‘Fascinating,’ Percy muttered through the connection. ‘Their mana cores seem to be located at the usual spot, though.’
‘Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think I can tell their genders apart either,’ Micky added. ‘Do you think they might reproduce asexually?’
‘It’s possible,’ Percy replied, already pondering over the implications.
Assuming that these people possessed a bloodline Decree, they wouldn’t have the option of crossbreeding individuals with desirable bloodlines and their deities, making it much harder to combine bloodlines with useful affinities or blessings. Then again, having lower odds of inheriting a mutated bloodline wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Developing new strains might be harder, but it would also be easier to retain a useful branch once it emerged.
Either way, Percy added the natives’ potential bloodline Decree near the top of his mental checklist of things that he needed to investigate during this trip, right after the Ring of Sacrilege that they were rumoured to have.
‘First things first. We need to figure out how to avoid being spotted, and to start gathering intel,’ he said. ‘I don’t think a random Yellow living in the outskirts of the city will spill their people’s most valuable secrets in casual conversation, so we’ll need a proper plan to home in on the information we want.’