Percy was a little disappointed with his gains from Tenefyre so far. What the natives had done with the volcanoes and their cities was almost as interesting as their unique method of reproduction and specialized bloodline Decree, but none of those things were particularly useful to Percy at the moment.
After having some fun chatting with Micky and speculating about all the potential applications of the Decree for a couple of hours, he resumed his search for a place where lots of young children might gather.
About three days into the trip, Percy stumbled upon a building that seemed to meet his criteria. At first, he thought it was some kind of academy, like the ones they had on Felmara, though the children were a bit too young for formal education. Adults from neighbouring districts brought their kids to the building every morning and retrieved them again in the afternoon, probably to have somebody watch over the children as they worked.
Percy still wasn’t too familiar with Tenefyrian biology, but he estimated that the children’s ages ranged from three to eight – mainly by comparing their sizes to young humans. He didn’t know if there were any similar establishments for older children in the city, nor whether that was the age when they would transition to more intensive schooling.
The locals referred to the building as a “daycare”. It housed a maximum of three hundred and fifty children, further divided in seven groups of around fifty, seemingly based on their age. The kids in the four youngest groups had yet to awaken their grades or affinities, while every single child in the oldest two groups already had.
Only the third oldest group contained a mixture of children with dormant and active cores, so that was the one that Percy and Micky decided to observe. There was no Green-born, nor ice affinity user in the entire daycare, but they figured that they might still learn something as more children awakened their abilities and bragged to their peers about information they heard from their parents.
After stationing a sentry at the building, Percy had the rest of his minions resume the search for more daycares, academies, or any other leads.
Two days later, they found another interesting place. It was a twenty-story building in the middle of the residential district that appeared to be owned by a single, rather wealthy family. There were three White-cored adults at the helm, and they seemed to have jointly fathered – or mothered… or parented? Percy was still trying to wrap his mind around the right terminology – over fifty children of various ages. There were also over a dozen other adults present in the household, though most of them were simply servants, chefs and maids working around the building.
Spying on this particular family was somewhat risky, since the tall structure was almost always shrouded in at least one powerful domain – and usually multiple – which greatly restricted the sentry’s movements.
At the same time, the trio of powerful mages had produced not only a Green-born child – albeit one with a fire affinity – but also a couple of Yellow-borns with air. None of the younglings met Percy’s criteria exactly, but he still felt that they were more likely to bring up the right topic in one of their conversations with their parents or siblings.
Hiding near the building was tough. Percy was sure that the Whites had spotted him, which was why he had to keep his sentry visible, corporeal, and constantly behaving like a real animal. On his second day of hiding in a nearby alley and pretending to eat trash from a metallic dumpster, he saw one of the servants walking straight toward him.
The Tenefyrian was only a Green, so fleeing from them wouldn’t be difficult. Unfortunately, the sentry was still within the White’s domain, meaning that Percy couldn’t afford to do anything that the tiny critter shouldn’t be capable of.
Scurrying under a broken table, next to a rotting piece of fruit, he tried to wait the Tenefyrian out. Sadly, the native began scrounging through the trash, seemingly searching for the sentry specifically. Percy guessed that the Whites had informed the servant about the pest littering their neighbourhood, and specifically instructed them to get rid of it.
Realizing that he wasn’t going to get away without arousing someone’s suspicion, Percy allowed the Green to capture and flatten the sentry underfoot. Sharing the perspective of his constructs, Percy found the sight of the colossal limb descending upon him rather unsettling, even though he knew that his sentries couldn’t actually feel pain, nor did they contain any independent chunks of his soul – they were simple relays for his senses.
The biggest challenge was mimicking the sound, colour, and texture of a real critter being stomped on. Once the sentry was “dead”, Percy waited for the Tenefyrian to peel the flattened, gooey carcass from their metallic heel and unceremoniously flick it into the dumpster.
The good news was that Percy could still use his Sage’s Pond to keep spying on the family even in this broken state, since his sentries were essentially just amorphous masses of spiritual blood that he could shape into whatever he wanted. The problem was that he wouldn’t be able to move the sentry from the alley until somebody came to collect the trash or all the Whites happened to simultaneously leave the house.
‘A minor inconvenience,’ he thought with a spectral sigh. ‘At least we no longer have to worry about the Whites coming for the sentry personally or examining it more carefully.’
Outside the minor mishap, Percy and Micky continued their relentless search for clues for another three days. They found a second, slightly larger daycare, though their first valuable hint came from the wealthy family. The Green-born child was chatting with one of the servants about a possible career path.
“Do you think Scarlet-parent can get me an earth affinity-granting treasure?” the child asked. “I was wondering whether I could sell my services in the underground ocean after becoming proficient with lava magic.”
The servant laughed – or, at least, Percy thought they did. These people spoke by making strange gurgling sounds, almost as if their throats were filled with liquid – which they kind of were. But the servant’s gurgling did sound louder and more vigorous than usual, while their soul flared with amusement.
“Procuring a common affinity-changing treasure for a Green-born child shouldn’t be difficult – especially for your family. I’m afraid that the rest of your plan won’t work, however,” the servant said, shooting the youngling’s idea down. “The whole point of the trial is to challenge our ice users and allow the strongest and most resourceful ones to grow even more powerful. They aren’t allowed to receive outside help, and nobody with a different affinity can enter the underground ocean.”
There was a lot of information to unpack. Percy had noticed days ago that Tenefyrian children that had come from multiple parents tended to differentiate them based on the colour of their gelatinous flesh. A necessary adaptation, considering that these people lacked words like “mother” or “father”, and didn’t always want to refer to their close relatives by name.
Regardless, the mundane details weren’t too important. Percy was more interested in this “underground ocean” that only powerful ice mages were apparently allowed into. He still didn’t know for certain that this had anything to do with the Ring of Sacrilege, but it sounded too coincidental to be unrelated.
‘Didn’t one of the children in the first daycare mention the underground ocean?’ Micky asked.
‘They did,’ Percy confirmed. ‘I believe they said that they have a relative diving into the sea every day, spending most of their time in there.’
The child hadn’t mentioned any other details that would have made this tidbit of information stand out, which was why Percy and Micky had largely ignored it. Now that they knew that the place might be related to their objective, they would have to pay more attention to that child.
Later that day, the three Whites all happened to finally leave their house at the same time, giving Percy a chance to move the “destroyed” sentry away. Even better, it happened in the afternoon, while parents were grabbing their children from the daycares, giving him the opportunity to follow the interesting child and their family home.
The family was smaller and poorer than the one that Percy had been spying on. There were only two Blue parents, living in a five-story house without any servants. They had six children, including the youngest one that they sent to the daycare every day. The rest looked like they were teenagers. Nobody in the family appeared too talented, as their grades were relatively low and they didn’t seem to possess any rare affinities or notable bloodlines.
That was at least the case until a Violet adult walked into the house, just as the family prepared for dinner. The Violet looked quite exhausted. Their core was half-empty, and their green flesh was covered in dark, crusted spots that looked like burns.
Most importantly, they had an ice affinity!
Percy – who had gone back to having his sentry masquerade as a regular critter hiding in the neighbourhood due to all the domains watching the construct – thought that he had miscounted the number of parents in the family at first. After eavesdropping on a couple of conversations, he realized that he hadn’t made a mistake.
The Violet wasn’t one of the parents, but rather the sibling of one, making them the uncle of the children – or whatever the gender-neutral word for uncle was on this planet. The Violet apparently lacked a family of their own, so they lived with this one, which was excellent news for Percy, as it would give him ample opportunities to learn more about the underground ocean.
Sure enough, the topic was brought up early into the shared meal by the youngest child, who was apparently almost as eager as Percy to hear about their uncle’s daily ventures.
The Violet’s cross-shaped lips widened horizontally while remaining closed, in a manner that Percy had learned to equate to a grin. Retracting their bottom-left hand into its metallic socket, the Violet brought out a small, dark object that Percy guessed was some kind of storage device, before dumping some of its contents on the table.
A few fist-sized rocks tumbled along the smooth, metallic surface with a series of crisp sounds. The children squealed excitedly at the sight of the clearly-valuable stones, though the parents didn’t seem nearly as happy that their meal was interrupted.
“Can’t you show off your treasures after we’re done eating?” the Violet’s sibling asked in an annoyed tone.
The powerful mage scratched the back of their head apologetically, before storing the rocks inside the spatial device again.
“How many does that make?” the youngest child asked again, ignoring the parent’s reprimand entirely.
“It’s been a while since I last bothered to count them, but I believe that I have over twelve hundred droplets already.”
The children broke into enthusiastic chatter, and even the parents looked quite impressed this time.
“Isn’t that close to the amount you need to internalize the blessing?” the same parent from before asked, their previous irritation replaced by genuine curiosity and even a touch of pride.
Percy and Micky couldn’t help but perk up. Some things still made zero sense – why were these people talking about rocks and droplets? Percy had never heard of any way to acquire a blessing, besides inheriting one from a divine parent or using a Ring of Sacrilege. Either way, he waited for the Violet’s response with bated breath.