The Lone Wanderer

Strictly speaking, the parrot didn’t need that much healing.

Unlike Gabe, who had been stabbed full of holes before Percy first found him, the bird had merely choked to death. They only needed to make up for the minor deterioration the body had undergone between death and reanimation.

Suffice to say, Percy was forced to keep scratching himself during the process, to ensure the cube didn’t stop pouring life mana into them before the second core was ready. Naturally, the poor bird was taken aback both by the suffocating amount of liquid mana enveloping them, and by Percy’s insistence on self-harm. However, he was still too frightened by their meeting with the titan to dare interfere with his guest.

A few minutes later, Percy nodded in appreciation, searching inwards for the new organ.

‘Take the reins over, will you?’

Next, he instructed the parrot to grab their supplies and head towards the challenge cubes. The sooner they started collecting credits, the more time he’d have to study the new runes.

Percy did consider dropping by the residential cubes to greet his friend, but ultimately decided against it. It hadn’t been that long since he met Gabe, and it wasn’t like he had any good news for him. The best he could do right now was to keep getting stronger.

Of course, he’d also thought about renting a room himself, so that he wouldn’t have to stay outside during the whole visit. Unfortunately, even the smallest lodging cost way too much, priced at around a credit for every 18 or so Remior days – Percy’s best estimate. In fact, he was a little surprised his stingy friend had deigned to splurge on that himself. Then again, the only alternative was spending his entire life homeless.

Sadly, credits were far scarcer for a Red than they were for a Green, so Percy would have to soldier through the next few weeks. Besides, his host was a beast, so it wasn’t like he’d grown up indoors either.

As they walked towards the challenge cubes, Percy ignored the bird’s fumbling attempts to keep the coconuts from spilling out of the rapidly degrading sack. His attention was focused on their abdomen, as he tried to locate and awaken the second core.

‘I still can’t believe Metatron agreed to this.’

The impact of their new organ could hardly be overstated. While it would certainly help them do far better inside the combat challenges, that wasn’t what excited Percy the most. The best part was that it would let him spend a lot more time in the magiscript challenge. After all, their beast mana couldn’t leave their body, and their teal mana couldn’t be replenished. Had they not netted themselves a new core, they’d be lucky to last through the first wave.

Percy was quite literally viewing the new organ as a source of ink!

Of course, the ancient titan wasn’t dumb. Both he and Percy were fully aware of this unspoken subtext behind their negotiations. Had he refused Percy’s request, the latter would feel more pressure to accept the titan’s terms or, at the very least, reveal a few more of his secrets.

‘I guess he knows I won’t come back here as often if he makes my life too difficult.’

In any case, locating the new organ didn’t take him too long, though he’d have to clear the first few channels before he could fill it up. Naturally, he started doing just that immediately, but his rumbling stomach interrupted him a couple hours later, breaking his concentration.

‘Ok, let’s take a lunch break.’

Grabbing a couple coconuts from the pile, he slammed them against one another to crack their shells. It only took a few attempts, which meant that either their shells were weaker than regular coconuts, or that his host was stronger than a Red human.

Shrugging, he bit at the fruit’s interior, tearing a chunk out. It was the same pink colour as the outside, but it was soft and spongy, dripping with a refreshing juice. That said, it tasted nothing like he had expected.

‘What the hell?! It’s salty!’

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And not just salty. It had a bit of an oily texture too, its flavour vaguely reminding him of raw salmon. Not quite the sweet snack he’d been looking forward to. Still, he guessed it should be rather nutritious.

A few bites later, Percy took a step back, allowing his host to take over. The exotic snack didn’t exactly taste bad per se, but he knew the bird would enjoy it a lot more than he did. In the end, they ate four of the damn things! Who’d have thought that raising the dead, travelling across the universe and negotiating with a titan could work such an appetite?

As a fortunate side effect, the familiar taste seemed to placate the parrot’s growing unease too. The poor creature had started sending him images of the sandy beach a few hours ago, clearly longing to return to its home and friends.

‘Maybe one day, buddy…’ Percy sighed.

He wasn’t sure if the bird understood him, but it remained silent, letting him resume his work on the channels.

‘Fingers crossed for a pure affinity.’ he thought at some point.

Honestly, Percy had never expected the day would come when he’d wish for that. Without Crystallization, this would pretty much be the worst possible outcome with regards to the combat challenges. However, it was the affinity he was most used to drawing the runes with, which was his primary goal for the trip.

He wasn’t only thinking about the credits and the rewards either. The magiscript challenge would be a good way to assess his current skill in the sublime art, and to figure out what the next steps would be.

***

‘Two days…’

This was a new record for him. Percy was confident he was the universe’s leading expert in awakening mana cores by now. He was also experienced enough to tell the new affinity wasn’t one he’d used before.

While he couldn’t manipulate the mana directly just yet – not until he managed to fill up the new organ and add his willpower to it – he could see that the nascent channels took a different route through their body than any he’d come across in the past.

‘Oh well, I’ll have my answer soon enough I suppose…’ he shrugged.

It wasn’t until an hour later that the core was full, sending a wave of vitality rippling through the parrot’s body. Getting a second core at the same grade was quite the boon – it should double their strength, on paper at least. That said, the fact the bird was already much larger than the typical Red beast did somewhat diminish the impact.

Next, Percy pulled a sliver of mana to their right fore-talon, manifesting a blob of brown which quickly coalesced into a fistful of sand. It was rather obvious what affinity this was, but Percy still pulled the Status up for the final confirmation.

• [Mana core 2 – Red – Earth]

‘Figures.’

Not the most ideal outcome, but certainly within expectations. Sadly, Percy had never actually possessed an earth user before, which meant there would be a bit of a learning curve ahead.

Takeo, Gabe and Micky weren’t the only sentients his clones had possessed over the years. The rest hadn’t held any particularly interesting secrets for him to bring back to Remior, though he’d experienced a few other common affinities through them, including fire, air, water and pure. Though earth just happened to be one of the two elements he was completely inexperienced in, along with lightning.

‘First time for everything I guess.’

Unwilling to waste time, he continued opening more channels. It would take him weeks to clear as many as the average mage used, but he didn’t need all of those. As long as he could send the mana to his talons to draw with, and maybe use it in a fight, it should be plenty. Percy didn’t expect to be casting any profound Refined spells in this body, but giving himself a small edge against Red golems shouldn’t be that tall an order.

‘I wonder if I can use the sand to reinforce the teal mana...’ he thought suddenly.

In theory, it should work. Structurally, the sand wasn’t that different from the cyan powder, and he already knew that all affinities could be fused. Often, in multiple ways too. Hell, he’d already discovered a couple different approaches to fusing pure mana with itself. If he did this, he’d have another edge during the combat challenges without having to compromise his secret.

But he quickly shook his head. Even if it was possible, it would take him weeks of experimentation to get there. His limited supply of fused mana would run out way before he saw any tangible results.

‘It’s not worth it.’

Percy then looked back at the pile of coconuts. It had shrunk slightly, but they still had plenty to last them for over a month. The parrot would too, his physical injuries already healed.

Though that didn’t mean it was wise to stay here as long as possible. Percy actually had a few specific goals for this trip. Other than getting Nesha another rune for the spatial amulets, he wanted something for himself too. He didn’t know exactly what, but he was hoping for an enchantment that would let him amass more soul mana for his experiment.

‘The sooner I bring them back, the better. After all, my main body is under a lot of pressure.’

Taking everything into account, Percy made a rough plan for the rest of his trip. He’d spend the rest of the week clearing out as many earth channels as he could, before diving into the magiscript challenge. He’d progress as far as possible as his current skill with the concealment runes would allow. Hopefully, that would mean at least a couple of waves. Then, he’d do the same with the combat challenges…

‘Actually, I should give myself a couple of weeks to practice the new runes too. Two weeks for the challenges, two weeks for learning. I’ll return home a little over month from now, whatever the outcome.’

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