“Percy! Are you ok?!” Nesha’s distraught voice was the first thing he caught.
Prying his eyes open, he found himself back at the lakeside, resting on the same spot as before. Both girls were by his side, holding him in place. Probably to stop him from hurting himself. The patch he lay on was now covered in more mud than grass, likely thanks to all his thrashing. His clothes were stuck to his back, caked in a layer of dirt and sweat.
He nodded at his companions to calm them down, before turning his attention inwards.
The next thing he noticed was that his mana was out of control, flowing randomly around his body. A lot of it was swirling aimlessly through his channels, in patterns vaguely reminiscent of Synchronization. Yet the boosting art hadn’t properly activated, due to a lack of mana and conscious control. Instead, much of it just spilled through his pores, slowly leaking out of his body.
Reigning it in took a couple of seconds. Well, most of it at least. Some got sucked by the ethereal cord in his chest. Stopping that seemed like too much trouble to be worth it at the moment…
“Wait… the cord! Micky!!”
Only then did he remember he wasn’t in this alone. His familiar had been affected as much as he had. Gazing around, he soon spotted the crow a few metres away. Unlike him, however, Micky didn’t even twitch. He was encased in a thin layer of ice, reminiscent of a frozen statue.
Percy’s heart skipped a beat at the sight. Over the next minute or so, he repeatedly called to his familiar, trying to shake him awake. No response. Whatever the bird was experiencing had left him completely closed off to external stimuli.
They could try breaking the ice forcefully, of course, but that was dangerous. It covered the bird’s organs as much as it did its plumage. If they made a mistake, they could easily injure Micky. The only safe option was to get him to thaw himself.
Easier said than done. The darn thing still oscillated like crazy, as if it was attached to a tsunami. Percy was hesitant to describe the cord in physical terms – for the most part it was just a carrier for thoughts and memories. Still, he felt as if its width had more than doubled, stretched beyond its limits.
Percy frowned. This wasn’t the first time the cord was acting up in some manner, but it had never been this bad before. Usually, it happened whenever his clones encountered some trouble during their return trip.
‘Why is it so much more intense this time?’
Was it because of his proximity to Micky? Or the fact that the disturbance had affected both ends of the connection, rather than just the one? Either way, it didn’t matter. He had to do something fast, lest the crow suffocated within its own construct.
Instead of trying to stop the mana flow, Percy embraced it. He pushed more soul mana through the cord, sending his thoughts alongside it, hoping to jolt his familiar awake.
‘Come on, Micky! Say something!’
The first pulse yielded nothing. But Percy didn’t give up, trying it a second and a third time. This had to work, somehow! If it failed, he didn’t know what else to do!
The response came strained and weak. Micky clearly wasn’t in the mental space to articulate his thoughts properly. Still, this was a good sign!
‘Micky, you need to calm your mana down. It’s killing you!’ Percy said, sending another pulse through the cord.
The ice mana in the crow’s abdomen was out of control, much like Percy’s had been a few minutes ago. Though the bird clearly had it even worse.
Percy waited a few moments, watching his familiar with bated breath. No reaction. The mana was still running rampant, showing no sign of stopping. He didn’t know if the crow was having difficulty controlling it, or if he’d lost consciousness entirely again. Whatever the case was, they were swiftly running out of time.
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Pulling more mana out of his core, he pushed it through their connection, trying to reach his familiar. Before his second core advanced to Orange, his mind had inadvertently slipped into the crow’s body multiple times. Maybe he could recreate that?
A sound plan – in theory – but it wasn’t working. No matter what he did, he appeared stuck in his own flesh, merely wasting his mana and his time for nothing.
Almost out of options, Percy took a step back. Rather than sending his mind through the cord, he focused on the ice mana on the other side, trying to yank control of it from afar. A rather desperate move, admittedly. Neither he nor Micky had ever accomplished anything of the sort. Their mana was generally their own, unless they volunteered it through their connection first. And that only worked with soul mana or its fused variant.
They couldn’t just reach out and forcefully grab the other’s mana without their consent…
Well, it was going to have to work, as Percy couldn’t think of anything else.
Soon, a bunch of new complications arose. The fact that he’d never personally experienced the ice affinity wasn’t helping. At least, he’d used water and air mana separately in the past. Percy focused on those memories. The times he had experienced intense cold might also make this easier. Like the memories he’d just watched with Micky. Or the time he possessed that alien lizard, all those years ago.
For a while, nothing happened. But he didn’t let that discourage him, pushing harder. Rather than his mana or his thoughts, Percy was trying to send his willpower through the cord! To forcefully attach it to Micky’s mana!
Eventually, he got a reaction. It was faint at first, but he saw the flow change course inside Micky’s body ever so slightly. Perhaps it wasn’t Percy’s doing, but he had to believe it was. Anything else would spell Micky’s doom.
Doubling down, he intensified his efforts, trying to think of Micky’s cores as his own. The crow’s mana as nothing more than an instrument to his will. A soft cracking sound emerged, as a surface shard fell off Micky’s plumage.
Percy kept disturbing the mana flow, drawing it back to Micky’s abdomen. Whatever he failed to grab, he pushed outwards instead, expelling it from the bird’s body. More cracks followed soon enough. Before long, the bird was able to breathe again, its emotions spilling over to Percy as it regained consciousness.
‘Wow. That’s intense.’ Percy thought.
His own relief was instantly suppressed by the crow’s sorrow and confusion. A strange thing, considering that they’d long learned to keep their thoughts to themselves. Not that he blamed his friend for feeling this way, of course. Micky had just watched his family getting butchered. A family that, until earlier that day, he hadn’t even remembered.
In any case, Percy was glad that the danger had passed, but they still had to do something about the cord. It kept shaking, drawing his mana against his will. It was also the reason for their emotions leaking through.
‘Then again, it’s not all bad…’
While they couldn’t have it continue its rampage, the upsides of the transformation were undeniable. Percy hadn’t thought about it much earlier, but his mana had flowed more easily, and in greater amounts than ever before. In fact, he was confident he wouldn’t have managed to commandeer Micky’s ice mana if not for this.
The song had been the trigger for more than the crow’s memory. Whatever this power was, they couldn’t afford to let it slip through their fingers.
Percy sent another pulse, this time paying closer attention to the cord. The mana passed through it like a wave, briefly calming the connection down.
Reaching out to Micky, he navigated through the sea of tangled thoughts and raging emotions plaguing the both of them, explaining the situation. They had to work together to regain ownership of their bond.
“Percy! Can you take a moment to explain what’s going on?!” Elaine asked, having lost her patience.
“The gist of it is that we’re trying to turn the accident into something beneficial for us.” he replied succinctly.
A longer explanation would have to wait.
Activating Synchronization properly this time, Percy gathered a lot of mana before sending it along in a dense packet. As soon as Micky received it, he bounced it right back, in accordance to his earlier instructions.
They kept going back and forth for over an hour, the cord calming down a little every time the mana passed through it. The influx of emotions also died down, as Percy and Micky slowly managed to force the connection back under their control.
“Finally… it’s done.” he exhaled, allowing his boosting art to come undone.
That said, there were plenty of things still begging for his attention. While Micky had survived the ordeal, the crow’s heart was still in turmoil. Percy had never really explained to him where he had come from, nor had the crow ever thought to ask. But there was no avoiding it any longer. A big conversation was clearly overdue…
And then, there was the new power they had unlocked. The cord had calmed down, but it was still stronger than ever. Their thoughts and mana alike passed through it with no hindrance whatsoever. Not to mention the new ability of controlling each other’s mana that they’d have to explore more carefully.
For now, however, Percy was content just reading the notification.
[Congratulations! Your spell has evolved: Secret Art: Familiar – Crude -> Secret Art: Soul Resonance – Refined!]