Air and ambient mana rushed toward Percy, a teal hurricane of playful wisps dancing around his body, leaving blazing trails behind them. Many of the drifting globules approached him too, only to be knocked away by the violent torrents.
He sat cross-legged, his unkempt hair flaring erratically as beads of blood and sweat evaporated off his swollen muscles. Getting used to his newly evolved boosting art was important. Powerful as it was, he didn’t want to leave himself half-crippled after every fight. But this wasn’t the only purpose of his exercise.
His mana flooded the ring on his finger, the object greedily drinking the substance before spitting a part of it back out. The augmented mana sported a darker hue, as did the glowing lines along his arm. They were mostly grey with a faint blueish tint, though they swiftly faded into their previous colour as they dispersed through his body.
A few lines didn’t, however, snaking directly into the core in his sternum, thanks to his deliberate efforts to accelerate the internalization of the blessing. It felt heavier than the rest of his mana. It was as if the ring had opened up a new door in his mind, allowing the substance to evolve in a direction he couldn’t have even perceived without it.
Percy wasn’t the only one working hard either.
Both of his clones were still inside the Valley, as he figured it was inefficient to send them outside the temporal acceleration again. Even if he kept them with him until he left, they would only lose a little over a week of travelling, at most – from their perspective – which wasn’t even worth mentioning compared to the several months of more productive things they could be doing here instead. Before his fight with the Holy Child, his options had been rather limited, but things had changed since the Green-born’s death.
One was inside Micky’s body, working alongside the familiar to develop his spells and make up for the lost years. The other was still with Nesha, the two discussing their future plans with Elaine. They all understood they had to leave this place very soon – for multiple reasons – though they had yet to decide what each of them was going to do moving forward.
In any case, Percy fully trusted his clone to figure things out – they were the same person, after all – so he didn’t pay any attention to their conversation. They could just brief him in later.
Right now, he was too busy with his own training to care.
Mastering the Carnival and absorbing the concept weren’t the only things he was working on. In his hands, he was playing around with different blends of soft and crystallized mana, finally having the time to perfect his mana threads. This was what he had originally planned to do during his time in the Valley, before Acton and his trip to Felmara prompted him to adjust course. He had intended for the new Spectral Art to be his first Masterful spell, as he couldn’t have imagined that he would register half a dozen others beforehand.
‘Not that it’s a bad thing.’
Even the regular Dance would have arguably been more impactful than the mana threads, let alone the upgraded version. Perhaps, he should be thanking Acton for putting so much pressure on him.
Sighing, he threw one last glance at the broken string in his hands. It was definitely thin enough to weave a cloth out of, but it had turned out much more brittle than he’d intended. He was about to scrap the failed construct and move on to the next combination when he sensed something strange going on in his core.
Normally, he had to split off part of his attention to draw the augmented mana to his sternum, and he still lost much of it along the way. Right now, it was heading there on its own, however, as if the organ was inviting it over by itself.
The old god sent a mental nod back.
‘Should be. A lot sooner than I had expected too…’
Percy’s heart skipped a beat. It had barely been a month since his fight with Acton, so not even a full year had passed since he got the ring. Zoris clearly hadn’t lied about his boosting art speeding things along.
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Over the next few seconds, he watched with bated breath as the flow continued to intensify, the mana in his core feeling heavier and heavier. It reminded him a little of the time his familiar had eaten the lotus petal, though a few things were different.
Unlike the conflict between the air and water affinities that the crow had experienced, the new concept was currently being welcomed with open arms. Perhaps that made sense, since the blessing of permanence was derived from the soul affinity, so it naturally fit his core like a glove.
Regardless, it still put some strain onto the organ. It felt bloated, a strange pressure slamming against the crystalline walls, threatening to crack the core open from within. Or rather, it didn’t feel quite as serious. He didn’t think he was in any actual danger, and he figured it wouldn’t take him long to grow used to the mild discomfort. But he also understood it would be a bad idea to try and stuff a second blessing into the same core while he was still a mortal.
Soon, the pressure reached its apex, the concept clicking in his mind as it fully settled into place. Almost immediately, the mana spreading out of his chest changed colour, the dull grey substance flooding his body in much greater volumes than before. He could tell he no longer needed the ring – anything the priceless artifact did, he could now accomplish without it.
Grinning, he opened his Status, eager to check that everything had gone well.
‘Hey, Zoris… Do you think I can still get a blessing for my other core?’ he asked, some hope making its way to his eyes.
‘Probably,’ the god shrugged. ‘I’ve never seen a Moirai in person, but based on what I know about cores and concepts, I don’t see why not.’
Percy’s smile widened. A ring related to the pure affinity was even more likely to exist. In fact, he was willing to bet there were several of them around the universe. Not that it would be easy to get his hands on another, but the possibility was there.
‘Anyway… let’s focus on my current blessing before I start worrying about the next one.’
The entry said it would strengthen his soul. Technically, that had already happened. After months of flooding his channels with the enhanced mana, he could clearly see that the ethereal silhouette resting inside his flesh now sported a much darker hue. If he wanted, he could have already started sending out more clones or absorbing a second fiend.
The only reason he hadn’t tried any of that yet, was because Zoris had advised him to wait. Now that he no longer had to worry about losing the ring and its benefits, he was free to explore his new abilities to his heart’s content.
Pushing his boosting art to its limits, he watched the last of the glowing lines change colours, the burning wisps outside his body following suit. Both his channels and the external flow functioned as extensions of his core, so they even seemed to attach the new concept to the ambient mana on their own – to an extent.
Fusing it with his pure mana wasn’t that difficult either. Unlike Gabe’s blessing which turned his mana hotter and messed with the fragile balance between his two affinities, the blessing of permanence didn’t seem to present much of an obstacle in Percy’s case. The new properties didn’t affect the way it interacted with the cyan mana in the slightest. At the same time, there wasn’t much of a benefit to adding the blessing into the mixture, as it didn’t really affect any of his spells either.
‘I guess most soul users wouldn’t have been as excited as me about this particular concept…’
Without his bloodline or the technique to absorb spectral fiends, the blessing wasn’t nearly that useful. He could even imagine some mortals refusing to internalize it, thinking it wouldn’t be worth it. At least, that should be the case if they belonged to a powerful faction that owned a better ring for them to choose from.
‘Actually, that’s another thing I was wondering about… I know I can’t absorb a second blessing into the same core, but do you think I could still use the ring if I found another for the soul affinity?’
‘How many rings did you say Svarog made before they stopped him?’ Zoris asked. ‘From what I recall, he’d only done this to a couple dozen gods before me.’
‘I was told he created ninety-nine rings in total.’ Percy said.
‘Then, I would be surprised if a second soul ring even exists. As you know, only about 1% of sapients in the universe have a rare affinity. As for soul users in particular, they should be rarer still. You should be counting your lucky stars that you even found me – let alone asking for another,’ the god said, shooting Percy’s idea down.
‘But to answer your question… If another ring exists – and that’s a huge if – I imagine it would be safe as long as you only use it briefly and you take it off as soon as you are done. Preferably, wait a couple of weeks before each use too. Whatever you do, you mustn’t let a second concept accumulate in the same core.’
Percy nodded, done with the hypotheticals for now.
It was time for some tangible benefits.
A/N: Chapter 362 – Permanence