Percy’s heart skipped a beat upon reading the notification. Any new spell was cause for celebration – even the Crude ones. Due to the way Phoebe’s Decree worked, registering anything in his Status meant that it was sufficiently different from his other spells to open up new doors for him. Even if the spell in question wasn’t that powerful at first, it could always be upgraded or merged with others in the future.
It was especially so for a Masterful one – the highest tier Percy had heard of. And it was a Spectral Art at that. Obviously, it wasn’t the first Masterful spell he registered – not even close – but it was the first one he’d ever worked on, making this a satisfying little conclusion to his restless efforts over the years.
‘It’s such a pity that I can’t use it yet…’
He sighed.
It wasn’t just due to his lacking magiscript knowledge – there was another problem currently preventing him from weaving anything worthwhile out of the blueish-grey thread pinched between his fingers.
While the construct was just as strong and flexible as he’d intended – stronger, really – he didn’t have much of it. Only a single, tiny piece. It was shorter than his finger, and he would need hundreds of metres of it before he could craft himself a new set of armour.
‘Though, I suppose it makes more sense to call them clothes at that point…’
In any case, this wasn’t just a question of time and effort. Sure, if Percy put his mind to it, he could prepare more strings over the next few months, slowly accumulating enough for his purposes.
However, joining lots of small pieces would be the quickest way to compromise the structural integrity of the material. Unlike the powder he used in his alchemy, or the magical alloys he fashioned his weapons and tools out of, the threads needed to be continuous, to fully exhibit their strength. Anything short of that would just waste all his previous efforts.
Unfortunately, that came with its own set of problems.
Percy understood that he couldn’t cheat his way to a limitless supply of threads using something like his old Spiritforged Effigy spell. The controlled self-repair enchantment could only replicate something he’d already crafted. It couldn’t extend it. If he were to tear a piece off the thread, he would be able to regrow it, but that would only get him two separate strings – not a single, longer one.
Percy had foreseen this problem, and he’d taken some countermeasures to deal with it while designing the mana thread. While he couldn’t possibly spin the entire length at once, he could slowly extend one end, growing some of the materials and adding others as he rolled them together.
Four of the six variants of fused mana he used didn’t even have to be continuous. Namely, the “hooks”, the “glue”, the “stuffing” and the “shields” were already made in lots of tiny pieces, so he could just keep adding more as he went.
The only two variants that had to be uniform were the “guide” and the “skin”. That was why he’d specifically made them as simple as possible, so that he could keep growing more of them. The strength of the threads wasn’t even dependent on these two components, since their only purpose was to give everything else the right shape. Thus, even if his efforts resulted in a few imperfections here and there, it wouldn’t compromise the material at all.
Of course, it would still be mentally intensive and time-consuming. Even the tiny piece he’d already spun had taken him several minutes, and that was without accounting for the time he’d spent preparing the six piles of fused mana beforehand.
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‘At my current speed, it would take me over a year of non-stop crafting to get enough…’
Percy shuddered at the thought. Leaving aside how monotonous it would be, this was time that he simply couldn’t afford to waste. Worse still, the threads wouldn’t even survive that long.
None of his reinforced mana variants would last without preservation or self-repair runes. The problem was that he couldn’t even weave the threads into runes until he was done, or it would mess with his crafting. This meant that he had to complete the whole thing as quickly as possible. He couldn’t afford to waste more than a week or two on it, or his silk would start degrading.
‘It’s fine. I’ll just have to get… like… fifty times better at it. No big deal…’
Percy was only half-joking.
He really was confident that he would improve a lot, very quickly. Merely by virtue of having registered the spell, his eyes would be better at perceiving the minuscule components of the structure, allowing him to work on it much faster. His trait would help him too, now that he had a satisfactory material for it to play with. Beyond that, it was just a question of practice and repetition.
‘I’m sure I’ll be ready by the time Nesha and the clone are done with the runes.’
The biggest challenge would be balancing his time between this, training with Micky, and brewing the rest of his elixirs into Aurora Dew. He also had to absorb another fiend at some point, continue sending his clones out, return the ring to Sol, keep evading or fighting against the people looking for him, and prepare for the infiltration mission…
He shrugged.
‘Yeah, I think I’ll take the rest of the day off… I can worry about all that tomorrow.’
All his excitement over the new spell had almost made him forget about his familiar and clone. The two were still sharing his mind, though they’d mercifully stopped chatting at some point, sparing him some of the disturbance.
‘Congratulations on the new spell,’ Micky said upon noticing his attention.
‘Thanks. I see you haven’t been slacking either.’
While the two tended to turn everything into a competition, it didn’t mean they were playing around. They hadn’t received a notification – because they didn’t get those in the first place – but they’d still made a ton of progress over the past couple of days. Micky was a lot better at using Regulation with all four of his mutations. By now, he’d recovered his lost stamina already, and he’d even discovered something new.
Given how much beast mana he was producing at the moment, he could keep all four instances of Circulation active, even while idle. Gone were the days when he and the clone had to conserve part of their strength, to keep their hunger at bay.
Suspecting that Micky’s boosting art had crossed the upgrade threshold, Percy quickly opened his familiar’s Status, soon confirming his guess.
‘Congratulations, guys! Your spells have merged: Circulation – Refined + Wild Art: Regulation – Refined -> Wild Art: Consumption – Masterful!’
Percy felt two waves of pride and contentment rush through the cords. He didn’t blame them for getting excited either. This was indeed massive. After all, it was Micky’s very first Masterful spell!
As a branched evolution of Circulation, Percy couldn’t help but compare it to his old Synchronization spell. He wasn’t surprised that Micky’s version had been given a higher classification, however. The spell was fundamentally different – and far more complex.
The reason the crow hadn’t been able to register Synchronization himself, was partly because of the mismatch between his cores’ grades, and partly because he couldn’t absorb ambient mana with his first core to overcharge his channels. That meant that a significant fraction of the boost had always been capped by the strength already lingering inside Micky’s flesh, preventing him from tapping into the virtuous feedback loop that Percy and Nesha enjoyed.
The addition of Regulation, the mutations and the extra sets of channels had changed that. Right now, Micky had reached a new balance – different from his companions’. He produced a lot of extra beast mana on the fly, finally allowing him to push his body past his previous limits. Reaching this point had taken him a long time, but the results spoke for themselves.
‘Once you learn the Dance too, you should be able to get yourself a top tier Masterful spell on par with the Carnival…’
Micky was about to say something in response, yet the words died inside his mind. A wave of alertness rippled through everyone’s souls the very next second. Noticing that something was wrong, Percy allowed his senses to blend with his familiar’s, soon catching sight of the reason behind the bird’s unease.
On the slope beneath the crow, there was a trail of footprints leading up the mountain. It had to be recent – barely a couple minutes old – or the raging blizzard would have erased it already.
And it was heading straight toward Percy…