Chapter 818 – [Redacted] (Patreon)

Percy only had to spend a couple of hours to get used to his new control over the wasps, but he kept practicing with Nephthys for the whole day and night to get his dream mana’s worth. The stronger bugs would struggle to last the full thirty hours, so Percy would have to be mindful of how hard he pushed them during their eventual clash with the Great Houses. Luckily, the Red creatures faced no stamina issues, and the proxies didn’t need to exert themselves very much to relay the signals.

After returning the wasps to their underground kingdom, Percy didn’t immediately resume granting the Moirais’ Decree to the Starry Knights. He felt that he had earned a longer break after all his hard work.

It was late in the morning, so he asked Nesha to also take a day off from overseeing the mana-gathering formation and have lunch with him. They even invited Archibald, Elaine, and Orin to their residence, because Percy wanted to share and celebrate the news of his secret weapon. Micky joined them too, though mostly for the company, since he didn’t need to eat human food and had been following Percy’s progress.

For a little while, amid the clatter of cutlery and the fragrance of roast chicken, the kitchen felt almost ordinary – if one ignored the questions about the new spell and how it could be used to win the war.

The March of the Savage Gods admittedly had its flaws – at least until Nephthys’ next evolution – but it would allow them to fight back against the Great Houses. Bringing the swarm directly to Machaon’s doorstep still wasn’t an option, yet Percy wasn’t worried.

There was no way the artificial hive would be ready to supply the enemy nobles with enough nectar anytime soon. It was debatable whether it could ever approach the size of the original hive, and the kidnapped Princess wouldn’t even be able to produce any Starry Breeders to populate her kingdom until she reached Violet.

The Great Houses had clearly never intended for their little project to meet their elixir needs in the next couple of decades. The second hive had only ever been an insurance policy to convince their reluctant allies that their families’ future would be secure even if the original hive got damaged during the conflict.

Unfortunately for them, their stashed cleansing resources would run out long before their Princess matured – if they hadn’t already – so there had to be many voices pressuring the patriarchs into making their move. The invasion would presumably commence as soon as Machaon was done spreading the Dance and consolidating his power. Whether that happened in a year or a decade, the attack was a certainty, and Percy would be ready for it.

“Our mages are also getting a little uneasy,” Archibald warned. “From their perspective, our forces are outnumbered a hundred to one and don’t stand a chance against the Great Houses. The allied families are obviously unable to defect due to the spectral contracts, but the feeling of being trapped in a sinking ship isn’t good for morale.”

“The fact that you haven’t made any public appearances in years isn’t helping,” Orin added. “People are starting to wonder whether you’re still in the Fungal Spire or have snuck away by yourself.”

Percy leaned back in his chair and rubbed the bridge of his nose as he considered how to resolve this headache.

He’d only been so careful about leaving his house because he needed to hide the existence of his third core. He could deactivate the external component of the Dance and conceal his internal flow from Mana Sense using the seals, but he couldn’t hide the concentrated orange glow in his forehead from the naked eye.

His mind mana couldn’t turn invisible because it wasn’t fused with his original affinity, and dream mana was a poor substitute for either element. Sure, it was a potent resource with its own applications, but unlike his phantom mana, the pink droplets didn’t inherit all the properties of their components. And all of that was without even mentioning Percy’s pitiful output.

Percy had considered wearing a headband or hood out in public. As silly as he would look, nobody would suspect that he was hiding yet another mana core underneath his clothes, though it had been simpler to just keep his meetings with his closest allies private and let them interact with everyone else on his behalf.

“Fine,” he sighed. “I suppose that our people deserve to know that their leader hasn’t abandoned them and is working on a plan.”

He glanced at Micky, causing four other pairs of eyes to curiously follow his gaze. The Huehuan didn’t ask any questions, having probably guessed what Percy wanted. Shrugging, he stretched his bottom-left arm to the side and chopped it off at the elbow with his upper-right hand.

The crystalline limb landed on the floor with a crisp ting and began squirming as Micky poured additional soul-freezing ice to supplement its mass. A few seconds later, an exact replica of Percy stood in the kitchen, wearing its own Cloak but intentionally lacking the external components of his boosting art and any trace of the mind affinity.

“It would be suspicious if I suddenly started strolling around the settlement and giving motivational speeches everywhere, but you can all make a point of being seen with the sentry a couple of times per month,” Percy explained.

“Yeah… I’m not looking forward to going on fake dates with a puppet,” Nesha complained.

“It won’t be fake. I’ll directly control the sentry’s body and share its senses, so I’ll be with you in all but flesh. Just don’t kiss until you come home to the real me,” Percy assured her with a wink.

“What about the war?” Elaine asked, rolling her eyes at her cousin’s awkward attempt to flirt with his girlfriend. “I guess that our people will appreciate that you haven’t abandoned them, yet they still won’t exactly be thrilled if they think we’re all going to die together.”

“Well… make something up to placate them,” Percy suggested. “Maybe say that I’m working on a powerful formation or whatever you think will sound convincing. Our enemies aren’t foolish enough to assume that I’ve given up entirely either. Just make sure you don’t mention the specifics about the swarm. I don’t want the Great Houses to spend the next decade preparing countermeasures against an aerial assault.”

Truth be told, the opinion of their human allies didn’t really matter, as they were too heavily outnumbered to make a difference in the war. Percy was probably going to leave them out of the battle entirely to protect and thank them for their loyalty while relying entirely on the hive. However, he couldn’t just let everyone keep stressing over their imminent doom for years on end.

After going over their cover story a few more times to make sure that it was airtight, the group resumed their meal in a more cheerful mood. Despite the heavy load on everyone’s shoulders, Percy’s breakthrough still represented a major turning point in the decades-long conflict.

The sun had almost set by the time the others left, giving the dancing motes a faint orange glint regardless of their original colour. It was too late for Nesha to go back to work, but Percy and Micky didn’t need sleep, so they leapt right into the well leading into the underground complex of tunnels.

‘Have you decided what affinity to pick yet?’ Percy asked through their connection, and not for the first time.

It obviously had to be a rare element, which was why they’d spent years giving new cores to the Starry Knights. Percy had already passed the Moirais’ Decree to around eighty percent of the Green wasps and prepared enough sacrifices for almost every mana type. He was only missing a couple of bugs with time cores and a handful with soul cores.

Collecting the last few sacrifices for the former affinity would just be a matter of weeks, and the latter wasn’t even a valid option because Percy already had it. Regardless of his friend’s choice, Percy intended to finish possessing the bugs to increase both the hive’s fighting strength and nectar output, but there was no point delaying the procedure if Micky wanted one of the available elements.

‘Not life,’ the Huehuan replied, repeating the answer he’d given the last dozen or so times.

That much was a given, because Micky could regenerate his body just fine with his current abilities. If Percy had been the one receiving a new core, he would have been curious to see how his version of the Clone bloodline might interact with his family’s trademark element, yet it wasn’t his core and he still hadn’t even decided whether to keep his pure mana.

But he did know what his friend’s concern was, even though the Huehuan hadn’t mentioned it explicitly: he was weighing the options that would be good for him against those that would be good for their team as a whole.

Excluding the mana types they already possessed or had ruled out, there were only four possible choices: space, karma, time, and gravity.

Percy would really love to get his hands on any of the first three. Space mana would help him travel to other worlds before attaining divinity and speed up his journeys even after becoming a god, on top of potentially expanding his storage seals without Metatron’s help. Karma mana might allow him to track down interesting destinations for his adventures or mask his trail so that he could use his bloodline with impunity, and time mana could increase anyone’s mana regeneration and the efficiency of their training. Not to mention its uses for deities trying to delay their expansion.

The problem was that this was Micky’s new core, and they had to pick something that synergised well with his own arsenal. None of the other choices would be bad for the Huehuan, yet gravity was arguably the best match for a shapeshifting beast that relied mostly on his great bulk and physical strength.

Micky could obviously see that too, which was why he hesitated to voice his preference. He knew that gravity was the least exciting option for Percy and didn’t want to put himself first.

‘We’ll go with gravity,’ Percy declared firmly.

‘We don’t have to,’ Micky hurriedly said. ‘I admit that I have no idea how to pair karma mana with my current kit, but I’m sure I can make space or time work.’

‘I know,’ Percy admitted. ‘But be honest. Would you pick either of those options if you weren’t thinking about me?’

‘I…’ the Huehuan swallowed what he was about to say, but that was answer enough.

‘It’s your core.’ Percy patted his friend’s shoulder. ‘At the end of the day, we should pick what’s best for you and plan everything else around it. Besides, I have a hunch that this won’t be the last affinity we pick.’

Micky sighed and nodded.

Using the clone in his familiar’s body, Percy reached out to one of the special groups of Starry Knights that he’d marked and kept secure, ordering them to fly to his current chamber. It was time for the Lone Wanderer to obtain his sixth and final – for now – core.

A/N: Chapter 818 – Micky’s third affinity