Chapter 859 – Fourteenth (2) (Patreon)

A/N: I've decided to drop it early, but that means no chapter tomorrow, so don't read it today if you don't want to wait 2 days. It's the final part of "Fourteenth", though keep in mind that it also ends in a bit of a cliff.

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‘The seed probably won’t benefit from consuming time mana itself, but if we’re just trying to make its growth outpace the suppression of the other saplings, accelerating the flow of time around it could help,’ Nephthys explained.

Percy rubbed his beard, considering the wasp’s idea. It could work, but they couldn’t channel time mana directly through the cord because they hadn’t discovered any usable affinity fusion of soul and time mana. They could generate a smaller quantity of Violet time mana at the seed using their domain, but they would need a lot to accelerate such a large object by even a modest amount. The Clear time mana was definitely potent enough to help, but Percy couldn’t control the effects of foreign mana.

Not without an enchantment, at least.

“Wait... that’s it!” he exclaimed, liking the idea more and more with every passing second.

They couldn’t produce Violet time mana around the seed very fast, but they could spend a few hours slowly carving time acceleration runes in the soil around the seed. Afterwards, they’d fuel the enchantments with Clear time mana from the reservoir for a greater effect.

The radicle grew to just over fifteen metres by the time they were ready. The organic tendril seemed to have reached some kind of bottleneck, with multiple smaller roots trying to expand outwards along the latter half of its length. That was technically a good thing, but its more ambitious next step provided its older siblings with the perfect opening to halt its growth entirely.

‘I suppose we’ll have to make do with these runes,’ Percy thought, examining the thousands of unit cells he’d drawn around the seed. He could have prepared more, but generating enough Violet time mana would take too long, and they had to be mindful of their Clear mana expenditure. The temporal acceleration would be useless if they ran out of the other resources.

‘Here goes nothing,’ Micky said, dipping his third hand into a pipe leading into yet another reservoir of divine mana and transferring some of its contents through the seal.

Percy used his willpower to segregate the time mana from the other types, funnelling it directly into the enchantments through small grooves he’d carved into the soil. The moment the transparent liquid reached the runes, he felt his connection to the seed wobble due to the temporal mismatch.

‘Nephthys!’ he demanded.

‘On it!’ the reincarnated deity promptly responded, using her own time mana to accelerate both herself and the tiny human standing atop her head to the same rate as the familiar.

Micky struggled to match their acceleration without borrowing a part of the domain from the seed or eating into the reservoir to fuel his own enchantments, but he still made sure to pump mud and water mana more aggressively to meet the familiar’s increased requirements.

‘We’re experiencing time about fifty percent faster...’ Percy estimated.

It was a rather poor result, considering the quality and quantity of time mana they were consuming, but that was what they got for relying on a few hastily drawn enchantments that they weren’t even particularly experienced with.

Still... it had the desired effect.

The thirteen older saplings hadn’t stopped bullying their younger sibling for even a moment, but Percy’s latest familiar now had a second and a half to grow for every second its rivals spent suppressing it.

The radicle finally started growing again, extending by another five metres in less than half an hour. More importantly, several thinner tendrils finally managed to branch outwards from the main stem, sinking into the nutrient-rich soil like a series of jade claws. They allowed the familiar to grow even faster, though they also consumed Percy’s finite reserves of Clear mana several times as rapidly, forcing him and his friends to constantly adjust the ratio of the three mana types they provided the seed. They couldn’t afford to let one run out before the others.

It was only after reaching twenty-five metres that the nascent network of roots started slowing down again. Percy and his fellow aspects were still feeding the plant as much mana as they could, but the suppression of the other saplings seemed to be proportional to the size of the familiar. Everything they had done to help it grow to that point had only made it easier for the older trees to push back against it.

‘Come on, Pav! Kal! Sha! Rik!’ Percy practically screamed through the twin cords. ‘Wake the hell up already! We can’t help you guys much more than this!’

He didn’t know whether the forest sprites had actually heard him, or whether the familiar’s body had simply crossed some kind of threshold, but something finally stirred on the other side of the cords, and it wasn’t Percy’s soul clone.

The reaction was accompanied by a long-awaited notification.

[Congratulations! You have acquired a new familiar: Kalpavriksha!]

But that wasn’t everything.

Along with Percy’s Status finally registering the existence of the new creature, another of his most prized Decrees finally deigned to join in the fun. A vortex swirled within the seed’s radiant body, causing its green lustre to dim. The effect was catastrophic at first, since draining a huge chunk of life mana from the familiar weakened it and allowed the other saplings to push its radicle back by three metres, practically undoing the past thirty minutes of work in an instant.

Thankfully, the seed – or Kalpavriksha, as it was apparently called – seemed to finally register the dense life mana that had seeped into the surrounding dirt, and started devouring it at a ridiculous speed.

Mere seconds later, the Moirais’ Decree received its fill, leaving enough life mana in the soil for the seed to replenish its own internal reserves. Percy’s Status displayed yet another interesting set of notifications.

[Congratulations! Your familiar has acquired a new mana core: Source (1/13) – Karma!]

[Congratulations! Your familiar has acquired a new mutation: Karmic Source (Diminished)!]

[Congratulations! Your familiar has mastered a new spell: Basic Karma Control – Refined!]

‘Karma?! And what’s with that grade?!’ Percy couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow.

Perhaps this wasn’t the best time to be worrying about that, but his friends seemed to have everything else under control. They were pumping nutrients and mana into the soil like before, while the sapling was doing a far better job absorbing them. Obtaining its second affinity had clearly strengthened it significantly, though it had also caused yet another Source to begin suppressing it.

The new wave of suppression was coming from a single direction this time, but it was as strong as the other thirteen combined. Unfortunately for the rival Elemental Sources, Kalpavriksha had already grown past the point of no return. The new sapling was still greedily devouring Percy’s resources to accelerate its growth, but Percy could tell that the familiar would maintain its size even without them.

Allowing himself to relax at last, he turned his attention back to the questions at hand.

‘It can’t be a coincidence that it developed the same rare affinity as the Yaksha. But a familiar’s soul has never influenced their second core before… and I was pretty sure that this one would have obtained another life affinity.’

It sounded counter-intuitive that the very Source of the life affinity would awaken any other element, though Percy realized that it wasn’t that strange after giving it some thought.

Had his familiar developed another life affinity, it would have been suppressed by fourteen other Source fragments, including its own body. The second round of suppression would have been even stronger, because the sapling would be pushing even further above the maximum number of World Tree saplings that were allowed to coexist. In other words, Kalpavriksha’s second core had been negatively predisposed towards the life affinity, and neutrally predisposed towards every other mana type.

A sapient’s affinities appeared to be random, but a beast’s second core was often affected by their body. That was why Nephthys had awakened an acid core, and possibly why Micky had awakened an air core. Percy didn’t know which category plants fell under, but this wasn’t a regular plant either.

What if an Elemental Source’s own body prevented it from awakening a copy of its first affinity, and had zero ties to any other element?

The deciding factor would have to be its soul, even if its influence on a mana core’s affinity was normally far weaker!

As for the weird grade?

Well… the Moirais’ Decree had always had a tendency to copy the starting grade of one’s first core. For Kalpavriksha, that meant being a fragment of an Elemental Source. It was technically one of fourteen, but only thirteen were supposed to exist, and the new tree would presumably match the strength of its older siblings once it fully matured.

‘Sounds about right, but what does it mean for us?’ Percy wondered.

‘Maybe we only need to destroy twelve other saplings to complete our own,’ Micky speculated.

‘That’s only if we directly devour them,’ Nephthys corrected him. ‘If they just get destroyed randomly, their authority will likely get split between the survivors, so Kalpavriksha and its final sibling will each possess around half of the Source’s strength. That complicates things slightly.’

‘Not really,’ Percy argued with a shrug. ‘Even if that happens, we’ll just have to destroy the final sapling as well, which was our plan all along. More importantly, it looks like our tree has a second avenue of growth, and its second element only has a single rival.’

‘I don’t think the Spectral Broodmother will mind us destroying the saplings to create a new World Tree – otherwise she wouldn’t have helped us find the seed – but she’s not going to be happy about us hunting the karma Source down,’ Micky reminded him.

‘Eh… that depends on if it’s sentient, and whether the myriapede still treats us as outsiders after this,’ Percy said. ‘With any luck, this will just be considered infighting between Elemental Sources, with an intelligent karma Source being preferable to an inanimate one.’

‘I’m more interested in knowing what special properties the karma Source has,’ Nephthys said. ‘The World Tree leaves extend people’s lifespans, and the Spectral Broodmother is the origin of all spectral fiends in the universe. Shouldn’t every Elemental Source have some secret ability? Or at least the rare ones?’

‘Only one way to find out,’ Percy said, turning his attention back to the growing plant.

The three reservoirs of Clear mana had almost run dry, which was arguably a rather sizeable expenditure for this project, but the results were also more impressive than Percy had expected. At the very least, he hadn’t imagined that he’d be creating the universe’s first Dual-Elemental Source. Not before activating the Void Decree.

The familiar’s roots had already extended over eighty metres below the seed and had spread over an area almost as wide. A stem had started growing out of the upper tip of the seed as well, and it was already close to the surface.

‘Guys? Are you in there?’ he asked.

No response.

Percy couldn’t help but clench his fists. For all the benefits this sapling was bound to bring him, he would never forgive himself if creating it had come at the cost of the Yaksha’s minds.

Just as he was about to call out to the familiar again, he felt four small shapes land on his head. He scanned his scalp with his sensory domain, finding nothing there. It took him a whole minute to realize that the feeling had come from the clone possessing the alien rabbit. Redirecting his senses to the creature, he found the grinning avatars of the troupe members, waving in every direction with their free hands while hanging off the animal’s long ears.

A smile crept onto his own lips, though he suppressed it as he admonished his colourful friends. ‘Yeah. We’ll have to set some rules about manifesting karmic avatars on this planet. It’s not the average lesser spring, where we can do whatever we want without a care in the world.’