Chapter 860 – How to train your sapling (Patreon)

Percy and the other six sprites were sitting side by side atop the sprout’s single jade leaf, discussing their situation. The crystalline leaf was already too heavy for the breeze to sway, but the tiny avatars had to hold onto the edges of their magical platform tightly to avoid getting swept away.

“I know it’ll be boring, but you guys need to act like a regular first-generation sapling until we gauge the natives’ response. Not that a World Tree sapling suddenly appearing on their planet won’t be suspicious, but there’s no reason to pile on the strangeness,” Percy explained.

“That means no karmic avatars after today, and we’ll also have to make all of your leaves the regular green colour they’re supposed to have,” Nephthys added.

The leaf they were currently on had started off with an atypical blue colour, and Percy wouldn’t be surprised if each new leaf glowed with a different hue because of the sapling’s karma affinity. Thankfully, it wasn’t too difficult to tweak the leaf’s appearance using the Mimicry trait.

Despite Kalpavriksha’s sole leaf being a little smaller than expected for a first-generation sapling, Percy was tempted to pluck it and check whether it could already triple someone’s lifespan. However, he held himself back, as he didn’t want to slow down his familiar’s growth by depriving it of its only way to absorb sunlight.

For now, his priority was the sapling’s survival and safety. Any fun experiments could wait until the plant was out of the danger zone.

It was quite impressive that the newly sprouted plant could already match the karmic magic of a fully matured Yaksha, despite measuring only a couple hundred metres from root to stem. Granted, it was a fragment of not one but two Elemental Sources, but it was still just a single plant that had only been alive for a few hours, while the Yaksha had been an entire forest that had been around for centuries at a minimum.

The karmic avatars that the troupe members occupied were no smaller than those they had used on Jambavan, yet the sapling had far more room to grow than the sentient forest. Percy had no idea how his familiar’s size would affect the strength of its magic. The avatars were unlikely to develop much combat strength, since karma mana wasn’t very suitable for hard constructs, but Elemental Sources had all sorts of other abilities that the sprites should eventually be able to tap into.

For example, the Spectral Broodmother could destroy a mortal’s soul with a single thought, making the giant myriapede an insurmountable opponent for anyone who hadn’t reached the Concept realm. If a true World Tree could do something similar to a mortal’s flesh, Kalpavriksha was bound to turn into quite a monster in the future.

And Phoebe-knew what its karmic side would even be capable of.

“We understand,” Pav said, giving his subordinates a meaningful look. “If I’m being honest, I’m already feeling the urge to start roaming our new home and performing for the natives, but I promise we’ll suppress those instincts until our safety is no longer on the line. It’s not like we need the karmic feedback of our audience anymore, and we have better ways to convince people that we are too valuable to harm than playing songs.”

Percy nodded, allowing his temporary body to disperse. ‘I’m sorry for the inconvenience. We’ll do everything in our power to grant you more freedom as soon as possible. We’ll even try moving you back to Jambavan one day, but it’s currently too dangerous – not just for you, but also for the people of a lesser spring to have a first-generation sapling on their world.’

He’d already explained how Elemental Sources worked to the Yaksha, so the troupe members understood the severity of the situation.

‘Is there anything we can do to help?’ Sha asked through their connection, having also dispersed her avatar.

The others promptly followed, clearly seeing no reason to keep pushing their luck.

‘Plenty of things,’ Nephthys cheerfully replied. ‘We’ll be keeping a soul clone permanently stationed inside your body, so we’ll always remain in contact. While we need to be careful not to draw any unnecessary attention, we’d like to begin studying your abilities together. The sooner we get a grasp on what you can do, the better equipped we’ll be to protect you, and the more leverage we’ll have against the natives.’

It was quite fortunate that Kalpavriksha had awakened a karma affinity so soon. Percy had intended to try giving the tree one using the Void Decree once it turned into an aspect, though that wouldn’t have happened until much later.

If they could figure out how to mask their karmic signature, they would no longer have to worry about the peak factions tracking the sapling down. Considering how well Percy’s distributed existence had already held up against karmic tracking, it probably wouldn’t even take that much extra effort to muddy the proverbial waters completely. And that ability would help with far more than hiding the familiar. Percy would be able to claim whatever resources he wanted from all sorts of places with relative impunity!

Before discussing a specific training regimen with the others, Percy opened his new familiar’s Status and read everything more carefully to gain a better idea of what the tree was capable of.

___

Kalpavriksha (The Lone Wanderer's familiar)

Mana cores [2/2]:

·         [Mana core 1 – Source (1/13) – Life]

·         [Mana core 2 – Source (1/13) – Karma]

Mutations:

·         [Saint’s Eye] – Draws from the cumulative knowledge listed in the Status to enhance one’s senses, allowing them to discern details previously unseen.

·         [Divine Spark] – Grants endless inspiration when developing one’s magic.

·         [Soul Predator] – Allows one to more easily interact with the souls of others.

·         [Life Source (Diminished)] – Allows nearby creatures to comprehend the concepts of the life affinity more easily.

·         [Karmic Source (Diminished)] – Allows nearby creatures to comprehend the concepts of the karma affinity more easily.

Spectral traits [6/6]:

·         [Weaving] – Boosts one’s proclivity in manipulating one-dimensional structures.

·         [Insomnia] – Eliminates the need for sleep.

·         [Scribing] – Boosts one’s proclivity in expressing meaning onto any written medium.

·         [Mimicry] – Boosts one’s awareness of their physical appearance, as well as their ability to maintain or modify it.

·         [Command] – Boosts one’s proclivity in directing any entity that can be perceived as a subordinate.

·         [Topography] – Boosts one’s spatial awareness.

Spells:

·         [Basic Life Control – Refined]

·         [Basic Karma Control – Refined]

·         [Avatar Manifestation – Refined]

Core-type Decrees [1/2]:

·         [Moirais’ Decree] – Grants the seed of a second mana core to your aspects, familiars, clones, and hosts. Life and/or mind mana may be required to germinate the seed. The acquired affinity cannot be controlled.

Free-type Decrees:

·         [Penitent’s Decree] – Allows one to shed small pieces of their soul to infuse into their sap, producing spiritual sap.

___

Percy absorbed everything, focusing on the most important details. The tree had inherited the Soul Predator mutation like all of Percy’s familiars, as well as the Divine Spark mutation due to the special qualities of one of the three wisps it had been fashioned out of. Kalpavriksha might not develop any normal mutations because it lacked the beast affinity, but it had already acquired a couple of specialized mutations as a Source fragment.

Percy was slightly surprised that the tree had registered the Basic Life and Karma Control spells automatically – mere moments after obtaining the corresponding affinities, no less – though he probably should have seen that coming. The Refined spells weren’t so difficult to master, and Percy should have expected nothing less from the very Source of those elements, incomplete or not. In fact, Percy was willing to bet that Kalpavriksha would automatically upgrade the spells at least once by the time it matured, even if it failed to assimilate its rivals.

Opening his own Status, he was disappointed to learn that he hadn’t registered the entries himself, despite having practically possessed Kalpavriksha’s body during its entire life. He guessed that a few days of practice would be enough for him to master at least the Basic versions of the spells. Of course, the Advanced variants and the actual concepts would likely require a lot more work, or upgrading his familiar into a proper Source.

‘If we turn a fully matured Source into an aspect, we’ll probably receive the whole package for free, just like what happened with Nephthys,’ Percy speculated, the mere thought of three more perfected rare affinities making his mouth water.

Other than Kalpavriksha’s Source-related abilities, Percy took a quick inventory of what else it had inherited from his wisp or the Yaksha’s soul.

All six of his spectral traits were listed, though the familiar should have only been born with the four that Percy had specifically allowed the wisp to retain, otherwise its soul would have already devoured itself. The fact that Kalpavriksha had to borrow two of the traits from the clone wasn’t an issue, since Percy had no intention of retracting his wisp and leaving his friends alone on an alien planet.

If the sapling ever got destroyed, Percy was going down with it.

‘This would be a lot more moving if our main bodies weren’t guaranteed to survive,’ Micky pointed out.

‘Well, at least we’ll do our best to bring the tree’s soul back to Remior,’ Percy replied with a mental shrug.

Part of him wondered what would happen if he tried to turn a familiar’s soul into another familiar, though the rest of him really hoped that he’d never find out.

The tree had only inherited the Moirais’ and Penitent’s Decrees. Percy’s mental-, active-, and bloodline-type Decrees hadn’t followed, nor had the Void Decree. The good news was that the clone could still try to open a portal beneath the tree if they urgently needed to flee the planet, though Percy had no idea whether the portal would be wide enough for the familiar to pass through, and had no intention of activating Metatron’s Decree just to find out. Handing the pentapus a first-generation sapling also wouldn’t be ideal, but Percy might be forced to resort to that if the familiar’s survival ever hinged on it.

The Void Decree would obviously remain dormant until Kalpavriksha became an aspect. Percy didn’t know whether he could feed it the sacrifices through the cord. Baphomet’s spell had allowed him to do something similar, but it would be too risky to try that without any guarantee of success, and sending live animals through the seal wasn’t an option.

‘Can we replace the sacrifices with seventy-three herbs of the right affinity?’ Percy wondered.

Having spied on the Void Hand’s people extensively over the past century, Percy knew that they never did that, so it probably didn’t work on sapients. However, Kalpavriksha was a plant.

Then again, there was no point in worrying about the sacrifices before the tree even turned into an aspect, though Percy had already decided what Kalpavriksha’s third element was going to be. Now that the Moirais’ Decree had done him the favour of granting him karma early, there was only one rare affinity missing from his extended arsenal.

‘Well?’ Rik asked, interrupting Percy’s thoughts.

‘Our main job will be to monitor our surroundings and keep you looking like a normal sapling at all times,’ Percy said. ‘Outside of that, there are a number of things we should work on, in no particular order: upgrading our Life and Karma Control spells to at least Masterful, integrating Karmic Vision into our Saint’s Eye, searching for viable affinity fusions with the new mana types, figuring out how to mask our karmic trail, turning your sap into spiritual sap for future experiments, and exploring your nature as a karmic Source.’

‘That’s a long list,’ Kal said with a mental frown.

‘Well, the four of you probably won’t have to actively work on your Control spells, so that one’s just for me, Micky, and Nephthys. Karmic Vision and affinity fusions are also mostly for my own benefit, so you guys should only worry about the last three tasks. Succeeding at any of them will either make it harder for enemies to find you or make you too valuable to harm,’ Percy explained.

He hadn’t mentioned anything about the Dance, because he’d already tried and failed to figure out how to replicate his boosting art while possessing the Yaksha on Jambavan. He doubted that the World Tree sapling would be any different. A plant’s mana network was simply too different from a person’s. Besides, the spell’s job was to elevate one’s mana to the next grade, and Percy didn’t think that there was a grade above “Source”.

The only other thing that Percy could do for his familiar in the near future would be to grant it a copy of the Rapid Cognition mindset, boosting its thinking speed by thirty-five percent. In theory, that would only take a few hours, though he would have to use dream mana and attempt to construct the mindset directly within the tree’s soul, since it lacked anything even remotely resembling a physical brain.

‘Whatever we do, we’ll have to be quick about it,’ Nephthys warned everyone. ‘It won’t be long before the natives discover the tree, and we need to learn everything we can about it by then.’

They’d planted the sapling deep within a rather isolated forest, so they still had some time. The sprout had yet to outgrow the surrounding trees, and its growth had greatly slowed down after Micky had stopped supplying it with Clear mana. That said, it would only be a couple of days before it towered over the rest of the forest, and a few months at most before it was visible from afar.

Using the Merciful Spring domain and the concept of Illusion, Percy and the others might be able to mask the sapling’s presence for a few additional months, though they wouldn’t be able to trick the locals for much longer than that.

‘Agreed,’ Percy said. ‘We need to get what we need from this planet before then, to reduce the number of things that could go wrong. Ideally, we should also prioritize masking our karmic trail, so that they don’t track us down using the sapling. Outside of that, it’ll all depend on how reasonable these people are…’

If he had known that the sapling would awaken a karma affinity, he might have reconsidered planting it on an allied planet, but the whims of the Moirais’ Decree weren’t something that Percy could have planned for.

Besides, there were still several benefits to placing the tree on a powerful greater spring, so they would just have to do the best that they could under the circumstances.