Chapter 862 – Legba’s Decree (Patreon)

Legba’s Decree actually wasn’t regarded very highly by the people of Polaris. It had apparently been the first mental-type Decree that their world had produced, so their demigods had been forced to rely on it for a very long time if they wanted to track their magical progress. However, a couple of better options had become available to the otter-people in recent years, explaining why almost nobody bothered to claim Legba’s Decree nowadays.

The problem with Legba’s Decree was twofold. The requirements for obtaining it were unreasonably steep, and its applications were extremely niche.

It could only be acquired by somebody with Eighth Circle strength who had comprehended at least one concept. Such people were typically demigods who were ready to forge their internal world at a moment’s notice, and the Decree was more or less useless to actual deities, rendering it obsolete in the hands of those who could claim it.

Its only use was to give mortals a better handle on the concepts residing within their cores. That might look good on paper, but it didn’t help much with comprehending additional concepts. At best, it helped those with blessings or composite affinities filter out unwanted concepts from their mana, allowing them to achieve affinity fission or tweak their spells in certain ways more easily.

After attaining divinity, one would shed any concepts that they hadn’t mastered, and could only wield those that they had fully comprehended, so Legba’s Decree practically lost its only purpose.

‘It doesn’t matter what these people have been using it for,’ Percy reminded himself with a shrug as he approached the edge of the magical cyclone. ‘Only what I’ll be able to do with it.’

Not only did he meet all the Decree’s requirements despite not being a demigod, but he also had multiple reasons to covet it.

Just the sheer number of cores, composite affinities, blessings, and fused mana types that he had access to would make Legba’s Decree worth having as a mortal. His cores were only at Blue, so he would be able to benefit from the Decree for a lot longer than its average user, as he was still tens of millennia away from his apotheosis.

However, Percy’s focus wasn’t on what the Decree would allow him to accomplish as a mortal. Based on how his other mental-type Decrees had interacted with one another, he was confident that this one would unlock a variety of interesting abilities for him, which would serve him well even in the Concept realm.

At the very least, he had higher hopes for Legba’s Decree than anything else he’d run into during his travels.

‘Maybe we should focus more on actually qualifying for the Decree, rather than drooling over its potential benefits,’ Nephthys reminded him.

‘Good point,’ Percy agreed with a sheepish grin.

Upon reaching the cyclone, he enveloped his body in both of his domains to shield the fragile sentry from the deadly gales and keep his feet rooted to the ground. Taking one more step forward, he dove into the screeching wall of wind, feeling the cyclone grind against his willpower. The wind swallowed the crunch of his next step.

Percy’s domain was more than strong enough to resist the current, so he kept walking until he reached the eye of the cyclone, where the pressure crushing his willpower was slightly lower, but the spiralling gales trying to shave entire chunks off his invisible armour were denser and more insidious.

‘The good news is that we can protect ourselves as easily as expected, but I’m not feeling the influence of the Decree in the slightest,’ Micky noted.

‘Indeed. Looks like we’ll have to start retracting our willpower, a tiny bit at a time,’ Percy replied.

The rules for acquiring the Decree were simple enough to explain, but significantly more difficult to follow. One had to fight back against the chaotic concepts within the cyclone using their own conceptual understanding. Only when they displayed sufficient proficiency would the Decree acknowledge them.

Legba clearly wasn’t very skilled as a titan, since his Decree was riddled with flaws. However, there was no denying his power as a deity. Percy was confident that the god had possessed at least three different elements when he had created the cyclone.

‘Here goes nothing,’ Percy said, withdrawing about twenty percent of his willpower and replacing it with soul mana from the cord.

Percy was more than qualified for the Decree, since he had comprehended as many as five different concepts. Unfortunately, channelling them through his willpower was a lot less effective than doing so through mana of the corresponding affinities. The pitiful quantity of Blue soul and mind mana that he could wield with a borrowed body had placed him at a severe disadvantage compared to the average demigod who claimed the Decree.

Worse still, his domain was insulating him from the cyclone. By shielding himself with his willpower, Percy was making it harder for the Decree to register his efforts. He would have no choice but to gradually stop protecting himself and hope that he would qualify for his prize before the young yeti was ripped to shreds.

The Merciful Spring domain was a lot more suited to elemental conversion, so Percy stopped using that one for protection entirely. He only kept the Dead Winter domain wrapped around the sentry, while allowing the gentler flavour of willpower to spread across the cyclone, and using it to convert trace amounts of mana to his own affinities.

He focused on generating as much soul and mind mana as he could with his willpower, while also mixing the trickle of soul mana coming from the cord into the wind and doing his best to maintain its properties.

He even took advantage of his Advanced Control spells to generate smaller quantities of his other mana types, guessing that there was no harm in doing so. Even if the Decree refused to acknowledge his incomplete mastery of those affinities, he could at least consume some of the cyclone’s mana to weaken its power slightly.

After fighting against the wind for several hours, Percy finally felt some feedback from the cyclone. He was no closer to exhausting its power, since it was ultimately just a manifestation of a self-perpetuating Decree, but the gales colliding against Percy’s willpower had assumed a slightly reddish hue. That was the colour of the mind affinity, and Percy was trying to claim a mental-type Decree, so that had to be a good sign.

Unfortunately, Percy had been forced to withdraw over seventy percent of his willpower from the barrier to reach that point, leaving it too thin to fully protect the sentry.

Every couple of seconds, a sharper gale of wind managed to pierce through the transparent shield, slicing deep into the fake Polarian’s body. The “wounds” naturally didn’t hurt and regenerated almost instantly, but Percy lost a sizeable chunk of spiritual blood each time, threatening the long-term survival of his sentry. Micky made up for the losses by constantly channelling more spiritual blood through the cord, though the resource was being consumed way too rapidly for Percy’s liking. Fragments of midnight blue ice vanished into the gale almost as quickly as they broke away.

If that wasn’t bad enough, sending so much spiritual blood took up a lot of space in the cord, reducing the amount of soul mana that they could transmit.

‘We’re losing about an elephant-sized sentry’s worth of spiritual blood every ten minutes,’ Nephthys estimated. ‘Even if we retrieve all of Micky’s spiritual blood from the other soul clones, we’ll only last around sixty hours at this rate.’

Percy frowned. According to the information he had gathered, sixty Remiorian hours were right in line with how long most demigods spent inside the cyclone. Maybe a little on the shorter side, but not by much. However, he wasn’t sure if he would be able to qualify for the Decree in time, relying only on his limited mana transmission.

‘Do you think that the yeti will do us a favour and awaken a soul or mind affinity if we give it a second core?’ Micky asked. His tone had lost some of its usual amusement.

‘Even in the unlikely scenario that we are that lucky, an extra source of Orange mana isn’t going to make much of a difference. Hell, we’ll struggle to even clear enough channels before the cyclone forces us to leave,’ Percy replied, shooting the idea down.

It seemed like they only had two options.

They could reduce the amount of willpower they used for protection by another step, which would hopefully allow the Decree to recognize their efforts faster. That would come at the cost of suffering even more damage and consuming Micky’s spiritual blood more rapidly. Alternatively, they could go in the opposite direction and reinforce their domain slightly to slow both the sentry’s destruction and the Decree’s acquisition.

Unfortunately, neither move looked like it would solve the problem.

‘We need to somehow minimize the amount of damage the sentry is taking without insulating ourselves from the cyclone,’ Percy thought, creasing his human forehead back on Remior as he scrambled to come up with a solution. ‘What if we stopped resisting the current and just allowed it to push us around?’

Had it been anyone else in Percy’s shoes, they wouldn’t have even entertained that idea. Projecting his conceptual understanding onto his mana and willpower required a lot of concentration, which would be difficult to pull off while spinning around a cyclone, even if he could keep his borrowed body from falling apart.

But most of Percy’s thoughts were occurring inside his real head, which was located back on Remior. His soul clones were nothing more than relays for his will and senses, so he wouldn’t be affected nearly as deeply by his host’s dizzying experience.

‘We’d better give the poor thing a new core and a mountain of food after putting it through this ordeal,’ Nephthys said, clearly feeling bad about the yeti.

‘Sounds good to me,’ Percy agreed, going ahead with his plan. The creature’s fear still seeped through their connection, but at least they had something to offer it afterwards.

Percy stopped trying to keep his host standing in the centre of the cyclone and allowed the wind to drag him along. The occasional gale still bit into his willpower and spiritual blood, but the damage was much lower when he was travelling in the same direction as the current instead of letting it assault him from every possible angle. The ground blurred beneath the sentry as the wind carried it around.

The consumption of spiritual blood slowed to a crawl, giving Percy more time while allowing him to feed the clone even more soul mana through the cord. Consequently, he was able to meet the Decree’s ridiculous demands several times faster, causing the cyclone’s colour to noticeably shift with every passing hour.

There were times when Percy feared that they still wouldn’t make it in time, and others when he had to intervene to keep the cyclone from throwing his host right out of the Decree’s range. Even so, Percy and his fellow aspects had no choice but to keep going with gritted teeth, beak, and mandibles.

If they messed this up, they wouldn’t easily get a second chance to acquire Legba’s Decree, as the natives would be on high alert for years after the attempt.

It wasn’t until four days later, when Micky was already down to the last ten percent of his spiritual blood, that the cyclone’s colour finally stopped changing. It had already assumed a deep crimson hue, making Percy feel like they were trapped in a whirlpool of blood.

Stranger still was the fact that the cyclone had started lifting them higher with every revolution over the past hour.

Percy tried to resist the wind with his willpower again to bring his host closer to the ground, only to realize that the current had grown several times stronger than it had been when they had first entered the cyclone. He could no longer fight against it even if he went all out with both domains! Back on Remior, Percy’s hands curled into fists.

Unable to resist the current, Percy was forced to watch as his fake body spiralled into the churning ocean of clouds, his surroundings glowing brighter with every metre he travelled.

By the time the cyclone pushed the sentry over the top, Percy’s sensory domain had been consumed by a crimson light, blinding him to everything but the Clear mind mana enveloping his borrowed body.

Percy and his fellow aspects couldn’t help but hold their breaths as a magical seed planted itself deep within their shared mind. Their Status finally spoke, announcing their success.

[Congratulations! You have acquired a new Decree: Legba’s Decree!]