The Lone Wanderer

Chapter 615 – Eight

Percy soon found himself looking up at the towering Starry Princess. She wasn’t nearly as large as her mother but, standing over twice as tall as him – and being even longer than that – she was still a little bigger than the Starry Knight that had nearly claimed Percy’s life in the past.

Nephthys had reached Green years ago with her first core, fully catching up to Micky only months after his arrival in Twilight City. Percy hadn’t been surprised by that. While the Huehuan had started cleansing his cores decades before the reincarnated goddess, he was still a Red-born while the Starry Princess was an Orange-born.

The distinction wasn’t as defining for beasts as it was for sapients, since they advanced very fast and climbed very high regardless of their birth grade, so long as they had access to enough food. Even so, an Orange-born beast still progressed markedly faster than a Red-born when neither had to suffer through a shortage of resources.

Percy estimated that Nephthys was currently only a few months away from reaching Green with her second core as well, at which point she would effectively surpass Micky. That said, Percy genuinely had no idea which of his friends would reach Blue with their original core first.

Shaking the pointless thoughts away, he spoke through the cord. ‘I’ve determined that the material I found is safe and beneficial for Starry Wasps. Wanna try it?’

‘As always, I’ll trust your judgement,’ the goddess replied. ‘You’re the one who got me this far, after all.’

Percy couldn’t help but flash his familiar an awkward smile. This was honestly high praise from a being who had lived for hundreds of thousands of years and pioneered the way to the Concept realm without any prior knowledge of it, but he understood where she was coming from.

Despite her divine power, Nephthys had slowly watched her people succumb to eternal slumber one after the other, unable to prevent the extinction of her species. Percy had given her hope where there had been none, so the reborn deity had happily agreed to all of his suggestions since.

‘I should make an effort to get to know her better,’ he decided. He’d been playing with that thought for years, but his work on Internal Magiscript and his interstellar adventures had always taken precedence.

He and Micky still had to push for their artificial advancement, but Percy doubted that his clones had enough time to find anything valuable before they completed it, so it might not be a bad idea to reconsider where he deployed them until then. Once he reached Green with both cores, he should also get a new pair of cords, so keeping a clone in the wasp’s body wouldn’t be an issue.

However, he only had three at the moment, so he had to be deliberate about the way he used them.

One was going to be working with Kassorith and Metatron in the foreseeable future, and a second would have to make several trips to Ruby Heart to stock up on the new material. Percy could place the last one in Nephthys’s body so that they could study her affinities together. That way, he would have a permanent connection to all three of his clones, since Soul Harmony – unlike Soul Resonance – was effortless to maintain.

Putting his plans aside for now, he reached into his spatial seal and pulled out another hill of red powder, this time carefully controlling the quantity so that it wouldn’t exceed the elephant-sized creature’s body weight.

Not wasting any time, Nephthys dug into her magical meal, rapidly ingesting one mouthful after another. Percy hadn’t bothered to grind it into fine dust, feeling that the Starry Princess should be able to handle it in its unprocessed state. Even her weaker relative had managed, and Nephthys’s body was objectively tougher than anything on Ruby Heart – besides the three demigods, of course.

Before the substance took effect, Percy scanned his familiar’s body one final time, memorizing her current appearance so that he would have an easier time pinpointing the changes later. He also pulled up her Status, studying it carefully.

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Nephthys (The Lone Wanderer's familiar)

Mana cores:

[Mana core 1 – Green – Beast][Mana core 2 – Yellow – Acid]Mutations:

[Soul Predator] – Allows one to more easily interact with the souls of others.[Royal Lineage] – Grants a royal wasp additional abilities befitting of their role.[Divine Spark] – Grants endless inspiration when developing one’s magic.[Spectral Ark] – Allows one to carry and preserve the souls of others.[Thin Haemolymph] – Allows one to survive on fewer nutrients.[Charged Antennae] – Improves the power and flexibility of one’s mental signals.[Acidic Gland] – Consume acid mana to enhance the potency of one’s venom. Allows acid mana to be freely converted to and from one’s venom.Spectral traits:

[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.Mindsets:

[Structured Amnesia] – Selectively suppress or curate memories to minimize their mental load.Spells:

[Dance of the Savage Gods – Masterful][Advanced Water Control – Masterful][Advanced Lightning Control – Masterful][Advanced Acid Control – Masterful][Wild Art: Heir of the Hive – Masterful][Wild Art: Consumption – Masterful]Decrees:

[Moirais’ Decree] – Grants a second mana core.___

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Suffice to say, Nephthys hadn’t slacked at all over the past decade.

As expected, her evolution to Green had finally given her body a chance to adapt to her composite affinity and develop three new mutations, bringing the total to a whopping seven.

‘Soon to be eight, most likely,’ Percy reminded himself with a chuckle.

Perhaps it was a little strange that her mutations hadn’t started merging yet, despite her having nearly twice as many as Micky had had, but it was understandable. Their effects didn’t overlap much, nor had Nephthys experienced the right catalyst.

The first four mutations hadn’t changed much after her evolution.

Soul Predator had expanded past her stinger, eyes, and mandibles, now giving about half of her carapace a faint grey hue. Percy was sure that the colour would reach the rest of her body once she advanced to Blue, but it didn’t seem to affect anything important.

Sadly, the goddess had yet to find any use for her Spectral Ark mutation – and not for a lack of trying – meaning that the preserved souls of her Amenthei subjects were still stuck inside the triangular gem embedded on her forehead, with no way out. Thankfully, Nephthys hadn’t allowed her failures to get to her – she and Percy were certain that she would figure out how the mutation worked sooner or later.

Her Divine Spark mutation hadn’t changed visually either, still manifesting as a series of silver watermark patterns rippling across the surface of her soul, mirroring the golden marks that her royal lineage had drawn on her physical body. However, the effect that the mutation had had on her growth was undeniable.

Nephthys probably owed her success as much to her millennia of experience and Percy’s guidance as she did to the endless inspiration granted to her by the mutation, but registering six Masterful spells in under a decade without ever getting into a serious fight was nothing to scoff at.

Consumption and the Dance weren’t very surprising, since Percy had prioritized teaching her some of Micky’s spells to improve her jelly output. The other four spells were still quite impressive, however.

Curiously, Nephthys had taken a unique approach to her magic. Instead of working on specialized spells like most people did, she had chosen a much broader and more ambitious path of mastering every facet of her affinities – from the speed with which she deployed her mana, to the level of control she could exert on every single mote.

As a result, her Advanced Water, Lightning, and Acid Control spells had proven much harder to register and upgrade at every single step. They weren’t designed specifically for combat either, meaning that she could have probably grown significantly stronger with the same amount of effort if she’d done things differently.

When asked about this, she’d told Percy that this was the best way to deepen one’s understanding of their affinity. Her spells might seem less practical in the short-term, but she expected to have an easier time comprehending the new concepts and forging her internal world anew after returning to the Clear grade.

Naturally, Percy had found the deity’s advice interesting, filing it in as a future project to work on with his own affinities once he had more time.

Finally, Nephthys’s Heir of the Hive spell was the result of her experiments with her authority over her subjects. The combination of the Masterful Wild Art, her lightning-based Charged Antennae mutation, and her higher grade had allowed her to rival her mother’s control over the lesser wasps.

Neither of the royal bugs could command anywhere close to the whole hive at once just yet, but Nephthys’s explosive growth in this area was quite promising, considering that she was still a Green. After evolving a few more times, she might be able to direct and coordinate millions of bugs as easily as she did her limbs.

Her Thin Haemolymph mutation was essentially just the bug version of Micky’s Thin Blood – something that she had clearly developed due to her water affinity. It reduced Nephthys’s stamina drain and worked alongside her other spells to vastly increase her royal jelly output.

Since she was only two grades below her mother now, Nephthys should have been able to produce about a ninth of the Queen’s daily output – an amount that was no longer negligible to Percy.

In practice, her mutations and faster-growing spells had allowed her to do even better than that. Nephthys had reached about a quarter of the Starry Queen’s output – which was even more impressive considering that the Violet bug hadn’t stopped improving either.

By now, Percy had enough royal jelly to brew twice as much Gloomy Dawn as he, Micky, and the royal wasps needed, though he hadn’t offered any to his friends and family yet, opting to build up a healthy stash first.

Nephthys’s Charged Antennae mutation manifested as a faint indigo sheen on… well… her antennae, obviously. Other than improving her control over her subjects, it also allowed her to modify her signals to generate sounds that were audible to human ears.

The Starry Princess had yet to master this ability, but Percy hoped that she would eventually be able to produce and understand speech. It didn’t really matter much to him, because he had his cords, but Nephthys would definitely need a way to directly communicate with other people if she wanted to rebuild her long-destroyed civilization on Remior.

Finally, Nephthys’s Acidic Gland mutation was one that Percy had found quite interesting. It was no secret that the Starry Wasps wielded a type of acidic venom – in fact, he was convinced that this was exactly why the creatures seemed to have a natural inclination towards developing an acid affinity in their second cores.

The mutation allowed Nephthys’s elemental core to interface directly with her venom gland. By circulating composite mana through the organ, she could slowly refine the substance into a more potent version.

Considering that a Starry Wasp’s venom already grew more corrosive with each evolution, this was quite a feat. Percy and his familiar hadn’t tested the substance on living creatures yet, but he wouldn’t be surprised if it was already potent enough to damage a Blue’s constructs.

Even more impressive was the fact that Nephthys could consume some of her stored venom to refill her core even faster than she could with just Consumption and the Dance. The synergy between her acid core and venom gland was very similar to the relationship between her beast core and jelly gland, which probably explained why her body had evolved in this direction.

Regardless, Percy was surer than ever that placing the goddess’s soul inside the royal egg had been the right choice, and not just due to the hive’s importance to his planet or his own need for cleansing resources. Put simply, his familiar was swiftly developing into quite a powerhouse.

‘I guess it’s time to get her involved in my war against House Asclepius,’ he decided.

He’d previously been hesitant to place Nephthys in harm’s way, but it would be foolish not to take advantage of the Princess’s overwhelming talents. After all, Nephthys would die anyway if Percy were to perish, so asking her to help him was ultimately safer for them both.

At the very least, he should have the clone play with fusing their affinities and maybe clearing some lightning and acid channels in Percy’s main body.

Both lightning and acid would be riskier elements to circulate through his flesh and soul than Micky’s ice mana had been, but Percy’s improved resistance to toxins and extreme temperatures should help. If Nephthys ever turned into another aspect, the process would grow even easier.

Other than that, Percy was curious to see whether Micky and Nephthys could clear each other’s channels or even fuse air and lightning mana into sound. In theory, it should be possible, since Micky shared a soul with him – and even a mind, whenever necessary.

However, Percy’s familiars and aspects both had to go through him to access one another, so he figured that he should start with the low-hanging fruit before branching out into more ambitious projects.

Happy with his assessment, Percy was broken out of his thoughts when the red substance began affecting Nephthys. He watched with bated breath, waiting to see whether the Starry Princess would acquire yet another mutation.