The Lone Wanderer

Chapter 619 – Sage

Percy’s eyebrows shot up upon reading the notifications. Plural. He was by no means a stranger to spell upgrades, but it wasn’t every day that he registered them in pairs – especially when one was an upgrade to his mutation. The best explanation that he was able to come up with was that his meddling had affected both the mutation itself, and the way he used it.

He was tempted to send a clone to the Vault immediately, as he’d already wasted too much time on this project. Time that he didn’t have. However, he ultimately held himself back.

Everything that he’d done over the past six months had been to grant Kassorith as many advantages as possible in the void tournament. Percy ought to at least check that his clones could now use the mutation before possessing the Thess’kalan again. If they didn’t, he would have no choice but to come up with something else.

Willing his constellation to separate from Micky’s, he waited for his fellow aspect’s consciousness to return to his own body before reaching out to the Huehuan through the cord. ‘Well? Can you still use it?’

Micky responded with a mental nod. ‘My eyes changed by themselves into something closer to yours, as have the connections of mana and willpower across my body. I’m currently enveloped by my own bubble of information.’

Percy exhaled in relief. This was great news, though it wasn’t a guarantee that his clones would also acquire a version of the mutation. Unlike Micky, they didn’t share a mind or soul with him – or well… at least not in the same way – nor could they shapeshift.

Eager to explore his new ability, Percy made his way back to Nephthys’s chamber and asked her to help with a few tests. Placing a clone into her body, he quickly read its Status.

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Nephthys (The Lone Wanderer's clone)

Mana cores:

[Mana core 1 – Green – Beast][Mana core 2 – Green – Acid]Domain:

[Pulse – Dormant]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.[Ruby Carapace] – Reinforces one’s carapace.[Sage’s Eye] –Draws from the cumulative knowledge listed in the Status to enhance one’s senses, allowing them to discern details previously unseen.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.[Mimicry] – Boosts one’s awareness of their physical appearance, as well as their ability to maintain or modify it.Mindsets:

[Ludwick’s Compass] – Set mental checkpoints anywhere in the world. Instinctively track their location as you move away.[Shimmering Constellations] – Group your senses and memories into separate identities. This artificial segregation can be freely bypassed.Spells:

[Dance of the Savage Gods – Masterful][Spectral Art: Parasitic Connection – Refined][Spectral Art: Internal Seal-Crafting – Masterful][Spectral Art: Intimidation – Masterful][Spectral Art: Cauldron of a Myriad Screams – Masterful][Spectral Art: Instantaneous Formation – Masterful][Wild Art: Sage’s Pond – Masterful][Wild Art: Consumption – Masterful]Alchemic principles:

[Extraction] – Separate and condense an ingredient’s essence.[Pacification] – Delay an ingredient’s activation rate.[Redirection] – Adjust an ingredient’s effect.[Deattunement] – Prevent multiple conflicting ingredients from reacting with one another.[Bonding] – Enrich an ingredient with crystallized pure mana.[Restructuring] – Alter an ingredient's phase.[Scaling] – Brew a greater volume of ingredients at once.[Compression] – Elevate an ingredient to the next grade.[Consolidation] – Infuse multiple similar ingredients into a concoction while eliminating the redundant alchemic steps.Decrees:

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

[Phoebe’s Decree] – Grants access to your Status.[Moirais’ Decree] – Grants a second mana core.[Metatron’s Decree] – Open a one-way portal to the Vault of Magic at will.[Ea’s Decree (Modified)] – Augments and enhances your Status. Grants the Sage’s Eye.[Obatala’s Decree (Modified)] – Augments and enhances your Status. Allows you to effortlessly deploy your domain in its strongest state.___

There were several differences from the last time Percy had read his familiar’s information, but he understood where most of them had come from.

Firstly, he was currently reading the clone’s version of the page, not the familiar’s, which was why it only included spells that he was capable of using while inhabiting the bug’s body.

Consequently, it listed Consumption and the Dance – which he had personally taught Nephthys – but not the rest of her spells. It also listed a bunch of his own that didn’t require any mutations that the clone didn’t currently have access to.

Similarly, his mindsets consisted of Ludwick’s Compass and Shimmering Constellations, but not the goddess’s Structured Amnesia. After all, those were naturally stored in a person’s mind, just like alchemic principles and some of Percy’s Decrees. This was also why the clone could open portals to the Vault and lock his domain in its strongest state, while Nephthys couldn’t do either of those things by herself.

On that note, his domain was currently in a dormant state. With a pair of Green cores and twice as many flavours of the Dance at his disposal, he knew that he could easily change that, but he didn’t see any reason to bother. The Ruby Princess wouldn’t be able to wield that domain, and even the clone would basically lose it the moment he stopped possessing her.

Other notable differences from Percy’s previous inspection included Nephthys’s recently promoted acid core, and the presence of his Mimicry trait. The wisp that he had shoved into the royal egg had only possessed Weaving, Insomnia, and Scribing, so Nephthys only had those three by default. Percy could temporarily grant her Mimicry through his clones, yet that was another thing that she would lose access to as soon as he was gone.

In any case, he hadn’t possessed his familiar just to muse over her Status. Putting everything else aside, he focused on the details that he was interested in – namely, the changes to Ea’s Decree.

‘Hmmm… I’m pretty sure that my previous clones didn’t have the second sentence about granting the mutation,’ he concluded after careful examination. ‘This is new.’

Retrieving his clone from Nephthys, Percy confirmed that a large, three-dimensional bubble of awareness had appeared around her body, much like what had happened to him and Micky. The fact that the mutation itself had also been listed in her Status was further confirmation that he had succeeded.

As with his own version of the ability, it had covered the wasp’s entire cavern, though it hadn’t stretched nearly as far into the tunnels leading out of the room as it had for him. Percy was confident that the discrepancy had been partially caused by his familiar not having a domain of her own – thus missing one important source of sensory information – though that might not be the only issue.

When his clone had entered her body, he hadn’t felt anything happen to her eyes, so her copy of the mutation was probably weaker. Prompting physical changes to one’s eyes was likely a trait of Ea’s Decree that it had lost a long time ago, during its integration into Phoebe’s Decree.

As much as Percy would have liked to recover its missing functions, he had to accept that he wasn’t a titan. He couldn’t just add or restore features to a Decree as he pleased. At most, he was able to slightly alter the way he interacted with it. His modified Status already accompanied all of his clones, and the way it was connected to their senses was clearly something that he could study and influence, but there were limits.

Micky was obviously an exception, because his shapeshifting abilities had given him a different way of directly transforming his eyeballs.

‘Do you still have it?’ he asked the Ruby Princess with bated breath.

‘I’m afraid I don’t. My new vision vanished the moment you left,’ Nephthys replied, sounding a little disappointed.

Percy nodded, reading his familiar’s Status this time. The mutation was no longer there and neither was the Decree, confirming that both were temporary. The good news was that his hosts could also apparently access the mutation while being possessed – it wasn’t limited to just the clones doing the possessing.

Perhaps, it might even be a good thing that they wouldn’t keep it. As much as Percy would have loved the option of permanently granting the Sage’s Eye to his friends and family, he would rather not pass it to Kassorith and every random person he possessed from now until the end of time. Giving everyone the Moirais’ Decree was already troublesome enough.

Pulling up his own Status and reading the updated entry one final time, he noticed another minor change that he hadn’t spotted earlier.

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

All previous versions of the mutation – be they the Alchemist’s, Sorcerer’s, or Sovereign’s Eye – had retained the exact same description. The name had changed each time, as had the colour of Percy’s irises, but the effect hadn’t.

Not directly.

It was simply Percy’s Status that had adapted to every new Decree that it had assimilated, indirectly granting his eyes the ability to perceive additional things with every new iteration.

This time, even the wording was slightly different, however. The phrase “enhance one’s vision” had become “enhance one’s senses”, which wasn’t that strange given the manner in which Percy had upgraded it, though he still found that detail quite interesting.

Wishing to learn more about his new ability, Percy placed another clone in Nephthys’s body and asked her to accompany him to the surface where they could both experiment in an open space.