The Lone Wanderer

Chapter 624 – Rules

Percy and his spectral companions had taken the god up on his offer, using the past few weeks productively. Sadly, Lanthaniel’s internal world was too cramped for a Violet-level mage to fight freely, and they didn’t even have a sparring partner, so there was a limit to what they had been able to do.

Even so, they had seized the opportunity to familiarize themselves with each other’s abilities. None of them was new to fighting, and they had even cooperated in the past, so they only needed to get used to each other’s recent progress and work their new tricks into a coherent, joint arsenal.

Booming shockwaves had continuously shaken the desert as red-hot streams of scorching air had kept digging into the sand and melting it into rough patches of glass.

This had naturally been caused by a version of the formation that Percy and Kassorith had used in the final round of the regional tournament. It was arguably the most powerful attack that had been unleashed in that entire competition, though they could now use it a lot more liberally.

Micky’s presence didn’t add a third domain to their teamwork, yet it did allow Percy to split his willpower into a pair of weaker domains that could be used for different tasks. This meant that each of them could take charge of a different layer of the formation, piecing the complex enchantments together in practically no time.

The last time Percy had used the spell, he had been forced to do everything by himself. Preparing the runes had taken way too long, and he had only succeeded because his opponent had been rendered immobile by his own bloodline.

Things were different now.

With three people working together and each being more skilled than Percy had been in the past, they could create many copies of the formation in mere seconds, treating them more like casual attacks than a finisher.

The addition of amplification and lightning resonance runes had allowed them to empower the spell further, without having to invest as much mana. Percy had even come up with the brilliant idea of incorporating flow runes into the enchantments to direct the attacks into concentrated beams rather than letting them explode indiscriminately.

Of course, the superheated mana didn’t dig very deep into the dense sand. The solidified patches were barely a few centimetres thick, so Lanthaniel could easily shatter them back into dust with a single thought.

Clearly, the god hadn’t lied when he said that they wouldn’t be able to damage his internal world. Still, Percy was confident that their opponents in the void tournament wouldn’t be able to shrug off the potent blasts nearly this casually.

Other than getting used to their heightened offensive power, Percy and his companions had practiced with their improved senses. He guessed that they would be able to use Greater Foresight anywhere inside their range, though they didn’t have a live opponent to test that on.

Even without using their domains, the Sage’s Pond covered a lot of space, yet it was obviously stronger when they used their willpower to expand it. Percy, Micky and Kassorith had spent a lot of time shifting their domains between reinforcing their defences, empowering their attacks, or sharpening their senses – getting as used to the process as they could.

On a different topic, Percy was certain that they could now survive multiple Violet-level spells head on. As expected, the red powder had enhanced both Kassorith’s scales and bones, granting him the most potent version of the mutation that Percy had seen to date: Ruby Panoply.

He was more than a little envious of the treacherous Thess’kalan for getting more out of the substance than him or his familiar, though he wasn’t sure that he would have wanted his own skin painted crimson from head to toe.

Percy had asked Lanthaniel whether he should use his Mimicry trait to suppress the visual aspect of the mutation. The god had insisted that making others curious about the material wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Everyone would be less likely to bother them during the tournament, though a lot of gods would probably swarm Lanthaniel after the competition, looking to purchase some powder for themselves and their disciples or descendants.

‘We’ll all have to escape to the Vault as soon as we’re done with the competition,’ Percy reminded himself.

During a break from training, Percy summoned another pile of red dust inside the god’s internal world, offering some to their escort. “This is for you. Tell Metatron that it’s going to cost him a hundred thousand credits though.”

While he generally preferred not to strengthen the Vault more than necessary, Percy felt a little bad about the god who had spent the past three months ferrying them to the void tournament. Even though Lanthaniel was merely acting on the titan’s orders, he was risking his life – or at least his cover – to give them this precious opportunity.

Besides, it would look strange if the person who had supposedly discovered Ruby Heart hadn’t personally consumed any of the miraculous resource.

“Don’t mind if I do,” Lanthaniel replied, causing a portal to open beneath the pile of powder and pulling it out of his internal world. “But we don’t have to bother the boss with this. I’ll pay you myself, and if it works on me, I’ll double the payment.”

Percy couldn’t help but frown. “You can do that? I thought that the Vault’s system didn’t allow residents to trade or share resources.”

Lanthaniel chuckled. “Perks of being a god. The boss isn’t as strict with us. Well… in this case, he wouldn’t be too happy with me giving you so much money since he’s trying to get you to join, but strengthening one of our deities is more than worth the cost.”

Hearing that, Percy started to regret his offer, thinking that he may have made a terrible mistake. Alas, it was too late to take the powder back.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

‘Lanthaniel doesn’t seem like a very talented god anyway. Giving him slightly stronger bones won’t change much,’ Percy consoled himself. ‘Besides, I’m dying to know if the powder actually works on gods.’

Lanthaniel didn’t inform him of the result, though Percy supposed that he would receive his answer as soon as they reached their destination. The next time the god spoke, he switched to a different topic.

“We’ll be arriving in a few days, so I suppose it’s time to give you more information about the competition.”

Percy perked up, as did Micky and their host, prompting Lanthaniel to continue.

“Despite it being called the void tournament, its format is different from the one on Thess’kala. You won’t have to worry about knockout battles until you reach the top sixteen, and you’ll qualify for the Decree if you get to the top eight, so there’s only a single fight that you can’t afford to lose.”

This… was great news, though Percy could see a ‘but’ coming from a kilometre away. “What about before then?”

“There are two other rounds before the elimination phase, and they can be considered both easier and harder to get through – depending on how you look at it,” Lanthaniel said, before elaborating. “One can always get lucky if a superior opponent is having a bad day or if it’s a good matchup, but you won’t be able to rely on such luck during the first round. It involves a comprehensive test of your abilities in several different categories such as raw power or defence. You won’t be competing directly against the other contestants, but you do have to surpass some minimal thresholds to qualify for the second round. You are allowed to fail a couple of tests, yet you’ll have to pass at least three out of five.”

“How difficult are they?” Percy asked.

“Very. They are designed for mages a full grade higher than you, which is Violet in your case. As I’m sure that Kassorith has told you, most participants from the lesser members of the alliance don’t make it past the first round.”

Percy nodded, understanding what Lanthaniel meant by saying that it was both easier and harder than an unpredictable battle. If a participant met the requirements, they were basically guaranteed to pass, otherwise they would certainly fail.

“Why are they doing things this way?”

“They want to ensure that everyone who progresses through the competition is genuinely qualified to be there. They don’t want to waste valuable rewards on a bunch of weaklings just because they happened to join the event during a less competitive year.”

“Makes sense I suppose. Why don’t they apply the same rules to the regional tournaments though?”

“The way our leaders see it, if you can’t even win a regional tournament, it’s not about luck – you’re simply not qualified to even enter the preliminaries of the void tournament.”

Percy creased his borrowed brow, pondering over the implications. If this had been his previous time possessing Kassorith, these rules would have probably screwed him. His host simply hadn’t been as strong as a Violet, and they had only managed to climb through the regional tournament by fully leveraging their advantages.

Thankfully, things were different now. Percy was sure that they were more than powerful enough to pass at least three of the five tests.

“How many contestants should we expect?”

“There are plenty of lesser springs in the Void Hand, but they don’t get to participate. Only ten regional champions qualify every year from the weaker greater springs, as well as fifty from each of the four founding worlds, for a total of around five hundred competitors from each grade. The actual number of participants fluctuates wildly since they’re not obligated to join immediately, but there are usually somewhere between three and seven hundred. Only a quarter of them typically make it to the second round, and they’re mostly from the founding worlds.”

Percy wasn’t sure whether to be happy about this or not. Just by passing a few tests he would leapfrog over as many as five hundred people, yet those who remained would be the best of the best.

“What about the second round?”

“You’ll be separated into eight groups, each containing fifteen to twenty-five participants. You’ll need to fight against everyone once, as well as compete in a couple of special contests, slowly amassing points over several weeks. Losing a single match won’t disqualify you, but you still need to win most of them, since only the top two performers will make it to the elimination round.”

This honestly sounded quite gruelling, though it was clearly another method that the organizers used to purge the element of luck from the competition.

Percy would have preferred not to spend several months in this tournament, yet he understood that it was ultimately a small price to pay given the opportunities that he would have access to.

“Are there any rewards for the first two rounds?” he couldn’t help but ask, some greed spilling into his voice.

“Of course. You are eligible for a single prize for getting through the preliminaries and another for making the top half of your group. There’s also a third reward for making the top two in your group. From then on, you get one more for each victory during the elimination rounds, not including the Void Decree.”

Percy was practically drooling by now, as was Kassorith and Micky. He didn’t think it would be easy to rank first in his group, but he would have to make it to second place at least if he wanted the Decree, in addition to winning an extra match after that.

This would earn him a minimum of four prizes!

Judging by how good the stuff on Thess’kala had been, he could hardly fathom what would be on offer this time. “Do you have any idea what sorts of things we can expect?”

Lanthaniel laughed. “Only the best stuff. You can claim Decrees from across the entire alliance, first-generation leaves, private bodyguards at the Clear grade, and exclusive rights to entire countries…”

Percy’s eyes widened as the list went on. It was possible to get demigods as bodyguards?! With a prize like that, Percy wouldn’t even have to worry about Machaon, nor anyone else on Remior!

Of course, he knew that most of these rewards weren’t applicable to him. Even if he could have claimed these bodyguards, he wasn’t shortsighted enough to waste his rewards on things that didn’t make him stronger. Still, just the idea that they were on the table was absurd.

‘I guess we’re going for leaves and Decrees?’ Micky asked, opting to include Kassorith in their conversation.

‘I think so.’ Percy nodded. ‘We’ll have to fish out the ones that we’re most likely to bring back home - I don’t know how many of those we’ll find – but if we can get them to affect both us and Kassorith at the same time, we might not have to take turns picking rewards like we did during the regional tournament.’

This was crazy.

After sending out so many clones, Percy had only ever gotten his hands on a total of six Decrees. Hell, he’d already had two of them before even leaving Remior, so he’d only found four during his travels.

They were among the most precious things out there, and yet Lanthaniel had just told him that he could potentially earn the same amount from a single competition – without even including its ultimate prize.

The leaves were a little trickier because Percy would have to share them with his host and could potentially earn them elsewhere, though they were too valuable to discard out of hand.

‘It’ll depend on what’s available and how many rewards we earn...’

Suffice to say, nobody was in the mood to resume training after that, so they spent the next few days talking about the prizes and outlining their requirements. Lanthaniel didn’t bother them at first, though he did eventually interrupt their daydreaming with a most anticipated message.

“We’re here.”