The Lone Wanderer

Chapter 632 – Anticipation

Percy’s curiosity got the better of him, so he pretended to move away from the group of chatting Denytes while secretly scanning them with his Sage’s Pond. The aliens noticed him too, though they didn’t seem nearly as interested in him as he was in them, exuding an air of haughtiness as they continued their conversation.

Perhaps it was somewhat unusual for a member of a lesser faction to perform as well as Kassorith had, but anyone paying attention would have expected him to do a little better than the average Thess’kalan.

They’d all seen him escorted to the space station by a god from a different race, and it was obvious that this wouldn’t have happened if Percy’s host hadn’t been at least somewhat talented. Still, after glancing at the three unlit corners on Kassorith’s pin and the one that had dimmed after the mana assessment, the Denytes clearly didn’t think that he posed much of a threat to them.

Regardless, Percy didn’t care about their opinion. Slithering away as casually as he could, he carefully studied the Denytes while they were still within his range. His host and Micky didn’t stop him either, probably being equally interested in their prospective rivals.

It wasn’t all that surprising that those with a pair of Blue cores had managed to light up the seventh circle in so many assessments. For their second core to have caught up to their first, they must have earned the Void Decree over a decade ago at a minimum, meaning that they had been dominating the top brackets of the tournament for years. That would suggest that they’d already earned most of the powerful Decrees that were available in the prize pool, stacking the odds heavily in their favour.

‘Well, unless they’re Green-borns I suppose, but that doesn’t seem to be the case,’ Percy concluded.

His ability to tell a person’s age from the fluctuations of their soul had always been weaker while inhabiting a body than while navigating the space between worlds, but it had improved greatly with experience and his recent sensory upgrades. Percy was pretty sure that these people were over a century old, except for the one that had piqued his interest.

Of course, that person wasn’t a child either, but there was no doubt that they were a newcomer to the competition. Percy figured that she was female, as her build was lither and more feminine than even the other Denytes – who didn’t exactly look like the manliest bunch themselves. To her credit, the woman’s gaze didn’t seem as arrogant or disdainful as that of her people, though it was just as cold and impassive.

For her to perform so well in the assessments with a single core and most Decrees probably missing, she had to be a prodigy even by the Void Hand’s standards. Based on the reverent looks her compatriots gave her despite being her seniors by several decades, Percy grew surer of his guess.

‘Interesting… I wonder what makes her so strong…’ Percy thought, examining her more closely.

She had a rare affinity – that much was obvious. Initially, he’d mistakenly thought that she was bald, but a careful inspection had revealed that her hair was simply transparent – something that Percy had learned to associate with the time and gravity affinities.

These weren’t mana types that he encountered often, though he’d still run into both a bunch of times over the years, so he could tell that something about the way her hair looked was off. Light appeared to slow down as it passed through the magical mane, the scene it revealed appearing to lag a couple of seconds behind what was actually happening.

‘A time affinity with a blessing?’ Kassorith wondered. ‘Add an ancestral Decree and a half decent bloodline into the mix, and I can definitely see how she managed to perform so well.’

Percy nodded in agreement, suddenly feeling a surge of anticipation inside his borrowed chest. He wished to meet this person on the arena.

It might not be great for his odds in the competition, but he couldn’t help his curiosity. He’d fought many difficult battles during his life, yet he couldn’t recall ever coming across somebody with as much potential as him, except maybe for Gabe. Most of his opponents had only managed to push him to his limits due to having a massive advantage in age, experience, birth grade, or usually all three.

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The female Denyte was different.

Right now, she was still weaker than Percy’s main body – or well… not really, but she wasn’t jumping as many grades as him – but what if she were to obtain the Void Decree and a bunch of others from the prize pool?

If she happened to awaken another rare affinity and her people managed to get her a Ring of Sacrilege for it, she might even become a paragon herself – a leading figure in the alliance that was no less talented than Percy.

Alas, sparring against her with a borrowed body wasn’t going to scratch his itch. Perhaps they would have a chance to duke it out for real one day.

‘Have you guys noticed that all the two-cored people that we’ve seen so far have a rare mana type in their abdomen?’ Micky suddenly asked, breaching a new topic.

‘Huh?’ Percy was taken aback. As a matter of fact, he hadn’t noticed anything of the sort. Thinking back to all the people with the Void Decree that he had encountered over the past couple of days, he tried to recall their affinities.

He hadn’t paid attention to all of them, partly because only the Denytes openly broadcasted their mana types on their heads like this, and partly because Percy hadn’t realized that there was something fishy going on. Still, the more he thought about it, the more he agreed that his friend might be onto something.

‘You don’t think…?!’ he asked back with a gasp.

It was too much of a coincidence for this to be random, but wasn’t the Void Decree supposed to be a pale imitation of the Moirais’ Decree that was riddled with flaws? Did these people actually have a way of choosing what affinity they awakened?!

If that were true, the Void Decree would be a hundred times more valuable than Percy had initially thought.

‘It sounds difficult to believe, but I don’t know how else to explain it,’

Kassorith said, clearly on the same page.‘Maybe it’s not exactly like that. It’s possible it only grants a pure affinity and they use rare affinity-granting treasures to upgrade it,’ Micky suggested, offering a viable alternative while obviously trying very hard to avoid any mention of Huehue in the Thess’kalan’s presence.

‘Could be, but that’s more or less the same thing when it comes to a peak faction like the Void Hand,’ Percy pointed out.

Rare treasures were almost impossible to get for anyone else, but an alliance of this size could definitely afford to give a few to their top talents. Wouldn’t that make this more of a boon than a drawback of the Decree?

It just didn’t make sense.

Percy didn’t think that the rumours about the shortcomings of the Void Decree were false. Metatron had made it very clear how difficult it was to cast such a powerful collaborative Decree. Unless the Void Hand had somehow fixed it in the past decade or so without anybody learning about it, there had to be some other severe problem that they weren’t aware of.

‘Both things could be true at once, I guess,’ Micky responded with a mental shrug. ‘It’s possible that the Void Decree as a whole is inferior to the Moirais’ while still having an advantage over it. In any case, there’s only one way to know for sure.’

Percy nodded, his borrowed mouth drying as a spark of greed flared up in his host’s eyes. All thoughts of testing himself against the female Denyte instantly sank to the bottom of his list of priorities, his mind now occupied solely by the alluring promise of a third mana core.

Before anybody had a chance to say anything else, they were interrupted by the attendant.

“There you are!” the female Maradorian said as she reached them, sounding slightly out of breath. “Congratulations on passing the first round of the tournament!” she added, her face beaming.

“Ugh… thanks?” Percy replied in his host’s stead while awkwardly scratching the back of his head.

He found it difficult to get too excited about his performance after falling short of his goals for the first round. Judging from the sincerity on the woman’s expression, however, she clearly thought differently.

Perhaps, she hadn’t even imagined him keeping up with those from the founding factions. Percy keenly remembered his host telling him that his people never made it past the preliminaries in the void tournament, so even getting this far had to be quite the achievement for a Thess’kalan.

“What’s wrong? You don’t look very happy,” the attendant said with a frown. “You should be very proud of yourself after lighting up the seventh circle in any of the tests.”

“Yeah… I suppose that you’re right,” Percy conceded, forcing the corners of Kassorith’s lips to curl up slightly.

“I know of a great way to cheer you up,” the Maradorian insisted with a chuckle. “Are you looking forward to claiming your first reward from the prize pool?”

Hearing her question, Percy’s awkward smile gave way to a far more genuine one. The orange-skinned woman sure knew how to get a participant’s blood boiling.

“Now you’re speaking my language. Please lead the way.”