After filling his second core up, Percy revelled in his new strength for a few minutes.

Activating his boosting art, he exhaled in relief upon sensing the restored balance between his affinities. The first thing he did was try to combine Synchronization with the Dance. Like before, each instance of the boosting art strengthened his body and soul, allowing him to push its counterpart just a little farther, until the spells reached a higher ceiling.

Only, this time, it was the Dance he was using – not just Circulation – so the effect was even more pronounced. His muscles swelled and his veins bulged, his skin reddening like a ripe tomato, before tearing in many spots as blood seeped through. Over the years, he had grown a lot more accustomed to Synchronization, but he had fallen a bit out of touch recently, and the twin Dance ravaged his body more violently than ever before.

Even when he’d used the trollsfury potion in the past, it hadn’t been this bad. If it wasn’t for the passive boosts to his physique due to his promotions, he was sure his flesh would have already exploded in a rain of blood and gore.

The silver and cyan lines pulsed alongside his cores, an audible humming sound reaching his ears as his very bones creaked with each violent thrum. The external flows intensified this time, the silver wisps growing larger and faster, the cyan ribbons longer and more erratic. A teal mist formed on its own around him, spinning like a faint hurricane as it dragged colossal amounts of ambient mana from his surroundings.

He tried to move.

Even the slightest shift sent a painful jolt through both his body and soul, causing him to wince in agony.

‘We can’t have this. I won’t be able to fight… I need to get used to it by the end of the week.’

Waiting this long was a risk they’d been forced to take out of sheer necessity, as Elaine wasn’t confident she could fight five Blues by herself. Even four of them were potentially too many, but there was nothing more they could do. They certainly couldn’t afford to delay any longer, lest they gave the new set of guards the chance to start advancing.

Sighing, Percy willed his mana to fuse, causing the teal mist around him to expand. Stuffing it into the ribbons and the wisps, he changed their colours, as the teal lines spread from his extremities to his cores. Fusing his mana was easier than ever before. Not only did his higher grade improve his control, his affinities were finally balanced again.

The teal colour stopped mere inches from his cores, before abruptly shifting into the corresponding mana types. This unwanted conversion clearly wasn’t without its losses, though that might be a good thing at the moment, as his cores inadvertently relieved some of the pressure in his channels by robbing the fused mana of some of its properties.

‘Okay, this is workable for now.’

It wasn’t perfect. Ideally, he didn’t want his cores to as much as touch his fused mana. His ultimate goal was to fully saturate both cores and the two sets of channels with teal mana – down to the last drop. Eventually, he’d have to rid the spell of this flaw. But this was acceptable as far as his fight with Acton was concerned. He was probably at around 95% of his full strength right now, which should be good enough. Closing the remaining gap was likely just a matter of repetition.

Over the next few days, he resumed sparring with Elaine, causing her to exert herself a little more than before. At the same time, Nesha roamed the area – at least the places Micky said were safe, planting more of her traps wherever she could. They didn’t know where the eventual battle would be fought – it would depend on the Holy Children’s movements – so they wanted to prepare multiple possible battlefields around the Valley.

Other than his spell upgrades, Percy worked on a few other things.

He verified his latest promotion allowed him to create another clone, bringing the total number of ethereal cords to three. This wasn’t his first attempt this year either, since he’d tried it once before, back when his first core reached Yellow.

And it had worked. Sort of. Much like it had been during his first couple of years in the Guild, creating a second clone had given him regular headaches and fits of disorientation. He had kept losing control of his body, his mind drifting into Micky’s as he struggled to retain his sense of self.

Luckily, this was no longer a problem now that his second core had caught up.

Suffice to say, Percy had already collected enough data to determine with certainty how his bloodline scaled with his grade. Essentially, each promotion seemed to boost his capacity by about half a clone. It wasn’t much, but both of his cores appeared to contribute, at least.

With a single Red core, he hadn’t been able to use his ability at all.

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At Orange, he had managed to send out his first clone.

With a second Red core, he had managed to have two cords at once, but not without issues.

With two Orange cores, the second cord had stabilized.

And now this.

He couldn’t help but envy his relatives a little. Their version scaled exponentially, while his own did so linearly. And the rate was quite punishing in his case too. They got to triple their capacity with each promotion, while he only got a measly half a cord…

Then again, he knew he shouldn’t be complaining. The others only produced mindless flesh dummies, while he got to create semi-independent versions of himself, snatching Decrees and mutations, and Rings of Sacrilege from everywhere.

On that topic, Percy hadn’t stopped trying to internalize the blessing either. He didn’t do it while he fought, as the augmented mana wouldn’t help him. It would only waste his reserves for no reason, putting him at a disadvantage.

But he kept at it whenever he was idle.

Running his boosting art all day long, he tried to not only familiarize himself with the spells, but to accelerate the blessing’s integration, much like Zoris had advised him to do.

In fact, after watching him experiment with the ethereal cords, the former god had shared some more information with him. He had told him this was very likely an area where the blessing would help. While he couldn’t be certain until they tested it, he was confident the concept of permanence would increase Percy’s capacity further!

By how much, Zoris had no idea, but the revelation had caused Percy’s heart to skip a beat. Even a single extra cord would be massive, though he was secretly hoping for a little more than that. From that point on, he looked at the ring with even more greed, eager to experience the countless benefits it would bring him.

And he did

feel a little different, as the constant flow of grey mana through his core seemed to have left something behind. It was faint, and it wasn’t nearly done yet, but he had already noticed some mild aftereffects even when he wasn’t directly using the ring. Zoris told him this was only to be expected, as the concept had already begun to rub off on his core. The effect would be subtle for now. And temporary, until the process was complete.

In any case, this would only matter if they managed to survive the upcoming battle, so Percy didn’t want to get too excited about it.

Instead, he thought about how he could leverage his new cord to possibly give his side an advantage. He hadn’t sent out any new clones since Melodia, because there wasn’t much of a point. Even if they found something interesting, they didn’t have time to stay away for long. They’d have to be back within days – from their perspective – as Percy needed one free clone to make sure Micky flew away from Acton at the start of the battle.

As for the new cord…

Well, one option was to possess one of the Green beasts in the Valley, giving his team an extra combatant. It wasn’t that great of an idea though. Even if he could convince one of the creatures to throw its life away for the second time, its impact on the battle would be minimal. At most, it would keep one of the Green guards busy for a few minutes.

A better choice – and the one they would most likely go with – was to possess one of the girls again. The clone wouldn’t be able to do much with his limited stash, nor would his main body have any mana to spare on him. But he should at least be able to fit one of his companions with a set of armour, raising their survivability a little.

Elaine was the most important person in the group. If anyone else died, the survivors might still make it through. If Elaine died, they were all done for. That said, he had decided to give the second set of armour to his girlfriend instead, since he figured it would be more impactful in a fight between Greens than one between Blues.

With everything figured out, Percy spent the last couple of days reforging his constructs – both his own and Nesha’s. He’d grown a little rusty over the years, as runecrafting was an area he hadn’t focused much on during his stay in the Valley – other than replacing a piece of his armour here and there.

Luckily, his improved control over his mana coupled with his sharper senses and clearer mind allowed him to get back into it fairly quickly. His reinforced mana was even stronger than before. The teal powder didn’t change between grades – it was the same whether it was crystallized by a Red or a Violet, the only thing changing being the quantity they condensed. But the soft mana did, elevating the mixture to the next level.

He forged two sets of armour, one adjusted to Nesha’s proportions and circumstances. She obviously didn’t need the vents, as she couldn’t use the Shroud, nor the Dance, thus Percy had focused on maximizing its structural integrity, since his clone wouldn’t be able to spare as much mana for the enchantments.

Percy prepared a few dozen scythes too. While he could replicate them during the battle, he didn’t want to risk his only weapon getting broken before he managed to copy it, thus having to fight a Blue unarmed. He had Nesha hide a few of the Harvesters underground while she spread her traps around the Valley. Hopefully, Percy wouldn’t need to rely on these, but it didn’t hurt to have some spares available.

On the eve of the battle, he asked Elaine to renew the tattoos on his body one last time. In the end, they had never needed to use them during their stay in the Valley, and they wouldn’t do much for Nesha or Elaine at this point, as their recent advancements had already rendered them obsolete.

Percy could still possibly benefit – just about – though the effect was bound to be greatly muted. Still, it should give him a helpful nudge if the fight was close. Consuming several doses of the brown trollsfury ink, he had Elaine draw a massive tattoo shaped like the troll king’s face on his back. With this much, it was bound to do something. She also drew a long, winding vine along his right arm, each of its green leaves representing a dose of healing ink. Having consumed a dozen vials for that too, it should also be rather handy.

With that, he had two more trump cards to pull in a pinch.

As Elaine worked on his tattoos, Percy prepared two clones, sending one to his familiar and the other to Nesha, before handing her the armour. The last thing they did was to take turns resting, ensuring that everyone was in perfect condition before engaging their enemies.

And on the next day, they coordinated with the crow to approach their targets when they were the most tired.

It was finally here.

The moment they had spent over a decade working towards…