Percy wanted to study the new entry some more, but he could do that after commencing the second ritual, to save time. Getting out of the vat, he crafted a new container with Micky’s help, filling it with fresh seawater.

He wasn’t above dumping the contents of the last one in the ocean, since the toxins inside the liquid had been consumed by him already, leaving only blood and dried flakes of skin to feed the fishes. Still, releasing the stinky fluid in the sea was an unnecessary risk that could wait until Percy was fully done with the island.

Jumping into the new container, he repeated his previous actions, emptying the ingredients into the bath. Percy hadn’t bothered to brew new Green potions, thinking that even the Yellow ones were unnecessary at this point. Sure enough, the second round of purification began, this one already looking a great deal more manageable. There was no pain, swollen flesh or sickly colours – just the familiar cold and numbness that Kassorith had experienced, indicating that Percy’s body was better equipped to handle the transformation.

‘Hopefully that means that I’ll absorb more of the benefits this time,’ he thought.

Only once he had settled into what was going to be his seat for the next couple of days did Percy read the new entry again, focusing on the differences from his treacherous host’s.

___

* [Lesser Thess’kalan Physique] – Enhances one’s physical strength and the toughness of their body. Enhances one’s resistance to high or low temperatures and sharpens their thermal sense. Enhances one’s resistance to toxins.

___

The description was similar, except for a few missing “greatly”s before the verbs, suggesting that the effects of this lesser physique were modest – nothing too surprising.

‘Fingers crossed that I’ll get the full version by the time this is over.’

The second major change was the sentence pertaining to his resistance to toxins. If Percy wasn’t mistaken, Kassorith’s version had included a second part – something along the lines of “…and the potency of their venom.” Obviously, that wasn’t applicable to Percy at all, so his Status hadn’t included it.

However, what he found strange was the mention of a sharpened thermal sense – something that should have also not found its way into his body or his Status. Thinking about that, Percy’s heart skipped a beat. He couldn’t help but move his tongue around, trying to determine whether it still had the same shape as before – the last thing he needed was to end up with a forked tongue like a snake’s.

He relaxed upon failing to notice any obvious changes, sticking his tongue out of his mouth in an attempt to feel the temperature of his surroundings. Yet, he experienced nothing of the sort, other than a faint numbness caused by either the ritual or the cold air a few centimetres above the surface of the frigid water.

‘Weird… I wonder what that’s all about.’ Coming up with a different theory, he shifted his attention to his familiar. ‘Micky, can you move closer? I want to check something.’

Percy would rather not move around too much during the early parts of the ritual, to avoid diminishing his gains by mistake. The bird heeded his instructions, walking next to the side of the vat facing him. Thankfully, the container was shorter than a person since Percy had designed it with the expectation of remaining seated through the bath. Meanwhile, the crow stood at twice a man’s height – tall enough for Percy to scan much of the bird’s body.

Sure enough, he spotted a couple of things that he hadn’t noticed in the past. Outside of the silver and grey flames corresponding to Micky and the clone’s souls, the dense Green and Yellow mana permeating their cores and channels, the colourful plumage visible in Percy’s regular sight, and the ink-coloured threads of willpower coursing through the mana, there was something else that stood out.

Micky’s entire frame appeared darker than his surroundings, though a few spots were even darker than that. Namely, this applied to the patches of his body made of ice rather than flesh, the channels containing the three flavours of his ice mana, and the core in the bird’s abdomen, but not the one in his sternum. In other words, everything even tangentially related to Micky’s ice affinity was pitch black in some new part of Percy’s vision.

Unable to resist the temptation, Percy glanced down at his own body, noticing that his flesh sported a dark blue hue in this same new sense. It was a couple shades brighter than his familiar’s, but still rather dim. And he had the ritual to thank for that, no doubt.

‘Holy shit!’ the clone exclaimed, clearly having paid attention to the original throughout his investigation. ‘Is that what I think it is?’

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‘It has to be,’ Percy replied, a smile tugging at the corners of his lips.

His eyes had clearly inherited a form of thermal vision from the new mutation!

Percy wasn’t sure whether the bath had directly affected his eyes, or whether they had simply acquired this ability by interacting with the other mutation registered in his Status – as they usually did – but nothing else could explain this phenomenon.

‘Come to think of it, mutations seem to synergize a lot more with one another than spectral traits or blessings do.’

Granted, this was Percy’s first time having multiple mutations – having just acquired his second one – but his familiar had possessed several of them for years now, and this was something they had noticed a while ago. The four mutations in the crow’s body were deeply interwoven, with the crystalline feathers created by Ice Sculpture being even more compatible with the Wind Dancer mutation than the regular ones, and the Soul Predator mutation having already spread to nearly every corner of Micky’s body. In fact, Percy was confident that Ice Sculpture wouldn’t have even been possible without Thin Blood and Soul Predator.

Compared to that, spectral traits didn’t seem to tolerate each other nearly as well, with each absorbed fiend bringing Percy to the verge of death. If it hadn’t been for the blessing, he wouldn’t have even been able to acquire a second trait. As for the blessings themselves, there wasn’t any way for two of them to coexist in a mortal’s core – at least according to Zoris.

‘I wonder what will happen if I keep gaining new mutations…’

There didn’t seem to be an upper limit to the number he could have at once. And it appeared that the more he obtained, the stronger they would all become. Perhaps, they might all merge eventually, giving rise to something special. Of course, Percy would have tried to get his hands on more mutations anyway, since each of them was useful by itself, but now he had another reason to seek them out.

His future goals aside, he was extremely happy with his new thermal sense. His Status clearly didn’t think much of it, having not even bothered to change the name of Percy’s eyes this time. It wasn’t that strange, since thermal vision was arguably less useful than Mana Sense, Soul Vision, or the ability to perceive willpower. It wouldn’t necessarily help him much in a high-level battle, as it wasn’t easy to lay his eyes on an opponent’s body directly, and there were often many elements obscuring one’s temperature.

Alchemy was a different story, however. While Percy’s ability to see willpower had been useless while brewing, the ability to scan the temperature of a concoction would aid him greatly when dissolving the solid lumps, accelerating the reactions and improving his yield.

‘I can’t wait to put all of my recent gains into practice and see how much I can improve,’ he thought, though he immediately quashed the rising enthusiasm with a deep sigh. Alchemy would have to wait until after the mission to the Fungal Spire.

Other than his mutated eyes, Percy guessed his body had grown far stronger and hopefully more flexible, and that he could now handle Micky’s ice mana a little better. Sadly, he couldn’t test any of those things until the ritual ended, since he could hardly feel his limbs right now.

With nothing else to do, he waited for another two days to pass, occasionally tossing some food and healing potions into his stomach to undo the damage from the first bath. By the end of the final day, Percy received the notification he’d been waiting for.

[Congratulations! Your mutation has evolved: Lesser Thess’kalan Physique - Greater Thess’kalan Physique!]

As soon as the stinky bathwater stopped bubbling entirely, Percy stretched his limbs inside the vat, realizing he could move again. Getting out of the container, he carefully peeled the outer layer of dead skin off – the slimy, purple remnants of the first ritual that he hadn’t bothered to remove two days prior – revealing the healthy skin beneath. Percy had tanned a lot after spending months under the sun, but the new skin was a couple shades paler – unmarred and unblemished, like a newborn’s.

Throwing a couple of punches in the air, he noticed to his great joy that he was faster than before, his fists causing booming shockwaves that no Yellow human should’ve been capable of. Percy’s joints felt like they could bend and twist a little farther, filling him with confidence that he could handle his Third Parade now.

‘With the Carnival and a Yellow trollsfury tattoo, there shouldn’t be a problem…’

Asking his clone to pump some soul-freezing ice into his channels, Percy soon discovered that the exotic resource didn’t bother him nearly as much as it used to. He’d likely be able to unleash multiple Needles in a row without any additional downtime. Finally, even his new thermal sense felt a bit sharper than it had before the second bath.

Summoning and wearing his Cloak, he hopped on Micky’s neck, asking his familiar to dump the vats and the pieces of the crystalline dome into the ocean before taking off. At the same time, Percy pulled up his Status, reading the modified entry.

___

* [Greater Thess’kalan Physique] – Greatly enhances one’s physical strength and the toughness of their body. Greatly enhances one’s resistance to high or low temperatures and sharpens their thermal sense. Greatly enhances one’s resistance to toxins.

___

The three “greatly”s were back with a vengeance, the entry now reading almost the same as his former host’s – save for the missing part about his venom. Perhaps, one of his future mutations might unlock that facet of his physique as well, though Percy didn’t care about it too strongly.

Shrugging, he had the crow turn westward again, flying straight toward the Fungal Spire.

Taking his cauldron out, Percy set it on the bird’s head, tossing a few doses of trollsfury ink and some gravity ingredients in. He hoped to get himself some new tattoos by the time they neared their destination, certain that he possessed the means to both brew them and handle them far better than ever before.

The past couple of years had been tough, but he and his familiar had achieved everything they’d set out to do. They were finally ready to commence one of their most important missions, the sleeping remnants of an entire civilization resting on their shoulders. There was no doubt in Percy’s mind that many powerful mages would try to stop them, but he welcomed the challenge with open arms.