NOVEL NEXT Chapter 428 – Conflict
Whenever Percy powered up – be it through a trait, a mutation or a spell – he was usually eager to explore his new limits.
Not this time.
After gulping down a few healing potions to patch up the scratches on his skin and relieve the worst of his fatigue, he took a break for a couple of days. This was one of those rare moments when he genuinely wished he could still sleep. It wouldn't have accelerated his recovery or anything – the whole point of the Insomnia trait was that it gave him the benefits of resting while awake. Yet, sleep would have helped him ignore the lingering ache in his soul.
Alas, he'd never bothered learning how to overcome the trait's influence.
Worse still, his missing clones returned one by one during his downtime, each drop-kicking new memories into his already throbbing mind and exacerbating the damage to his soul. Percy wasn't in a rush to replace them either, opting to give himself a chance to fully recover first – his sanity demanded it.
The silver lining? Micky had fared a lot better. Leaving aside his short-lived flying accident, the crow hadn't had much trouble hauling Percy on his back and resuming their travels mere minutes after the operation. Not that it mattered – even after everything, they'd yet to spot any sign of their enemies.
It wasn't until a week later that Percy finally felt ready to test his new capabilities.
After drinking his morning doses of Aurora Dew and deploying a fresh trio of clones on interstellar expeditions, he paused for a moment to admire the sunrise. This wasn't the kind of view people on Remior got to see often, so Percy tried to claim small victories like this whenever he could. Light spilled over the ocean, painting the horizon in vibrant hues that bled sky into water.
'Being on the run has its perks, doesn't it?' he asked with a chuckle.
'Sure does,' Micky replied, gleefully scooping up a large fish dumb enough to swim close to the surface.
They didn't know what it was called, but it was a decent catch. The poor creature was large enough that it barely fit inside Micky's oversized talon. It squirmed desperately, trying to break free from the crow's iron grip.
Its Red core wouldn't do much for the familiar, but it did pack a lot of meat – it would make for a fine breakfast even shared between them. Not feeling like eating dried rations today, Percy took a few minutes to grill his portion on a construct adorned with heating enchantments. As for Micky, he was more than happy to eat the fish raw.
Once they were done sharing the peaceful meal, the crow resumed working on his boosting art, as Percy finally took a grey slab from his spatial seal. He'd forged the reinforced construct before acquiring his blessing, but the material had subtly changed colours over time, darkening after repeatedly drinking his phantom mana during its maintenance.
'Let's start simple… I can play with the silk later. Assuming it's even survived the past week…' he thought, scratching the back of his head.
Not wasting any more time, he gathered some mana to his finger, carving a concealment rune into the slab's smooth surface.
Percy was rusty. He hadn't focused on runecrafting that much over the past few months. Still, his current task was easy enough that he completed it without issue – and without noticing any changes to his soul.
'Try something a little more challenging,' Zoris advised. 'The trait won't show itself if you're just messing around.'
Nodding, Percy poured his mana into the self-repair enchantment on the back of his trusty learning aide, rapidly erasing the concealment rune on the front. Then, he decided to draw a different symbol – this time going for one of the most intricate pseudo-enchantments he'd carved onto his armour.
That was when it happened.
The moment he pictured the elaborate shape in his mind and pressed his finger against the slab, he felt his soul squirm. His hand moved by itself, carving the complicated symbol with unnatural precision. Even better, mana seemed to gush out of his cores on its own, mixing and providing a steady flow of ink for his finger to work with.
Realizing that the process didn't require any conscious input from him, Percy spared a fleeting glance into his body. The grey silhouette of his soul had shifted, the same otherworldly patterns that had adorned it during the fiend's torturous absorption having appeared once more.
'Close your eyes,' the former god suggested.
At first, Percy creased his brow, thinking this was a bit much. Still, he followed the elder's advice in the end – it wasn't like he had anything to lose. Even without him watching, his finger continued uninterrupted, tracing the runes' contours with ease.
Percy felt like an outside observer in his own body, almost getting the sense that his hand would keep going even if somebody chopped it off. Though he knew it wasn't like that at all. He was still deeply connected to the process – perhaps even more so than before. He could tell exactly how much of the enchantment he had drawn and how much was still missing.
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'Fascinating… this might be more useful than I thought it would be…' Percy realized.
He'd been disappointed to hear that the trait wouldn't help him infuse the effects into his runes. However, he may have vastly underestimated how valuable the ability to draw them effortlessly would be.
Not having to waste time worrying about getting the symbols right was huge – it would let him concentrate fully on the second part, indirectly allowing him to draw much more complex enchantments. Even out of practice as he was, he felt confident he could stick an extra control rune onto all of them in a couple of hours. That said, he didn't have any interest in upgrading his equipment right now. He'd rather wait for all the chips to fall into place.
'Let's try this with the silk.'
Resetting the slab, Percy stashed it away before bringing out a piece of grey shaft wrapped in threads that shimmered with the same colour. After weeks of spinning and another spent in storage, the material wasn't looking good. It had stiffened and frayed in places, breaking here and there even under his careful touch. Thankfully, he still managed to salvage a few long segments in decent enough condition to work with.
Selecting one of the better strands, he wove it into a square patch, sewing a single rune into it – a preserved handkerchief. Like before, the enchantment had been way too simple to trigger the Scribing trait's instincts, yet the Weaving trait was a different story. Tapping into his memories from Bogside town, Percy channelled his inner tailor, countless tiny limbs sprouting over his fingers to help him along.
Weaving the silk into clothes was arguably the easiest part of the project – something even a regular person could accomplish. At the very least, it couldn't be compared to the arduous experimentation that had gone into developing the material – a Masterful spell in its own right – or the months Percy had spent learning to mass-produce it.
Percy knew that he could upgrade his Phantomscale Regalia in a day if he wanted.
By keeping the same modular approach as before and simply replacing the components with cloth equivalents, he would be able to craft something just as strong, yet much lighter and more flexible. In fact, its decreased bulk would probably let him add an extra layer or two, making the final product stronger and packed with more enchantments.
But he didn't want to do that.
Half-assing the final step would only be a disservice to all the effort he'd already put into this. No. If he was going to do this, he'd do it the right way. Percy wanted to weave the whole thing out of a single strip of cloth, and he was also planning to massively overhaul the very way in which he drew his runes.
Eager to try something more ambitious, Percy grabbed another piece of string, beginning work on a second handkerchief. This time, he decided to go with the same pseudo-enchantment as before, knowing it would trigger the Scribing trait.
Yet, that was just the start.
Sewing the runes after the fact like he'd just done was no different to how he normally engraved them into his armour. That wouldn't cut it. Percy wanted to work them directly into the weave itself – to make them an integral part of the structure. He knew this would not only let him fit even more of them in a tighter space, but that the enchantments would exert an even stronger influence onto the material.
Two traits stirred within his soul this time, as Percy focused on both his desire to produce a structurally sound fabric, and a flawless enchantment. For now, he ignored the actual effects of the runes, his priority being to get the construct right.
That was when he ran into a new problem.
Separate instincts tugged at his thoughts, pulling him in opposite directions. Whenever his fingers moved away from the runes' elaborate shapes to strengthen the seam, his Scribing trait recoiled in disgust. The ever-shifting patterns on his soul grew more erratic, shoving the Argalios's limbs aside. Whenever Percy gave in to his new trait's demands instead – compromising the quality of the fabric to improve the enchantments – it was the Weaving trait that protested.
Walking on a tightrope between the two impulses, Percy tried to keep the peace within his soul – without much success.
Eventually, the traits seemed to lose their patience entirely. More appendices and engraved patterns spawned on his soul, covering the rest of his hands and part of his forearms. Thankfully, they stopped at his elbows, but Percy didn't like where this was going.
Sure enough, the two traits attacked one another almost immediately, beginning their battle anew. Luckily, the pain wasn't worth mentioning compared to a week prior, and the Insomnia trait hadn't deigned to join in. Still, Percy found it impossible to focus on the handkerchief like this.
'What the hell?! Is this going to happen every time I do this?'
Zoris sighed.
'With practice, you'll learn how to navigate the space between the two traits. Don't look so disappointed though… this is ultimately a good thing.'
Percy frowned.
'Good? How?'
'What you are experiencing is known as a spectral conflict. It occurs when two or more traits overstep in each other's territory. Naturally, they're not going to be happy about it, but you'll be able to compound their benefits once you resolve the conflict.'
Seeing him remain silent, the god continued.
'Think of it this way. Each trait grants you skills that cross into the supernatural. That said, a sufficiently talented craftsman might be able to accomplish similar feats even without the traits. After all, there's only so much you can do with a piece of string or a blob of ink – very few tasks are challenging enough to truly push a fiend's abilities to their limit. But what happens when you have two of them battling it out for control?'
'The difficulty spikes, I guess?' Percy asked back, once he realized Zoris's question wasn't a rhetorical one.
'Indeed. The difficulty spikes. And with it, the potential you can pull out of your traits spikes too. It's like a new field – the intersection of tailoring and runecrafting – that nobody but you is even qualified to study… Well, you and everyone else with the same combination of traits, of course…'
Percy nodded, suddenly feeling a lot more optimistic about his ongoing project. There were still a few areas to improve on of course – such as learning to spin the silk even faster, teaching his traits to behave, and incorporating the new runes once the clone on Nesha's side was done – but he was confident about one thing:
'Once I'm done upgrading the Regalia, I'll have a second Masterful spell on par with the Carnival…'