NOVEL NEXT Chapter 440 – Regional tournament
'Wow… it looks like there's more I can accomplish with my traits than I originally thought…'
It wasn't like Percy had slacked back home. He had already incorporated his new ability into his runecrafting, elevating it to the next level. As soon as his clone had returned from Twilight City, his main body had quickly upgraded his Superior Runic Grid – the Refined spell he had developed with Nesha's help – into a Masterful Spectral Art.
He hadn't added any new enchantments, largely because he didn't know any. He hadn't been in a rush to return to the Vault and buy more either. However, he had managed to shrink the palm-sized, clover-shaped unit cells further. Their current iteration was small enough to fit on a fingernail, meaning that he could probably include more than ten thousand of them on a single layer of his new armour – once he finished crafting it.
Since the eventual piece of enchanted cloth was bound to contain multiple layers, and due to each unit cell involving eighteen runes, the final construct would probably include over a million runes in total! It was a daunting project, requiring him to find the right balance between his two traits – a goal that Percy's main body was still working on. Changing his approach slightly, he had decided to spin the silk directly into an enchanted fabric, as it was the only way to preserve the material long enough to reach the end.
That said, the fundamental way in which he drew the runes hadn't changed.
Whether he carved them into his reinforced mana or wove them out of the grey silk, Percy had always prepared the enchantments slowly, putting great care into every single line – every stroke of his runes. Speed and simplicity had never been a priority, because he usually had as much time as he needed to prepare his constructs before a fight.
'Well, I suppose not having a domain didn't make things easier for me in the past,' he reminded himself.
He couldn't wield his mana with as much finesse as he could his willpower in a Blue body, so stamping finished enchantments into his constructs would have been nothing but a pipedream.
'Colour me impressed,' Kassorith suddenly said, snapping Percy out of his thoughts. 'I won't ask you how you've accomplished this, but it's still not enough – a couple of runes won't make a difference. Hell, even if you cover the sword in enchantments, a single weapon can't get us through the tournament…'
Percy nodded, his brain already racing at a hundred miles an hour as he considered how to best leverage his new spell. The most powerful enchantment he could currently produce was naturally his Supreme Runic Matrix. Unfortunately, even with the ability to imprint a rune – or a bunch of them – in an instant, it would take him several hours to enchant a single sword. There was no way an opponent would give them that long – certainly not one as powerful as a Violet.
'I'll have to simplify the unit cell a lot, and draw much fewer of them…'
His host didn't need concealment runes. His metal mana couldn't turn invisible anyway, and all of their opponents would be skilled at using their domains. Adaptation runes weren't necessary either, since they weren't planning to use any mana types other than Kassorith's. Finally, Percy could probably ditch the preservation runes too. He'd have to destroy all the constructs at the end of each battle anyway, to reduce the risk of somebody recognizing the Vault's language. Kassorith hadn't said anything about it, but Percy didn't know if the spectators at the tournament would be more knowledgeable.
This was a greater spring, after all.
In any case, all of Percy's other runes would be useful here. The sharpness, lightness and structural integrity enchantments were the key to improving the constructs – the whole point of this project. The controlled self-repair enchantments were also indispensable, as Percy and Kassorith would be relying on them to replicate their empowered weapons. That way, Percy would only have to enchant a single sword, and that would instantly give them the means to produce a hundred of them.
'Actually, I might only need a piece of a sword…' he realized.
Once again, he was being led astray by his preconceived notions. He was used to his own reinforced mana which was much more difficult to work with – Percy had to give it the right shape before enchanting it, and he couldn't easily alter it afterwards.
But Kassorith's mana was a lot more uniform and malleable. In theory, Percy should be able to draw a few unit cells on a piece of the blade, using the self-repair enchantments to create more copies. Then, he could deactivate the enchantments to reset their memory, turn the edges of the fragments liquid to fuse them together, tweak the lump of metal into a proper sword, and then reactivate the runes to memorize the new shape.
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'I might be able to draw a somewhat dense grid after all…'
It wouldn't be nearly as dense as what he was trying to do with his silk, but he could still fit dozens of unit cells on each construct. The sharpness, lightness and structural integrity enchantments would be fine without control runes too, so each unit cell would only need a total of eight runes – fewer than half of the original. That should make them even easier for Percy to prepare in real time.
The only downside was that they wouldn't be able to fuel the swords out of ambient mana without the Carnival. Kassorith would have to manually pour mana from his own core into the weapons every time he wanted to repair or replicate them. It wasn't ideal, but it was more than manageable.
'I can do this in stages. There's no reason to draw all the unit cells at once.'
Percy could probably prepare a coarse grid within twenty to thirty seconds, giving Kassorith a template to use for a few minutes. At the same time, Percy could slowly fill in the gaps with even more runes, passing his host progressively stronger versions of the longsword in regular intervals. Once he couldn't improve them any further, Percy would be free to jump into the fight with his domain, giving the Blue one final trump card.
Having to slowly build up power over the course of the battle wasn't great – especially while getting besieged by a Violet-level mage. However, it was already a miracle Percy had found a method to strengthen his host in such a short time, and with his hands practically tied behind his back.
He doubted he'd find another.
'It sounds promising,' Kassorith admitted after listening to Percy's explanation. 'If the runes are as potent as you claim, the elder in charge of the evaluation might give us the trim. But I'm more worried about the tournament. I don't know if our opponents will give us a chance to prepare – especially after they learn about the runes.'
'We'll figure it out. Try to win the first battle with that attack you showed me earlier. We won't reveal our second domain until the next fight. And we'll hide the runes until the one after. Then, I guess you'll just have to keep your distance from them to buy time for me.'
Admittedly, this wasn't the best plan, but Kassorith was faster than most Blues. Percy hoped that would be enough.
'What's the deal with that tournament anyway? Why does your master want you to participate so badly?'
'These regional tournaments are pretty important for my people. There are generous rewards for every victory – for both the participants and their sects. It's also a great way to gain fame and prestige.'
Percy perked up. This sounded like a bigger deal than he'd initially thought.
'Do we have to compete against mages from all over Thess'kala though? How does Syrreneth expect us to make the top sixteen?'
'It'll be really tough, but not impossible,' Kassorith said, before elaborating. 'The competitions are segregated by grade, so we'll only have to fight against other Blues. We have over a million of those on our world, but only about fifty thousand are elite disciples. And only a tenth of them are truly deserving of their status. The rest won't even consider joining.'
Percy swallowed hard. He wasn't sure if they even had five thousand regular Blues on Remior, let alone ones capable of fighting Violets. Not to mention that Thess'kala had over a hundred thousand actual Violets.
But his host wasn't done. 'The good news is that they're not all competing at the same venue. There are ten regional tournaments happening at the same time, so we'll only have to deal with five hundred elite disciples at most. Not even that, in fact, since many are training in seclusion, are out on missions, or otherwise occupied. It's an elimination-style tournament, so there will only be a total of eight rounds if we're lucky. And we'll make the top sixteen if we win four times in a row.'
Percy frowned. Their odds weren't terrible, but defeating the equivalent of four Violets wasn't going to be easy.
'That bastard… was that why he was smirking?' he wondered, thinking back to Syrreneth's expression.
The Violet had set him up, probably not expecting him to meet his demands. Either way, Syrreneth and Kassorith had nothing to lose. As long as Percy got his host a trim and won a couple of rounds in the tournament, the Broken Fang Sect would get showered in rewards – as would the Blue's master.
As for Percy reaching the top sixteen and earning himself a leaf?
Even on the off-chance he succeeded, the rewards the Violet would earn would probably be more valuable than the life-extending consumable. However, the elder had gravely miscalculated. For one, Percy had no intention of leaving Thess'kala empty-handed. So what if he got eliminated early? He'd stick around and look for another way to get what he wanted. Besides, the idea of earning a valuable reward after every victory filled him with greed.
'Top sixteen? What a joke. I'll win this thing if I can.'
Eight rounds meant eight rewards!
Of course, Percy had already benefited from this trip. Leaving the leaf aside, just his new spell and the cleansing technique his host had shown him would already help a lot down the line. But if he played his cards right, participating in this tournament might be one of his most profitable ventures yet. There was a good chance Kassorith would try and hoard the rewards, but whether Percy would let him keep anything would ultimately depend on how useful the prizes were for him…
'Can you stop daydreaming about the tournament?!' the Blue asked in annoyance. 'We haven't even passed the evaluation yet. Are you sure you can get this spell – the one you've literally just invented – into a useable state in the next ten days?'
Percy shrugged. 'Have I mentioned that we don't need to sleep?'