Sitting on Micky’s back, Percy was preparing the ingredients for his mana threads as he paid the clone some attention. After seeing the latter make some tangible progress with the new mana type, he’d started sending him soul mana to accelerate the process.

Another week had passed since the battle against House Ypnos’s mages, and the clone could already reliably produce about a talonful of augmented snow every couple of minutes. Only, the substance now sported a dull grey colour, as Percy’s soul mana was affected by his blessing, unlike the silver version that Micky extracted from his meals.

Given how slowly the clone produced the mana, they weren’t ready to use it in a fight, though he was thankfully getting faster at it by the hour. Unlike Percy’s original fuse mana, the new resource was multifaceted, however, opening several new doors at once. That was why the clone was currently experimenting with something different.

Playing with the two concepts inside the crow’s second core, he tweaked the fragile balance slightly, before drawing the ice mana to their talon. Unlike their previous attempts, the manifested construct wasn’t solid. Instead, it was a semi-amorphous blob of frigid water that spun and squirmed between the bird’s claws. Adding some soul mana to the substance, the clone attempted to fuse it again, only to end up with nothing half an hour later.

‘It’s tough. Every time I alter its properties, I have to relearn how to fuse it…’ the clone groaned.

Percy nodded thoughtfully. They essentially had to master three new variants of affinity fusion – a solid, a liquid, and a gas. And each of them was more complex than pure mana was.

‘Send some of it back. I want to test it out too.’

Doing as instructed, the clone produced some more of the grey ice, before turning it incorporeal and feeding it back through the cord. A trickle of mana entered Percy’s body the following second, causing his very soul to shiver.

“D-Damn… this is r-really unpleasant…” he spat through chattering teeth.

The clone hadn’t suffered this much while doing it in Micky’s body. Other than the fact that souls were inherently more sensitive than flesh, there was another reason why Percy was affected so strongly. The ice core wasn’t his own, and thus he lacked his familiar’s innate resistance to the affinity.

‘Will you be able to use it like this?’ the clone asked.

Percy shook his head.

‘I’m not as worried about the cold – I’ll get used to it. The fact that I don’t have a way to store it is a bigger issue.’

Percy didn’t have the right core, though he might still be able to hold the new resource in his channels. Once fully cleared and tempered, all the pathways in one’s network had a capacity on par with a mana core. The only question was, which set of channels would the augmented ice mana go in?

His pure channels wouldn’t work, as they were entirely incompatible with the affinity. His soul channels were better, as they should be able to contain it in its incorporeal state, but there was a problem with that. He didn’t have any free space for it. During a fight, his soul channels had to stay mostly saturated with his own mana, to keep the Carnival active.

‘I suppose I’ll have to clear ice channels in my body,’ he concluded, not particularly thrilled with the idea.

Worse still, once the clone figured out the liquid and gas variants of the augmented ice, Percy might need water and air channels too. At least, he hoped that would work, since the ice mana essentially behaved like either of its components at that point. However, clearing and tempering three brand-new mana networks would take a lot of time.

The good news was that he would then be able to keep plenty of the grey ice in his body. After everything was said and done, Percy would have a buffer equal to three Yellow cores’ worth of the new resource. Unleashing all of it at once, he should be able to produce a very powerful sneak attack, without even having to give up his boosting art or leave himself vulnerable.

‘Do you think we’ll be able to circulate each other’s mana too?’ the clone asked.

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‘Doubt it.’

Their boosting arts required the right mana core to work. Admittedly, there was some flexibility in that, since they could extend the organ’s properties to their channels or the external flows outside their bodies. As Percy had discovered, multiple cores could even be forced to behave, not getting in each other’s way.

Still, there was no way a single core could sustain two bodies at once. Certainly not with just a pair of cords linking them – no matter how wide these connections were, or how smoothly they allowed the mana to pass through them.

That was okay.

Even if they could only store enough of the new mana to fuel a couple of attacks, they should be able to accomplish some extraordinary things.

‘How will you find time for this though?’

the clone asked again.

Percy sighed.

That was the big question, wasn’t it? Based on his previous estimates, he would have to spend several months working tirelessly on his silk before he was ready to upgrade his armour. Between his clones coming and going all the time, the constant interruptions whenever they got attacked by their pursuers, and having to keep supplying Micky’s clone with soul mana, he’d never get the chance to clear so many new channels.

Closing his eyes, Percy pondered the issue for a while. Eventually, a flash of inspiration hit him.

‘You’lltake care of that,’ he said, before elaborating. ‘I’ll focus on the silk and the clones… and the Aurora Dew, I guess. You’ll handle everything related to the new fusion.’

‘Do you think it’s possible?’

Percy shrugged.

‘I was able to seize Micky’s mana by force, years ago, from dozens of miles away, with just Soul Resonance. It should be even easier to do something similar with Soul Harmony. Especially for you – since you’re basically me. I think we’ve been underutilizing our Secret Art.’

Ever since he upgraded the spell, Percy had thought of it mostly as a tool to coordinate with his familiar and help him in a pinch. But he’d disregarded one of the most valuable features of the Secret Art – no, his entire bloodline. His clones didn’t just let him visit exotic worlds or possess other beings. They also allowed him to sprout copies of his mind.

To experience multiple lives in parallel.

Normally, these versions of Percy had no choice but to do everything in isolation, somewhere far away. Yet, this wasn’t the case for the one anchored in his familiar’s body and having such open-ended access to his own.

Percy continued.

‘You’ll reach into my cores and take all the soul mana you need by yourself. Master all three of the new forms of affinity fusion, feed the results back to my body, and use them to clear and temper my channels.’

‘I can try, but it sounds pretty invasive. Are you sure it won’t distract you while you’re spinning the silk?’

‘It will. I’ll just have to get used to it. It’ll be easier to adjust to somebody messing with my mana than to find time to do everything by myself. Besides, I don’t need as much mana for the threads, so you taking some won’t be a problem.’

‘What should I do in the meantime?’ Micky asked, jumping into the conversation.

Now that the crow had finished applying Regulation to the new mutation and merging the spell with Circulation, he was kinda free.

‘Help the clone with affinity fusion. You need to learn it too. But you don’t have to worry about clearing my channels. Instead, try circulating your augmented ice mana in your water and air pathways. I bet it should be possible.’

Percy wasn’t just shooting at random. This was precisely what he’d done to merge Synchronization with the Dance, so this was probably a key step towards Micky evolving his own boosting art. Why bother circulating regular water or air mana, when Micky could triple down on a superior resource that could do all of the same things and more?

Of course, Percy didn’t think the bird would be able to circulate the soul-infused variants of the mana. Micky’s cores wouldn’t support it, since he didn’t have the soul affinity, and Percy couldn’t possibly supply both of them with enough to fuse all their other mana types with.

The soul-freezing ice would be their secret weapon – something they slowly accumulated over the course of a battle, releasing it at an opportune moment to deliver a devastating attack. Percy would keep the stash in his new networks, while Micky would store it – admittedly less of it – in his soul channels.

The good news was that the crow wouldn’t have to clear his soul channels. He’d had those ready from a young age. Every time he consumed a soul, the influx of mana exerted a lot of pressure on him, forcefully clearing and expanding the network. Micky had inadvertently completed the project a long time ago, even though he’d never used it for much, other than temporary storage or to supply Percy with some extra mana here and there.

‘It’s nice to have one less thing to worry about, I suppose…’

Perhaps, it might be worth having Micky clear some pure channels in his body too, to contain some of Percy’s old fused mana in its corporeal state. It wasn’t a priority, since Micky didn’t have a use for it, but they might as well – just to leave the door open. As for merging all three of their affinities – soul, pure and ice? It would be several times harder, and Percy didn’t see a reason to bother with something so tedious right now.

‘Maybe one day…’

With that, they had accounted for all their projects, other than their collaborative fighting strength. That, was something they could work on whenever they ended up cornered by their enemies.

It was going to be a busy year, but Percy had all the tools he would need to extract a whole decade’s worth of training from it.

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