Percy was strolling along the quiet streets of the Alchemists’ Guild, on the way back from one of his lectures. As much as he would have liked to resume working on the formation, it was already late in the afternoon, so his subordinates had probably stopped for the day.

‘I’ll head there a couple of hours earlier tomorrow to finish up the previous batch of runes before they get started on the new ones,’ he thought.

As he was planning out the rest of the week while enjoying the scenery, the Green clone reached out.

‘We’re ready. Send out the new guy.’

‘Alright. I’ll be home in a minute,’ the human body replied with a mental nod.

His counterpart had already informed him about the deal he had struck with his host, asking him to reserve the final use of his lightning-granting treasure a little longer. With it, Gabe would be able to upgrade both cores, and they could also hopefully help Elaine and a couple of others in the process.

Fortunately, Percy’s third wisp had returned from its most recent adventure a while ago – albeit empty-handed – so he had kept the cord available for precisely this purpose.

After entering his residence, he coordinated with the other parts of himself to complete the interstellar exchange. He still had to wait a little longer for the Green clone to finish talking to Metatron, but all the wisps eventually fused back into the main part of his soul, concluding one of his longest and largest joint operations to date.

Most importantly, the clones had brought yet another treasure trove of rewards back.

Leaving aside the things that they had done for their friends, there was a lot of stuff for Percy to be excited about. He had apparently spent as many as three Green bonus rewards and a colossal sum of credits on a set of unique artifacts known as ‘Zelesian beads’. Going over the associated memories, Percy couldn’t help but rub his hands in anticipation.

Charging the three marbles would take him around twelve days and nights, which was admittedly quite tedious, meaning that he should avoid activating them often. Even so, he was glad that he would be able to equip his future clones with such a powerful trump card.

Other than that, Percy had bought several new books and printed even more copies of the ones that he’d already owned. He’d even managed to merge the pieces of his spatial seal into its new maximum size – something that he hadn’t been able to do the previous time because his clones hadn’t arrived together.

Of course, the device wouldn’t remain in this state for too long. It would have to be split into smaller denominations once he resumed his adventures, but at least he could take a moment to marvel at his warehouse-sized internal storage, while also managing its capacity more efficiently from now on.

Percy had spent the fourth Green reward – or well… technically the second,

but he wasn’t going over them in purchase order – on another set of Thess’kalan ritual ingredients that Metatron had presumably taken from Kassorith. Once again, this was something that Percy would ignore for the time being, though he looked forward to obtaining the means to explore the ritual’s mysteries.

The final Green reward, however, was the most important one by far. He had used it to purchase the seal-crafting books necessary for his artificial advancement – the primary objective of this entire year-plus-long mission.

Everything else that he had done – be it the five clones that he had left in the artificial world for several months each, the many other short-lived clones that he had used to create the portals, search for potential hosts or transfer resources, the countless challenges that he had completed, and all the other rewards that he had earned – had all been secondary.

Holding the short stack of tomes in his hands, Percy caressed the spines of their synthetic covers fondly with his thumb, a massive weight lifted off his shoulders.

‘Great! Once I wrap up my other responsibilities, I can hole up for however-many years it takes to complete the project!’ he thought, his heart racing with excitement.

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As long as nothing unexpected happened during his seclusion, he should be able to raise all four of his cores to the next grade, obtaining the power necessary to go after Machaon.

Percy had a hunch that the disgraced patriarch wouldn’t just sit idly, waiting for his death, but the man probably had no idea that Percy was so close to yet another colossal boost to his strength. If he acted swiftly enough, the old mage might not see him coming.

After putting down the monster that had ruined his girlfriend’s life and placed the whole planet at risk, there would be nobody left to oppose Percy. At least, nobody on Remior. Phoebe had mentioned her plan to eventually welcome him into the Divine Order, and he obviously had far more powerful enemies – like Rhaziel or even a Cardinal Devil – waiting for him out there in the cosmos, but that was fine.

With his lifespan problems solved and without any local threats breathing down his neck, Percy would finally be free to cultivate peacefully for decades or even centuries at a time, advancing repeatedly, developing his spells, and resuming his otherworldly adventures.

‘That’s a matter for later though…’ he thought, considering the final item that his clones had brought back. This one wasn’t a tangible reward, but rather some information and a proposal from Metatron. ‘The Void Decree… I can’t believe I actually have the opportunity to get my hands on yet another mana core…’

He felt the urge to laugh. While he had maintained a couple of empowered connections to his clones and could have theoretically talked to them at any point, neither side had seen a reason to share every single titbit of information before their reunion, so the knowledge they had brought back had still caught him by surprise.

Unbeknownst to either him or his clones, they’d each had a pretty illuminating conversation with a different titan. The human body had learned about external concepts and the various stages of the Concept realm from Phoebe, while the Green clone had chatted with Metatron about the Void Hand, collaborative Decrees and multiple mana cores.

Putting everything together, Percy now understood just how valuable the opportunity to acquire a third mana core would be.

‘Well, okay… it’s not like I wouldn’t have wanted it in the past…’

he reminded himself with a chuckle.

Regardless, Phoebe’s explanation about the Elemental Acquisition stage had put everything into context. In the Colour realm, having a third affinity and another fifty percent boost to his physical strength and lifespan was nothing to scoff at, but it was hardly worth mentioning compared to the possible impact of the Decree after reaching the Concept realm.

If he managed to obtain another rare affinity, he would essentially gain the ability to climb to a higher grade than any other god!

Funnily enough, Percy could also get his hands on more concepts by simply using his bloodline to create more familiars and aspects, but that approach wasn’t without its own cost. His ethereal cords were finite, and there was something to be said about inviting additional strangers into his soul, even after Phoebe helped him segregate their memories, so he was planning to do it sparingly.

Besides, there was no reason not to try and stack the two methods.

‘That settles it. I have to participate in that tournament at all costs.’

Percy had to ensure that Metatron’s plan was foolproof before committing, but this opportunity was a hundred times more valuable than he had realized during his meeting with the divine pentapus.

The thought of infiltrating one of the most powerful factions in the universe still made Percy shudder, but he knew that this was practically a once-in-a-lifetime chance to reach the stars in one fell swoop.

‘Let’s take it one step at a time though.’ He exhaled, forcing himself to calm down.

Metatron and Kassorith would need years to prepare everything, and Percy had plenty of things to deal with on his end as well.

First, he had to wrap up his tasks in the Guild. Fortunately, he was already close to doing precisely that, and he had even taken steps to set the Starry Wasps and the alchemists up so that they wouldn’t require any input from him moving forward.

Percy had placed both the hive and the settlement on a trajectory to keep increasing their nectar and elixir production for the foreseeable future, and he’d even spread his runecrafting knowledge across the planet, so Remior’s technological level would slowly start improving. On top of that, the situation in the Camelot province had also stabilized, with Machaon being the only potential wild card out there.

‘Sounds good. There’s only a couple of lectures left until the end of the course, and the formation should also be done soon. After that, I can absorb my fourth fiend, get the mindset from Phoebe, and then go into seclusion…’

The mindset wouldn’t directly boost his strength. Admittedly, separating his memories was just a matter of personal preference. However, the spectral trait was a different story. If he got lucky, it might help him strengthen Kassorith in the competition.

The void tournament was bound to be extremely challenging and, while Percy had many means at his disposal, there weren’t that many that he would dare to reveal to the peak faction.

‘If the trait isn’t enough, maybe one of my clones will stumble upon something useful in the next few years.’

Other than using his bloodline, most of his time would be spent working on Internal Magiscript, slowly preparing for his artificial advancement. The moment it looked like he was close, it would be time to return to the Vault and coordinate with Metatron to begin the mission.

There were about a million things that could go wrong, but one thing was for certain. The ensuing decade promised to be an interesting one…

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep