All things considered, Percy didn’t exactly regret being given Metatron’s Decree.

It had already saved both his own skin and that of his friends plenty of times. That was without even mentioning that it was still his only way of accessing the treasure trove of magical knowledge that was the Vault.

However, Metatron should have at least mentioned this limitation sooner. What if Percy had gotten himself killed trying to acquire too many active-type Decrees? Or missed out on a really good one because he’d already filled all of his slots up?

The good news was that, unlike other limited abilities such as bloodlines, blessings, or spectral traits, active-type Decrees could be removed and replaced at will. Well… sort of. Percy already knew that the pentapus could revoke his Decree, though not every titan was able to incorporate that feature into their spell. If they didn’t, getting rid of the Decree would still be possible, but it would usually require help from an even wiser and more experienced titan.

There were titans who went a step further, including an automatic self-removal function in the Decree that would allow even a clueless mortal to purge it with a thought.

Percy wasn’t planning to get rid of Metatron’s Decree anytime soon, but it was nice to know that he wouldn’t be stuck with it forever. Would he even need to visit the artificial world after becoming a god? What about after he reached the peak of the Elemental Acquisition stage? Would Metatron have anything left to teach him? Would the Vault even exist by then?

Alas, those were questions for a different time.

‘That settles it,’ Percy told his companions. ‘Let’s make sure to grab at least one active-type from the tournament at some point.’

They had yet to skim through the list, but the prize pool contained over ninety Decrees of this category, so there was bound to be one that suited them.

Admittedly, their strict requirements would greatly limit their options. Finding one that worked on both Percy and Kassorith, affected their minds or souls rather than their bodies – so that it would be more likely to follow him back to Remior – and could be freely purged without a titan’s assistance would be difficult.

Still, if Percy couldn’t find a Decree like that out of dozens – offered by a peak faction no less – then he was even less likely to get one elsewhere, so there would be no point in holding onto both of his remaining slots. Even so, he planned to keep at least one open, in case he did stumble upon something useful during his future travels.

‘I’m not against it. For all their limitations, they are quite powerful. However, I vote that we leave this for later,’ Kassorith replied.

‘Agreed,’ Micky said, with Percy echoing the sentiment.

Sadly, active-type Decrees weren’t allowed in the tournament, because they could potentially produce attacks powerful enough to threaten even demigods. Had the organizers not banned them, the competition would have quickly devolved into a contest of who-can-land-their-Decree-first – at least in the Blue and Violet grades.

This was all the more reason for Percy to stick to just one of these, and to wait a few more rounds. For now, he needed something that was immediately useful.

With his mind made up, he moved onto the next two relatively common categories of Decrees: bloodline- and mental-types.

While titans with the life or mind affinity were less common, they did have a somewhat easier time casting these sorts of Decrees – at least compared to others. Every single Decree was ultimately considered an absolute miracle of magic, but bloodline- and mental-types could be created by following a known framework.

It was a bit like a chef preparing a meal by sticking to the recipe. Those who created mental- or bloodline-type Decrees could – and did – often tweak them slightly, giving them their own spin, but they didn’t have to reinvent the wheel.

The problem with such Decrees was that they typically couldn’t be stacked with others in the same category freely.

Bloodline-type Decrees were more flexible, but that was offset by the fact that there was less variance between them. One might grant a person a slightly higher chance of passing down their bloodline to their descendants, while another could potentially boost their odds of developing a mutated strain.

Combining them might make the Decree a little stronger than the sum of its parts, but the benefits were usually marginal, and sometimes unpredictable or downright detrimental.

Since bloodline-type Decrees were among the most likely to affect large groups of people in random ways for generations, it generally wasn’t worth to take the risk of merging them, unless the components both possessed some really unique and valuable property.

The documents made it clear that this wasn’t the case for the Decrees the alliance had access to, since none of the member-factions had ever attempted to acquire a second one.

Percy and Kassorith both had their own bloodlines, and they had even been granted by different Decrees, so they didn’t want to experiment with this either. Besides, bloodline-type Decrees mostly affected one’s descendants, so they were unlikely to help them in the tournament. Even if they could, such Decrees targeted a person’s flesh, meaning that Percy wouldn’t be able to keep them.

Skipping the category entirely, they moved on to the next.

Mental-type Decrees were surprisingly even more rigid. They were considered impossible to combine without frying one’s brain. Recalling the ominous error messages and splitting headache that he had suffered on Atlantis, Percy was inclined to agree.

This book’s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

At the same time, he understood that this rule no longer applied to him.

He had long hypothesized that Phoebe’s Decree was unique in how adaptable it was, though it appeared that he had still severely underestimated just how much of a genius his favourite – and least favourite – titaness was.

Her Decree was the only one of its kind that Percy had seen which hadn’t come bundled with some secondary boon – at least for the time being – yet its ability to assimilate other mental-type Decrees without limit was apparently unprecedented.

Judging by the confused message that Percy had received the first time he had tried to upgrade his Status, this clearly hadn’t been the goddess’s intention. Regardless, Remior had evidently produced a second ability valuable enough to throw the whole universe into turmoil – the other being Percy’s bloodline of course.

‘Well, isn’t that great…’ Percy thought, clicking his borrowed tongue. ‘Another thing that I need to keep to myself until Remior is strong enough to defend itself.’

Sadly, it might already be a little too late for that. While Percy was generally careful not to let his hosts read his Status, some had inevitably learned about Phoebe’s Decree. Thankfully, Enki and Duwa were unlikely to bring him much trouble – they were good, sensible kids from weaker factions that had no idea where Remior was.

However, Percy didn’t trust Kassorith or Metatron farther than he could throw them. Hopefully, they had yet to piece together the fact that his current Status was the result of several mental-type Decrees merging, but the Thess’kalan would inevitably put two and two together if they tried to claim one from the tournament.

‘Let’s just tell him,’ Micky said. ‘We’re way past worrying about what Metatron knows. At least this isn’t something that he can get his tentacles on without our help.’

Percy replied with a mental nod. Phoebe’s Decree was way too valuable not to take advantage of, and it would be a shame if they missed the chance to assimilate one of the Void Hand’s Decrees. The sooner they brought the Thess’kalan up to speed, the sooner they’d be able to plan out their rewards.

Kassorith listened to their explanation wide-eyed, his treacherous little brain probably trying to come up with ways to use the information to his benefit. Fortunately, the scaled bastard had nothing to gain by spilling the beans to his former faction.

Once that was settled, they resumed browsing through the list. The Void Hand had produced dozens of mental-type Decrees. About a third of its greater springs possessed one. Another third – including Thess’kala – owned a bloodline-type Decree, while the remaining factions had both.

It was basically unheard of for a greater spring to possess neither, and even lesser springs like Remior, Gallimus, or Atlantis occasionally managed to produce one, although that wasn’t too common.

Of course, not every member-faction of the alliance had a bloodline- or mental-type Decree that they were both willing and able to pass to outsiders, so only a handful of each category was included in the prize pool.

Having the unique ability to absorb as many as he wanted, Percy was naturally tempted to ignore all the other rewards and invest everything into mental-type Decrees, so as to fully capitalize on his advantage. Leaving aside how useful they were individually, assimilating them tended to combine and enhance their effects in all sorts of interesting ways.

Hell, maybe he should stop worrying about his affinities or mutations entirely and just make it his life’s mission to upgrade his Status as much as possible. For all he knew, it might eventually become so powerful that he would never need another ability.

‘Well… I’ll probably run into some other wall eventually, but that could be several Decrees down the line. It might be best to skip one if it sucks, just in case it creates issues later, but it’s still worth grabbing any that catch my eye for now,’ he thought.

Unfortunately, there were a few problems with that idea.

While Phoebe’s Decree had grown better at absorbing others with each upgrade, Percy’s clones still had to bring the new Decree back to his main body to complete the process. He had no intention of trying to assimilate more than one at the same time. Kassorith’s existence would prevent him from even attempting that.

Secondly, the new Decree wasn’t going to grant him any benefits before the process was complete, meaning that it wouldn’t help in the tournament. If he got unlucky, it might even cripple the other functions of his Status, temporarily disabling his enhanced senses or locked domain.

Finally, if the new Decree was anything like Phoebe’s, it might grant the titan who had cast it the ability to spy on Percy’s Status – something that would be quite problematic, for obvious reasons.

No matter how he looked at it, it was best to delay claiming a mental Decree for as long as possible, prioritizing other rewards.

‘Okay… we might not win the tournament, but we have to aim for the top eight at least,’ he told his companions. ‘I think we should plan out our rewards with the assumption that we’ll only earn four. If we make it further than that, we can treat it as a bonus, and if we get eliminated earlier, we’re fucked anyway.’

Next, he proceeded to outline his reasoning.

They should reserve the fourth reward for the mental-type Decree to minimize the odds of having their senses impaired or leaking information to the local deities. They should also wait until the third reward for the active-type Decree. It wouldn’t be detrimental in the same way, but it would still be useless during the competition.

This meant that they only had the first two rewards to strengthen themselves.

‘Don’t forget about the first-generation leaves,’ Micky reminded him.

Percy sighed. His friend had raised a good point. They had, in fact, caught a glimpse of the leaves while browsing earlier. Thankfully, they were offered in bundles of five this time, which was quite a bargain.

He wasn’t as surprised by the alliance’s “generosity”, fully aware that this was a relatively small investment for them. Those from the weaker factions rarely passed the preliminaries, and the few who did were definitely talented enough to deserve an extended lifespan.

As for those from the founding factions… Anyone participating in not just the void tournament, but even the regional events had probably consumed a leaf a long time ago. Including the leaves in the prize pool seemed more like an afterthought, since very few participants bothered to claim them.

That said, Percy was seriously considering it.

He might have been hesitant to waste a reward on a single leaf, but a bundle of five was a different story. He could only increase his current lifespan by fifty percent, because he’d already consumed a second-generation leaf, but Micky could still triple his.

If their artificial advancements failed, then they would both need every second they could get to reach the Clear grade. Even if they succeeded, having more time to forge an internal world wouldn’t hurt. Nephthys, Nesha, and most of Percy’s other friends were at least Orange-borns, so he wasn’t as concerned about them, but having a few spare leaves only sweetened the deal further.

He could even give one to Kassorith to quell his complaints.

‘Fine. I guess we’ll have to spend our second reward on that,’ Percy conceded.

It wasn’t ideal, because it would only leave them a single shot at boosting their strength. The fact that the final category of Decrees was considered the most valuable by far only exacerbated the bitter taste in Percy’s borrowed mouth.

It was called the free-type, and it included things like the Moirais’ and Void Decrees, as well as the four ancestral Decrees of the founding factions. It was named as such because a person could theoretically absorb as many such Decrees as they could get their hands on.

The Void Hand only possessed about twenty free-type Decrees in total, including the four that Percy had already encountered, though only nine were available through the tournament.

‘Well, it doesn’t matter. I doubt we’ll find more than a handful that meet all of our requirements anyway,’ he consoled himself.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep