‘A storage seal?’
Percy already had several questions, but he placed them aside for a mont to do so calculations in his head. Assuming that one portion of sizian at was equivalent to one dose of elixir back on Remior, the spatial amulets that cost over a million contribution points each would be worth around 2500 credits here.
tatron was charging him double that, though Percy didn’t doubt the titan’s creation was several tis better than the crude products of so mortal enchanters. Still…
“Why would I even need sothing like this?”
He already had a bunch of spatial devices back ho, and it wasn’t like he needed one in the Vault. He could keep his translation device in the system, and get all the books he purchased reprinted for free.
tatron chuckled, a hint of amusent finding its way into his gaze.
“If this was just a simple storage enchantnt, I wouldn’t have bothered to draw it personally for you. I’d have told you to buy one directly from the Vault. This one is for the road.”
“You an… my clones can carry it in their travels?” Percy’s eyes widened.
“Exactly. And I’ll have you know that getting this to work was tougher than you might think. The seal has to interact with your soul, otherwise it would simply phase through your clones. At the sa ti, the spatial dinsion inside it needs to house physical objects. Trust , you’d be very hard-pressed to find a second enchantnt like it.”
The implications made Percy’s heart skip a beat. He’d be able to accomplish so much more with sothing like this! Not only would he be able to equip his clones with armour and weapons, but he’d now have a way to bring stuff back from his trips!
Noticing his excitent, tatron pushed the seal along, causing it to float toward him, only for Percy to jump back in surprise.
“Hold on a mont!” he exclaid, eyeing the titan cautiously. “This sounds great and everything, but I can’t just let you stick whatever you want to my soul. How do I know you’re not up to sothing?”
tatron rolled his eyes at his outburst, so irritation seeping through.
“Paranoid much? I’ve already attached my Decree to you without you even noticing. Do you honestly think I need to rely on a cheap storage seal? Or that I’d bother lying to get your permission? Don’t flatter yourself.”
Pondering the titan’s words, Percy had to admit he had a point. Then again, he wasn’t exactly qualified to assess what was or wasn’t possible when magic of such a high level was involved.
“I can think of all sorts of reasons why you’d do it. Maybe your Decree is immutable so you need to rely on a more customizable enchantnt to spy on . Perhaps you need my consent because I can easily dig the seal out of my soul later. Or maybe you want to mind control
or sothing…”
“Fully mind controlling soone is difficult even for a god with a mind affinity. Let alone using your soul fragnt as a proxy to take over your main body. Your fears are entirely misplaced.”
“So you say, but you can’t expect
to believe you’re giving
sothing this valuable out of the goodness of your heart.” Percy replied.
“I never claid I was. I’m doing it because I have as much to gain from this as you. Our latest deal has proven that.”
The god didn’t elaborate, but it wasn’t difficult to figure out what he ant. As powerful as the Moirais’ Decree was, tatron could have written it off as a fluke. Percy could only pass it to so many individuals, and the titan hadn’t had much reason to expect more from him.
But Circulation had changed everything. Not only could everyone in the Vault learn it, but it was concrete evidence that tatron’s investnt in Percy hadn’t been misplaced. Clearly, the titan wanted Percy’s adventures to be as fruitful as possible, as he planned to eventually wrap his own tentacles around his gains.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
“If that’s the case, then why charge
for it? Shouldn’t you give
the seal for free?” Percy asked, testing the waters.
Not that he minded spending a few thousand credits on sothing worthwhile, but he had to confirm tatron’s intentions before agreeing to anything.
“Like I told you before, I’m not running a charity. Until you accept my original offer to work with , our relationship shall remain purely transactional. Besides, if I charged you what the seal was actually worth, you’d never afford it even if you spent the rest of your life completing challenges. I’m only asking for the price of a regular storage device.”
“Fair enough, but that still doesn’t solve the trust issue.”
“Well, what do you suggest I do?” the pentapus asked.
“How about this… Draw the enchantnt again, this ti very slowly. My skill in runecrafting is obviously far inferior to yours, so you’ll have to explain what each individual rune does. In detail.”
“That will take over ten thousand rits. Is this even about trust, or are you trying to get a free magiscript lesson from ?”
Percy shrugged. Naturally, his priority was still his own safety, but he’d be lying if he said he hadn’t considered it.
“Think of it as payback for the air pattern you’ve stolen from Leo during this conversation. If you agree, I’ll even describe the soul pattern for you.”
“Do you think I can’t discover the patterns on my own?” tatron asked.
“I’m sure you can, but I bet it’ll take you more than a couple hours. Trust , the soul pattern is a tricky one.”
The god remained silent for a few seconds, seemingly considering Percy’s terms. Honestly, Percy knew he was getting the better end of the deal, but he also understood that, in the titan’s mind, everything Percy achieved would eventually belong to him.
As fairly as the titan appeared to treat him on the surface, Percy was under no delusion that tatron thought of him as his equal. Much like everyone else in the Vault, Percy was nothing more than an ongoing project. A door to more power.
‘Well, the truth cuts both ways… Do you think the Vault is the centre of the universe? It’s just another place filled with arrogant gods I’ll surpass one day…’
Oblivious to his thoughts, tatron soon ca to a decision.
“Very well. But I suggest you pay close attention, as I’m only going to demonstrate the enchantnt once.”
Crushing the previous seal into black motes, he pushed more mana out of his body, this ti stretching it into a wider volu. Clearly, the god could easily compress the enchantnt at will, but he intentionally made it easier for Percy to examine as he began forming the runes one by one, explaining their function.
***
Recreating the enchantnt took several hours, the number of runes involved vastly exceeding Percy’s previous estimates. In fact, Leo was forced to deactivate Circulation at so point, unable to keep going.
Still, Percy didn’t drop his focus for a second, unwilling to miss even a mont of tatron’s lesson. And it truly was an eye-opening experience, as he learned more during this demonstration than he would have after months of laborious study.
A few of the runes he recognized. Very few. At the core, the enchantnt involved pocket and stability runes: the bread and butter of all storage devices. The exact variants tatron had chosen were different from the ones Percy had morized and relayed to Nesha, but the underlying principles were the sa. Though the titan used way more of them, and even attached various amplification runes on them, to vastly magnify their effects.
‘Wow… these are so high-end enchantnts… I wonder how large the internal space will be…’
tatron hadn’t said, but Percy knew the final product would make his own amulets look like trinkets. Whether it was the quality of the god’s mana, or his sheer runecrafting skill, this was worlds apart from anything he’d seen before.
Regardless, the seal contained a lot more secondary runes, giving it a lot of flexibility. To start, there was a reason tatron had called it a seal and not an enchantnt. Enchantnts were ant to be applied on other objects, whereas seals were more advanced, as they could exist on their own. This was achieved through runes that gave the mana form and substance, without the need of a specialized material to draw the enchantnt on.
In so ways, it reminded Percy of his own Crystallization spell, though the mana’s permanence was achieved via runes in this case: rather than an innate property of the pure affinity.
“I’ve given the seal a fixed shape, but I’ve also enchanted it to only interact with your soul. You’ll be able to move it around as you wish, to choose whether to grant it to a clone or keep it in your main body.” tatron explained.
And this wasn’t the only way in which the seal was flexible. Apparently, Percy could also divide it into smaller seals if he wanted.
“You can split it in half a maximum of 3 tis, for a total of 8 seals. Keep in mind that it’s inefficient though. Once divided, the overall capacity across all the different parts will be much smaller than that of the original. That said, you can stack them back together whenever you want, to reverse the process.”
Percy nodded, knowing why the titan had designed the seal like this. Right now, he could only have two cords active at a ti, and one of them was permanently occupied by his familiar. But that wouldn’t necessarily remain the case forever. Should he ever gain the ability to send out multiple clones, he’d be able to equip all of them with storage seals of their own.
“There you go then. All done.” tatron said, causing the completed seal to shrink back to its previous size.
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