Lifting his host’s hand, Percy gathered so tal mana to the tip of his thumb, shaping it into a claw. With a swift motion, he stabbed it into a gap between the Thess’kalan’s reinforced scales, cutting his palm open.
It took a bit of effort due to his host’s higher grade and stronger physique, but a single drop of blood barely managed to seep out of the injury before it started to close. It was admittedly a small wound, but Percy was still surprised by how rapidly it was healing – especially considering that they’d only converted a fraction of Kassorith’s blood so far, and they hadn’t used any life mana.
‘Promising,’ he thought, causing his host’s gums to morph into a grin.
Closing his fist around the crimson bead to shield it from prying eyes, Percy allowed his senses to sink into the liquid, causing it to squirm as if it were alive. Recalling the appearance of the first spectral fiend he had ever absorbed, he willed the blood to transform into a thirteen-legged spider, its long limbs bending in all the wrong directions.
Percy’s borrowed heart skipped a beat when he felt himself wriggling inside a giant, scaled palm, scanning a set of colossal fingers that curled over his minuscule body. It was like he had just gained not only a brand-new limb that he could control as easily as breathing, but also a new sense bundled with it.
Granted, what he was currently experiencing wasn’t regular eyesight, but rather a weird blend of Soul Vision, a thermal sense and a sense of touch. Still, it fed into his Sage’s Pond like all of his other senses, expanding its range slightly.
The difference was small for now, but Percy suspected that it would increase if he were to open his hand and expose the construct to the outside world. More, perhaps, if he allowed it to move away from his body.
This was the third application of spiritual blood, and it was exclusive to not just any random soul affinity user, but specifically one who had absorbed a spectral fiend.
According to the docunts, so scholars argued that this should be considered an extension of the second application, since it was based on the sa principle that allowed one to remotely control a severed body part.
However, the gulf separating the two approaches was like night and day. By tapping into the latent instincts of the spectral fiend, it was possible to swiftly and effortlessly create a far more manoeuvrable and capable construct.
A regular person who chopped off their fingers would rely produce a set of ten rigid, worm-like constructs that wouldn’t be able to get very far or accomplish much. They’d also have to wait for their digits to grow back.
anwhile, soone like Percy could easily spill a pint of spiritual blood to unleash a swarm of dozens – if not hundreds – of crimson fiends that could spy for him over a large area.
Unfortunately, the bloody bugs were still fragile enough for even a Red-born child to crush between their fingers, but their potential value in a reconnaissance mission was undeniable. If they all fed into Percy’s enhanced senses like this one did, he might be able to spread his Sage’s Pond over an entire province.
Having absorbed as many as four different fiends – including even an Amorphos – Percy had more options than the average soul affinity user. He could freely shapeshift the constructs into forms more suited for a given environnt, improving their manoeuvrability and making them harder to detect.
‘It’s such a pity that we can’t use this in the tournant,’ he thought with a sigh, clenching his host’s fist to crush the wriggling insect into a lifeless sar.
He had fashioned it out of the only drop of spiritual blood that he had infused with a piece of his own wisp. However, he couldn’t produce them at scale, because he wasn’t able to nd his clone’s injuries.
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The rest of their spiritual blood technically belonged to Kassorith. While the Thess’kalan could access Percy’s spectral traits while possessed, the ethereal entities weren’t a part of his own soul, so he couldn’t impart their instincts into his spiritual blood.
Even if that hadn’t been the case, Kassorith wasn’t supposed to possess a soul affinity, nor any traits – the associated abilities had all been attributed to his bloodline.
‘It is what it is,’ Micky consoled. ‘Maybe we should condense another drop or two to have in case of an ergency, but it’s best if we can avoid using them.’
Percy nodded.
Other than providing his host with a faster recovery rate and various spying capabilities, there was one final application of spiritual blood that had actually been discovered fairly recently – by cosmic standards, at least.
It had nothing to do with combat or the tournant, and it was debatable whether it would ever benefit Percy, though he had still found it quite interesting. In fact, he’d be lying if he said that it hadn’t played a huge role in his decision to select this Decree.
Spiritual blood could apparently be used as fertilizer for magical herbs.
Plants didn’t possess the beast affinity, so they couldn’t consu mana to advance. They also lacked sentience, so they were normally unable to cleanse their scattered cores like sapients could.
However, regularly watering a herb with spiritual blood for an extended period of ti seed to bolster its… well… spirituality – enough for it to develop so rudintary instincts.
The plant wouldn’t beco capable of thought, nor would it be able to use an elixir, but it would still passively purify its core, vastly increasing its chances of advancing past Orange.
Sure, Yellow reagents occasionally erged even without this process, but they were extrely rare.
The deities of the Void Hand had brushed the discovery aside as a sowhat shocking, but mostly useless curiosity. A Yellow ingredient just wasn’t that valuable, and there was no record of anyone producing a Green plant.
Soone without the soul affinity wouldn’t be able to keep up with the expenditure of cultivating even a single herb, and even a soul mage would have to spend several years, a lot of spiritual blood, and endure a lot of pain to maybe brew a Yellow potion.
Assuming that anyone was crazy enough to go through the trouble, they were more likely to place the final product in a museum than drink it, as it wouldn’t even do much for anyone above Green.
In theory, all of this was doubly true for Percy, since he had a vastly superior thod of brewing not just Yellow, but also Green potions through the compression principle. The only reason he couldn’t currently produce anything better than that was because his cauldron wasn’t strong enough to endure the pressure, but that would change as soon as he completed his artificial advancent.
However, he had an entirely different reason to be interested in this.
‘I wonder if this will allow
to possess plants with my bloodline,’ he thought, part of him wishing he could return ho and test his idea out.
It wasn’t like he hadn’t considered this before, but plant souls were normally too underdeveloped to support his wisps. They barely registered in Soul Vision, and he struggled to even feel any sense of attraction or rejection from them regardless of their condition.
Before learning about the Penitent’s Decree, he had been willing to bet that he would have an easier ti possessing a bug – even a tiny, mundane one with a Brown core – than a herb. His new ability had inevitably caused him to question that.
As for why he would even want to possess a plant?
Well, he didn’t have a very strong reason. It might teach him sothing new about magic or alchemy, or it might not. Perhaps he would be able to pass the Moirais’ Decree to a herb, granting it a new affinity and modifying its properties, or he might discover sothing else entirely.
Whatever the case, Percy enjoyed trying new things and expanding his skillset in novel directions. This was how magic developed and how new frontiers were discovered, after all, and Percy’s approach had served him well in the past. Wasn’t this precisely how he had invented Reinforcent, his Phantomspun Silk, and ultimately woven his Cloak?
Alas, his crazy experints would have to wait a while longer. Even if the void tournant hadn’t been ongoing, his main body was still busy with too many urgent matters to waste ti trying to possess a bunch of flowers. Not to ntion that he would have to spend years feeding them spiritual blood before he could even attempt it.
‘Are you done daydreaming?’ Kassorith suddenly asked, breaking him out of his thoughts.
Percy was about to snap back with sothing snarky when he noticed that the athyst badge on his host’s tunic was flashing quietly. Nawko had inford them that this was a signal for them to reach the venue of their next fight as soon as possible.
The second phase of the competition was finally about to begin.
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