The Lone Wanderer-Chapter 242: Infinite powder cheat

“What are you even doing?” Elaine asked after Percy nearly stumbled on a pebble.

He shrugged.

“If this works, I’ll never have to condense another crystal in my life.”

It was still dark, the trio walking towards the next town, the crow flying nearby. But Percy didn’t pay much attention to where he stepped, busy with something more important. He held a small teal rod in his hand. It looked like his scythe’s shaft, but it was only the length of his finger. And he was currently carving an enchantment on the middle section. A rather intricate one at that.

“Behold, ladies and gentlecrow. I present you, the infinite powder cheat!” he exclaimed once he was done, pouring some fused mana into the runes.

Sadly, by the time his companions turned to look at him, a wisp of smoke had come out of the enchantment, the darn thing having barely blinked once before getting fried.

“Not seeing it.” Nesha joked, a smug grin plastered all over her face.

“Whatever. Just give me another hour or so.” Percy rolled his eyes, crushing the construct into powder before beginning the process anew.

Originally, he’d bought the self-repair enchantment mainly for his armour’s maintenance. However, he’d drawn some inspiration while reading the book, thinking of another potential application. He wasn’t completely sure it would work, but he couldn’t see a reason for it not to either. If it did, it would save him several hours of manual labour per day.

The girls didn’t say anything else, allowing him to work in silence. It wasn’t until about an hour later that he held a new rod, engraved with a – hopefully functional – self-repair enchantment this time. To avoid embarrassing himself again, he made sure the runes worked before speaking up.

“Ahem. After some technical difficulties, I’m pleased to present you with the infinite powder cheat.” he said again, this time with more confidence.

“Eh… I get the lack of smoke is supposed to be a good thing, but it still looks like a rod to me.” Elaine said.

Percy grinned. Pinching one end of the construct between his thumb and index finger, he used his willpower to chip a fragment off, shattering it into powder. He didn’t get that much – barely enough to fill a teaspoon – but this could easily be scaled up.

Next, he fused some more of his mana, pouring it into the enchantment again. Unlike before, the runes guzzled down the teal mana even more eagerly, the rod shining a little brighter. At first, nothing happened. Nesha was about to open her mouth again, but she swallowed whatever she was about to say when the broken section of the rod started growing back. A few seconds later, the construct was as good as new.

“This is definitely impressive, though isn’t it a little slow?” Elaine asked.

Nesha was the one to come to his rescue this time, however.

“It’s much better than his old approach.”

In the past, each marble took Percy around seven minutes. Seven exhausting minutes of intense focus. And he needed one of those marbles for each dose of elixir he wanted to convert into Aurora Dew. In other words, while each brewing session only took about 15 minutes in and of itself, he needed to spend 28 minutes condensing crystals beforehand. All in all, nearly two thirds of his daily chores were wasted on Crystallization!

“This is several times faster already. And that’s without optimizing the shape of the construct, or the size of the enchantment. I haven’t used Synchronization either. Not to mention that this is downright effortless. After I fine-tune everything, I’ll be able to pour my mana into it as we travel and get all the powder I want.”

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Elaine whistled, finally realizing how massive this was. Just like that, Percy had removed over two hours of gruelling work from his daily schedule. Or, well… he would, once they found the rainbow grass equivalent he needed.

‘For now, let’s just improve the construct…’

***

“What do you guys think?” he asked, holding a strange contraption up for all to see.

It was a teal bust of a crow, about as large as Percy’s fist. A self-repair enchantment had been engraved on the base of its neck, this one over thrice as wide as the one he’d drawn on the rod. A glowing gemstone was held in its beak, attached on both sides. It was as large as the marbles Percy usually made.

Nesha squinted to shield her eyes from the sunlight as she examined the object. It was already late in the morning.

“Looks tacky.”

“I like it. It’s cute.” Elaine disagreed.

Either way, the aesthetics didn’t matter much, as long as it did its job. Percy grabbed the gemstone, snapping it out of the beak. Next, he poured his mana into the enchantment, watching a new gemstone grow in real time, several times faster than before.

“23 seconds!” he exclaimed once the new gemstone was complete, more than satisfied with the result.

And he wasn’t the only one satisfied, apparently.

[Congratulations! You have mastered a new spell: Spiritforged Effigy – Refined!]

Registering his eleventh Refined spell was no small feat, though he was a bit too tired to enjoy it. Keeping up with the others on foot was tougher on him due to his lower grade, and he’d spent the whole night experimenting with the enchantment.

“Do you want to take a break?” Elaine asked, noticing he was out of breath.

“Nah. We’ve already lost too much time. I’d rather get to the next town as soon as possible.”

She didn’t seem very convinced, still looking at him with concern. But she kept her thoughts to herself, respecting his wishes.

He sighed. It wasn’t like he didn’t want to rest, but he couldn’t afford to. This whole Divine Root fiasco was bound to blow in their faces sooner or later, and he needed to progress as much as possible until then. His spells aside, he had to reach Yellow too.

‘No slacking for me.’

Shifting his attention elsewhere, his eyes landed on the ethereal cord in his abdomen. This one was connected to his most recent clone, yet he could still perceive it via his mutation. It appeared the evolution of his Secret Art affected all his cords, not just the one linking him to his familiar.

‘Does that mean I can use Soul Resonance with my clones too?’

If he could communicate or even exchange mana with them from farther away, it would open so many new doors... His clones would all have access to an endless supply of teal mana, in addition to whatever their hosts’ affinities were. He could use that as a trump card in the Vault, and who knew where else…

Then again, he wasn’t sure if it was possible. Strictly speaking, he didn’t even know how far his connection could currently reach, let alone if he could extend that.

‘No harm in trying, I suppose.’

Gathering as much fused mana as he could, he forcefully pushed it through the cord, trying to widen it. The connection did expand slightly as the packet of mana coursed through it, though it snapped back to its previous size a moment later. Not that strange, given how Percy’s new spell worked.

‘I guess I’ll need the clone to cooperate with me from the other side.’

Sadly, it was a little late to discuss that with… well, himself. He’d have to wait a couple days for the clone to return before planning ahead for the next one. In the meantime, he could experiment with his familiar.

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‘Hey, Micky! Do you want to play around with that thing from yesterday?’

‘Right now?’ the response was a little lethargic.

The crow wasn’t doing much better than he was, having to fly while keeping Regulation up.

‘Come on, it’ll only take a few minutes to expand the cord. It’s much easier to keep it open afterwards.’

‘Fine.’ the bird groaned.

Percy repeated his earlier actions, this time sending an orb of mana to his familiar. The cord expanded for a moment, before trying to shrink again. Micky didn’t allow it, however, bouncing the mana back. The two kept at it for a while, soon managing to return their connection to its empowered state. The resistance seemed to vanish entirely, as the mana began to flow more smoothly through it, their thoughts threatening to spill out against their will.

“Awesome.” Percy muttered, having watched the entire process with his eyes this time.

The mana wasn’t detectible with Mana Sense while passing through the cord. Percy was confident the connection wasn’t located in the physical plane. Perhaps it used the soul plane. Or maybe something even more esoteric.

Still, it was nice to confirm they could indeed tap into this ability at will. He was tempted to play around with Micky’s ice mana, but he figured he’d bugged the poor bird enough for today.

With nothing better to do, he grabbed the Effigy from his pocket. He might as well switch his brain off and work on his powder stash as they travelled…