The Lone Wanderer

The clone’s memories settled in place, the events of the past few weeks rapidly flashing through Percy’s mind.

This time, he’d ended up in the body of a semi-sentient for a change! It was a weird, gnoll-like creature – some kind of ugly humanoid racoon. Not his finest moment, but that didn’t detract from the novelty of the experience in the slightest.

Suffice to say, the creature’s tribe was quite primitive – they couldn’t even communicate without grunts and growls, nor did they have much of a civilization going for them. In the few hours Percy had deigned to spend there, he’d determined they couldn’t even build their own houses. Instead, they lived in caves, using only the most rudimentary tools made of sharpened stones and rugged bones.

Of course, Percy didn’t leave immediately.

He did spend an afternoon or so exploring the surrounding area, as he always did, in case there was anything of note. As it turned out, the mountain inhabited by his “people” was surrounded by a dense, fairly normal-looking forest, brimming with wildlife – not unlike something one might see on Remior.

As he travelled through the exotic woods, he made a point to forage for any edible fruit and nuts he stumbled upon, tossing them in a large piece of some animal’s hide he’d “borrowed” from the cave.

In the end, he didn’t find any traces of sentient life, nor any treasure worth his time. His Status didn’t contain anything particularly important either – just his host’s Orange grade and fire affinity, along with the other regulars.

‘It was worth a shot.’

Shrugging, he activated Metatron’s Decree, throwing his supplies in before jumping after them, as was his original plan. Soon, he found himself lying on the familiar metallic floor, boxed inside the world-sized cube.

Honestly, he half-expected Metatron to show up, giving him a piece of his mind. Though that didn’t happen. A quick check also revealed the titan hadn’t revoked his access to the life mana necessary for his second core.

‘I guess he didn’t take the parrot’s condition personally.’ Percy exhaled in relief.

In any case, he had no intention of using the mana, as he wouldn’t have enough time to awaken the core anyway. Nor did he plan to try his luck in the Orange challenges either. Maybe he could have cleared a couple if he did his best, but he was on a tight schedule.

‘Can I give Gabe the mana since I don’t want it?’ he wondered.

Percy had never forgotten about his friend’s crippling disabilities. Walking to the residential area, he soon met up with him, bringing him up to speed on the recent developments.

“You mean you can just waltz in with a random body once a week and ask the system to give you… a million refills of life mana, just like that?!”

“Hey, you’re making it sound like I’m fleecing the guy or something!” Percy rolled his eyes. “Last time I only got 500 credits or so. Anyway, want me to ask if I can transfer the privilege to you this once? I was also thinking of maybe pooling resources together, so we don’t have to buy the same books twic–”

Percy didn’t even get to complete his sentence before all the runes in their surroundings flashed red, the system berating him in a scathing tone.

“WARNING: Unauthorized exchange detected. Registered users are not allowed to exchange credits, information or other resources without permission. Calculating penalty…”

“Ah! That’s my fault!” Gabe said. “I should have warned you about it. Last time, I checked with the cube if I was allowed to lend you a couple of books. It didn’t seem to mind as you were still registered as a guest.”

“Calculation complete. User’s first infraction detected. Penalty reduced to 1 infraction point. Total infraction points: 1.”

“Wow. Just… wow. What this place needs is a “stinginess” challenge. You lot would never have to worry about credits again…” Percy groaned.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

That said, he wasn’t too surprised by this development. If the Vault’s residents were allowed to freely exchange information between themselves, everyone would be doing it. That would only undermine the entire point of the challenges – to motivate the most talented people to grow while weeding out the weaklings.

Part of him wanted to slap himself for not abusing his guest status some more back when he had the chance. But, deep down, he knew Metatron wouldn’t have allowed that. Not if his goal was to entice him into joining the Vault…

“What do these points even do?”

“Well… Normally, each point lasts 50 years. If you accumulate 3, you get executed. That said, I’m not sure what’s going to happen in your case. Though I doubt Metatron will let you get away without any consequences.” Gabe explained.

“3, huh? There’s still some room for–”

“Don’t even think about it. You’re lucky the cube only gave you 1 this time. It’s usually not as lenient.”

Percy swallowed hard, realizing that most of the Vault’s residents got killed if they broke the rules once or twice. Sadly, there was nothing he could do about it for now.

Bidding his friend farewell, he then returned to the challenge cube, beginning the Orange magiscript challenge. He didn’t intend to complete it, but learning how the requirements scaled from one grade to the next would be useful. Besides, this was the best place to get some privacy, unless he wanted to rent a room.

‘Draw any five runes 500 times in total, in under 10000 rits, with at least a 95% success rate. Each individual rune has to be drawn at least 50 times.’

‘Not as bad as I was expecting…’ Percy raised an eyebrow.

It turned out that the first wave of the Orange level was somewhere between the third and fourth waves of the Red level in difficulty. He could already draw the concealment, preservation and control runes well enough, so he’d only need two more to pass.

‘Maybe it’s worth a try then?’

In any case, he’d have to practice with the new runes anyway. Plus, it wouldn’t hurt to pile up some more credits for his next visit. Making his mind up, Percy then browsed the system for the runes his main body had requested. Of course, he didn’t know exactly what he’d find – he’d only come here with a vague idea of what he wanted, but the enchantments sounded simple enough that they should exist.

‘I should still buy that rune index as soon as I can afford it. I can’t spend hours browsing blindly every time…’

That said, he did eventually find what he needed. This time, he’d settled on 7 books on 3 different runes, costing 70 credits in total. The first two were for his own use:

The ‘hardness’ and ‘absorption’ runes.

Percy wanted to include both of them in his new spell. But he didn’t have any special mana type requirements this time, so he’d only get two tomes on each. That should be more than enough to settle on a couple variants he liked.

As for the final rune, he needed it to work with space mana again, as it was meant for Nesha. This wasn’t part of their preparations for the upcoming fight – just the next step in her studies to craft a spatial amulet. The ‘stability’ rune was a key component of the artifacts, as it ensured the pocket dimension could safely store objects for a prolonged period of time. Percy was going to look through 3 tomes on it, picking the most suitable variant.

‘It’s a pity I can’t use it in the challenge.’

He would still have to memorize it by the end of his trip, but he couldn’t activate the stability rune without space mana.

“Alright, just buy those. I want them in hard-copy format.”

“Confirmed. Deducting credits. New balance: 109. Delivery in 6 rits.”

Percy didn’t waste a second before diving into the stack of books. The hardness rune he ended up picking consisted of a single circle, with several progressively smaller hexagons nested inside one another. Not the toughest shape to draw. Even better, he estimated he wouldn’t have much trouble visualizing its effect, as he could simply focus on his reinforced constructs, doubling down on their existing properties.

As for the absorption rune, it was a little trickier to learn, as he didn’t have a very clear image of how it would work in his mind. Absorption runes came in all shapes and sizes, from heat absorption to light absorption, to sound absorption and so on. What Percy wanted was a relatively simple force absorption variant that worked with pure mana.

Overall, mastering the new runes was relatively straightforward. Getting them to the level the challenge wanted took a bit longer, but he figured he’d have to put in the effort back home anyway if he didn’t do it here. So, he simply gritted his teeth for a few more days until…

“Congratulations! Wave 1 has been cleared! Calculating rewards…”

“Awarded credits: 100. Current balance: 209.”

Percy finally had enough credits for the index, though he wouldn’t have any left for the next runes if he bought it now. Deciding to postpone it once more, he quickly checked the second wave’s requirements.

‘Draw any ten runes 1500 times in total, in under 20000 rits, with at least a 95% success rate. Each individual rune has to be drawn at least 100 times.’

‘Yeah, I think we’re done here.’

The darn thing was even tougher than the fourth wave of the Red level!

Shaking his head, he finally allowed the ethereal cord to pull him out of the gnoll’s body, letting Metatron do whatever the hell he wanted with his new toy as he drifted back towards Remior.

***

Percy opened his eyes, a smile tugging at his lips as he pondered over his latest acquisitions. His new spell would involve quite a few moving parts, but it should massively raise his survivability even against a Green once he got it to work.

‘Time to forge myself some armour.’

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