The storm raged on, occasional flashes of lightning piercing through the thick film of dust to hammer the new Decree directly into Percy’s mind. Uncaring about their success in the trial, the horrific weather would persist for another week – though it wouldn’t really affect Percy all that much.
Having achieved his primary objective on Gallimus, he’d be gone by then.
His borrowed heart still thrummed with excitement as he thought back to the thrill of the last few minutes. Percy didn’t really blame the boy for his blunder. Consolidating his domain at the wrong moment had been an honest mistake. Even if it hadn’t been, Percy didn’t feel like holding it against the child.
‘All’s well that ends well…’
If anything, he was counting his lucky stars for choosing to undergo the Green-born’s training regimen. Considering how things had gone, it really seemed like he would’ve missed out on the Decree if he hadn’t – the mechanism granting it had clearly been willing to ignore him until he met its strict demands independently of his host.
In fact, Duwa had probably done him a favour by putting him on the spot. Without the added pressure of fighting for Obatala’s Approval in the midst of the storm, Percy might not have succeeded. Despite his preparations and even cheating to fast-track the requirements, he had only made it in the nick of time. And Phoebe-knew if the clouds would have deigned to reform for him, had he allowed them to disperse completely.
‘More importantly, the new Decree is even better than I thought…’
Percy felt the urge to rub his hands together.
Back when Duwa first told him about Obatala’s Approval, Percy hadn’t known what to expect. Decrees came in all shapes and sizes, after all. It wasn’t until he saw the deep red colour of the lightning that Percy realized what he was actually dealing with.
His Status was about to get another upgrade!
Had he shown his Status to the boy during their first meeting, they might have figured this out sooner. Even Enki had known enough about Ea’s Gift to identify Percy’s Status as something similar, and Duwa was far more knowledgeable than the orphan.
However, Percy had grown much better over the years at keeping his thoughts from bleeding through his connection to his hosts, and he hadn’t thought to volunteer this information on his own.
Regardless, it didn’t matter.
Compared to the other two mental Decrees, Obatala’s Approval looked rather barebones. Aside from the child’s mana cores, it lacked all the other sections that Percy was familiar with. The only notable addition was the dedicated domain
section, which he guessed was related to the Decree’s primary function. That said, Percy knew he would be getting a lot more out of the Decree than what its creator had intended…Still waiting for his own copy of the Approval to settle into place, Percy turned his attention to his host.
‘Duwa? Wanna test your new toy?’
The boy nodded enthusiastically, before clenching his fist. Kneeling, he punched the ground, raising a wave of dirt as he left a deep imprint into the soil. Most of the force had come from Duwa’s muscles, but knowing his host’s physical limitations quite well by now, Percy could tell there had been a little extra layered on top.
Interestingly, the child hadn’t taken any time to prepare, nor had he bothered to pull any willpower from his cores. The new Decree clearly allowed him to manifest a domain no weaker than the one he’d used against the beasts, and he could do it as easily as breathing.
Frowning, Duwa tried again, this time taking a few seconds to manually pull some additional willpower from his mana. Percy knew this was the case thanks to the gaps rapidly forming in the substance.
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Before long, the boy punched another hole next to the first, digging even deeper into the dirt this time – though the difference was admittedly small. Not satisfied with that, Duwa repeated his actions a third time, leaving a crater as large as the second one, this time with no preparation again.
‘This is awesome!’ the Green-born exclaimed. ‘Percy, are you seeing this? If I put in some effort to strengthen the domain, the extra power gets locked in, letting me use the upgraded version effortlessly from then on!’
Percy nodded internally, recalling his host’s analogy of the heavy gate. Thanks to Obatala’s Approval – the wedge keeping the gate from closing – Duwa could focus all his efforts into simply opening the gate farther. And whenever he gained another centimetre, he could move the wedge to the next spot too, incrementally strengthening the domain.
‘Keep at it. Let’s see where the limit is,’ he replied.
Obviously, the boy wouldn’t be able to do this infinitely. The domain was still fuelled by his willpower, which needed time to recharge. That was why the Blues Percy had faced in the past had been limited to a few concentrated blasts at most. Clearly, Duwa would be hard-pressed to achieve even that, or this would have been the most overpowered Decree in the universe.
Heeding his instructions, the Green-born repeated his actions for a while, gradually pushing his nascent domain as far as possible, pouring another drop of willpower into it with each attempt. It wasn’t until a couple hours later that he stopped improving, no matter how much effort he put, or how many times he tried.
The so-called pulse
had already tripled in strength compared to when he first awakened it. It was quite an impressive upgrade – especially considering that Duwa would be able to tap into this ability at a moment’s notice.Still, it wasn’t even worth mentioning considering his grade – as even his strongest blast might struggle to overpower a Yellow’s spell. In fact, Percy was confident his host wouldn’t have even made it this far without his second core. Perhaps, the ability would still be useful layered over a regular spell, yet it wasn’t without its cost. By now, Duwa’s pulses had already begun to drain some of the willpower in his mana, so it was debatable whether they would even help more than they hurt during a fight.
Overall, the child hadn’t grown that much stronger. Ironically, the second core Percy had given him would raise his strength a lot more than the Approval he’d spent so many seasons working towards. At the same time, they both understood that this wasn’t the point of the new Decree – the nascent domain wouldn’t show its true value until after the boy’s advancement.
‘Cool, let me try next,’ Percy said eagerly.
The seed of his new Decree had finished taking root inside his own mind, though he hadn’t tampered with it just yet. He wasn’t looking forward to the painful process of merging it into his Status, and he also wanted to test whether he could access his domain without the Approval.
Nothing.
Percy kept trying for a few minutes, but not a single drop of willpower gathered in Duwa’s hand this time. As he had suspected, each copy of the Decree only worked for its owner. If he wanted to access the power he’d unleashed on the unfortunate Orange beast again, he would have to do it manually.
‘Okay, the Approval is definitely handy, but we knew that already. I wonder whether it can lock my domain across different bodies though… Probably not.’
If this worked, then Percy would be able to possess a Violet or a White, manifest an extremely powerful domain using the borrowed body, and then use Obatala’s Approval to bring it back to his own.
It was definitely worth testing, but he was almost certain it wouldn’t work. Domains seemed to greatly depend on one’s body and core – which was why he could manifest one in Elaine’s body but not his own. Yet, they also relied on one’s mind and soul, which was why he and his cousin or he and Duwa had manifested separate domains while sharing the same body.
Percy was willing to bet that Obatala’s Approval would only work for the whole package – body, mana core, mind and soul. If even one of those components were to change, the locked domain wouldn’t be retained. That meant that Percy would still have to awaken his own domain if he wanted to have one.
Sighing, he decided to stop postponing the inevitable.
Locating the inert seed inside his mind, he willed what he imagined as a window to open, bracing himself for a world of agony. His only hope was that the two – or rather, three – Decrees would merge as “smoothly” as they had the last time.
Much like with Ea’s Gift, the window failed to open, a skull-splitting headache appearing in its stead. Percy didn’t panic, however, having expected it. If anything, it didn’t hurt as much as the last time, which had to be a good thing. Not missing a beat, he then willed his regular Status to open, ready to commence the assimilation.
Calling upon his trusty Decree caused the pain to intensify somewhat, but it had yet to reach the heights it had during his visit to Atlantis. Even better, his Status didn’t remain silent this time, a message flashing before Percy’s eyes, causing Duwa’s heart to skip a beat.
[Overlapping functionality detected. Calibrating Phoebe’s Decree. Status will remain unavailable while the assimilation is underway.]