The Lone Wanderer-Chapter 245: Under pressure

Percy’s hands shook as he tried to mould his mana into the correct shape. This was already his third attempt, but the construct crumbled into powder about half-way through, the fine dust spilling between his trembling fingers.

“Come on… not again!” he groaned, nearly slamming his fist on the table.

Nesha placed her hand on his wrist, giving it a gentle squeeze.

“This isn’t helping. You need to calm down.”

He looked at her in a daze for a couple seconds, letting the words sink in. Eventually, he placed his other hand on top of hers, nodding.

They had no idea if the Holy Child would follow them to Goldenfield town. It was just speculation on their part. Perhaps they were wrong about the whole thing. Maybe the last couple of towns had been a coincidence. Or maybe, the boy just wouldn’t bother venturing even farther from his destination for their sake, whatever it was he wanted.

Regardless, Percy couldn’t leave it up to chance. This was why he’d kept Circulation active throughout the journey – risking being seen by a passerby – just to reach the town a couple days sooner. To give himself some extra time to prepare.

“If he does follow us, I need to have this done.”

“I know. But you should try taking a deep breath first.”

Healing potions were a poor substitute for sleep, but the group had still been forced to guzzle them down one after the other like crazy to keep going. By now, they’d already wasted about a third of Percy’s stash, and they didn’t have much to show for it.

Still, he had to make the most of his time. To reforge his armour. It might not protect him much from the Holy Child but, at least, he wouldn’t be as defenceless when it came to his guards. Of course, he’d much rather avoid fighting altogether. Sadly, he had no idea if that would even be possible.

Listening to Nesha’s advice, Percy inhaled deeply, forcing himself to relax. She was right. He couldn’t do this with his hands trembling. Whether it was due to the exhaustion or the stress, he had to rein himself in first.

A few minutes later, he grabbed another handful of powder from his jar. The good news was that he had plenty – courtesy of his new spell. But the actual process of crafting the Phantomscale Raiment was very time-consuming in and of itself. He’d had a lot of practice over the last year, but he still wasn’t sure whether he could rebuild all the pieces in the next two days.

Clearing his mind, he began fusing the soft mana with the powder, forming the intermediate materials he needed for the armour.

‘If I’m going to do this, I should do it right… After all, it’s going to stick around this time, thanks to the self-repair enchantment…’

Once he had all the materials ready, he blended them together into the toughest alloy he’d discovered through his experiments, before shaping it into a fingerguard. Or, well… a piece of one.

‘Alright… at least it didn’t break this time…’ he exhaled in relief, flicking the glowing construct twice for good measure.

Next, he set his eyes on its interior, carving the growth and memory runes on top of one another. This was one of the hardest parts, as a single mistake would force him to start over. Only once the enchantment had been drawn without errors did he fill the empty space with some more reinforced mana, visualizing the intended effect in his mind.

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“Did it work?” Nesha asked.

“Let’s find out.” he shrugged.

Chipping a piece off the corner of the construct, he fed some more of his fused mana into the enchantment, watching the fingerguard repair itself soon enough. Nodding in satisfaction, he then began to engrave the second enchantment on the outer side of the object.

This piece was supposed to go in the innermost layer of his armour. In the past, he’d engraved the absorption runes on it, using the hardness runes for the middle layer and the concealment runes for the outer layer. This time, he was planning to do things a little differently, however. He wanted to use his newfound knowledge of magiscript to stack more than one enchantment on each piece.

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‘Let’s see… I want both a hardness and absorption rune here…’ he thought, trying to overlap the symbols.

A true composite enchantment – like self-repair – required one to simultaneously visualize both the joint effect and the effects of its components. Unfortunately, Percy didn’t know of any enchantments involving this specific pair of runes.

Still, based on the things he’d read, it should be possible to consolidate the two symbols into one pseudo-enchantment. It wouldn’t do anything extra – just whatever the runes did separately. That said, it would take less space to draw, allowing Percy to shoehorn both onto the piece.

About half an hour later, he was done, marvelling at the completed construct. Against all odds, the patchwork of runes had worked on the first try too, saving him some precious time.

“One piece down…” he said, though he instinctively slapped his forehead the very next moment, realizing he’d messed up. “Shit.”

“What’s wrong?” Nesha asked.

Percy sighed. It was easier to show her. Picking the construct up again, he poured more of his fused mana into the self-repair enchantment. Soon, the material lodged into the other runes got pushed out, the engraved symbols slowly closing, like a wound in the process of healing.

“The other runes have to be engraved first, or the self-repair enchantment will erase them automatically… Damn, and I kept reminding myself to be careful about this. I guess the lack of sleep is getting to me.”

With a heavy heart, Percy destroyed the object again, starting over for the fifth time.

***

Unfortunately, the self-repair enchantment failed to activate during his next attempt, the hardness rune messing up the one after. By the time Percy managed to craft the construct perfectly, it had already been around two hours.

“Not good enough.” he spat, his features twisting into a grimace. “I’ve still got dozens of pieces. At this rate, it’ll take me a full week.”

“I’m sure you’ll pick up the pace. Just concentrate.” Nesha said, handing him two more potions.

Percy didn’t argue, gulping down the green liquid. On any other day, he might have found the minty flavour refreshing. Right now, it only served as a bitter reminder that he was pouring the potions down the drain. At least, the life mana relieved the tension in his eyelids, lifting the sting off his eyes. Still, his brain felt just as fried as it had five minutes ago.

Sighing, he grabbed another handful of powder, starting work on the second piece.

“Let’s get this one done in under an hour. No room for mistakes.”

***

Minutes became hours, and hours became days, as Percy continued rebuilding his armour one piece at a time. He ignored the light seeping through the curtains – sometimes the bright rays of the sun, others the soft glimmer of the moon – his mind focused on the crafting process alone.

At first, he made several mistakes. Most of them when drawing the self-repair enchantment, but occasionally the forging process went wrong too. Still, he got better with each piece, handing them to Nesha one after the other.

Stacking them onto a pile, she never stopped encouraging him and giving him more potions whenever she felt like he needed them. At the same time, their hearts kept racing, constantly afraid that Micky would reach out, informing them the Divine Root was here.

Luckily, that never happened. In the end, Percy managed to complete the entire armour, confirming that every single enchantment worked as it was meant to.

“One last thing I need to do.” he said, gathering some more of the teal powder.

This time, he allowed his spectral trait to take over, spinning the mana into a thread. It wasn’t nearly thin enough to weave a fabric out of – Percy estimated that goal was still years away – but that didn’t mean it was useless.

It was good enough to fasten the armour pieces together, replacing the need for the soft mana. That way, Percy wouldn’t have to constantly exert himself to hold everything together, which would allow him to better focus on the fight at hand. Even better, the threads would be stronger, making it much harder for the spell to come apart.

“But how are you going to add the self-repair enchantment on the strings?” Nesha asked.

“I won’t. I’ll have to replace them every few days. Still better than reforging the whole armour or having to manually hold it in place.” he explained.

As soon as he was done, he tossed the new strings atop the pile of his armour, before climbing onto the bed. Overall, he’d made several changes to the spell – whether it was the shape of the armour, the reinforced strings, or the upgraded runes. There was no doubt in his mind it was a great deal stronger all-around, but he wasn’t in a rush to put it on. Right now, the best thing he could do would be to get some rest.

‘Micky, how are the two of you doing?’ he asked through the cord.

The response came promptly.

‘We’ve taken turns sleeping and keeping an eye out on the road. Every few hours, Elaine enters the town to check if the Holy Child has entered from a different side. As far as we can tell, they aren’t here yet.’

Percy nodded, feeling a little better. Maybe they really had made a mistake… Of course, he wouldn’t be able to relax completely for a few more days.

‘Wake me up if anything happens.’ he sent back, before relaying the news to Nesha.

The two then shut their eyes, their sheer exhaustion putting them to sleep mere moments later. It still wasn’t clear whether the Holy Child was after them, but one thing was certain:

Whatever ended up happening, Percy was ready for it.