Chapter 55: A message from a god
Percy’s past few weeks had been rough – to say the least. His last clone had been another dud, just like the five before it. He’d found himself in the body of a fish that barely survived an hour before getting eaten.
‘By a fucking crab too!’ the memory still made his blood boil.
At this point, he wasn’t sure if he’d been lucky with his first two clones, or unlucky with the rest. Probably both.
However, that was where the bad news ended. Last night, he finished the alchemy books, and Orin generously offered to sponsor him for half a year. It really was like the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel, as he’d been trying to figure out how to fund his studies for a while now. His hunting trips had capped out at 32 kills per day since three months ago, with no further improvements in sight.
At least, he could now afford both Micky’s rejuvenation potions and the ones he needed to study, but he still struggled to save up any more points past that. At this rate, he’d be stuck until he managed to use Circulation with both cores.
That said, he’d made some progress towards that. He’d already finished clearing the rest of his channels and even mastered drinking the elixirs while moving. His soul had also grown a lot stronger after sending so many clones. Right now, using his bloodline didn’t cause any new tears to form – other than the large chunk he carved out deliberately of course. The only steps left were to temper the channels to their limits and figure out a suitable pattern for the soul mana to flow in. Of course, there were some issues there, but he hoped he’d solve them in due time.
Still, Orin’s help was the key to delving into alchemy a lot sooner than he could have otherwise. Percy hoped his strong theoretical background would let him reach the minimum thresholds more easily than other newbies.
‘I have to make Orin’s funding count. I need to reach a 15% yield by the end. Losing only half the value of the materials is going to sting less.’
Percy stopped in front of a stone house, slightly larger than his own. Senior alchemists who had contributed a lot to the Guild were given an upgraded home with its own private alchemy lab. The rest had to make do with the public ones. Luckily, Percy’s mentor had offered him his own. He was even going to guide him through the process! Well, only for his first few attempts, but it was still massive.