The Lone Wanderer

More time passed as Percy worked hard on all fronts, improving both his hunting efficiency and his brewing yield. A month after his first fight against a Starry Soldier, he could already reliably kill around 10 of them per day. The difference was rather modest, but he welcomed the opportunity to hone his combat skills once more.

Before, his efficiency had plateaued as he could already slay the workers near instantly, and his profits had been capped by his travelling speed. Now, he finally had the chance to work on both his stamina – extending Circulation to last all day – and the potency of his magic – learning how to better slaughter the bugs. He also grew better at alchemy, raising his yield to 18%. Between earning 630 drops of nectar per trip and converting most of that into elixir, he could finally fully support one of his cores while still getting a lot of brewing practice.

But he didn’t stop there.

Five months later – or about half a year since the end of his funding – Percy was able to hunt 14 soldiers per trip, while his yield had increased to a whopping 23%. He estimated he could have crossed the 25% threshold if he had continued spending four hours on alchemy per day, but sadly he only had enough nectar for about two. Still, he was on the verge of supporting both of his cores when another interesting development occurred.

Micky finally mastered Circulation!

As Percy had come to learn through the numerous beasts his clones had possessed, a beast affinity was very uniquely suited for the technique. In fact, that was an understatement. Apparently, blood was the best medium for beast mana to flow in, making one’s blood vessels synonymous with their channels!

Even more importantly, since beasts didn’t use conventional spells, they didn’t fall into the trap of only clearing the channels branching out from their cores to their extremities. Instead, they passively cleared and tempered all their pathways, their mana constantly flowing through their whole body, always empowering it. Percy had been shocked by that discovery, realizing beasts already used Circulation – albeit a weaker version of it. It had essentially been the truth behind their strength all along!

It didn’t take a genius to find the correct pattern for the mana to flow in either. It was identical to one’s circulatory system. However, that didn’t mean Micky couldn’t learn to use the full scope of the technique. It only meant Circulation for a beast was equivalent to supercharging their blood flow, a bit like a steroid, drawing even more strength out of their bodies than usual.

Beasts also couldn’t exactly replenish their mana by breathing like mages did, because ambient mana didn’t contain the beast affinity. They could still slowly draw some mana of other affinities from the air, converting it to beast mana, but it was much less efficient than it was for Percy.