Chapter 82: Fifth wave
‘Any progress with that book?’ Percy asked.
Another week had passed since their narrow victory against the fourth wave, though they had yet to challenge the fifth one. Acknowledging their inadequacy, they hadn’t been in a hurry to move on, taking their time to get stronger, as they fought against the same opponent again and again. Challenging a previously beaten wave didn’t reward any credits, but it was still good practice, letting them hone both their magic and their teamwork. Though Gabe was currently back in his room, as the two of them had plenty of work to do even during their downtime.
‘A little.’ he replied, before elaborating. ‘The gist is we can supposedly fuse the two elements, much like a composite affinity. In fact, since both of my cores have elemental mana, the result will be exactly like a composite affinity. However, there are a few complications.’
‘Such as?’ Percy asked.
‘Well, if you have a composite core, the two types of mana merge automatically inside it, without requiring any effort from its user. In my case, I’ll have to expend a lot of willpower to replicate that feat.’ Gabe explained.
‘But there’s two of us! Shouldn’t that make it easier?’ Percy asked.
However, his host shook his head.
‘That’s actually a bad thing. It makes it harder to blend the mana if there are two separate minds in charge. Also, the mismatch between my cores’ grades and the fact that only my fire mana is enhanced by a blessing will create an imbalance of power.’
Percy frowned. If this was true, they’d struggle to get the trick down in time. A possible solution was for Gabe to learn how to use his air magic by himself, but that would put too much pressure on him during the fight. Percy knew first-hand how difficult it was to keep track of two cores at once. It could easily take his host a couple months to get there. Especially since Gabe was in charge of the wings too…