The Lone Wanderer-Chapter 233: Cascading control

“…100.” Percy muttered as he finished drawing the last instance of the self-repair enchantment.

The growth rune was made of an inner circle, with multiple tendril-like features extending outwards in specific patterns, making it resemble a caricature of the sun. At any rate, this inner circle was rather easy to pair with the outermost circle of the memory rune, which was filled with a grid-like pattern in turn.

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Suffice to say, Percy began all his challenge attempts with the self-repair enchantments, as they were the hardest and most time-consuming ones to draw by far. If he failed, he could just abort the wave and start over, saving himself some time. Luckily, he didn’t need to do that right now, his current attempt being just about passable.

‘So far, so good. Let’s go for the controlled variants next…’

By now, Percy had spent over six weeks in the Vault. He’d already reached a satisfactory level with the self-repair enchantment. Even though he couldn’t draw it successfully every single time, he didn’t need to. As it so happened, reality was more forgiving than the damn challenge – at least for what he intended to use it. He only had to succeed once for each piece of his armour and it would work forever. Naturally, he could afford to try a couple of times until he got it right.

In addition to that, he’d also studied the other runes he’d bought. The heat, pressure and rotation runes hadn’t been picked randomly. They were the bread and butter of any alchemic cauldron worth a damn, and Percy had already decided they would be handy to know. Not only would he be able to craft his own cauldrons with his clones in case he needed them – much like what had happened on Atlantis – but he would be able to repair his own back on Remior if it came to it. Not to mention a couple of upgrades he had in mind, to help him elevate his alchemy to the next level.

‘Ok. Far from perfect, but I think the mistakes are still in the acceptable range.’ he nodded once he was done, wiping some sweat off his forehead. Only the simple runes were left.

If it hadn’t been for this project of his, Percy might have considered it a waste of time to learn how to attach control runes to all his other enchantments. However, it was honestly good practice for what he wanted to accomplish.

After all, the enchantments applied to a cauldron couldn’t be used in their raw state. Each of them had to be modified with control runes, and not just one of them. The first control rune allowed an enchantment to be switched on or off, but it was possible to take that further by adding more of them. The second gave the enchantment four possible states, the third one eight of them and so on.

Any decent cauldron – even the ones they had on Remior – needed to have its enchantments affixed with at least four or five control runes each. This was necessary in order to more delicately control the temperature and pressure of a concoction. Which was exactly why Percy had even purchased the book on the ‘cascading control enchantment’. Sadly, he hadn’t had the time to put its teachings to practice just yet. This would easily take a few more months. Still, he’d made sure he understood the underlying concepts well enough to work on this when he returned home.

‘I’m feeling good about this attempt.’ he grinned once he finished drawing the final control rune. At least, he hadn’t run out of time.

‘Enchantments: Preservation, Concealment, Hardness, Absorption, Control, Memory, Growth, Heat, Pressure, Rotation, Self-repair, Controlled-preservation, Controlled-concealment, Controlled-hardness, Controlled-absorption, Controlled-memory, Controlled-growth, Controlled-heat, Controlled-pressure, Controlled-rotation. Difficulty: 1.6. Runes drawn: 2500. Time taken: 29312 rits. Success rate: 60%. Score adjusted due to difficulty: 96%.’

“Congratulations! Wave 3 has been cleared! Calculating rewards…”

“Awarded credits: 300. Current balance: 529.”

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‘Please tell me we’re done with this crap forever.’ Noland pleaded.

‘For the most part.’ Percy nodded, leaving it at that.

Doing his best to ignore his thumping headache, he dragged himself to their supplies, fancying himself a handful of bugs – oddly enough. Or maybe he just wanted an excuse to move a little, his numb feet protesting every single step.

To Noland’s credit, he hadn’t bothered him in the last 10 hours or so. A true achievement, considering how vocal the mole-person had grown over the past few weeks. And Percy didn’t exactly blame him for it either. The poor guy was probably bored out of his mind.

‘I guess he just didn’t want to risk ruining my attempt and forcing me to start over...’

At least, they were done with runecrafting. Well,kinda. Ideally, Percy wanted to buy the index and skim through it once or twice, to give himself an idea of what was in there – just so that he could plan his future trips to the Vault more efficiently. And maybe buy a rune for Nesha too. Sure, he could teach her some of the ones he knew, but he also wanted her to take another step towards crafting spatial amulets if possible. The darn things were becoming more and more important to them by the day. But neither of these tasks would take more than a couple of days.

‘I should also check out the next wave’s requirements, for future reference…’

***

‘Draw any thirty runes 4000 times in total, in under 40000 rits, with at least a 95% success rate. Each individual rune has to be drawn at least 100 times.’

He sighed, knowing this was the end of the road for now. Technically, he could draw over 50 enchantments if he dug into the cascading control runes, but he wouldn’t be reaching an acceptable quality with those anytime soon.

‘The only thing left for this trip are the combat challenges. If we do well in those, I can look into a Yellow host next time.’

Obviously, Percy had already ran into diminishing returns in both the Red and Orange levels. His recent progress in runecrafting should be enough to get him past the fourth wave of the Red magiscript challenge, but that was a whole lot of work for a measly 120 credits. It was best to move to the next level when possible.

‘Noland.’

‘Hmmm?’

‘As soon as you’re done eating, we can give the ‘gauntlet’ challenge a try.’

‘Finally!’

Percy shrugged.

‘I hope those crystals are as good as advertised…’

***

“Wave begins. May your challenge be successful!”

Noland’s gaze was glued to the black tar pouring down the walls, rapidly filling the cube’s floor. However, Percy didn’t pay that much heed, having seen that a few too many times already. His attention was instead drawn to the spider-like golem speeding along the wall. The annoying little critter had already claimed his life once.

‘Time for a rematch.’ he couldn’t help but grin.

Pulling some pure mana from his abdomen, he formed a short rod in his left hand, mostly to parry an attack or two with. Sadly, he couldn’t reveal Crystallization inside the Vault, so there was only so much the new core could be used for. The rest, Noland would have to handle by himself.

‘Just watch and learn.’ the mole-person spoke with confidence.

Drawing some of his gravity mana, he wrapped it around the orange crystal in his hand. A bombstone, he’d called it. The mana itself was quite weird. Colourless and amorphous, yet pulsing with unquestionable might – waiting to be commanded into shape by its owners will. Throwing his hand back, Noland tensed his muscles like a slingshot, as he focused even more mana in his palm.

Of course, the golem wouldn’t just let them do as they pleased. Detaching two of its legs, it sent them after them, trying to decapitate its challenger. Unfortunately for it, Percy had expected that, parrying the constructs away with the rod, giving his host a chance to complete his preparations.

Not wasting another moment, Noland snapped back, pitching the bombstone at a speed he could have never managed with brute strength alone. In an instant, the crystal landed right beside the golem before it had the chance to move an inch. Shattering, it bathed the room in a bright flash, accompanied by a booming shockwave that sent the tar’s surface in turmoil.

‘I guess I’ll need to work on my aim over the next couple of waves…’ he smiled wryly at the sight.

However, Percy wasn’t in a mood to chastise his host. He was a little busy trying to keep his jaw from dropping as he watched the golem’s pieces slowly sinking into the dark liquid in several spots around the room.

“Congratulations! Wave 1 has been cleared! Calculating rewards…”

“Awarded credits: 100. Current balance: 629.”

‘Wow… How many of those did we bring again?’ he couldn’t help but ask.

Noland’s smile widened as he turned to look at the sack still propped against the wall. It was about as tall as he was, stuffed to the brim with crystals that threatened to spill out.

‘Plenty…’