Percy and Cassiel improved at a rapid pace. The boy exercised twenty-four hours a day while waiting in the queue, eating from Percy’s supplies and using life mana to recover quickly after each training session. His childish body was already looking a lot healthier; some muscle having slowly found its way under his green skin.

  Unfortunately, Percy hadn’t compressed any higher-grade potions after his infiltration mission and the Orange resources were far less effective on his host than Archibald’s mana had been for him in the past. To accelerate Cassiel’s progress, he was forced to consume some of the Clear mana that Metatron owed him.

  Luckily, even the tiniest droplet was more than enough for a full recovery. Percy estimated that their body would be ready for Circulation before he used up even twenty percent of his stash, allowing him to bring the rest back to Remior.

  The boy not having to sleep or clear his channels also helped. Percy was the one in charge of opening and tempering his host’s pathways, being more experienced.

  ‘We should be done in around four months…’ he guessed.

  He was going to run out of food sooner than that, though that wasn’t a huge problem. Now that Cassiel was officially one of Metatron’s precious, two-cored subjects, he was entitled to a lifetime supply of sizian meat. The boy would never be at risk of starving again, even after Percy parted ways with him.

  They had deliberately avoided eating sizian meat so far, because it doubled as a cultivation resource full of stable beast mana. Percy estimated that the boy was around eight or nine years old – maybe even older – which meant that he wasn’t that far from his first promotion.

  Even if only some of the beast mana spilled into his channels and found its way to his core by accident, he could very easily advance before they attempted the challenges, placing them in a different level than the one they were preparing for.

  Thankfully, Percy noticed that sizian meat nowadays appeared to contain half the concentration of beast mana that it used to. Asking Cassiel, he learned that Metatron had recently acquired a cleansing technique that allowed one to obtain the same results at half the cost.

  After disseminating what Percy assumed to be the Cascading Cracks technique to his people, the titan had adjusted the production parameters of their rations so that they would contain the same amount of nutrition but only half the mana. This was perfect for him and Cassiel, as it further reduced the risk of an accidental advancement.

  Come to think of it, the portions that Cassiel and his previous hosts were using had also felt a little smaller than the ones that Gabe had eaten during Percy’s first visit in the Vault, though they’d still contained enough mana for a single core each. Was this a similar adjustment that Metatron had made so that his two-cored specimens wouldn’t get fat from overeating?

  ‘Interesting. I wonder how they manage to adjust the beast mana ratio so easily…’

  Perhaps this was the result of another alchemic principle for him to study. This time, he’d have more than enough credits in his hands to look into the Vault’s alchemy, so it was probably worth checking.

  A few days after Percy’s arrival, the other clones also made it to the Vault. Receiving his message, they soon found him waiting outside the challenge cubes, asking him for a more detailed recap of his meeting with Metatron.

  The clone in Cassiel’s body would be the one in charge of all the purchases from the system and trades with the titan, to avoid claiming the same rewards twice. That was not to say that the others would be lazing around, however. They both had their own jobs.

  While the combat challenges would be equally difficult for everyone, the magiscript challenges should be easier at the lower grades. The Red and Orange clones would hopefully climb much higher and finish sooner, freeing up time to begin studying the new runes as soon as the Yellow clone bought a few books.

  Their purchases would be made under their shared user ID, meaning that they could all access the books from their personal library and get as many copies printed as they wanted, without even having to physically meet one another.

  ‘Hmmm… doesn’t this mean that we can completely bypass the Vault’s restrictions on sharing resources?’ Percy wondered.

  He’d already verified that he was allowed to teach or give his current host whatever he wanted without incurring a penalty. The system didn’t crack down on them because they shared a body, so it was difficult to differentiate what belonged to each of them.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  It even allowed him to give things to his clones. While they occupied different bodies, the cube apparently perceived the trades as “Percy” giving an object to “Percy”, having nothing to say about that. Capitalizing on these loopholes, he could even have his hosts indirectly give things to one another.

  ‘So, if Gabe wants to give something to Leo in the future, all I have to do is to put a clone in each of them at the same time…’ he reasoned.

  It was a little weird that Metatron had left such an obvious loophole open. The titan was clearly capable of drawing enchantments to detect, recognize and interact with Percy’s soul, give him spatial seals that he could carry even in his disembodied state, and even pass him his Decree. Surely, he could have found a way to fix the issue if he wanted.

  Perhaps, this was intentional. The crafty pentapus had found yet another way to incentivize Percy to keep sending clones to the Vault.

  In any case, the Red and Orange clones could begin studying the new runes as the Yellow clone worked on the harder challenges. That way, they would not only save their main bodies time later – which was important given how busy they were – but also quickly identify any gaps in their knowledge, asking him to buy the required books. As a result, the three of them would spend their time here as efficiently as possible.

  After agreeing to the plan, the other clones found their own queues, copying his approach of preparing their hosts for Circulation while waiting. Thankfully, their lower grades made the healing potions more effective, sparing the rest of Percy’s Clear mana. Their healthier bodies also gave them a higher starting point than the emaciated child, though they had more pathways to open and temper.

  Percy saw Leo and Noland on separate days. Just like he had deduced, his friends had apparently been busy with the challenges lately. He failed to meet up with Noland, as the fur-covered guy didn’t notice him yelling, though Leo did, giving them a chance to catch up.

  The Felmaran boy had already grown up, his second core having reached Yellow. Leo had even mastered Synchronization and made good progress on the combat challenges, having completed the fifth wave in both.

  He’d even studied magiscript over the years, though he was very much a novice still. The Yellow level of the challenge wasn’t very welcoming for beginners either, so Leo was struggling at the second wave.

  “Well, keep at it. It gets easier with practice,” Percy advised his former host, getting a nod back.

  After learning about the others from Leo – they were about as busy as he had expected – they went their separate ways. Or… well… Leo went his separate way, returning to his room while Percy and Cassiel kept waiting in the queue. He’d asked the Felmaran to help him arrange a proper reunion with the others at some point, but everyone had their own things to worry about at the moment.

  The queue barely budged, each person spending several days in the cube. The first two took about a week each, though the third remained inside for nearly a month.

  Percy didn’t mind them too much, since he and his host weren’t done preparing yet. He finished clearing the channels before the child’s body was ready, so he couldn’t fully temper them. Taking a break from that, he started working on the fire pattern.

  It was the only common affinity that he’d never discovered in the past, but he had so much prior experience with different versions of his boosting art that figuring out the correct flow was a breeze.

  ‘I should still ask the others for their patterns later if the cube allows it. If I can learn their composite affinities or Noland’s gravity mana it’ll save me a lot of time in the future,’ he decided.

  It was about three months into the trip when their turn finally arrived. Cassiel looked much healthier, though he could still use some work before he could sustain Circulation for a prolonged period of time – let alone Synchronization.

  ‘It doesn’t matter. I’ll start with the magiscript challenge. You can resume exercising whenever I take a break,’ he told the boy.

  With the Scribing trait and a pure core at hand, Percy was confident that he was about to destroy the first few waves.

  “Cube. Start the ‘magiscript’ challenge. Yellow level. User ID: WANDERER.”

  “Authorization granted. Restarting ‘magiscript’ challenge, Yellow level. The user has already cleared wave 1. Do you wish to resume at wave 2?” the soulless voice echoed through the room.

  “Yes,” Percy said, not missing a beat.

  “Choice confirmed. Wave begins in 18 rits.”

  Walking to the podium erected in the middle of the cube, he sat atop the elevated cylindrical platform beside it, the two constructs promptly adjusting themselves to his host’s height.

  “Wave begins in 12 rits.”

  Reading the instructions flashing on the surface, he stretched Cassiel’s arms and cracked his knuckles as he stirred the Scribing trait inside his wisp. It was probably overkill, but the Yellow waves lasted several hours each, so going all out would save him a lot of time.

  ‘Draw any forty enchantments 5000 times in total, in under 40000 rits, with at least a 95% success rate. Each individual enchantment has to be drawn at least 100 times. At least twenty different enchantments have to contain multiple runes.’

  Percy nodded, the once-daunting task now little more than a nuisance. Forty thousand rits should be over thirteen hours, but he doubted that he’d need nearly that long.

  “Wave begins in 6 rits.”

  Technically, he didn’t know forty different runes, but he was quite proficient at combining any pair he wanted into an enchantment or pseudo-enchantment. He could easily produce thousands or even tens of thousands of combinations.

  Having about ten seconds to prepare each enchantment while being allowed a five percent margin of error only made the challenge more straightforward. The trait wouldn’t even allow him to botch the symbols, so he just had to breathe meaning into the enchantments correctly.

  “Wave begins. May your challenge be successful!”

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