A rush of memories accompanied every painful throb in Percy’s head. His trip to Thess’kala hadn’t been his longest, but it had been densely packed with excitement, important knowledge and high-stakes battles. At least he’d grown a lot better at assimilating his clones, so he managed to wrap his mind around the key points fairly quickly.

Fully consolidating his gains would take a lot longer, since there were several things he had to deal with, and much of it had to be done in a very specific order. For example, passing the affinity-changing treasure to Nesha and Elaine had to wait until after he checked whether his wasp familiar needed it. And while the pyramid’s deterioration would inevitably force him to attempt his infiltration of the Fungal Spire in the next few months, Percy wanted to complete all his other preparations first, to raise his odds of success.

He should also get better healing potions before attempting the dangerous body-strengthening ritual, which had to come after he registered the compression principle. Furthermore, he’d rather upgrade his cauldron before he switched to alchemy, which inevitably had to wait until he was done weaving his new armour – since his work on that was helping him improve his magiscript rapidly. Suffice to say, the next few weeks were bound to be quite busy.

‘Why does everything have to be so complicated?’ he wondered with a heavy sigh, though he understood this was ultimately a good problem to have.

Luckily, his most important prize from Thess’kala was one that he could use immediately. Tapping into the new seal the clone had just dumped into his soul, Percy pulled out a large, glowing object, grabbing it carefully the moment it appeared in his hands, to prevent the strong winds from carrying it away. Percy hadn’t had the chance to examine it too closely during his frantic escape from Syrreneth’s chamber, so he played with it for a few seconds, noting how light and flexible it was. Its texture resembled a gemstone’s, but it bent as easily as a regular leaf.

Whether the treacherous snakes had told him the truth about its effects remained to be seen, but Percy liked his odds. The object looked too similar to the ones his family’s jade tree produced, lending credence to Kassorith’s story about the long-destroyed Elemental Source. Percy didn’t think his host had made up the part about the Void Hand or the scattered saplings either.

‘The only thing they could have lied about, is on whether this specific leaf has come from a second-generation sapling, or one lower than that…’

He shrugged. There was only one way to know for sure. It would suck if it turned out they’d tricked him, but there was no sense in worrying about it pre-emptively.

Percy was trying to decide whether to swallow the leaf whole or chop it up into pieces first, when Micky’s voice rang in his mind. ‘Are you going to keep us wondering? Where did your clone go? And what’s up with that thing?’

Percy rolled his eyes. Technically, his familiar and clone could read his thoughts, but it wasn’t easy for them to follow the entire rush of memories that accompanied a returning wisp.

‘I’ll bring you up to speed later. Let me deal with this thing first before it goes bad or something.’

Percy didn’t think the treasure would spoil anytime soon, but it was too valuable, and he’d gone through too much trouble earning the artifact to risk it. Glancing back at the object, he realized it would probably fit in his stomach if he folded it, though he doubted he could get it through his throat. Cutting the leaves shouldn’t

diminish their effects, since they were regularly consumed by lots of species of sapients that couldn’t stretch their mouths and necks like the Thess’kalans, but there was a faster and safer way to get it where he wanted.

Rolling and folding it into a cube as gently as he could – so that he wouldn’t damage it by accident – Percy stored it in his spatial seal, before summoning it directly inside his stomach. There was a chance he’d struggle to digest it without having chewed it first, but he could gather some pure mana to help the process along if that proved to be the case.

It soon became clear there wouldn’t be any need for that.

The object began to dissolve rapidly as soon as it touched the gastric acid, releasing enormous amounts of life mana. Percy felt bloated, waves of vitality rippling through every vein and muscle fibre in his body. He was instantly reminded of not only all the times he’d overeaten, but also every time he’d received healing – be it through his grandfather’s magic, or his own potions.

Yet, there was something more at play.

It wasn’t his first time coming across a source of life mana this dense, but the substance seemed to possess an additional, unique quality that affected Percy far more deeply than his previous brushes with the affinity. Tiny scars that he’d never even noticed closed rapidly, kinks in his joints that he’d grown used to getting smoothed out. His heart thrummed a bit faster, his lungs feeling like they could expand a little further, as even the tension on his forehead eased slightly.

Stolen story; please report.

Percy suddenly felt years younger, though his body was still that of an adult. In many ways, the experience was reminiscent of a core advancement, though the effect was admittedly less pronounced, and wasn’t accompanied by an increase in physical strength or mental clarity. Even so, the intoxicating feeling coursing through him left little doubt as to the leaf’s effect. Evidently, the Thess’kalans had told him the truth – about this, at least – probably having not expected him to actually escape with the treasure.

‘Woah! Don’t tell me eating that thing did what I think it did!’ the clone in Micky’s body exclaimed, having shared Percy’s senses.

‘Sure did,’ Percy answered the rhetorical non-question as the last traces of the leaf got absorbed by his organs, his lips parting into a toothy grin. ‘To be precise, we’ve just doubled our remaining lifespan!’

A wave of shock rippled through both cords, his companions clearly struggling to believe what they’d just heard. Percy couldn’t really blame them for it, since he was having a hard time accepting it himself, despite having just received all the memories of working tirelessly toward this exact goal for weeks.

If this was anything like an advancement, the feeling of euphoria would fade in a couple of days as he grew accustomed to the changes, yet the extra thousand or so years he’d just added to his lifespan should remain – closer to ten thousand after his next two promotions, assuming that he stayed on his current trajectory.

‘Seriously? Just from eating a single, oversized leaf? Did you bring more by any chance?’ the clone asked again.

Percy sighed. ‘Only the first of its type does anything, though there are better leaves out there that will be much harder to get. I would have brought some for Micky and the girls, but I was honestly lucky to obtain even the one.’

Nesha and Elaine weren’t a huge concern, due to their higher starting grades. In fact, Elaine didn’t need a lifespan extension at all, and while Percy hadn’t bothered to do the math for Nesha, he knew that she was also in a much better spot than him. Even if she wasn’t projected to reach the Clear grade just yet, she could definitely afford to wait until the next opportunity.

Micky was a different story, however.

He was technically a Red-born like Percy, and his base lifespan was probably several times shorter than a human’s – which was a problem. Thankfully, the crow had obtained his second core, started drinking Aurora Dew, and gone through several evolutions very early on, so he probably still had several centuries ahead of him. Due to his main affinity, time wouldn’t catch up to him nearly as fast, provided that he continued to consume high-grade cores regularly. Even so, bringing his friend a leaf would give Percy some peace of mind. Sadly, that would have to wait until his next greater spring.

Over the next few minutes, Percy gave Micky and the clone a brief overview of his time on Thess’kala. He did that mostly to get them off his back, but also to get more opinions on his gains and the ways he could take advantage of them.

‘Such a monumental change from eating a single leaf… and it’s not even from the original World Tree. Only a second-generation sapling,’ Micky mused, before voicing a question that Percy hadn’t even considered. ‘Do you think other Elemental Sources might have their own unique properties – besides altering the affinity of the sapients on their planets or granting them insight when they practice their spells?’

‘I suppose it’s possible...’ Percy muttered through the cord, raising an eyebrow as he contemplated his friend’s words.

Neither Mrs. Lia nor Zoris had mentioned anything of the sort, but it could be the case that only the factions in possession of the cosmic wonders got the opportunity to study them properly – keeping their discoveries tightly under wraps to avoid drawing unnecessary attention. Even the World Tree’s life-extending effect might have remained a secret if not for the calamitous war that had divided it and spread its pieces to dozens of greater springs.

‘And there’s a good chance that nobody but me, Zoris, and Sol’s people has ever been to the Mirror Lake!’ Percy reminded himself.

As knowledgeable as the former god was, he had hailed from merely a lesser spring – by his own admission – so he might not be privy to such high-level information. And despite the countless years he had spent living inside the Mirror Lake’s tranquil waters, there was probably a limit to what tests Zoris could have conducted without an actual body.

Granted, Percy had confirmed with the Melodians that drinking the water didn’t do anything special, but that was far from an exhaustive investigation. As much as Percy liked Sol and her people, he had to admit that they were largely ignorant of cosmic matters. They hadn’t been able to visit the Elemental Source very often either, nor did they possess the means or the time to examine the place properly.

What if they tried digging a pit in the lakebed to check if there was anything valuable hiding in the mud? Or if they cultivated more types of herbs around the Mirror Lake? And what if absorbing the fiends buzzing right above the Source somehow improved the spectral traits they granted?

‘The possibilities are endless. I should look into it the next time I visit,’ Percy decided.

He wanted to study more soul spells anyway, and he wouldn’t find better teachers than Zoris and the Melodians, nor a better place to practice than the Mirror Lake. Even if he failed to discover anything new about the Elemental Source, he wouldn’t be wasting his time.

With a heavy sigh, he mentally added yet another entry to his increasingly long to-do list. It would be years before he was free, but his next trip to Melodia was quickly shaping up into a rather interesting one. For now, there were more urgent things to focus on.

‘Nephthys’s time is running out and I have a dozen things begging for my attention…’ Percy thought.

He couldn’t afford to delay any longer. Tomorrow, he would begin the final push to upgrade his armour – to hopefully put an end to the main project that had completely dominated his life for over a year.