Percy didn’t even flinch as the grey needle pierced his skin for the thousandth time that day, injecting the green fluid into his body. Only when he was done drawing the fifteenth leaf on his lower forearm did he take a short break to catch his breath, carefully examining the tattoo. It was shaped like a vine, coiling around his left arm, all the way from his shoulder down to near his wrist. Each leaf represented a single dose of ink that would last for a while before degrading – unless he was forced to use it sooner, of course.

Compressing the healing ink wasn’t very different from the potions. It required about the same amount of pressure, and only the slightest variations in the frequency of the pulses. The tattoos were more effective than the potions too, due to the nature of the mushrooms Percy had brewed them out of, so having a few Green-grade variants to fall back to in a pinch gave him some peace of mind.

On one hand, this was the most potent source of healing he could currently prepare for himself. On the other, he knew the marginal improvement from potions to tattoos wasn’t worth the time or the resources when he needed to consume hundreds of doses in short order.

This was why he hadn’t bothered to prepare any for the ritual, sticking with regular potions. However, he wasn’t going to skimp on his safety when it came to a dangerous fight. In that case, quality generally beat quantity, as it would allow him to mend much nastier wounds, and to do so faster.

‘I should still be careful. The tattoos may be potent, but I doubt I’ll be able to regrow a missing limb or recover from a serious injury,’ he reminded himself, suddenly feeling a little envious of his friend’s mutation.

Storing the empty vials into his seal, he summoned a few filled with a brown liquid into his hands. This was naturally Yellow-grade trollsfury ink that he had also compressed. The recipe for it differed a little more, since it required an entirely different base ingredient from the healing ink. Even so, Percy hadn’t had much trouble figuring out the correct setup, thanks to his eyes and the newly registered principle.

His yield was still abysmal – and would likely remain so until he got more practice – but he didn’t care about it too much, because he only used the trollsfury tattoos in an emergency and didn’t require too many doses. Taking the time to improve his efficiency only made sense for products that he needed lots of.

Percy hadn’t even attempted to compress this flavour of ink a second time. Not that he couldn’t, but he was more cautious when it came to these tattoos than the others. While he felt confident that his strengthened body could now handle the strain of tattoos matching his grade in tandem with his boosting art, he’d rather test that in battle before going a step farther.

About an hour later, Percy finished drawing the troll king’s face on his chest. The tattoo generally looked better on his back, but it was harder to reach there by himself, and optics weren’t a priority right now.

‘The sun is about to set,’ he noticed.

The past few days had felt a little longer for him and Micky, as they’d been flying westward at full speed, thus stretching both daytime and nighttime slightly. Regardless, their extended trip over the ocean was about to come to an end, as the coast was already within view. Tapping into his familiar’s senses, Percy immersed himself in his surroundings, appreciating his final sunset out at sea.

Micky was flying pretty low to delay detection by their enemies for as long as possible. He was gliding as quietly as he could above the surface, the force of the frigid tornado swirling around his body propelling him forward more than the infrequent flapping of his wings did.

He allowed his talons to sink into the water, the liquid feeling as hard as stone at this speed. The crow’s sharp claws still carved into the blue sheet with ease, spilling a trail of foam in his wake. Objectively speaking, the seawater was rather cold this far north, though to Percy and his familiar it might as well have been tea. A salty breeze assaulted their nostrils as they enjoyed the sun’s gradual descent, the sky slowly shifting from one vibrant hue to the next as the star disappeared behind the mountains in the distance.

Every now and then, Micky flapped his powerful wings, planting a short-lived lotus in the water, its white petals sprinkled with icy powder that glittered beneath the fading sunlight.

Before long, the sea was replaced by sand, though that barely lasted a moment before they flew past the beach and into the vast stretches of grasslands that Percy knew would paint most of the ensuing journey. Hills and plains alike were covered in washed-up yellows and golds, the chirping insects having long gone silent as a few trees stood half-naked here and there, slowly shedding what remained of their withering coats.

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Every now and then, a brown leaf drifted toward Percy, though it never got a chance to plaster itself onto his body, shredded into brittle powder by the violent gusts spiralling around his familiar. Still, the mana-rich wind didn’t stop Percy from smelling the nostalgic scent of decaying plantmatter and wet dirt, or hearing the faint flaps of migrating birds flying in intricate formations in the horizon.

‘I guess it should be late autumn…’ Percy thought, having long lost track of the seasons. In his defence, there weren’t many ways to tell in the ocean – other than counting days, of course.

Percy sure hoped that they wouldn’t be discovered immediately, although he understood that it was only a matter of time. He was confident that he and Micky could outspeed most Blues with ease, so he wasn’t as worried about being chased, but there were several bloodlines out there that could facilitate fast communication. If the wrong family caught wind of their movements, the information could easily reach House Asclepius or the Divine Root. From there, the rest of Remior would find out soon enough, and all the hunting parties would start converging towards them.

‘Are you afraid they’ll start sending more than four or five people after us at a time?’ Micky asked.

‘Hard to know, but that isn’t a huge problem by itself,’ Percy replied with a shrug.

‘How so?’

‘Well, on paper, a group of five Blues can hold their own against a Violet, but that assumes that the Violet sticks around to face them head on. In practice, battle power doesn’t scale as neatly with numbers. A Violet can just escape from any group of Blues with relative ease, and the same applies to us, so gathering too many in the same location only makes them less effective.’

‘Their stacked domains would still slow us down,’ Micky protested.

‘They would, but only if they remain close to one another which, again, would lead to the same problem,’ Percy patiently explained. ‘Basically, unless they have more veteran assassins with space affinities to send, they’ll struggle to contain us.’

Micky tilted his head in confusion. ‘If that’s the case, then why are you stressing over being spotted?’

Percy sighed. ‘I’m not as worried about an ambush in a random location that we can easily avoid. However, it’ll be a huge problem if they figure out that we’re heading toward the Fungal Spire and fortify the place before we get there.’

Micky nodded in understanding, not saying anything else. Bringing a couple of Starry Commanders to the verge of death and planting soul clones in their bodies should be easy enough, but it would inevitably take some time. Not much time, but more than Percy would have while being chased by over a dozen Blues.

Thankfully, he didn’t think his previous movements had given his enemies any clues as to his goal, and he was confident that he and Micky could make the trip before their pursuers got the chance to organize.

‘Let’s prepare for the worse-case scenario though.’

Percy didn’t have any personal projects that would yield meaningful results in the little time he had left, but Micky’s boosting art could still use some work. The crow had already figured out all four of the spell’s patterns, so it was just a question of scaling the technique up to its limits – maximizing the flow and conversion of ambient mana and using it to fuel his fighting style as seamlessly as Percy had done with his own version.

Micky’s battle against the trio of Blues had been quite unpleasant, but it had provided him and the clone with valuable insight on how to iron out the last few kinks from the spell. Sharing his senses with the crow, Percy assisted his companions, thinking that a third mind might help them complete the looming upgrade that much sooner.

All of the bird’s spells already used the snowstorm spiralling around him as fuel – be it to empower his body, protect him from harm, accelerate his flight, feed his beast core, or deliver devastating attacks to his enemies from near and afar. The only thing left was to maximize the efficiency of all of those tasks and elevate the spell to the next level.

Over the following few days, Percy and Micky passed over multiple lakes, forests and even a couple of small mountains, though it was still plains and hills for the most part. They saw a few towns and villages too, but they opted to circle around those, to minimize the odds of getting spotted.

Sadly, their luck ran out at some point.

Despite their efforts to delay the inevitable, they eventually caught the attention of several passersby – be they merchants, messengers or even bandits. Had this been a few years ago, Percy might have hoped that they wouldn’t recognize him, but he understood that was no longer a realistic possibility, given how infamous he and his familiar had gotten.

Somebody else in his shoes might have considered the unthinkable – to eliminate all the witnesses on sight before they got the chance to rat him out to the Great Houses. For better or for worse, Percy wasn’t the type of person who’d stoop that low, however.

Not only did the idea of murdering a bunch of innocents to maybe prevent a fraction of them from inconveniencing him sicken him to his stomach, he knew it wouldn’t even solve the problem. He didn’t think he’d be able to kill everyone anyway, so the news of his return would leak sooner or later.

‘Our best chance is to keep going,’ he said, three waves of determination gushing through the cords.

Micky rose higher, since there was no longer a point to sticking close to the ground now that the cat was out of the bag. If anything, the cover would only make it easier for their enemies to sneak up on them. Without any further need for stealth, Percy also had his familiar fly even faster. That way, they could cover more ground, and pushing the boosting art to its boundaries was conveniently the quickest way to complete its upgrade.

Things remained peaceful for a couple more days, though everyone was aware that it wasn’t going to last. Sure enough, the first group of hostile Blues appeared about a week into their journey on the mainland, blocking their path…