As fed up as Percy was with his host, he couldn’t help but feel a sliver of excitement at the prospect of learning a greater spring’s cleansing technique. Strictly speaking, he was already using one of those – the modified version of the Whirlpool of Two Streams that the Vault’s researchers had somehow stolen from the Moirai. However, it did nothing more than allow someone with two cores to cleanse both at the same time – saving a few valuable minutes per day. Percy had no idea what Kassorith’s technique did, yet he didn’t doubt it would be valuable. The Blue reached for an emblem pinned to the upper-left side of his tunic – Percy hadn’t even noticed it before. It depicted the image of a coiled snake, a single fang jutting down from the right side of its mouth. The object was made of a dark mineral, countless dots glittering like stars along the edges. ‘Dimensional marble?’ Percy guessed, recognizing the material. Sure enough, the moment his host touched the pin, a second object popped into existence inside his free hand. The spatial pin was clearly easier to use than the amulets they had on Remior – though it wasn’t quite on par with the spatial seal Metatron had personally crafted for Percy. He had no idea how the pin’s storage capacity compared, but he wouldn’t be surprised if it fell somewhere between the two extremes. ‘Watch carefully, because I’ll only show you once,’ Kassorith said, snapping him out of his thoughts. Coiling his long tail a few times, the Blue “sat” in the middle, tossing the object he’d extracted from the pin into his mouth. Percy barely caught a glimpse of the tiny, transparent pill, its volume only about half of an elixir’s. This was quite surprising, since the dosage for core-cleansing resources was generally fixed across worlds. After all, the mana cores of sapients typically came in a standard size and could therefore endure about the same amount of beast mana during each session. Evidently, that didn’t apply here. Keeping his thoughts to himself, Percy carefully observed his host’s actions. Kassorith allowed his mana to mix with the dissolving pill inside his stomach, before drawing some of it back to his sternum. So far, he hadn’t done anything out of the norm. It wasn’t until the mana entered his core that the Blue finally did something strange with it. Instead of allowing it to freely spread within the organ, he first compressed it into a tiny sphere in its centre, before letting go. The cleansing mana slammed violently against the core’s walls, making Percy fear that the organ would crack open like an egg. That didn’t quite happen – at least not yet – but several tiny cracks did form along the crystalline walls, stinging as the beast mana seeped into them. ‘What the hell?! Is he trying to kill himself?’ Not that Percy cared about the man’s well-being that much, but he’d rather not return to Remior so quickly. Luckily, his host appeared a lot more careful the next time he moved the beast mana to his sternum. He still didn’t allow it to freely interact with the organ, but he didn’t repeat his reckless approach from before either. Instead, he gathered a much smaller quantity of mana, sending it into the cracks with surgical accuracy. The beast mana gnawed at the walls of the cracks, causing them to widen and deepen, the burning sensation in Kassorith’s sternum growing in intensity. The experienced Blue didn’t seem to care, however, sending one wave after another into the cracks. The cleansing session was over fifteen minutes later. It wasn’t that surprising, considering the low dosage. Yet, Percy felt like their core burned as much as it was supposed to – if not slightly more. Examining the organ carefully, he tried to wrap his mind around what his host had done. The first wave of beast mana had been way too forceful, but that seemed to have been on purpose. It had revealed the weaknesses – the impurities – in Kassorith’s core. Those were exactly the spots that a mage needed to get rid of, in order to strengthen their core over time. The following rounds had been gentler, but they had targeted the same spots far more accurately, causing the cracks to gradually expand in a very specific way. Kassorith had purged the weakest sections along the crystalline walls, leaving the rest of the organ intact. This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version. Overall, the damage to the core wasn’t any more severe than what a regular cleansing session would have accomplished. Percy guessed the cracks would still heal by tomorrow, reforging the inner layer of the organ stronger than ever. Only, the Blue had achieved the same results while spending half the time and resources. ‘This is the Cascading Cracks technique. I hope I don’t have to explain why,’ Kassorith said. Percy nodded, pondering over the implications. His host had made it look easy – which wasn’t all that surprising, considering the fact that Kassorith had probably been doing this once a day for centuries. However, Percy would have to practice a lot to master it, since the initial burst of pressure was exceedingly dangerous. Had Kassorith drawn a single additional drop of beast mana to his core, or unleashed the wave even a touch more forcefully, he could have seriously injured himself. Even if he hadn’t, he could have easily delayed his subsequent recovery, missing tomorrow’s session. On the flipside, if he’d used less power, he might have failed to reveal all the impurities. In that case, he wouldn’t have targeted them later, which would have made the cleansing session less effective than normal. During the subsequent waves, things hadn’t been nearly as dangerous, but concentrating the beast mana in so many spots was also quite a challenge. After all, the cracks were minuscule – nearly imperceptible – and there were dozens of them. Not to mention that controlling mana inside one’s core was much harder than doing it externally, and the mana wasn’t even solely Kassorith’s – since it was mixed with the foreign beast mana contained in the pill. If Percy failed to control the mana properly, it could easily target the healthy sections of the organ – the ones that didn’t need cleansing. The damage would still probably heal by the following day, so it wasn’t inherently dangerous, but it would be a waste of the beast mana, eliminating the primary benefit of the technique. ᴛhis chapter is ᴜpdated by 𝓷𝓸𝓿𝓮𝓵✦𝓯𝓲𝓻𝓮✦𝓷𝓮𝓽 ‘Still, if I can learn this, I’m going to save so many elixirs down the line,’ Percy thought, his borrowed heart skipping a beat. He and Micky had already accumulated enough resources to last them seventeen years, and that was without taking into account his brewing yield which was bound to increase once he upgraded the cauldron and registered the new principle. The Cascading Cracks technique could theoretically allow him and his familiar to consume half as much Aurora Dew during each session, effectively doubling their stash. After all was said and done, it might last them for nearly forty years! ‘Well, that’s assuming that the regeneration brought forth by the cyan powder doesn’t interfere with it… I’ll also have to modify it to work with my current technique, or I’ll end up having to spend twice as long for both cores…’ Figuring the specifics out would take a lot of work, but the impact of this technique couldn’t be overstated. Percy wasn’t just thinking about himself, but Remior as a whole. Currently, his people only had enough elixirs for a fraction of the population – unless they diluted them of course. That number would drop even lower as soon as the secret of the Aurora Dew spread. This was one of the reasons why Percy hadn’t been in a hurry to share the recipe with everyone. If things got handled poorly, a lot of people would suffer – Red-borns and Orange-borns predominantly, but lots of Yellow-borns too. The Cascading Cracks technique wasn’t enough to fix everything by itself, but it was a start. If Percy also taught his alchemic principles to the rest of the Guild, helped everyone upgrade their cauldrons, and looked for more efficient ways of extracting nectar from the wasps alongside his new familiar, they would be that much closer to a complete solution. ‘Do you take me for a fool?’ Percy suddenly asked, turning his attention back to his host. ‘What do you mean?’ Kassorith asked in response, clearly playing dumb. ‘It’s a useful technique, but you know damn well this isn’t what I asked for. This is a greater spring, isn’t it? How is your little trick going to accelerate my advancement speed or extend my lifespan?’ ‘It won’t.’ The Blue shrugged. ‘I’m sorry to break it to you, but the only reason we have so many gods is due to my bloodline. Every time we use it, it adds a few years to our lifespan. We’ve spread it to all the powerful sects, and our titan’s Decree makes it easier for parents to pass their bloodlines down to their descendants. It’s a real shame, but there’s nothing I can do to help you.’ Kassorith’s words sounded sincere, but Percy had dealt with hundreds upon hundreds of hosts by now. He might not have his girlfriend’s bloodline, but he still took pride in his ability to sniff out bullshit from a mile away. ‘Try again with something more believable,’ he snarled. ‘I’ve experienced enough advancements to tell that shedding your skin earlier didn’t add a single day to your lifespan, let alone a few years.’ The Blue’s poorly concealed smirk froze on his face, his expression turning cold. Percy expected the man to lie again or try to renegotiate the terms of their agreement, but Kassorith turned out to be even more shameless than he’d expected. Rather than honeyed words or offers of valuable resources, it was a wave of rejection that slammed into Percy’s soul, forcefully unlodging him from many of his host’s injuries. Remior’s pull instantly strengthened, inadvertently helping the Blue along. Kassorith was trying to get rid of Percy!