No matter what the Saint’s plan involved, Micky wasn’t very worried about himself. He didn’t think that the demigod could do anything to his mind that he couldn’t fix by merging back with his main bodies. His host, on the other hand, only had one life, so Micky wasn’t going to agree to something this intrusive without hearing his opinion.
‘I… trust in the Saint’s judgement,’ Marnok said, his voice carrying a hint of reverence toward the aged figure.
Only now did Micky realize that the sailor hadn’t remained silent all this time merely out of fear. For Micky, meeting a demigod’s projection wasn’t a huge deal – after all, he’d bargained and even picked fights with titans and gods before. Hell, he was currently trying to turn a goddess’s soul into a familiar!
For someone with Marnok’s background, however, Saint Ludwick was probably the subject of songs and legends – a mythical figure from Robari’s glorious past. The sailor was clearly still shaken by the unlikely meeting with the demigod’s projection.
“How is this going to work? Does it have anything to do with your karma affinity?” Micky asked.
“That was my original plan,” Ludwick replied with a sigh. “My affinity is great for locating objects that I have touched in the past. It is also notoriously difficult for somebody without it to spy into those connections. I spent many years racking my brain to think of a way to pass the map to the Inheritors. Sadly, I couldn’t find one.”
“Why not?” Micky asked.
“There are several reasons. The threads tend to fade away with time. They do so slowly, but it’s been many, many years since the beast mana was hidden. Also, I couldn’t come up with a method to pass my abilities to another. That’s why I came up with an alternative approach, commissioning one of my colleagues to lend me their strength.”
The projection walked next to one of the other objects on the raised platform that Micky had glossed over earlier. It was a short, cylindrical artifact that sported a deep red colour.
‘No, wait… the exterior is just a transparent crystal,’ Micky corrected himself upon examining it further. ‘Is that mind mana inside it?’
He doubted that he was wrong about that, having come across the affinity many times in his life. The liquid was barely perceptible inside his Mana Sense, suggesting that it was at the Clear grade. That would also explain how it could be contained for such a long time without dissipating.
Oblivious to his thoughts, the Saint pointed at a small formation carved into the ground next to the cylinder, gesturing for Marnok to sit.
“I’ve modelled this ability on my own means, but I had to get several elements reworked with Saint Qilian’s help. Of course, whether the enchantments are still functional after all this time remains to be seen…”
Shrugging, Micky plopped down on the formation. He said nothing else, merely nodding at Ludwick to proceed. The demigod didn’t move a centimetre either, but the runes below Marnok’s body lit up a second later, causing the liquid inside the cylinder to bubble up.
Closing his host’s eyes, Micky waited patiently for the enchantment to come into effect. He was curious to see what this “ability” was that the projection had promised him, though he didn’t get his hopes up. For one, he had no idea whether there would be enough mana for both him and Marnok. For another, he knew that Ludwick and his colleagues were mere demigods – not gods, and certainly not titans. Micky didn’t expect to obtain anything even remotely on par with a Decree.
Soon, a warm feeling seeped into the sailor’s legs, slowly spreading to the rest of his body. As soon as it reached his head, it started flowing faster, his brain greedily drinking the mind mana. Marnok shifted slightly, clearly feeling a bit uneasy as the foreign sensation wormed its way into his thoughts.
‘Don’t worry. Your mind is a lot more resilient than you think,’ Micky consoled him as he experienced the same thing.
It felt like a stranger’s hand stirring their skull and shoving stuff aside to make space for something new. Micky could see how unsettling that could be to the uninitiated, but he had personally suffered much more agonizing changes to be bothered by it.
Compared to the multiple mental Decrees that he had assimilated in the past, the painful process of repairing Leo’s mind, the spectral fiends that he had absorbed, or Percy and Micky’s recent fusion, this barely qualified as a headache.
As soon as the hand was done rearranging their minds, the flow of Clear mana spiked, a tiny seed seemingly coalescing near the back of their skull. It kept drawing mana for a while longer, a series of roots spreading outwards. Just as the pain started bothering even Micky slightly, the flow halted abruptly, the newly formed structure seemingly fading away into the background.
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Opening their eyes, Micky scanned the cylinder, only to realize that over three quarters of the mana was gone. Had the presence of a second mind caused the operation to fail?
Shifting his gaze toward the similarly perplexed projection, he was about to ask him about it, when his Status alleviated his concerns.
[Congratulations! You have acquired a new mindset: Ludwick’s Compass!]
‘Mindset? That’s a new one…’ he thought, raising an eyebrow.
His Status was already quite bloated, and yet it appeared that there were still categories of abilities that he had never heard of before. Not wasting time, he pulled up the page, focusing on the new section that had appeared between his spectral traits and spells.
___
Mindsets:
- [Ludwick's Compass] – Set mental checkpoints anywhere in the world. Instinctively track their location as you move away.
___
‘How odd…’ he thought, before turning to the demigod again. “Care to explain how this works?”
“Just focus on anything in the room and try to memorize where it is,” the projection said.
Nodding, Micky looked at the pile of Fools’ Amber by the corner of the stone platform, doing as the Saint had instructed. Almost instantly, the newly formed structure in his mind stirred again, igniting a large, amber-colour pyre around the stacked coins.
The sight startled both Micky and his host, though they calmed down upon realizing that the precious resources weren’t truly on fire. This was just a visual representation of their new ability. Closing his eyes, Micky noted that he could still see the flame. Even when he turned around or strolled on the platform, he could tell where exactly the pile was.
Conducting a few more tests, he confirmed that he could lower the pyre’s intensity or even hide it from his perception entirely. He could also restore or amplify it whenever he felt like it, erase the mark completely, and create as many checkpoints as he wanted.
“Convenient,” he muttered, before turning to the Saint’s projection again. “What are the limitations? How far does it work and how many checkpoints can I track at once? Also, how exactly is this possible?”
“You can track the marks from anywhere on Robari. Technically there isn’t any hard limit, but each mark does put a tiny, almost negligible load on your mind. If you go overboard, you might start feeling the strain. I suggest you stick to the most important places that you want to memorize,” the demigod patiently explained. “As for how it’s possible… Your mind passively registers every time your body moves or turns around – even while asleep or unconscious. Just think of this as a form of heightened spatial awareness that only works for specific locations.”
“I see…” Micky replied, already trying to come up with potential applications.
Honestly, Ludwick hadn’t lied when he called this a “modest” benefit. Off the top of his head, Micky couldn’t think of any use for the new mindset.
Back on Remior, he had already acquired enough strength and status to reach most places that he might want to travel to with relative ease. Not that there was anywhere other than the Fungal Spire, the Camelot province, or Twilight City that he was planning to visit anytime soon.
As for his clones…
Thinking of a possibility, Micky couldn’t help but crease his host’s brow.
‘Surely not…’ he thought, almost dismissing his idea entirely out of hand, guessing that it was a long shot.
The more he considered it, however, the more he realized that there might be a slim possibility of this working. On the off chance that he was right, it would absolutely revolutionize the way he used his bloodline!
‘I’ll test it later,’ he decided, shoving the idea to the back of his mind for now.
“How do I find the other nineteen tombs?” he asked the Saint.
“The stored checkpoints should have been passed to you along with the mindset. Try searching for marks outside this room. It might take some digging due to how long it’s been since the map was created.”
Doing as the deceased demigod said, Micky was indeed able to manifest several other amber flames after a few minutes, each pertaining to some faraway location on Robari.
‘Can you see them too?’ Micky asked his host. He didn’t really care about the Fools’ Amber personally, so this would all be pointless if the sailor couldn’t track the treasure by himself.
‘Yes,’ Marnok replied with a mental nod. ‘Works just like he says.’
Happy about that, Micky was about to bring up the topic of their living arrangements again. Ludwick had yet to explain how Marnok was supposed to survive in this cave for years on end. The Saint spoke first, however, shifting his attention to a different matter.
“Fools’ Amber… this is the term your generation is using to refer to the stashed beast mana nowadays, isn’t it?” he asked, a melancholic smile forming on his wrinkled face.
Micky frowned, only now realizing how offensive the phrase might sound to one of those “Fools” in question.
‘Hey, don’t blame me for the nickname your own descendants have given you! I only got here last week!’ he thought, though he kept that to himself.
Ludwick sighed. “You’re not wrong. Me and the other Saints were just a bunch of useless old fools. We’ve let our world down by failing to ascend before our bodies rotted away,” the demigod said, his voice cracking with raw emotion. “I sincerely hope that you don’t blame our mentors though – the gods of Robari – for this situation. They are the only ones who aren’t at fault.”
Micky gave the man a weird look. Weren’t the gods precisely the people who deserved most of the blame? The demigods had at least tried to fix everything, while their superiors were the ones who had destroyed the original source of beast mana in the first place, before abandoning Robari or killing one another.
Then again, he couldn’t help but recall Flammy’s twisted appearance, and the swarm of black scarabs that had spilled out of the treacherous healer’s mouth, realizing what the Saint was trying to tell him.
Sure enough, Ludwick’s next words confirmed his suspicions. “I can only imagine how distorted their image is in your heads, but I want you to know that our gods were all noble, wise and selfless people. Our planet’s well-being was always at the forefront of their minds. At least… that was the case until they succumbed to its sickness.”
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