Chapter 283 – Storage seal

‘A storage seal?’

Percy already had several questions, but he placed them aside for a moment to do some calculations in his head. Assuming that one portion of sizian meat was equivalent to one dose of elixir back on Remior, the spatial amulets that cost over a million contribution points each would be worth around 2500 credits here.

Metatron was charging him double that, though Percy didn’t doubt the titan’s creation was several times better than the crude products of some mortal enchanters. Still…

“Why would I even need something like this?”

He already had a bunch of spatial devices back home, and it wasn’t like he needed one in the Vault. He could keep his translation device in the system, and get all the books he purchased reprinted for free.

Metatron chuckled, a hint of amusement finding its way into his gaze.

“If this was just a simple storage enchantment, I wouldn’t have bothered to draw it personally for you. I’d have told you to buy one directly from the Vault. This one is for the road.”

“You mean… my clones can carry it in their travels?” Percy’s eyes widened.

“Exactly. And I’ll have you know that getting this to work was tougher than you might think. The seal has to interact with your soul, otherwise it would simply phase through your clones. At the same time, the spatial dimension inside it needs to house physical objects. Trust me, you’d be very hard-pressed to find a second enchantment like it.”

The implications made Percy’s heart skip a beat. He’d be able to accomplish so much more with something like this! Not only would he be able to equip his clones with armour and weapons, but he’d now have a way to bring stuff back from his trips!

Noticing his excitement, Metatron pushed the seal along, causing it to float toward him, only for Percy to jump back in surprise.

“Hold on a moment!” he exclaimed, eyeing the titan cautiously. “This sounds great and everything, but I can’t just let you stick whatever you want to my soul. How do I know you’re not up to something?”

Metatron rolled his eyes at his outburst, some irritation seeping through.

“Paranoid much? I’ve already attached my Decree to you without you even noticing. Do you honestly think I need to rely on a cheap storage seal? Or that I’d bother lying to get your permission? Don’t flatter yourself.”

Pondering the titan’s words, Percy had to admit he had a point. Then again, he wasn’t exactly qualified to assess what was or wasn’t possible when magic of such a high level was involved.

“I can think of all sorts of reasons why you’d do it. Maybe your Decree is immutable so you need to rely on a more customizable enchantment to spy on me. Perhaps you need my consent because I can easily dig the seal out of my soul later. Or maybe you want to mind control me or something…”

“Fully mind controlling someone is difficult even for a god with a mind affinity. Let alone using your soul fragment as a proxy to take over your main body. Your fears are entirely misplaced.”

“So you say, but you can’t expect me to believe you’re giving me something this valuable out of the goodness of your heart.” Percy replied.

“I never claimed I was. I’m doing it because I have as much to gain from this as you. Our latest deal has proven that.”

The god didn’t elaborate, but it wasn’t difficult to figure out what he meant. As powerful as the Moirais’ Decree was, Metatron could have written it off as a fluke. Percy could only pass it to so many individuals, and the titan hadn’t had much reason to expect more from him.

But Circulation had changed everything. Not only could everyone in the Vault learn it, but it was concrete evidence that Metatron’s investment in Percy hadn’t been misplaced. Clearly, the titan wanted Percy’s adventures to be as fruitful as possible, as he planned to eventually wrap his own tentacles around his gains.

“If that’s the case, then why charge me for it? Shouldn’t you give me the seal for free?” Percy asked, testing the waters.

Not that he minded spending a few thousand credits on something worthwhile, but he had to confirm Metatron’s intentions before agreeing to anything.

“Like I told you before, I’m not running a charity. Until you accept my original offer to work with me, our relationship shall remain purely transactional. Besides, if I charged you what the seal was actually worth, you’d never afford it even if you spent the rest of your life completing challenges. I’m only asking for the price of a regular storage device.”

“Fair enough, but that still doesn’t solve the trust issue.”

“Well, what do you suggest I do?” the pentapus asked.

“How about this… Draw the enchantment again, this time very slowly. My skill in runecrafting is obviously far inferior to yours, so you’ll have to explain what each individual rune does. In detail.”

“That will take over ten thousand rits. Is this even about trust, or are you trying to get a free magiscript lesson from me?”

Percy shrugged. Naturally, his priority was still his own safety, but he’d be lying if he said he hadn’t considered it.

“Think of it as payback for the air pattern you’ve stolen from Leo during this conversation. If you agree, I’ll even describe the soul pattern for you.”

“Do you think I can’t discover the patterns on my own?” Metatron asked.

“I’m sure you can, but I bet it’ll take you more than a couple hours. Trust me, the soul pattern is a tricky one.”

The god remained silent for a few seconds, seemingly considering Percy’s terms. Honestly, Percy knew he was getting the better end of the deal, but he also understood that, in the titan’s mind, everything Percy achieved would eventually belong to him.

As fairly as the titan appeared to treat him on the surface, Percy was under no delusion that Metatron thought of him as his equal. Much like everyone else in the Vault, Percy was nothing more than an ongoing project. A door to more power.

‘Well, the truth cuts both ways… Do you think the Vault is the centre of the universe? It’s just another place filled with arrogant gods I’ll surpass one day…’

Oblivious to his thoughts, Metatron soon came to a decision.

“Very well. But I suggest you pay close attention, as I’m only going to demonstrate the enchantment once.”

Crushing the previous seal into black motes, he pushed more mana out of his body, this time stretching it into a wider volume. Clearly, the god could easily compress the enchantment at will, but he intentionally made it easier for Percy to examine as he began forming the runes one by one, explaining their function.

***

Recreating the enchantment took several hours, the number of runes involved vastly exceeding Percy’s previous estimates. In fact, Leo was forced to deactivate Circulation at some point, unable to keep going.

Still, Percy didn’t drop his focus for a second, unwilling to miss even a moment of Metatron’s lesson. And it truly was an eye-opening experience, as he learned more during this demonstration than he would have after months of laborious study.

A few of the runes he recognized. Very few. At the core, the enchantment involved pocket and stability runes – the bread and butter of all storage devices. The exact variants Metatron had chosen were different from the ones Percy had memorized and relayed to Nesha, but the underlying principles were the same. Though the titan used way more of them, and even attached various amplification runes on them, to vastly magnify their effects.

‘Wow… these are some high-end enchantments… I wonder how large the internal space will be…’

Metatron hadn’t said, but Percy knew the final product would make his own amulets look like trinkets. Whether it was the quality of the god’s mana, or his sheer runecrafting skill, this was worlds apart from anything he’d seen before.

Regardless, the seal contained a lot more secondary runes, giving it a lot of flexibility. To start, there was a reason Metatron had called it a seal and not an enchantment. Enchantments were meant to be applied on other objects, whereas seals were more advanced, as they could exist on their own. This was achieved through runes that gave the mana form and substance, without the need of a specialized material to draw the enchantment on.

In some ways, it reminded Percy of his own Crystallization spell, though the mana’s permanence was achieved via runes in this case – rather than an innate property of the pure affinity.

“I’ve given the seal a fixed shape, but I’ve also enchanted it to only interact with your soul. You’ll be able to move it around as you wish, to choose whether to grant it to a clone or keep it in your main body.” Metatron explained.

And this wasn’t the only way in which the seal was flexible. Apparently, Percy could also divide it into smaller seals if he wanted.

“You can split it in half a maximum of 3 times, for a total of 8 seals. Keep in mind that it’s inefficient though. Once divided, the overall capacity across all the different parts will be much smaller than that of the original. That said, you can stack them back together whenever you want, to reverse the process.”

Percy nodded, knowing why the titan had designed the seal like this. Right now, he could only have two cords active at a time, and one of them was permanently occupied by his familiar. But that wouldn’t necessarily remain the case forever. Should he ever gain the ability to send out multiple clones, he’d be able to equip all of them with storage seals of their own.

“There you go then. All done.” Metatron said, causing the completed seal to shrink back to its previous size.