The night of celebrations was good, to say the least. All of the Ramlos children unfortunately attached themselves to his hip, so it killed any chance of a woman taking him seriously.

But the food and the drinks were amazing. Thalos wouldn't let him near alcohol though, but he still managed to have a lot of fun sober.

However, they had to travel the next morning, so Thalos, George, and Ura dragged all the children back to his house to get a good night's rest. This was the first time in days that he got to sleep in a bed, so Percy didn't complain.

During his sleepless hours, he kept thinking about Gaia's temple and wondering how the gods were forgotten. Was it some kind of ploy? Why was her temple left behind? What happened to the temples of other gods?

He had an idea why Gaia's temple wasn't found, and it was because of a requirement to find it. You had to come to a specific location when a field of specific flowers was in bloom.

These flowers bloomed once a month then died shortly after. It was a strange cycle to him, but not to the people who lived in this world.

Other than waiting for the flowers to bloom, you had to sacrifice some of your blood. That wasn't all too hard. What he was worried about was what to tell Thalos when he wanted to go in there.

Hey, Dad, there are a bunch of our enemies and cultists down there that I want to go fight. I'll be back soon.

Unironically, that would work on Thalos. But if he did mention that House Eurides was down there, then he'd need to explain how he knew. That was why he sent Hugo out to find information on House Eurides.

Why did they want to enter the temple of Gaia, and how they were going to use this against Percy and House Amphene. Knowing what they planned would help prevent disaster, and it would give Percy a reason to take Thalos to the temple.

After that the only intentions he had to decipher were those of his all-knowing goddess friend. Why did Nyx tell him to find the temple, and what was she planning?

As grateful as he was to her, he still needed to be careful. It could be that he would gain something inside the temple, but he didn't know yet.

Okay let's just go to sleep please.

And like he had just cast a spell, sleep fell over him shortly after.

○———○

He woke up early the next morning to bathe and check his daily quests. The room was dark, the sun hadn't risen yet. He had four roommates: Xavier, forgot his name, Soca, and also forgot his name.

They were snoring soundly in their bunk beds. Percy was up top and woke up on instinct. He willed his status to appear with a thought.

━━━━━━━━━ ✦ Quests ✦ ━━━━━━━━━

– Daily Quest : [ Absorb spirit energy for 15 mins (0/15) ]

– Optional Quests : [ one available ]

✧────────────────────────────────✧

Not bad, he would get it done in the carriage. First he climbed out of his bed and was the first person to enter the bathroom. He took water from a drum in the bathroom that they filled last night and filled the bucket.

It was cold.

"I really wish I could use that water heating spell."

The one Hecate used often. He couldn't just use [Fireshot] in the bath. The room was made of old, creaky wood and this was somewhat a waste of spirit energy. He was thinking for a moment when an idea struck him.

He stuck his hand directly in the bucket and began shaping his spirit energy with intent;a small puff of flame using a small amount of spirit energy. Not a straight shot of fire too, let it bloom and spread.

He cleared his throat and chanted.

"Crucible of destiny, painful and with dread. Unleash your wrath, destroy my enemy."

Light and bubbles erupted around his submerged hand. He didn't let it burn too long so the water wouldn't be too hot, but it was still a bit scalding.

After a few moments of pouring it over his skin he got used to it, and even hummed lightly. Once he was done, he put on his clothes and exited just as the sun was coming up and Ura had entered the room to wake her kids.

She stopped to give Percy a surprised look. He was already fully ready to go.

"I didn't take you for an early riser."

"Yesterday was a mandatory lazy day," he replied.

They both shook the kids awake and then he went downstairs to get something to eat. Bread, butter, and figs. Breakfast here was too simple. Back in the fortress he already taught them how to make sandwiches and peanut butter.

Everyone was taking a while it seemed. He walked into the living room and fell onto a couch. For a moment the soft grey fabric called him back to sleep, but he shook it off and got into a meditative position.

He cleared his mind as usual and tried to dip himself into the void. This would be a lot easier once he got around to making sensory deprivation tools like earmuffs. But he cleared his mind and entered the darkness easily.

There he began "Screaming," as they would call it, but Percy would classify it more as "Yearning." It was him seeking connection with the spirits around him after sinking into the void, which he interpreted as being cut off from the world.

Even before he started seeking a connection, spirits already appeared around him. Red and green spirits floating around lazily. These were fire and wind spirits, the ones he had the highest affinity to.

He reached forward with a bit of his spirit energy and connected himself to the spirits. It was like a cloud of silvery light leaving his body, floating through the darkness, and then the red and green spirits entered the cloud of spirit energy.

Now instead of passing more spirit energy towards them, he willed them to pass energy to him. It was slow at first, but he could feel the trickle of spirit energy like cold mist on his skin.

It grew faster and faster till it felt like he was in a growing windstorm. His absorption rate was faster thanks to his dual affinities, having twice as many spirits to connect with.

It would take him around five minutes to reach full capacity, and with that he could cast [Fireshot] around twenty times. For other Rank 1 Spiritmancers it would take longer, and they could cast a spell only about ten times.

He opened his eyes and summoned his interface.

━━━━━━━━━ ✦ Quests ✦ ━━━━━━━━━

– Daily Quest : [ Absorb spirit energy for 15 mins (15/15, completed!) ]

– Optional Quests : [ one available ]

✧───────────────────────────────✧

He sighed and claimed his rewards, another two stat points and a Rank 1 customisable reward. Soon he heard footsteps coming down the stairs.

"Finally, let's get going."

It would take a while to find any, but he was somewhat eager to hunt monsters today.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.