Percival felt the sting of light piercing his eyes.
He blinked, once and twice, feeling a chill seep into his bones.
It was morning, he saw.
A low, silver fog clung to the air, and the sky was blue and grey.
He could hear the brittle creak of a loose window swinging somewhere down the lane, and a lone crow calling high above. A solitary sound.
Sitting there, on the rough-hewn planks of his front porch, head resting on the wall, Percival realized he must have succumbed to exhaustion last night.
He had been meditating, trying as much as he could to create a stronger, permanent bridge between his two mana cores.
But he had found little to no success.
Only a revelation: the bridge concept was certainly the right path.
In battle, it could serve as a conduit between his cores, but that would require him to actively create one each time he wanted to combine different Class Skills.
Not only was this going to be distracting, but it would also be exhausting.
To avoid this tiresome task, he needed to make the conduit permanent.
However, no amount of mental creativity could actually forge something permanent within his soul cores.
It would always be temporary; a fleeting creation birthed by the mind, never an objective constant.
This meant he needed an anchor.
A physical focus, an artifact—likely something he could wear or carry easily—to stabilize the metaphysical connection, to legitimize the object created by his mind.
To augment it with magic.
For that, he needed an Artificer.
Percival sighed.
How could he have allowed himself to doze off like that?
This cheap leather armor and his Constitution stat was all that saved him from the night cold.
Agilely, he found his feet, retrieving his sword from where he had left it and sheathing it. Then, he pushed the front door open.
The cold morning air swept into the old home.
But what Percival saw inside was something different than what the house used to be.
The cobwebs were gone, the floorbeds were swept bare, the table and chair were dusted neatly, and the bed was now whole, its thin mattress cleaned so much that it almost looked brand new.
Percival glanced over at his Skeleton Soldiers, all standing at silent attention around the room, their hollow sockets fixed on him as they awaited his verdict.
"You all did better than I expected," he admitted.
One of the skeletons abruptly held up a large, dead rat, presenting it like a knight offering a king the head of a vanquished dragon.
Percival's brows lowered slightly. "You got the rat." A rare smile touched his lips. "Great job."
The skeleton seemed to straighten with pride, then marched past Percival to the outside to dispose of the rodent.
Percival looked around. The place was now… habitable. A simple, quiet refuge.
"Sweet hells and all the damned!"
He paused, looking over his shoulder. The strangled shout had come from outside.
Percival turned and stepped back onto the porch.
He found a common wagon hitched to a weary-looking donkey standing in the lane.
The wagoner, a man with a face leathered by sun and a tunic stained with travel, was staring, horrified, at the skeleton that had just passed him with a dead rat in its bony fingers.
"Y—you see that?" the man stammered, pointing a trembling finger. "That—that thing!"
Percival ignored the question.
His gaze dropped to the wagon and its contents. This was the first of his weekly barrow of food supply.
He walked down to inspect the delivery.
There was bread, a few loaves of it, coarse and unfresh; a small sack of root vegetables, oil, a wedge of hard cheese, curry, beans, and several flagons of water.
It was a pittance, barely enough to sustain one person—let alone an Awakener—for a week.
But the King wasn't giving up his strategy.
Percival had no plans of caving either.
"Well, are you takin' 'em or not?" the wagoner asked, now finding his bravery since the skeleton had retreated inside. "'Cause I'm takin' the wagon with me."
Without a word, as if the man wasn't even there, Percival turned and headed inside.
As he did, his Skeleton Soldiers filed out in two lines. Not all of them, just enough to take the supplies inside.
The wagoner watched, paralyzed, as the walking dead handled the supply.
The moment the last flagon was gone, he scrambled back onto his seat, yanked the reins, and whipped the donkey to hasten its pace.
"The crown doesn't pay enough for this shit…" he cursed as he fled the haunted lane.
Several minutes later, Percival ate a simple meal of bread and root soup, a quick recipe he'd learnt in the former timeline, washing it down with water.
The King's antics were irritating, but Percival couldn't care less. For now, his mind was fixed on his journey ahead.
Coin.
He was going to need quite a good amount of it for what he intended to do today.
Artificers were expensive.
He could return to the Gate and collect the pouch of silver his skeleton guard had gotten from paying Awakeners overnight, but that felt backwards.
He did not want to return there so soon unless absolutely necessary, such as if the Golden Spire reemerged, causing trouble.
His other option was to head back to Metrodorian, the King's City.
It was on the road to Wolsend. So, without detouring, he could exchange his mana coins for gold at a temple, purchase a map, and crucially, find an Artificer.
Thinking further, perhaps he shouldn't seek an Artificer in the King's City.
Since he was on his way to Wolsend and the Artificers there were superior to those in Metrodorian, he would patronize an Artificer there.
Good.
He tore a piece of bread and dipped it into the soup. As he ate, he became aware of his Skeletons again.
They stood in place, watching him eat with their empty, unblinking gazes.
A wistful expression softened the hard lines of Percival's face. Where were his manners?
He looked at one.
"Sorry," he said, his voice almost even meaning it, "I would have invited you to eat, but…"
His eyes lowered to the skeleton's exposed, stark white ribcage. "No stomach."