Genetic Ascension

Megean hurriedly jumped back the instant Sylas opened his eyes, so startled that she almost smashed her head and body against the series of wires and screens.

When she landed, she was already heaving out heavy breaths, placing a palm to her chest in shock.

“You… you’re alive!”

Sylas stared at her for a moment before he replied. He was trying to understand if he had done something that would make him seem dead.

Normally, he would be far too ignorant to decide exactly what that was, but in the moments he had spent in the UniForge, as much as it took a great deal of self-control, he had focused on the task at hand.

That task being that he stepped out with all the leverage in the palm of his hands. And he felt like he had accomplished that.

“There were few issues,” Sylas said.

“Few issues…?”

Part of Megean was skeptical, but then she turned her gaze toward the line of spinal connections between Sylas and the UniForge, and there was little she could do to refute it.

The reason why she thought Sylas was dead was because there should at least be some reaction from the UniForge when a connection was established. Fans should spin up, its computing systems should be kicked into high gear, the room, at the very least, should start to heat up.

But none of that happened.

After some thought, Megean reached a “conclusion,” that being that Sylas might have had the affinity to make the UniForge work, but he didn’t have the strength of Will or Wisdom necessary to actually stress it and make it work.

This seemed like an adequate enough answer for what was going on here. And it was also the answer that Sylas was fairly confident she would come to.

It was also the answer he wanted her to come to.

There was no world that the Golden Grove would be foolish enough to allow him unfettered access to their back end just because he was a talent. They didn’t know him, he didn’t descend from any of their powerhouses or heads, and there was no guarantee they would be able to control him when he grew into his strength and power.

What would most likely happen if they learned the true extent of just how far he could go was, well… restrictions.

Whoever built this thing would most definitely come in to place fetters on what Sylas could and couldn’t accomplish with it.

Of course, this would likely happen regardless as a form of caution if these people were smart. Before it was fine because no one could actually use it. But now that things were different, that added layer of protection just made sense.

However, Sylas felt that he could delay it for a bit.

He had decided that this opportunity wasn’t one he could miss. Not because it could make him rich, not because he could bring the Golden Grove crashing down to its knees, but instead because of one thing.

Information.

Sylas knew that he had a huge gap in knowledge between himself and everyone else who was born and raised in this world. Things they took for granted, common knowledge they had casually picked up in their youth, were things that he probably couldn’t even fathom understanding right now.

But with this UniForge… just a few days would be enough.

Those few days wouldn’t make him some treasure trove of information, but it would certainly make him far more knowledgeable than the vast majority of people in this Galaxy Cluster, and that was exactly what he needed.

Just now, he had only spent the equivalent of about 20 seconds or so in the UniForge. Not only did he learn all the superficial and surrounding information about UniForges themselves, but he understood everything about the power structure of the Golden Grove—who he could offend, who he couldn’t, what the relationships between them were—and he had grasped maybe the key to it all.

Where was the Beast Warlord Sanctum? How could he get there? What was their position in relation to the Golden Grove?

All of that information was in his mind right now.

What was maybe even more interesting than any of this, and a curious benefit that even Sylas wasn’t expecting was…

‘My Wisdom increased… and not by a small margin either…’

Just by using the UniForge, he not only gained a great deal of knowledge, but he gained a cheat to increase his Wisdom by a ridiculous margin.

No, it wasn’t a cheat. This was only possible because he had over 4000 Bronze Wisdom Genes. His body was in a state where it wanted to flourish and grow; it just needed a training medium that would allow it to do so.

And ironically enough, he had run right into it.

Now, he had a step up in talent and a step up in knowledge and understanding.

His confidence in making it out of here unscathed had increased severalfold.

“I see… it must be because you’re still in the F-Grade, then. This is good, this is good!” Megean’s disappointment was quickly washed away when she realized this.

She was too used to the young people around Sylas’ age already being well into the E-Grade even if most of them weren’t as good as her. She had forgotten that Sylas wasn’t from here.

Not only would there be a chance for him to improve, but it would be worth investing in him to help out his foundation.

If he could make use of Andromeda, he just might become another pillar of the guild. This was huge.

She had to tell her grandfather about this as soon as possible. She didn’t want to bother the old man because she wasn’t sure yet if Sylas could even manage it. But now…

Megean released a little squeal and rushed off. Her horn vanished and her lower half flashed into the body of a beautiful white steed with a tail of shimmering white-gold filaments, and she jetted off, vanishing in a wrap of white light.

In the end, she left Lorien and Sylas right there.

Sylas could only shake his head. How many opportunities was this girl going to give him?

Unfortunately, for now… he had to pretend to be too tired to continue.

For now.