Genetic Ascension

Chapter 1297: Unexpected Turn

Sylas should have continued down the middle lane to the end of it all. At least from his perspective, he had already killed all of his enemies, and things were basically over now. He wouldn’t know that Scarval was there, so there would be no reason to avoid him. Not to mention the fact that avoiding the man was actually impossible from the jump.

The issue was that Scarval hadn’t even moved from the start; he was still reclining in the tree at the temple. Meaning, no matter what, Sylas would run into him. So, taking a detour didn’t make any sense.

It made even less sense that Sylas wasn’t just exploring the minor lanes—he was actually…

…

Sylas stepped into the danger zone, his eyes scanning the region.

He had found this place quite interesting from a bird’s-eye view. It carried forms of Rune Mastery that he had never seen before.

Ever since Gralith had told him that Rune Spark was just the beginning of Rune Mastery, Sylas had been trying to push his limits, trying to see what he was really capable of.

By now, it had been over half a year since he gained Rune Spark Mastery, and every day he felt like he was still improving.

But at the same time… it was frustrating.

If there was no peak mastery, and everything reset at E-Grade, then where was the sense of completion?

Did it stop when he had successfully created his own 100 Foundation Rune? Was it when he had successfully reconstructed the Grimblade’s Unique Gene on his own? Did he need to do more of both?

Would he have to master every F-tier Rune in all of existence before he could feel any sort of sense of peace?

Sylas had always measured himself by his own standards, not that of someone else’s. And the problem was that his standards only seemed to be growing taller and broader the more he learned.

The more he came to understand about Rune Mastery, the more he felt that it was simply endless. Unless he reached a point where he could literally reconstruct the universe itself on his own, would he ever be satisfied?

As he walked through the danger zones, his eyes seeing through the Runes, picking up bits and pieces of understanding he hadn’t grasped before and adding them to his internal library of things to improve his Rune Mastery, he couldn’t help but wonder what it truly meant to have Spark Mastery.

He recalled the feeling of a seed being inside of him, a budding part of him that he had to nurture and grow. Was his purpose to make it sprout?

But it didn’t feel like his Spark Seed was something that could fully sprout in the F-tier in the first place.

And was it a coincidence that it, too, took the form of a Seed? Logically, there was nothing connecting the Sin Seeds to this Spark Seed he seemed to have completely neglected, but Sylas actually felt like they might be related in some very distant sort of way.

Not that they had the same origin, but instead that they were more akin to the same concept of thing—almost like how Fire and Water Aether were both technically the same but vastly different at the same time.

But then what did that mean?

Was the true path of Rune Mastery to create something like the Sin Seed?

It was a thought that Sylas couldn’t have ever fathomed until he learned much more about the Sin Seeds. But honestly… he just didn’t like it.

He had too many clashing Wills in him already.

His Human Simioid Will, his Serpentes Will, his Scorpion Will… and then there was the tugging from the three Sins, and then layered on top of all of that, the complexity of Demonic Will.

It just felt like… Rune Mastery should be something different than that.

Imposing your Will was already a part of what Rune Mastery was. It seemed odd that while you were imposing your Will, you needed to create a new Will for what… to impose it too? Through the filter of another? That just sounded like a broken system.

Sylas strolled through the danger zones, his eyes darting from place to place. He stepped over traps, somehow completely avoided the territories of powerful beasts, and continued analyzing at his own pace.

He got to the end of one path, and then just turned around and went down through another.

From an outsider’s perspective, it almost looked like he was trying to prove some sort of point. But only he and Gralith knew that Sylas, well… he was just like that.

Sylas got to the end of it all, having weaved through every location he could find that didn’t have a physical manifestation of danger, and shook his head.

The answer he was looking for wasn’t here, but maybe he should have expected that already. These were E-Grade Runes. If the solution he wanted to find could be done just by studying more powerful Runes, he would have done that already.

The sounds of his Runeweaver Profession progressing after gaining some Experience faintly popped at the edge of his vision and twinkled in his mind, but he ignored it, stepping out the other side.

Maybe to the general masses, the last several hours had been a complete bore. But to the Warlords… what Sylas had just done was more than a hundred times more shocking than his battle before had been by a large margin.

Suddenly, they weren’t so sure about what was going to happen…

Sylas’ steps paused and he looked toward a tree. He had actually sensed this man a long time ago. After all, he had come close to the temple more than once, he just hadn’t cared.

Scarval himself also didn’t seem to care, just lying there, enjoying his nap. Even now, his eyes were still closed.

Sylas raised a finger.

Chi.

The branch Scarval had been napping on suddenly split from its tree, crashing down.