Genetic Ascension

Chapter 1175: Rewards (12)

Sylas almost felt like it was... too easy.

One of the first abilities he had ever gained from his Progenitor Flame Ability was slowing down his perception. Using it, he was able to think far faster than those around him.

Since the first few times he had relied on that, he hadn’t had to since. The problem now was that his brain was already too fast, but his reactions couldn’t keep up. Using that Progenitor Flame Ability now felt like he was wasting Will for no reason.

He was already too superior to his enemies, and his body was too weak by comparison, so it was a land of diminishing returns.

So, his first thought was just to apply that to his Runes instead.

Slowing his perception didn’t really help much with his Runes because everything else still needed to move. But his Progenitor Flame Abilities had evolved several times since the last. However, more importantly than that, Sylas understood the relationship between Runes and the Mesh of Reality far more now than he ever did in the past.

And then there was the elephant in the room...

He hadn’t reached Rune Spark back then.

Because of that, everything opened up to him in ways he didn’t expect.

It was almost too easy.

Time warped around his Runes, and suddenly Strokes seemed to pop into existence all on their own. The time manipulation was on such a small scale that it was easy.

The connection between Sylas’ mind and the Runes was so solid now that abilities that were once kept to his mind alone truly extended to his Runes.

Before, it was just a proxy change. Because his mind was working faster, he could thus draw Runes a little faster than usual. But now, he was actually influencing the Runes, forcing them into existence at a much faster pace.

All of a sudden, he was drawing Runes at double the speed, then triple. It wasn’t until he was nearing five times his usual speed that he actually began to feel the slightest hint of fatigue and then turned to something else.

It was just the slightest hint of fatigue. He knew that he could push harder, go further. It was just that he was bored of it. He wanted to save his stamina to experiment more, ignoring the pinging of his completed Destiny Quests.

When he turned to Spatial Casting, the first thing he did was actually something quite complex—far more complex than what he had done with Chrono Casting.

The idea of quantum mechanics was still in his mind, and then he recalled the first instant of Rune drawing he had ever done. Or rather, the first good Rune drawing he had done.

He remembered being in the Rune Visualization Secret Realm when he learned to ’stamp’ Runes. Instead of drawing out every little curve and line, he visualized the entire Rune, and then stamped it into place.

Sylas wondered, what would happen if he tied two locations in space together through a node of some sort? If he did that, and stamped down in one location, forcing another location to take on the exact same shape, would he be able to draw the same exact Rune twice with a single effort?

Of course, it would cost more Will, but the time saved...

As the thought was forming, Sylas was already acting.

He stamped once and found that he was a bit off, but he was already pinged for success as though the Destiny Quest felt that the effort to do something so complicated was already more than good enough to prove him.

But Sylas only measured himself by his own success, so he once again ignored it and tried again.

This time he was closer, but still a bit off.

There were some twists and turns in the space that he wasn’t accounting for. The further away the two connected spatial nodes were formed, the more variability there was.

If he brought them closer together, it was easier. The further away the two were, the more difficult it was. This wasn’t true quantum entanglement, after all. He couldn’t force one thing in one location to immediately be replicated in another.

However, this just meant that he had to expand the scope of his mind, taking into account more variables. And then...

’Success...’

Two Runes appeared at once, perfectly identical in all aspects.

Sylas immediately tried for three, and then four. However, he felt like three was probably around his limit—four took too much out of him and wasn’t worth it.

After Sylas was bored of this, he went back to time and tried something else. He drew a Rune in place and it seemed to have a lag to it, as though it was clinging onto something a second in the past.

He moved the drawn Rune out of the way and then saw its lingering past in place, then drew it again before moving that out of the way.

It looked like Sylas was continuously tracing his own Rune drawings, and each time, the imprint left on the Mesh of Reality made the next ones easier and easier to make.

With a thought, Sylas took this Time Tracing ability and stacked it with his Spatial Stamp ability.

He drew a Rune once, then moved it, and then moved it again. The same Rune left a trail of time in its wake, its body leaving stamps across the air.

Then, Sylas raised up a palm and slapped out.

In an instant, hundreds of Runes manifested all at once.

From a limit of barely more than three, Sylas raised it by several orders of magnitude, and it almost felt...

Easy.

Space and time—they were meant to work together. He was sure of that. The limits were nothing more than his own creativity.

In terms of Rune drawing, with these two abilities, he didn’t believe that there was anyone who should be able to match him if he reached his full potential.

He didn’t need a Unique Gene. He was his own Unique Gene.

—

[Progenitor Flame Abilities Upgraded]

—

[Temporal Delay (Legendary) (Progenitor Flame Ability)]

Bend your perception of time, and the perception of the Mesh around you. See, but also predict lags, their fractures, their changing oscillations. Read the rhythm between seconds, embed your Will only to the temporal tide.

—

[Astral Stutter (Legendary) (Progenitor Flame Ability)]

Feel the evolution of Runes—what they were, what they are, and what they may have yet to become. Grasp the Astral Echoes, feeling their intention, enabling correction and transformation even while they are being born. Your Runes no longer just form—they adapt.