Genetic Ascension

Chapter 1857: The Infinite--

What did all of these meandering thoughts have in common?

The fear of the unknown? Simulations and complexity?

Nothing on the surface. And yet everything in reality.

Why did humans go from one fear to the next, never learning from their mistakes and simply choosing as a whole to redirect their fear toward something new and unknown?

But why was it also the case that the simplest concepts to intuitively understand werenʼt always the most correct? What was the dividing line between what one could reliably use intuition for versus when you should rely on a more analytic, complicated approach?

Sylas wasnʼt thinking about these things literally. He was thinking about them in regard to how they applied to Rune Mastery, how they shaped his own thoughts about how he approached things.

It was true. The world, the star system, the galaxy, the Sector, the Horizon, the universe itself... When had it ever cared about the separation between Tiers? Werenʼt Tiers just a type of categorization created by the system in order to divide power into understandable, bite-sized pieces?

What was the difference between Tiers and humans deciding what their new thing to fear was? A new unknown horizon to be wary of?

But much the same way... when things reached a level that was complex enough, how could you continue to rely on the same intuition to understand things?

Maybe it made sense to take things step by step like this, to first understand the F-tier, and then the E-tier, before you could one day make it to the S-tier. And maybe it made sense to first comprehend Runes as their individual Strokes, and then as their Foundations, and then as their Runes, and then the meshes that connected them.

But at what point did this logic break down? At what point was intuition not enough?

And was that point the same for everyone?

Sylas had known immediately that the simulation theory was nonsense the moment he saw it. He knew intuitively there was something wrong with it.

But others didnʼt seem to.

And maybe that was why Sylasʼ intuition had brought him so much further than most others.

He made it to Spark Mastery on his own without relying on the legacy left by someone else. On the surface, that just seemed to be his own act of genius, and that much was true. But maybe his threshold of intuition was just higher than others... But that didnʼt mean that it was as high as it could ever possibly be or that there werenʼt things beyond it.

If there werenʼt things beyond it, he would never need to read or learn about Rune Mastery at all. Why would he need the library of the Weaver Guild in the first place?

No, even his own intuition had its limits, and that wasnʼt something Sylas had a problem with.

What he had had a problem with was why he didnʼt understand the Legendary Luck Gene.

But it had become all too obvious to him now.

One part of why he didnʼt understand it was, in a sense, intuition. He intuitively thought that all F-tier Runes had a limit of 100 Foundations, and any complex mesh of F-tier Runes had to be formed of Runes that were 100 Foundations or fewer. It also logically followed that any subsection of this mesh would be something he could break down and come to understand given enough time.

The Life and Death Seals were two of the most complex meshes that he had ever seen, but he could do the same. What about the Legendary Luck Gene made it so masterfully shocking? So impossible to grasp and comprehend? Why couldnʼt he understand it at all?

Fear.

It wasnʼt his own fear. It was the fear of the Rune Masters that came before him.

When humans and humanoids didnʼt understand something, they started small. They deified and raised it up on a pedestal. And only when they finally did understand it did they move on.

Sometimes that fear wasnʼt warranted at all, like in the creation of pantheons that didnʼt exist.

But sometimes, that fear was warranted, though maybe not always for the right reasons.

It was logical to fear the Antarctic; it could reap lives in the silence of the cold and the blanket of the ice.

However, as one took one step, and then another, the lingering effects of that former fear would remain and never be fully erased... Those mistakes would build, they would compile... unless someone went back and forcefully changed every single level themselves.

Maybe that was what a Rune Master was meant to do. Maybe you were meant to reach S-tier Rune Mastery first. And then, you would unhurriedly take one step back after another, returning to earlier and earlier levels until you used the scope of the world you had reached to elevate them all to a new tier.

And then one would use this new insight to improve their S-tier Rune Mastery once more, and then go back and repeat... Again...

And then again...

All in hopes of maybe one day reaching the true peak of Rune Mastery, a level where maybe you could break the fundamental laws of the universe and truly successfully Simulate your own universe... A level where you could form a system that blanketed all there was to teach others how to take one step after another just like you had... But he was Sylas Grimblade.

He was better than that.

He feared no god, no ocean, no endless depth of space.

There was only one thing he feared, one thing that he wasnʼt even subconsciously aware of just yet. But... the difference was that the F-tier could never bring himself close to that ceiling... So what need did he have to fear it now?

He could feel it. That infinity the universe was so comfortable with...

The perfection of Void Mastery...

The Infinite Void.

He didnʼt need to take it in steps, he didnʼt need to rely on his intuition, he had all the information he needed to complete the complex computation himself... To write the refutation of the proof himself...

To step into the Infinite Void Himself.

Sylasʼ eyes opened and a pulse radiated out with him as the center.

The water level of the entire ocean rose as a blanket vacuum appeared around him.

ʼThis is it.ʼ

Sylas thought calmly, opening his palm.

In a flashing instant... a perfect Legendary Luck Gene emerged.

Drawn by his own hand.