Genetic Ascension

Chapter 1958: Not Good Enough [Bonus]

[Bonus thanks to Bryson_Clark :)]

It took no more than an instant of time for the first orb to appear before Sylas. He caught it out of the air and looked at it for a short while before crushing it.

The call of a vulture and a rampaging blood thirst filled the air.

The Emperor Vulture Lineage. It was a minute group within the Sanctum. Very few of them were born these days as its Will was constantly falling in favor of others.

This wasnʼt much of a surprise to Sylas the moment he saw the Runes and perceived the Will. Vultures were scavengers, and the layers of this Armor reflected that.

They fed off of other Wills and grew based on them. Of all the Armors, they were the most variable. The only consistent part was probably their devouring ability. The trouble with that was that it was quite looked down upon to cannibalize other humanoids.

Sylas hadnʼt seen a single Vulture Emperor in the Mancy Scape, and even after a quick glance on the battlefield here, he only saw small groups of them here and there. They were also the ones with the weakest cooperation compared to the others as well, but it didnʼt seem like it was their fault.

They were ostracized.

”What is he doing?” The Ape Emperor frowned. He didnʼt know how Sylas got his hands on the Vulture Lineage, but he didnʼt really care all that much despite it clearly being a breach of the rules.

What he was wondering was if Sylas was trying to take advantage of the situation again.

ʼIt canʼt be?ʼ

”Didnʼt I tell you that you should be more focused on me?” a shadow spoke, its sneer practically heavy on its words.

But just as its palm was about to land on the 713th Ape Emperorʼs chest, the latter sidestepped and drove a fist into their gut.

The Ape Emperor sneered as the target coughed, blood and spittle flying from its mouth.

Something about what Sylas had done to the Ape Armor had made the rampaging Spirit several times more calm. As such, the 713th Ape Emperor had access to a fuller range of his original abilities.

The shadow coughed and flashed backward.

”Whatʼs wrong?” the Ape Emperor asked. ”Finally realize youʼre the prey here?”

The shadow darkly chuckled, wiping at its mouth. ”Since you want to play games, we can.”

When the shadow moved again, they were even faster this time, pouring out far more strength than before. The 713th Ape Emperor instantly found himself on the back foot once again.

An ugly expression crept onto the face of the Ape Emperor.

”What? No longer laughing? Whatʼs wrong?”

The Ape Emperorʼs only response was a roar of fury.

Sylasʼ eyes darted from side to side as he scanned the Runes.

A perfect E-tier Rune already had 10,000 Foundations, up from the 100 of an F-tier Rune. However, a perfect D-tier Rune had 1,000,000 Foundations. It was another two magnitude leap, and Sylas was pretty sure the leap to C-tier was even greater than that.

To make matters worse, Sylas had been ignoring D-tier Runes until now, hoping to improve his E-tier Rune Mastery to perfection at Infinite Void Mastery first.

But Sylas hadnʼt even hit Void Mastery yet. He was at the peak of Pure Spark Mastery, but that next step eluded him.

Granted, Sylas was working on orders of weeks, not months or years like it would take most others. The fact that he had even progressed this far so quickly was already a miracle.

However, Sylas didnʼt have the luxury to slow down. He couldnʼt even sense the door to Void Mastery right now, let alone Infinite Void Mastery-or what the God Realm seemed to call True Rune Creation.

Right now, though, he had no choice but to try and step into D-tier Rune Mastery. Only by elevating the level of the D-tiers on this battlefield would the Sanctum have a chance.

In which case, it was time for him to change things.

Starting with the Vultures.

Sylasʼ pupils continued to ping back and forth. As his clones waged a war out on the battlefield, he waged another battle on his own terms.

It took him several minutes before he managed to memorize the entire structure of the D-Grade Vulture Emperor Armor. The complexity was off the charts.

The First Layer alone had over 30 million Foundations, formed of countless interconnecting Runes. The Second Layer and Third Layer together would have made the sum total over nine figures in Foundations alone.

This was a far cry from the 9000 Foundations Sylasʼ F-tier Scorpion Warlord Armor had had.

Just memorizing them was difficult enough. Attempting to jump right to the D-tier was absolutely ridiculous. To try and make a workable change that would fundamentally change the strength of the Vulture Emperors on top of that?

The thoughts of an absolute madman. There was no other way to put it.

And yet, the moment Sylas finished memorizing it all, his eyes closed.

One second.

Two.

Three.

In those moments, it was like he had forgotten about the existence of the world completely and then his eyes snapped open and his palms slammed together.

BOOM.

Sylasʼ Will rose to the D-tier and then he began to draw. At first it was slow, and then he accelerated. It was like there was a chain reaction of Gene creation around him. As he bent the Will around him with his Charisma, forcing them to acknowledge his existence and the Will of the Vulture, it was like everything around him had been primed and perfected for the creation of this Vulture Armor.

Chi.

The last Rune slid into place 27 seconds later.

ʼ57%.ʼ Sylas concluded. ʼRune Flesh Mastery.ʼ

It was the fifth of the Masteries. On Sylasʼ first attempt, he became a D-Grade Flesh Master.

ʼNot good enough.ʼ

Sylasʼ Will flashed and he shattered it to pieces. Yet, rather than collapsing into motes of light, the armor was separated into its Strokes.

Sylasʼ Will coated each and every one, looking for weaknesses and mistakes.

Then his gaze was etched with a tesseract.