Genetic Ascension

Chapter 2107: Shudder

Sylas didnʼt actually expect for Fanelei to start stripping after he said this. She turned around and pulled her robes down until something that Sylas had missed began to bloom into existence on her back.

There was a terrible gash in her side that obscured some of it, but the rest was clear enough for Sylas to tell that it was an incredibly intricate formation, one with six—no, seven nodes.

The seventh node was immature, not to mention ruined by the gash, but it was there.

Fanelei was trying some immature form of Rune Creation. But she couldnʼt quite control her Genes and the like, especially not at the A-tier. At best, she could probably manage up to the D-tier, and certainly not Legendary Genes.

So, instead, she tried a different method.

She physically moved the locations of her Aether Pathways and veins to etch a physical formation into herself. It was crude, especially crude. But it was the sort of thing that was quite impressive from a certain lens.

She was doing this because her Rune Mastery was lacking. But in terms of a Rune by Rune basis, this formation itself was incredibly intricate.

In terms of overall Rune Mastery, she was terrible. But this Rune itself was more impressive than anything Sylas could draw himself right now by sevenfold.

There were seven complex Rune mesh systems here, and they melded into one cohesive network. You could even say part of the reason Faneleiʼs Rune Mastery was so lacking was because she had put everything into crafting these Runes instead of building up her foundations.

But this also wasnʼt exactly her fault either. Every one of the lives she lived was limited, and she was trying to balance a new Path and distill it all into a Rune formation at the same time, it was difficult.

The key cog of the entire problem was that until her Seventh Life—or her final life—she couldnʼt integrate her other lives. But if she didnʼt integrate her lives, then it was hard to figure out how to fit the Runes together.

The best time to figure out which vein and Aether Pathway Systems worked best with her Path was also while she was living it, especially since her Rune Mastery was lacking.

So during a life, Fanelei had had to actively change her body and conform to her path, before eventually dying and doing it all over again.

When she reached her seventh life, she had hoped that she could find a way to meld them all together, but the key to that would have been a successful formation of a True Gluttony Seed, ideally a Virtue Gluttony Seed, but she had never hoped for that nor known they existed.

From what Sylas could tell, if she successfully formed a Virtue Gluttony Seed and combined all of this well enough, then she would probably have power to rival any Legend across any of the Heavens.

The overall formation was too complicated for Sylas, so he tried to focus on small bits and pieces of it and immediately started finding issues.

The fact he could read a formation designed for A-tiers at all was a testament to his talent. He was still three tiers away, but he no longer felt like the A-tier was impossibly far beyond his reach. At least not at the level Fanelei was drawing these.

If Sylas was correct, these were barely at the Breath Mastery stage.

Sylas could definitely enter Breath Mastery of the C-tier whenever he wanted. In fact, with a handful of hours, he felt he could probably reach Soul Mastery, the sixth tier of Mastery.

With the difficulty of every tier beyond that, though, it would be quite an effort for him. Sylas felt that unless he got another boon or Rune Mastery legacy of some sort to study, it would probably take him half a year or so to reach Spark Mastery of the C-tier, and then even longer beyond that to reach Fathomless Rune Creation.

But still, if he reached Soul Mastery of C-tier, he felt that he could probably reach Breath Mastery of the B-tier in a couple of days.

ʼIs it worth the effort right now…? Would that help her?ʼ

Sylas frowned.

No, it wouldnʼt. B-tier Mastery of any kind beneath at least Essence Mastery wouldnʼt help him help Fanelei, and that was too far beyond his reach right now.

But how could he help with this, then?

The thing was that while these Runes were barely at Breath Mastery, they were only so because of how unfathomably complex they were. Faneleiʼs level was probably higher than that, but even she could only draw it to this level despite physically experiencing every life.

Just a little bit of understanding of A-tier Runes wouldnʼt be enough. In order to truly help her, Sylas felt he would need Spark Mastery of the A-tier.

However…

”Yamero.” Sylas said.

A spatial construct appeared.

Fanelei didnʼt react very much to this. Maybe she had experienced too much of life, but she wouldnʼt care too much about showing her back, especially not to a beast.

What she cared more about was how this creature had suddenly appeared out of nowhere. Her secluded chambers were incredibly well protected.

”What do you think of this formation?” he asked.

”Complicated.” Yamero said, pursing his lips or whatever the Serpentes equivalent of that was. Then he laughed. ”What? You need help from little olʼ me? The Rune Mastery genius finally ran into a wall he couldnʼt overcome?”

This time, Fanelei might have finally overestimated Sylas a bit too much. There was very little he could do about this. At least not as it was presently constructed.

But what he did have was an idea that was brewing around in his mind, one that was a bit ambitious, but would need a truly powerful A-tier Rune Master like Yamero to oversee.

The problem with Yamero was that he entirely specialized in spatial Runes. But… he was also interesting because he was constructing his body from them, something that might actually be decently useful here.

Sylasʼ lips parted and he began to explain his idea.

Fanelei shuddered.