Genetic Ascension

Chapter 1166: Rewards (3)

[Dominus Paragon (Legendary) (Contested Title)]

[The power of your mind has been displayed and acknowledged. In this Sector, you are the undisputed best, carrying within yourself insight, sharpness, and wit that stands beyond all others. A wiseman beyond wisemen, an intellectual beyond scholars, a powerhouse of strategy and technical skill that strikes fear in your enemies.]

[+1000% Mental]

—

Sylas blinked.

For a moment, he felt a bit silly ignoring the notifications. What was this? And why couldn’t he feel it properly?

An additional 1000% to his Mental? What sort of Title was this?

As far as Sylas knew, the only time he had ever heard of “Paragon” was in certain ranking systems.

Classic, Mythic, Epic, Ascendant, Eternal, Titan…

Classic Dungeons were top 1000 in a District in terms of difficulty, while Titan Dungeons were top 100 in an entire galaxy.

But then beyond them were Primordial, Transcendent, and then Paragon Dungeons.

A Primordial Dungeon was the undisputed strongest Dungeon in a galaxy, a Transcendent Dungeon was a top 1000 Dungeon across an entire Sector, and then there was a Paragon Dungeon…

The undisputed strongest Dungeon in a Sect.

The trouble with this ranking system was that it was all relative. When it said “strongest,” it was all by Grade, and there were also various intricacies hidden within this nest-egg sort of system. They were still divided by F-Grade, E-Grade, and so on…

But this Title… was it really divided by Grade? Why didn’t it feel like it?

There was a sudden rush in Sylas’s body, and he felt like a bomb had gone off in his head.

It was only now Sylas realized why he hadn’t noticed this Title. Unlike his Professions or his Progeny Title, this one hadn’t taken root immediately.

Sylas braced himself for some sort of pain, but it didn’t come. It was almost like… it was external to him? Like he was being connected to some sort of higher presence, almost like he was in the UniForge again.

‘Is this why it’s a Contested Title?’

It didn’t even really feel like it was Sylas’s own. It was like he was carrying around something that had been with someone else for a decent period of time, and it could also be taken away at any moment.

That also explained something else. This was a reward not from the All-Seeing Eye, but instead from the current system. That was why it hadn’t quite taken root yet.

But the question was… was he going to be targeted for this Title?

Sylas didn’t need the little girl to answer this. He knew that the answer was almost certainly yes. In fact, he was probably already being targeted for it.

“What’s a Contested Title?” Sylas asked the little girl.

“Pay me.”

“Take it,” Sylas said. He doubted the cost would be substantial, and he was right. It was on the order of Common Genes, but that still didn’t stop her from taking a Bronze Gene.

Sylas could only shake his head and let her do as she pleased. After all, he hadn’t specified. He would just have to remember that in the future.

“A Contested Title is region-locked and can only be carried by one person at a time. Because of that, it also can’t be integrated into your Foundation. But they also tend to be quite powerful and scale with your Tier as well. It requires quite substantial feats to get your hands on them. Why?”

“Dominus Paragon,” Sylas said lightly.

“They gave that to you? Nonsense. This Sector must be filled with idiots. Unbelievable they actually let an F-Grade get it, I’m going to die of laughter. No wonder the Wheel of Fortune picked you, this place must be the universe’s personal toilet.”

Follow new episodes on the ””.

Sylas didn’t reply, looking at the Title again. Somehow, he felt like he was missing something about this Title, like there was something else he could take advantage of.

“Look at that, it’s happening already. Honestly, you getting this Title is a problem given your True Pride Seed. You already have an overinflated sense of self-worth, and this Title gives you mental capacity that’s beyond your heart’s capability to rein in. It makes you feel as though there’s no problem you can’t solve, and a lot of people who end up with this Title end up like madmen, chasing after the solution to things they can’t hope to ever fix.

“Often, they end up losing the Title not because they’re actually unworthy of it any longer, but because they get so lost in their own trances that they forget to do things to actually continue keeping it. In the end, they harm themselves in the process.

“By the time they lose the Title, it’s too late, and then they really spiral—”

“Oh, I understand.”

The little girl thought that Sylas was talking to her, but he was actually paying attention to something completely different.

Just because the Contested Title didn’t allow him to integrate it didn’t mean that he couldn’t observe it. It had to have a form, a Gene sequence of some sort. And if that was the case, he could observe it.

When he changed his perspective in this way, he finally found the Rune of the Dominus Paragon Title within him.

Because the Contested Title could adjust itself, it had been suppressed to an F-Grade configuration. With his E-Grade Extricate Talent, Sylas found that he was actually able to pick out all its bits and pieces.

Now that Sylas thought about it, he had never actually tried to observe the form of a Title before, but it wasn’t too different than a Class in this regard. It spread through all the layers and had aspects of them all.

‘If I pass on this information to the old man from the Golden Grove, he could probably improve Andromeda further—no, by a substantial amount, even. Potentially making it more portable as well. No, I probably couldn’t use it if it’s portable, but…’

The Scorned Wraps still existed. While Sylas could use the UniForge generally, if he made it portable and tried to use it to bolster his combat abilities, the end result could be imagined.

But, what about the reverse?

‘Using the UniForge to make this Contested Title more permanent…? Maybe…’

Sylas’s eyes narrowed as he lost himself in thought for a while before he pulled himself out.

He still had more rewards to go through. Almost too many, it felt. Every one of them was so powerful it felt like it was throwing him into another rabbit hole, and this one was no different.

It seemed that his Progeny Title was putting in its own efforts already.