Genetic Ascension

Chapter 1176: Rewards (13) [Bonus]

[Change your username, Niceee. I suggest Eviiil. Or very, very, very small p…ersonality]

It seemed that these evolutions were his rewards from his Destiny Quest, but Sylas hardly paid much attention to them. Although he felt his perception toward the Mesh of Reality suddenly take another enormous leap forward, he was far more focused on what it would allow him to do, testing out so many other abilities he thought of—even ones that he thought he couldn’t have been able to pull off before.

For example, there was a compressing method he thought of that relied on Spatial Casting. Runes normally had a very set “size.” They were like atomic units—fixed and consistent.

You could increase the gap and span between two Runes, but you couldn’t just make them larger to fill in said gaps. As a result, if you wanted to make a larger formation, you needed to either fill it with more Runes or compress it within enough energy that the Runes had more than enough to fill in whatever weaknesses there might be.

This wasn’t normally a problem Sylas thought of much at all. It was like an accepted flaw of Rune crafting that often led to many problems, but no one really thought twice about it because that was just what it was.

One such problem was with Treasures. A sword, for example, could only be infused with so many Runes before it ran out of space because Runes couldn’t be compressed into a smaller size—just like they couldn’t be increased in size to be made larger.

In order to compensate for this, stronger weapons tended to also be heavier. Denser materials would be layered in thinner sheets, and Runes were hidden within their folds before new layers were added on top.

There were rare materials that were both sturdy in their thinness and capable of being used like this as well, but they were, unsurprisingly, far more expensive—and still required exceptionally skilled craftsmen to work on them.

Of course, Sylas didn’t really care about this sort of blacksmithing. And it was a problem without much of a need for a solution either.

Usually, as weapons became heavier, those that were in need of stronger Treasures were also in need of heavier weapons too.

Sure, lighter weapons were better to an extent. But how light was too light? At a certain level of strength, a weapon being lighter wasn’t helpful—it was a hindrance, or at the very least a limiter on what your real power output could be.

What Sylas was more concerned about was actually something others would look at him with a dumbfounded expression for…

The limit of his Visualization range.

His range was probably far larger than two kilometers now, but what if he ran out of space in crafting Runes? Theoretically, there was a limit to how many Runes he could form in that area.

But what if he could increase that limit?

It was the most ridiculous question he could be asking. How could he even begin to form that many Runes in the first place? And even if he could, how could he begin to control them?

And theoretically, let’s say that he could one day reach such a stage. By then, wouldn’t his Visualization range have grown even further anyway?

Sylas hardly considered that, though. To him, he was curious, so he looked into it. Plus, who said sheer quantity would be the only benefit of this?

There had to be a reason nature always wanted Runes to have the exact same power. What happened if you forced two atoms that really didn’t want to be together even closer? What kind of explosive power would that cause?

If he could shrink the Runes, even by just the tiniest hair…

Would he be able to make simple Runes with obvious caps even stronger?

What if he didn’t even need to bother to truly master a Rune because he could make even its most rudimentary form as powerful as being drawn to Spark Mastery—just by compressing it?

The answer to all of that seemed to be yes, but it nearly blew Sylas’ head off.

BANG!

Sylas was sent flying, coughing up a mouthful of blood.

An eruption of laughter echoed in his ears as he pulled himself up from the ground, a bit shaken.

He had a feeling that that would happen, so he had only compressed that Rune by half a percent—not even a full percentage point. All he did was use Spatial Casting to squeeze the space around it just the tiniest bit, resulting in the Rune being drawn in a region that was slightly smaller in dimension than it was used to.

It was a simple Rune too, just a casual Ice Rune with not even 10 Foundations.

The result?

Shocking.

The backlash?

Even worse.

The Ice Rune itself was purposely drawn to just Breath Mastery by Sylas. This was already very good—probably too good—but maybe because of his Pride, Sylas didn’t want to weaken it any further. Plus, it was just a seven-Foundation Rune. How much harm could it cause?

Compressed by just 0.5%, the Rune immediately reacted as though it was drawn to Soul Mastery, a full two steps above.

However, Sylas didn’t even get a chance to use it before it exploded.

Unfortunately, that explosion all occurred in the Mesh of Reality and slapped out against his Will. If not for how powerful his Will was, he might have lost a permanent part of it.

‘Dangerous…’

And yet, the glow in Sylas’ eyes was almost too fierce.

He knew what happened. The compression was fine. It was just that when a Rune was compressed, all of its flaws were exacerbated. Meaning, purposely lowering the Mastery of the Rune actually made it more likely to explode and harm him.

The bad news? He couldn’t use this method to leapfrog Mastery levels and essentially cheat.

The good news…?

Sylas drew the seven-Foundation Ice Rune once again—this time so perfect and resplendent it shook with a blinding white-blue light and immediately turned the surroundings to frost.

He compressed it by an entire percent this time, having drawn it to 87% Mastery.

The Rune shook, but it was stable.

And then Sylas raised a palm toward the castle in the distance.

Chi.

In one moment, it was a land of beautiful greenery—marred by battle scars, sure—but still gorgeous nonetheless.

In the next instant, it was a winter wonderland, converted by a single seven-Foundation Ice Rune probably being taught in a rudimentary Rune Mastery class right this moment.

Compressed by a single percent, this Rune… it had the strength of a Rune of at least 50 Foundations…

But it cost Sylas a fraction of a fraction of the effort.

Just how far could he push this? How powerful would his Rune Mastery become like this? Did he even have an equal in Rune drawing in this Sector anymore?

Sylas’ thoughts flickered to his Combat Matrix Index. It was time he started really thinking about how to increase it. As far as he was concerned, this was just the beginning.

That Furon Leava that stood at first place was nothing but a stepping stone to him.

The glow in Sylas’ eyes slowly dimmed. It was about time he looked through his last two rewards.