Genetic Ascension

Chapter 1363: Worth His Effort

The Essence Mastery round began.

By the time they reached Soul Mastery, there had already been some struggles even amongst these geniuses. Setting aside Sylas, who breezed through it as though there was no effort needed at all, it took the others hours to finish their rounds. The only reason their ending times were so low was because of the divisions that took place afterward.

Honestly speaking, Sylas wasn’t even sure of the reason for the divisions in the first place. It made his record look far closer to the others than it should in the first place.

But Sylas didn’t believe that things like this were put in place without reason, so he chose to just store this information at the back of his mind as the next round started.

The highest-level Secret Realm Sylas had entered was actually the Soul Secret Realm. It could be said that this was the very first time he was seeing the Essence Secret Realm test in the first place.

This made sense. The odds that he would be able to trade for something as valuable as the Essence or Vitality Secret Realm in the first place were next to impossible. Even the Golden Grove might not have what was necessary.

The fact this tower had a Spark Secret Realm in the first place was actually proof of just how central it was to the power of this Sector, and it had probably cost quite a lot.

Whether they would have a Spark Secret Realm for the E-tier and above was still up in the air. Such a thing was simply far too rare.

Unfortunately, Sylas didn’t have records of this. All he knew was that the F-tier Spark Secret Realm certainly did exist.

Although he had never taken part in an Essence Secret Realm, Sylas didn’t care whether he went first or not. Even if it took him some time to understand what was happening, the end result would be just the same.

But it seemed that he wasn’t so unlucky either way.

Furon was up first.

Ever since these proceedings began, the Leava Clan member had become entirely stone-faced, his body language focused. Sylas had noticed how intently he watched the rounds he was in, as though he was trying to learn something.

From start to finish, he never lost focus a single time, and that was actually impacting his later performances. Because he never allowed his mind to rest, he was far more tired than the others were.

The irony was that Sylas’ rounds were the absolute shortest, so the fact he was analyzing so much, and for so long...

It went to show just how intent he was about all of this.

The landscape around Furon changed, shifting and flowing into an odd mesh of Strokes and Foundations.

It was no longer a matrix, but instead a river of almost... goo-like energy that one couldn’t even begin to make heads or tails of.

The moment Sylas saw it, he knew that he was right not to be worried. As expected, whether it was Essence, Vitality, or Spark, they would likely just be increasingly complex methods of testing one’s Rune comprehension.

That seemed obvious enough, but what Sylas was getting at was the core of what made the matrices so complicated. By studying them, one was supposed to find a way to spontaneously combine pieces of a Rune such that they would fuse into one another of their own accord.

This was already complicated enough in two dimensions. But by Rune Soul, you were dealing with three-dimensional matrices where the simplest were three-by-three-by-three cubes.

Now... it wasn’t organized at all. It was a river of soupy, vaguely Rune-like things.

There was a clear trick to it, one Sylas saw through immediately. There were anchors in the river of Strokes and Foundations, much like the core of the matrices had been important. The moment you could pick out those anchors, everything else would become like a long, strung-along magnet, trapped to follow the tide.

However, this would still make things quite slow. If one found the anchors, then let the currents move as they pleased, it would probably be just enough to barely pass with Full Marks.

If you wanted to take a step above, you had to not only find the anchors, but wield the other Strokes and Foundations to shift the current of Aether. Only by using a combination of these things would you be able to finish in the fastest time...

At least according to the theory.

This was far more complex than the first method, as it required comprehending how thousands of Strokes and Foundations could change the aspects and interaction of Aether with the world around them.

It was one thing to map out how one Stroke or Foundation changed the flow of Aether. But to do so with so many of them at once? Why they were interacting with one another?

It required comprehending a larger picture...

An Essence.

There was, of course, a third way of doing things. And that was not relying on natural movement at all, but instead wielding every Stroke, Foundation, and Anchor alike in a single storm of movement. However, doing so was akin to trying to untangle countless wires with a single tug.

Yet it was the path Sylas took.

And the end result was much the same.

—

[All-Time F-Grade Essence Mastery Leaderboard]

[1. Sylas Grimbalde – 00:00:00]

[2. Fowler Leava – 03:57:58]

...

—

It should have left them numb long ago. But the gap was simply too unfathomable.

By this point, even the nonchalant Zaernon had lost the ability to smile.

The only one who still seemed relatively normal about it all was Cassarae.

This wasn’t because she was ignorant. She had spent enough time in this world to know that even amongst the best Rune Masters of this Sector, only 1% might reach Essence Mastery—and that was even with the best training and resources.

Even amongst that elite group, not even one in ten thousand would reach Vitality Mastery.

As for Spark Mastery?

Not a single one.

For Sylas to make these elites look so foolish, it was the story of a generation. No, several generations.

But this was about par for the course when it came to Sylas.

The only deciding factor was if he decided it was worth his effort or not.

And this time...

It seemed that something had well and truly pissed him off.