Genetic Ascension

Chapter 1674 Mistake

Sylas felt the aura of the white ring fall over him once again. It sank into his body much the same as the first one had, but it seemed less probing, as though it was looking at things from a macro perspective rather than being dialed in.

There was a shift in the air as a silence fell.

Many gazes were still on Sylas, many of them also carrying hints of skepticism. The results of the last round were far too exaggerated; it didnʼt make any sense to them.

Unfortunately, the results of this round were entirely opposite to the last. Rather than wanting to be among the first to finish, it was instead their desire to be among the very last.

The more perfect your Seed, the more embedded it was into your body, and the more difficult it was for the scan to parse out all of the details.

By comparison, the more immature and incomplete the formation of the Seed, the easier it was to find and parse.

If you were to compare that to the previous round, the younger a Seed was, the less mature it tended to be. Since most joined the instant they became Spark Masters, it was only natural that their Seed likewise not have much time to settle.

The irony of that was that even if Sylas hadnʼt been holding the scan back from leaving his body too soon, he still would have been amongst the few that took the longest because his Seed had long become Perfect.

In fact, the time it took him to go from Spark Seed to Perfect Spark Seed was less time than these children had taken to reach Spark in the first place.

Since Sylas had already gotten what he wanted out of the scan, though, he felt no need to hold it back this time. If anything, he was speeding it up... That was, until he felt it trying to probe at things it shouldnʼt.

His gaze flickered, but he also didnʼt panic. Precisely because he had gained the insight he had from the first round, it was all too easy to obstruct the path forward.

With his Scorned Wraps, he could even hide from the system itself, let alone a mere scan. The question was, though... ʼWhy is it conflating my Seeds now but not during the first round?ʼ

Soon, Sylas had an answer to that too. The first round was trying to sense not his Seed itself, but when it began to germinate. It was sensing when he had first established Rune Sight, and that was a very shallow probe.

This was different.

Unfortunately, Sylas still made a mistake.

This mistake wasnʼt in regard to revealing his Pride, Lust, or Greed Seed.

Even now... Sylas had not a single clue of the value of a Perfect Spark Seed. When he caused the commotion during the Sanctum gathering, he hadnʼt been there to see reactions. Others were watching him, not the other way around.

As for Gralith, his reactions were about as muted as Sylasʼ own. Even though he was there when Sylas perfected his Spark Seed, he hadnʼt said a single thing about it. Though... it didnʼt help that soon after, he almost lost his life climbing those stairs.

However, this was just the first layer of it all.

A Perfect Spark Seed was one matter...

A Perfect Spark Seed formed without Path was a different matter entirely.

It had to be remembered that Sylas actually gained Primus Luminaria only after his Spark Seed was perfected. This could be considered to be another show of unconscionable incompetence by the system.

There were many Primus Luminaria across the cosmos with the Contested Title, and yet without a Perfect Spark Seed to match it.

That was because in reality, what Sylas had-though technically a Perfect Spark Seed-was more accurately called a Pure Spark Seed, one formed without the taint of a Path at all, one that could follow any Path should it choose to do so.

These youths here were all scratching and clawing to join the Guild because they wanted a chance to find an ideal Path to follow that could help them step into the realms of the Perfect Spark Seed.

Many of them would fail, but even so, among that number some would rise from the ashes of their companions.

The number was barely 30%, even in the Weaver Guild.

And this was just those who would manage it at the F-tier.

Sylas, though...

Had not a single need to use the Path of someone else. He had the purest Spark Seed there was.

The white halo had barely appeared before it happened.

BOOM.

Sylas only registered the light trying to probe at his Madness Seeds. Because of that, he was a split moment too late to grasp the whole picture. By the time he realized that something out of his control was about to happen... It was too late.

The ring of white became a blinding gold around Sylas. Several of the kids were sent flying back, flipping end over end as they tumbled to the ground.

There were only three exceptions to the rule-Leia, Malikhi, and the General-all choosing to leap back on their own as they realized what was wrong.

At the center of the ring, the only one who remained was Sylas, the crown of a Primus Luminaria blazing with gold light above his head like a flaming halo.

His hair danced wildly, the ring of gold around his dense emerald eyes shimmering so bright it was hard to see his original irises at all.

His trench coat flapped in his aura, Runes spontaneously forming and collapsing around him.

The General had just been about to speak about the first bit of results, and now his lips hung partially split. It was barely enough to fit a flat coin, but to someone like him, his jaw might as well have been hanging to his waist.

From the outside, one after another, the city could only watch as the power was drained from their most prominent building.

One by one, the lights on each floor flickered out.