Genetic Ascension

Chapter 1179: Final Reward

‘This can work, but it’s still not good enough. I don’t have the skill for it just yet. No… it’s more like an F-Grade Rune will never be capable of this, not unless it’s on a planet where F-Grade is the absolute cap. But… this can work, at least in part.’

Sylas ran into another roadblock, but he wasn’t pissed. Instead, he knew that if he managed to make a perfect Glassvolt Rune of the E-Grade, it would become even stronger… and so on and so forth for every Tier.

Right now, he was asking too much of an F-Grade Rune. To change and catalyze the Aether in the region to become his own was too much, especially when there was ambient D-Grade Aether roaming around him right now.

Although Sylas was only targeting the F-Grade Aether to begin with, the atmosphere was too messy.

In their wild states, Aether was quite mixed. F, E, D-Grade and beyond all meshed into one, not clearly dividing from one another. When Sylas tried to suppress some of them, it was like the big brothers would step in to push him away.

This made it impossible to do what he wanted to do. Unless he had a Glassvolt Rune stronger than any other Aether on a planet, he would be out of luck.

But on a small scale?

‘It’s possible… but I need more help and support. My eyes, the Pride Seed, and probably the Lust and Gluttony Seeds on top of that—plus I’ll need this new elevated [Glassvolt Throne] Growth Skill to make an appearance. Only that way can I squeeze just enough… But, if it works…’

In Sylas’ opinion, if he could use a 100 Foundation Rune as the foundation of his Aether, he would be nigh untouchable in the F-Grade, at the very least in this Sector.

100 Foundations represented absolute perfection in the F-Grade. It was an Aether form that wasn’t even naturally occurring in the world, which was a huge part of why Sylas was struggling so much.

For his Glassvolt Aether to appear naturally, it would have to come from an equally perfect world, and there was simply no such thing.

While this Aether alone wouldn’t be able to bridge the other enormous gaps in talent Sylas had between himself and those monsters of S-Grade Races, it was enough that he could stand at the bottom of their mountain peak and look up.

And for Sylas, who had started here, in a world they would never even give a second glance to if not for that mysterious first Race that appeared on Earth…

That was huge.

‘It would take everything out of me to do this. But if I’m ever pushed to that point, I guess I’ll have a way out.’

Something told Sylas that he might very well be needing this—and maybe not even in a future far enough away for him to relax by any stretch of the imagination.

With another hurdle solved, Sylas exhaled and looked toward his last and final reward.

[{Sealed Treasure} (???) (Map)]

A scroll landed in Sylas’ palm, and he looked at it for a while. It shook in his palms, and then Sylas felt a prick.

He hurried to change hands, watching in a bit of shock as his palm, well-covered by the Scorned Wraps, began to be soaked through with blood.

The Scorned Wraps easily absorbed it all, and then it was as though nothing at all had happened, but Sylas couldn’t help but be surprised.

Since he got the Scorned Wraps, nothing had ever been able to make him suffer puncture damage through them. He had suffered a lot of blunt damage, but definitely nothing like this.

The Scorned Wraps were obviously unharmed, and he didn’t notice even the slightest nick on them. But that wasn’t really the point.

Had this scroll ignored the existence of the Scorned Wraps? Or had it punctured the Scorned Wraps and they healed before Sylas could get a look?

Both were problems, but both had their own implications.

Sylas’ gaze became a bit solemn. It seemed that the Scorned Wraps weren’t infallible. He knew that they must have had their limits. If they existed, that meant that someone had created them, and there was no such thing as a perfect being.

But seeing this still felt surreal. He didn’t think he would run into their limits anytime soon.

What did that mean about the scroll in his hands?

‘A map? To—.’

Sylas looked to the map that was supposed to be in his hands, only to see that it was gone. He was sure that it had been right there; he hadn’t even felt it disappear from his palm at all. He could even still feel a slight weight.

But when he squeezed his hand, that feeling disappeared entirely, replaced by nothing.

‘How… weird…’

“What—?” Sylas started.

“You can’t afford it.”

Sylas could only fall into silence until he noticed something else.

His status screen—it had gained something new.

A map.

‘Is that what happened?’

It seemed that the scroll had used his blood as some sort of bridge, fusing with the system and appearing here to point him toward a certain direction.

Sylas had had a map treasure once before, one that pointed him to a Dungeon and even gave him an advantage inside of it. In fact… that was the Dungeon he met Gogo in, the very same Dungeon where he had ended up getting his Vipermancy Profession.

Could it be that this was a similar chance? That would be absolutely huge.

No… that Map Treasure had only been an FF+ item. But this one—it was filled with question marks and had proven itself to be mysterious several times over.

But just as Sylas was about to reconcile himself to the fact he would just have to wait until he arrived at the destination on the map to find out, there was a change.

The obelisks shifted.

The very same obelisks that allowed him to stand here as a D-Grade Human Simioid.