Genetic Ascension

Chapter 1281: Are You Sure?

Old Brama frowned. He could see why Sylas would assume he could, but this wasn’t exactly a quick task. If he wanted to do something like that, he would probably need several weeks, full access to every nook and cranny of the ship, and probably enough Mental Recovery Elixirs to bottom out a large lake.

Sylas shook his head when he saw the response. It was a disappointment.

If he were a C-tier Rune Master, he felt that he would be able to do it with ease. But maybe he shouldn’t expect everyone to be the same level of Rune Master he was.

”What is your Rune Mastery at?” Sylas asked.

Old Brama blinked. He never told anyone this. But it seemed that he didn’t have much of a choice since it was Sylas who was asking directly.

”... Rune Flesh.”

To be honest, Old Brama expected some reverence. There were only 160 or so Rune Flesh Masters in the whole Sector—more accurately, C-tier Rune Flesh Masters.

Old Brama had never taken one of the tests or participated in any of the connected Secret Realms, so no one knew that he was actually one among them.

But Sylas’ expression was so deadpan and uninterested Old Brama almost felt like smashing his head against a wall.

”Why don’t you ask him what his Rune Mastery is at, old man?” Alex spoke again, not looking up from his tabletop game.

Old Brama almost snapped. It didn’t matter what level Sylas was at. Every tier came with exponentially more hardship and difficulty. Even if Sylas was a Rune Spark Master at F-tier, he wasn’t even guaranteed to make Rune Soul at E-tier, let alone Rune Flesh at C-tier.

Wait...

Old Brama’s eyes narrowed and he looked at Sylas. Was this kid really at Rune Spark?

All of a sudden, all the bloviating Old Brama had done in his own internal monologue was thrown out the window.

Sure, it was theoretically true what he said. But in practice? There probably wasn’t a single Rune Spark Master that had flopped like this...

Not that he would know. They were too rare to actually document properly.

Alex suddenly laughed. ”I’m just messing with you. I have no idea what his Rune Mastery is at.”

”Kid, has anyone ever taught you the importance of respect?” Old Brama’s eyes narrowed.

”Hey! I respect you very much! So much so I’m willing to take you as a master right here and now!”

Sylas ignored their bantering, tuning out the world. The easiest plan was to take control of the ship, but Old Brama was clearly incapable of this, so it wasn’t worthwhile.

There had to be another path they took, then.

Kill the stowaways and then the captain?

The stowaways they could get away with. But he had already killed Tiere. If he killed the head of the Sanctum’s star ship operations, he would likely end up in more trouble than he could handle for now.

No, he needed another way.

Thoughts circulated in his mind.

”Even with Andromeda?” Sylas asked suddenly.

Old Brama looked up from his scuffle with Alex. He had been mere moments from wringing the young man’s neck up like a chicken’s.

”What do you mean even with Andromeda? I can’t use Andromeda. I don’t have time and space affinity. Plus, I left it—.” Old Brama’s eyes narrowed. ”... You didn’t, did you?”

”I’ll use Andromeda to analyze the ship. You will take what I’ve analyzed and see what you can do with it.”

”Do you have any idea how expensive that UniForge is? It has at least a millennia of the Golden Grove’s accumulated wealth poured into it. It can’t be stored in any random spatial device either. The materials are too high quality and the concentration of Aether pulsing through it is on another level.

”Plus, I connected it so deeply with the Golden Grove World. Without a substantial amount of power, it can’t work properly.”

”He’s not listening, old man.”

Sylas, indeed, wasn’t listening. He had already taken out Andromeda.

The problem of storage device? He had yet to run into something the Madness Key couldn’t contain.

As for the problem of energy source? Well, it seemed he would have to burn through the Aetherstones he had taken from the Golden Grove earlier than he wanted to, but it was a worthy cause.

Once he crushed this miniature rebellion, his reputation would be on another tier entirely.

Some might think that Tiere alone was enough to do that. But Tiere was just another unproven commodity much like he was. Sylas didn’t take her very seriously at all, though she was a wake-up call to him nonetheless.

He needed more strength.

And the Sanctum was the way to that.

”Wait, this won’t work. Even with Andromeda, there’s just no way that you can—”

Sylas had already entered and shut himself in, the golden mech vessel whirring with life as it thrummed into being.

It took just thirty seconds before Sylas spat out his first bits of information, streams of Rune drawings being etched into the air. These weren’t true Runes—they had no form or substance. But they carried the gist of the real Runes Sylas was seeing as though they were written in shorthand.

Old Brama was floored.

Even with Andromeda, and even if he wasn’t comprehending them, there was just no way... no way an F-tier should be capable of this...

Rune Spark.

There was no doubt.

Sylas was a Spark Master, and not just at the bare minimum level either.

He was a monster.

Old Brama had no idea that that wouldn’t be the first time he was surprised. Every hour from that moment on was like watching a chess master at work.

From completing the schematic of the star ship, to laying out the traps, to reversing the situation—even down to taking down one of the three pirate organizations that had terrorized the Sanctum for so long...

Sylas practically did it all without a hitch in his breath or a wrinkle in his freshly tailored clothing.

By the end of the third month, with the Sanctum on the horizon and the head of a pirate captain hanging from the hull of the ship, Old Brama had stopped asking Sylas if he was sure altogether.

He was just along for the ride at this point.