Genetic Ascension

Chapter 2227: Tower

Sylas completely ignored Medei. He wasnʼt going to sit around and play house with these people, and there were certainly far better things that he could do with his time.

He had a timer hanging over his head right now. What he most wanted was to get to a place where he could learn and grow, and hopefully situate his grandfather so that he could do the same, then leave.

He wasnʼt going to dance to their tune just because they thought themselves great or important.

Maybe the peanut gallery would have had something to say about that as well if not for the fact that they were still processing whatever happened to Old Man Webb.

The man was still on the floor, coughing up blood, his eyes rolling to the back of his head with the strength of his heaving. It was like he was being ripped to pieces from all sides.

For someone like him his situation was certainly worse than others. He had probably swallowed so many Rune Paths that they were tearing him apart from the inside out now.

”I said wait.” Medeiʼs temper immediately flared. He wasnʼt used to not being able to get even a modicum of respect wherever he went. Even if D-tier Rune Creators might dismiss him in the right situation, it wasnʼt to the point where they would ignore his words.

Sylas wasnʼt putting him on any sort of pedestal of respect at all.

But this second sentence got Sylas to pause. Before Medei could take his own small victories about it, though, Sylas spoke.

”Trigger the Rune Duel or piss off. Those are your two options.”

Medei froze.

”I didnʼt think so.” Sylas said, turning away. ”Next time you speak, take a measure of yourself first. I didnʼt expect this gathering of Rune Masters to be so utterly pathetic.”

Medei still hadnʼt said anything even long after Sylas and his grandfather had vanished, and how could he?

Sylas had seen through him perfectly. There was simply no chance in the world that he would trigger a Rune Duel after what he just saw, not before he understood what Sylas was and which power he came from.

What he couldnʼt understand most was the fact that Sylas didnʼt have a Creator Robe on him. That had to mean that he hadnʼt been formally assessed by the tower yet, right? Or was he just walking around, larping for the sake of it?

What was even more troubling, though, was that Sylas was the younger of the two men. Magnus was definitely his grandfather, his aura was old enough.

But… Magnus was too weak as well.

Sylas had been shielding Magnus at the start, but after he was swallowed up by the Rune Duel barrier, Magnus could only protect his own aura and he wasnʼt good enough at it.

That was to say that… Medei was almost 100% certain that Magnus wasnʼt even a D-tier. How did that make sense?

Could it be that Magnus was so capable of hiding his aura? But if that was the case… wouldnʼt Magnus have to at least be an S-tier?

Medei didnʼt know what to think anymore.

The powerful echo of Sylasʼ voice almost left a crack deep within him.

The current Sylasʼ Charisma… was simply too powerful.

It wasnʼt until extensive after Sylas vanished that Medei recovered and his gaze flickered with rage. No one around him dared to say a single thing, but he too, without a word, turned heel and left, a storm reflecting in his eyes.

**

”Oh, wow.” Magnus said in a pleased tone as he looked upward.

The tower that lay before them now was truly unlike any other he had ever laid eyes on. Quite frankly, it was unlike any Sylas had ever laid eyes on either.

The tower was almost like a rotating gear box on thick cylinders. There were more floors than they could see from here as Sylas could feel that it shot both up and well beyond the clouds, and down below as well.

The floors of the tower continuously rotated, but there was no uniformity between them at all. Some floors had larger diameters than others, some floors rotated faster or slower than the ones around them, there were even some floors that didnʼt rotate in a perfectly circular pattern.

Like there was one floor quite high up that rotated in a figure eight pattern. Sometimes it almost looked like it was pulling itself out of the layer of rotating floors entirely, spinning out until only its very edge was holding up all the floors above it.

But then it would spin back and complete its rotation, snap to a close for a moment while everything was in line, then continue to spin again.

To call this a feat of engineering was an understatement, but maybe only a building like this could possibly hold up to the standards of Rune Mastery here.

For some reason, though, when Sylas looked all the way up, it felt like there was a barrier he could quite see, almost like there was a higher floor he would never be able to walk upon no matter how hard he tried.

Sylas frowned. He didnʼt like that feeling at all.

Someone was trying to suppress him.

Sylas looked away from the top of the tower and took his grandfather to the doors.

There was a constant flow of Rune Masters in and out, or so it seemed. But after watching, Sylas realized that there were actually very few Rune Masters that were going in.

They were almost… loitering around.

At the gates a twin pair of bronze armored knights stood. Their spears were truly odd shapes. The shaft was normal, and the blade head was also within reason, but the connected piece between shaft and blade was a series of floating, rotating gears that gazed like they belonged in a watch.

Their heads were lowered even as Sylas and Magnus approached.

The moment the duo got close, though, their heads snapped up, a radiant light nearly blinding them.