Genetic Ascension

Chapter 1322: Willborne Charisma

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[Raw Template—Chaotic Simioid—has been fully activated]

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[Raw Template—Glassborn Cryst Emperor—has been fully activated]

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Sylas’ body shook, veins writhing beneath his skin. It felt like he was standing on the precipice of an evolution, but he couldn’t even enjoy it as the pain in his eyes was so great.

Even now, he didn’t know what a Raw Template truly was. When he had first gotten them, he made some assumptions, but he couldn’t learn about them in detail because the little girl said that it would cost 10 Legendary Genes.

Sylas was far more intelligent than most, so even after losing his Legendary Gene to those of the higher Sanctum, he still thought about how this might benefit him. He had considered a possibility where he learned as many of the Emperor Armors as he could just for the sake of exchanging for information.

Just how valuable would it be to learn about so many things he just couldn’t afford to know of now?

If his time with Andromeda had taught him anything, the value of information was too great. In Sylas’ opinion, if not for how little information he had entered this world with, he would have earned the Dominus Paragon Contested Title ages ago. The only reason he hadn’t was because his deductive reasoning skills were too limited.

There was a reason why IQ tests were flawed. It was impossible to create an intelligence test that didn’t rely on any crystallized memory. In fact, many versions of the IQ test actually measured how much knowledge one actually had. This was why those from certain backgrounds would always fare better than others.

In this case, it seemed that the Dominus Paragon Title was little to no different.

Someone else might not want to waste Legendary Genes on just a handful of questions. But for Sylas… it might be the difference between him ending up just the same as the middle-aged man assumed he would, or being able to hold that man’s skull in his palm one day.

However, even for Sylas, a price of 10 Legendary Genes was just too steep. Ultimately, he was stuck in a situation where his body was metamorphosing in ways he couldn’t explain, but could feel.

And vaguely, he could feel that these changes would probably be quite great if not for the fact his eyes were trying to eat him alive from the inside out.

In retrospect, all of this was ridiculous. He had evolved his Eyes to Tier 2. Meaning, they were the equivalent of the E-Grade right now. He should be well ahead of schedule and not have anything to worry about.

So why was he in so much pain?

“Can you hear me?”

Sylas didn’t even bother to talk, just sending a pulse of his Will to affirm instead.

“Hurry up and send me one of the Gold Genes you don’t want.”

Sylas’ gaze flickered for a moment. After some thought, he didn’t send either one of the Ape Warlord or Scorpion Warlord Genes. Instead, he quickly formed the Serpent Warlord Armor instead.

Compared to those two, he didn’t even need a second attempt at all. He completed it so fast one would have thought he had become used to casting it again and again all his life.

“Show off.” The little girl scoffed. She was starting to find Sylas’ feats more and more ridiculous.

Even now, she didn’t believe that he had completed his Spark Mastery. But it was hard to deny it when she saw something like that. Only a Perfect Spark Seed could possibly ever display such might in Rune Mastery.

And maybe in this entire Sector, Sylas had somehow become the only person who could so casually produce a Gold Gene.

Was it one-time use? Sure. But the point still stood.

If the Serpent Lineage knew of his feats, they would be fighting tooth and nail over the right to have it.

But as soon as it appeared, it vanished into the little girl’s belly.

“Your eyes are about to explode at this rate.”

If Sylas was someone else, he might have already snapped. If he spent a Gold Gene just to learn this, maybe the only adequate response would be to go into whatever spirit world this little girl was in and wring her throat dry.

“Whoa, whoa, where is all of this animosity coming from?”

The little girl was obviously having her fun. The good thing about having a sentient being in charge of the questions now was that they could be more flexible with their answers, and there were little tidbits here and there that Sylas could take advantage of at the edges.

The bad thing was that she could mess around like this and waste time.

“Alright, alright. The problem with your Charisma becoming Willborne Charisma is that now the two are bound. Maybe you’ve already guessed that that’s the case stat-wise, but what you don’t understand is that this is also Grade-wise.

“I’ve told you already that—.”

Sylas tuned her out, understanding the reason immediately the moment she started speaking.

The system was terrible at attaching a number to Will. Maybe right now Sylas’ Will was quite powerful, but considering the boosts to Mental that his Dominus Paragon Title gave him, was it really a higher number than his Will?

The answer was definitely no.

Then the real problem wasn’t the number, it was the quality of his Will.

Sylas had learned not long ago that Charisma also had grades, but it seemed that something only Charysm were able to access. It seemed that maybe the real reason so many people thought he was one was because of just how close he was to a Marked Will.

Will was separate from all other stats, so everything was fine usually. But Charisma was tied to his Mental. And now, it was getting an upgrade that was far beyond the F-tier, and seemingly beyond what the E-tier could normally handle as well.

His talent in Will was far too high, and the existence of his True Pride Seed was only making things worse.

He needed a solution.

He started listening to the little girl again.