Genetic Ascension

[Bonus chapter thanks to chronotitan <3 Those with such domineering names are always overcompensating for something] Sylas exhaled a breath, looking down at his body and the power he felt rolling through it.

This almost felt ridiculous.

It was his first attempt, and he hadn’t even truly succeeded yet. His goal was to try and use his F-Grade Armor as a boost to get his E-Grade Armor to Breath Mastery instantly, but he had fallen short.

And yet, the strength of his F-Grade Armor had doubled instantly.

The gap between it and his E-Grade Armor as a shroud was ridiculous. If he managed to get it to Breath Mastery, what would happen? A three-times increase? More than that?

And what if you were stacking more than just one Armor? What if he managed to get his E-Grade Armor to 100% Mastery and then stacked his D-Grade Armor on top of that?

Would there be an exponential effect? How much more powerful would he be?

The most shocking part of it all was just how little pressure there was on his mind and Will right now. It was like the brunt of it all was being mostly offloaded onto his Gene.

Whereas in the past he would feel his Will being rapidly sapped away using such a powerful Rune Armor, right now he couldn’t feel freer even if he tried. It was like the world was massaging him.

This must be it… that feeling… that feeling of power being born into a strong Clan with a strong foundation gave you… This was how easily power was supposed to come to you.

‘This should be a secret method of the Emperor Sanctum…’ Sylas deduced.

In that case, they were even more powerful than he thought.

The Emperor Armor, on the low end, would easily be at least 50 times stronger than the Warlord Armor.

Sylas had only formed it briefly, but it was his at the time. He was more familiar with it than anyone, including the rat who stole the Gene from him.

That was to say that if Sylas had managed to take in the Legendary Gene back then, the power of the Armor he would form would have been at 500 million additional Physical stat points.

If you doubled that, you would be at a billion. Simply cartoonish numbers—stats so powerful it was hard to fathom—and the sort of thing that would likely allow him to fight D-tiers head to head rather than having to scheme against them like he had to gain his now-erased King Slayer Title.

Or would adding an E-Grade Emperor Scorpion Armor to his F-Grade Emperor Scorpion Armor be even greater than just that?

Sylas looked at his palm and clenched it.

His Armor shattered to pieces, falling to the ground in a sprinkle that vanished into the ether.

The pressure on the world around him finally faded as he turned to leave the inner sanctuary.

As he did so, stepping out into the world again, he found several gazes of Scorpion Lineage Disciples staring at him.

This library was actually a public place, and the location Sylas had been in was one of the higher-class training rooms for the E-tier disciples.

Normally, it took quite a number of Merits just to open it for a single hour. Spending almost a week in there was almost unheard of, even for Gralith’s disciples.

But seeing Sylas finally come out, none of them were surprised or even dissatisfied.

At this point, Sylas was as much of a legend to the current Scorpion Lineage as Ekear was. They had all seen it happen, and the vast wealth of resources he had helped them claim… well… They looked up to the screen that showed a battle they couldn’t comprehend.

The contest of D-tiers had ended with Khan’s loss.

The contest of C-tier had also ended with their loss, as Ekear didn’t even appear. At this point, no one even knew where he was anymore. For him to not show up for such an important thing left them on tenterhooks.

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Like this, the advantage that Sylas had fought and won for them was evened out, and that just left the battle of the Lineage Heads… Gralith and the Bat Lineage Head.

It was clear from the moment the latter appeared that he hadn’t thought he would have to make an appearance at all. The battle was delayed for over a month before he finally arrived.

…

The Bat Lineage Head was a man no less tall and willowy than Uriolus and the others had been. He stood at over nine feet tall, and with the way he hunched over, his robes pulled over his shoulders, they almost looked like a pair of batwings themselves.

Despite his posture, he entered confidently.

And despite his confidence, he left in ruin and defeat.

The complexities of a C-Grade Rune Master weren’t the sorts of things the public could even begin to keep up with. The gap was so large and unfathomable that most didn’t even understand what was happening until it was suddenly over.

The result was completely out of expectations.

A victory for the Scorpion Lineage, and a resounding one at that. All they could do was read the numbers that appeared after every round, only to find that Gralith was consistently ahead, again and again.

By just a single second every time.

It didn’t matter if Gralith went first or second, it was like he could perfectly see through the limits of his opponent, reading him ahead of time and acting accordingly.

The first time seemed like a fluke.

The second raised eyebrows.

The third left the world in silence.

The fourth was complete and utter humiliation.

The fifth was like burning a corpse already rotted down to the bone. There was already nothing left, and yet the result was just the same.

The Bat Lineage Head stood there in a bit of a daze, unable to understand what had just happened. This Gralith shouldn’t be so powerful. They had already gathered all of the information they needed ahead of time… So how had this happened?