Genetic Ascension

Sylas’ vessel landed in the Sanctum Hub. He didn’t bother to glance at the leaderboard. He knew that he was untouched. He was the only person to have accumulated one million War Points, let alone the fact he actually had over two million.

While each tier of leaderboard was divided by a 100x multiplier, the overall leaderboard was ranked as though this didn’t matter. The sheer amount of distance Sylas had managed to put between himself and everyone else was astonishing.

The person in second place was someone that Sylas hadn’t even interacted with before, a D-tier of the Lion Lineage and Prione’s disciple. But their name didn’t matter to Sylas at all.

Especially when they weren’t even at half a million War Points yet.

Sylas made his way to the counter and took out a familiar badge. It was originally the badge that designated him a disciple of Gralith, but now it was his official disciple badge, and also what was currently counting his War Points.

“I’d like to trade for the Whale Lineage’s F-Grade legacy and the War Points System,” Sylas said indifferently.

The Cheetah Lineage woman behind the counter felt her lip twitch. They had all been watching the ticker move up on Sylas for months now, so it wasn’t as though they had the room to be surprised at this point.

But even so, seeing this scene was shocking to them nonetheless.

Making it across the Sector was too difficult. Most of them spent all their time traveling, and because the smartest of them had seen through this problem, they even spent much of the first month planning out their moves and striking at key areas.

Sylas, though… started right from day one and hadn’t taken a single break.

Did he even sleep? Did he eat?

“…Here you go…” she said a bit shyly.

Sylas nodded, accepting a bracelet and an orb of light that had what looked like a blue whale with a tail akin to a silky koi fish swimming through it.

He found himself mesmerized by the sight for a moment until he silently stored it away.

…

“…He did, indeed, trade for it…” Prione’s eyes narrowed.

He had been watching Sylas move for these last three months, and he had to admit that he was completely taken off guard.

Sylas was right. They had definitely factored in the difficulty in moving, but none of them expected that Sylas would be so fast that three months would be all it took to complete these Dungeons. It didn’t make any sense.

However, seeing the sight of the vessel he was using, the how became quite clear. Prione didn’t know how Sylas had gotten his hands on such a thing, but it was still fine.

Sylas could only keep up this pace because he cleared every Dungeon within minutes. There was no way for him to replicate this in the E-tier, and with there only being three years at most to the coming competition, there was no time for him to substantially change things.

This was good as well. Prione was actually worried about Sylas dying.

While he didn’t want Sylas to get his hands on the Lion Lineage’s legacy, he didn’t want Sylas to die either. Sylas’ death would be a huge blow to them, and with a vessel like that, there was no way anyone could catch up to him.

No one would be foolish enough to pour that much money into a starship.

Except Sylas, it seemed.

But was it foolish if it was helping him out this much?

Read on lig‌ht‌no‌‌vel‌world‌.o‌rg

One might wonder why Prione didn’t want Sylas to get his hands on the Lion Lineage. Was it just a matter of pride?

90% of the answer was yes, and that was all Prione needed to make a decision. But at least to the wider public, he had a more cautious answer. One that made much more sense.

Watching Sylas step out into the wider universe, his vessel disappearing in a blink, that reason was playing out in real time.

But even that was just one reason—there were two.

The Sanctum had had many geniuses across time, so why was it that learning from more than one Lineage was unheard of?

The reason for that was simple. It was a contradiction of Will, and it could ruin a genius’ path.

If Sylas really only had the intention of using it as reference, it was fine. But if he was baptized by Wills that were too much more powerful than his own, he would end up suffering.

The real reason the others went along with Prione was because they owed Sylas too much, but someone as arrogant as Sylas wouldn’t take their good intentions as kindness—he would just think they were standing in his way again.

And maybe he wouldn’t be wrong to think that. They had done it more than once, after all.

So instead of telling Sylas no, they chose this path instead. They knew Sylas was smart enough to guess their intentions just by checking the War Point distribution, but this was still the best compromise they could make.

If Sylas could trade for legacies too far above his own, he would end up harming himself and ruining his Scorpion Will.

Then there was the second issue… Sylas had just left with such a valuable legacy on his person. What if he was caught? What if he had it taken from him?

This time, it couldn’t be said that they were targeting Sylas in specific. If anything, they were helping him and protecting the Sanctum at the same time.

If anyone other than Sylas had asked for a chance to trade legacies… the answer would have been a firm no.

What they didn’t know was that very soon, their attempt would look like little more than a joke.

Sylas seemed to be following their intentions, quickly jumping from challenge to challenge. Even at this pace, they already felt it would be impossible for him to succeed.

What they didn’t know was that this was the very illusion Sylas was crafting for them.