Genetic Ascension

Chapter 2046: Black Mountain

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Sylas walked up the mountain.

It actually took him quite a bit to get here. Every time he tried to take the step, another beast appeared.

Unfortunately, though it looked like he handled them easily, he actually had to be quite cautious. It was hard to tell what sort of abilities these dinosaurs had. Each one of them might have something that could catch him off guard.

While slowed perception helped, his actual body couldn’t move like time had stopped. He could only make it look like that with Spatial Runes. But if he wasn’t fast enough, then the one to suffer would, of course, be himself and himself alone.

It took Sylas four attempts to finally take the first step onto the mountain, and when he finally did it was like a surge of a magnet had ripped through the bottom of his foot, forcing him to be locked in place.

It was just a feeling, and not the actual reality, because when Sylas took his next step, that feeling of connection weakened just enough for him to take another step, and then another.

That was when a reptile-like bird swooped down from above.

Sylas noticed it immediately. He was watching his surroundings like a hawk. It would be the biggest joke in the world if he lost his life on the world he was the Progenitor of.

But it was instantly a problem when he found that he couldn’t tap into the usual feeling he had.

‘This is like a completely new Realm of Rune Mastery.’

Sylas vanished and he landed on the ground. His body flickered and vanished separately several times, and on the third, he actually left a clone behind.

The sound of ripping flesh filled the air as the reptile bird shredded the clone to pieces. Bone and blood flew into the surroundings as it shook its head. But Sylas himself was already a distance away.

Raising a hand, Sylas’ gaze flashed and the head of the reptile bird snapped to one side a bit too harshly. It was like all its previous head sways had been layered into one motion that nearly ripped its head from the rest of its body.

The bird lost control of its wings and it fell toward the ground in a rush of wind.

Sylas’ hand flipped over and he pointed up.

The bird’s mass multiplied several times over, its descent increasing as the friction with the air was erased.

BOOM.

It crashed to the ground in an almost molten mess of hot flesh, flames flickering around its body.

Sylas exhaled a breath, his gaze becoming frighteningly cold.

His Rune Creation didn’t work on the mountain.

It wasn’t that he couldn’t craft, but instead that the methods of Fathomless Rune Creation he had been enlightened about not long ago had been completely restricted. At best, he could reach the peak level of Void Rune Mastery, but he couldn’t touch Infinite Rune Mastery.

While that was still powerful, it wasn’t good enough for the enemies he was dealing with right now. His actual body couldn’t keep up with these creatures.

Beast bodies were more powerful in general, but his body was still that of a Mortal on top of that while they were Demi-Gods.

The thing was that after meeting Heaven, Sylas was also fairly sure that the mountain wouldn’t allow Heaven Rune Creation either. There was only one type of Rune Creation it allowed.

Hell Rune Creation.

The material the mountain was made of was maybe some of the purest earth in all of existence, it rejected the other paths entirely, leaving Sylas with no real options.

Learning another path of Rune Mastery wasn’t as easy as willing it, not even for Sylas. It would require going back to the very basics and rebuilding everything.

Sylas hadn’t had a real Rune Mastery teacher-certainly not a powerful enough one to understand the difference. Meaning, he had just been innately following the Fathomless Path from the very start, maybe because it was the most intuitive to him, or maybe because it just happened to be the one he stumbled on first.

Either way, in order to learn a new one, he would have to start from scratch and rebuild his entire frame of thinking.

It was the equivalent of asking someone who had grown up their entire life in one culture to suddenly flip on a dime and not only perfectly understand another culture, but act within it as though it was their own.

The trouble was that this was even more difficult for someone like Sylas who was self-taught. If he had a teacher who was a Fathomless Rune Creator, then he would have systematically learned everything that made the Path what it was, and how it differed from other doctrines of thought.

But right now, all Sylas understood was how to think like a Fathomless Rune Creator, and the only person of another Doctrine that was even here was a Heaven Rune Creator that he definitely didn’t have the best relationship with right now.

Regardless, even if he could do all of that, it would still require starting from the very beginning, all to recreate a level of power that he literally already had.

From Sylas’ understanding, there was no path stronger than the other, and there wasn’t any obvious reason to learn more than one of them other than a more holistic understanding of Creation itself.

Maybe Sylas would do that one day, but right now he had to keep moving forward and couldn’t afford to backtrack, not with how much was resting on his shoulders.

Sylas stood in silence for a long while, looking ahead at the mountain. There was definitely something of interest at the top of it, but with his current strength, climbing it would be a death sentence.

Was he really going to give up here?

Was he really going to give up here?

Sylas’ gaze flickered.

If he couldn’t climb a mountain in his own world, what kind of Progenitor would he be? Would he even be Sylas Grimblade at that point?