Genetic Ascension
chapter-497

[Why are System Cities so important?]

[System Cities are the nodes of a formation created by the system. Upon a successful

Summoning, these nodes activate and elevate a world to the next level. The stronger a System City, the smoother this process will be.]

'No wonder... However, since it's only worth a Hollow Demerit, it should be a luxury, not a necessity...'

This wasn't all Sylas was thinking. In fact, he felt like he was slowly starting to understand something.

Earth had been messed with a lot. They were stuck in a time lock, their Runes were twisted and broken, making it difficult for them to build upon their past understanding of science, and many of their System Cities seemed to have been taken over by alien Races.

Was that a coincidence?

Were the alien Races really targeting System Cities just for miscellaneous purposes? Or had they been using these important Nodes to manipulate Earth all along?

And in that case... could it be that destroying these System Cities would instead release Earth from this Fate?

To deal with a cancer, you had to cut it out.

[How do you complete a Summoning without System Cities?]

[–]

[Cost: 10,000 Silver Genes or 1 Gold Gene]

The price was shocking, but Sylas hardly glanced at it. He only cared about one thing and one thing only: the fact there was an answer at all.

At that moment, Sylas made a decision on behalf of all the people of Earth.

The System City began to rumble, and Sylas felt as though something had been stripped from him.

[1,000,000 Free Experience Earned]

The walls of the System City began to crumble. Everyone looked around in shock, not knowing what had happened.

Soon after, the guards, Nobles, and military men all shook as though invisible chains had been lopped off their bodies.

They looked around with slight confusion, and it felt like if their free will was just a single road ahead before, it was now countless paths.

However, by the same token, their Levels all began to plummet, falling by 10 Levels each without fail.

...

Sylas didn't seem to have anything to do with this as he observed the calm silvery-blue waters beneath him.

Knowing now that it was unlikely to be dangerous, he reached down with a hand slowly. After his Luck didn't warn him of anything, he scooped up a handful.

[Aetherstille Essence (Silver) (Raw Resource)]

[A valuable stabilizing agent.]

The description was simple, and Sylas had a feeling it was because his <Master Scouting> Skill was too low-level. But with the name, he was able to find a lot more from the Madness Key.

It turned out this Aetherstille Essence was invaluable to alchemists, formation masters, and blacksmiths alike.

Its simplest use was elevating the quality of an item. Though this could only be done if you were skilled enough to use the Essence in the preparation method itself. Just pouring the liquid over a finished product would do nothing.

However, what it could do was dilute Elixirs. Depending on the original quality of the Elixir, the Aetherstille Essence could dilute it while also keeping the same potency.

Essentially, it could turn one Gene Elixir into three. It could make any one Elixir go further. There was a shocking amount of it here, but Sylas had no method of taking it away. He had the Madness Key, but it wasn't designed to take liquids in like his water jug was. But the water jug wasn't a high enough Grade to stop the Aetherstille Essence from losing its efficacy over time.

Sylas also wasn't an alchemist, and he didn't lack for Elixirs, so he had a hard time caring about this liquid much.

He turned his attention to his Free Experience instead.

[Taboo Bond]

[Level: 9]

[Experience: 0/100,000]

[Path Talent: Extricate Lv9]

[Extricate (Path Talent)]

[>Extricate <F-Rank Gold> Genes]

[>Extricate <F-Rank Gold> Gene Talents]

Using 140,000 Experience in one go, he moved Taboo Bond right to Level 9.

If it was just about the raw usage of Taboo Bond, he would stop here. After all, he had yet to even come across a Common Gene Talent, let alone a Gold one. It felt like a waste to pour

more into it.

However, the longer Sylas had Extricate, the more he realized just how invaluable it was. The auxiliary understanding of his body it gave him was too great to put into words. Without Extricate, he would have never been able to create a Gene Skill of his own, or take Nosphaleen away, or help a potential Spinecoil Serpent to be born.

So, without much hesitation, he used another 100,000 Experience on it.

[Taboo Bond]

[Level: 10]

[Experience: 0/200,000]

[Path Talent: Extricate Lv10]

[Extricate (Path Talent)]

[>Extricate <F-Rank Gold> Genes]

[>Extricate <F-Rank Gold> Gene Talents]

[>Extricate <F-Rank Fragmented> Blood Essence]

'Blood Essence... So this is the layer beneath Gene Talents that I've been feeling...

fascinating...'

Sylas felt around in his body with this new sixth sense of his, trying to understand what Blood

Essence was on his own. He quickly found that it was inextricably tied to Constitution, the stat. But it was also tied to Race, and maybe even Race Grade and/or potential.

He remembered digging into the layers of Nosphaleen's body and realizing that this was where things became very complicated.

Luckily, Extricate helped tease apart those secrets for him a great deal.

'With how expensive Taboo Bond is, I definitely won't hit the next threshold with the 760,400 Free Experience I have left. I'll see what Were-for-the-Invincible and One Kind For Me have

in store instead...'

[One Kind For Me]

[Level: 9]

[Experience: 0/51,200]

[Path Talent: Beast Totem Lv9; Insight Lv9]

[Beast Totem (Path Talent)]

[>Suppress <F-rank> Serpentes Beasts by <90%>]

[>Forms Hibernation Realm where recovery increases by <25,600%>]

[>Increase Fusion speed by <900%>]

[>Buff Contracts by <180%>]

[Insight (Path Talent)]

[>Observe Gene Sequence of Contract]

[>Sense Evolution Triggers]

[>Comprehend Contract]

[Were-for-the-Invincible]

[Level: 9]

[Experience: 0/51,200]

[Path Talent: Fuse Lv9]

[Fuse (Path Talent)]

[>Fuse with your Contract and gain <100%> of their stats] [>Fuse with <1> Contract at a time]

[>Fusion process takes <4 seconds> to complete]

[>Fusion lasts <64 minutes>]

[One Kind For Me]

[Level: 10]

[Experience: 0/102,400]

[Path Talent: Beast Totem Lv10; Insight Lv10]

[Beast Totem (Path Talent)]

[>Suppress <F-rank> Serpentes Beasts by <100%>]

[>Forms Hibernation Realm where recovery increases by <51,200%>]

[>Increase Fusion speed by <1,000%>]

[>Buff Contracts by <200%>]

[>Beacon of <1> kilometer radius] (NEW!!)

[Insight (Path Talent)]

[>Comprehend Gene Sequence of Contract] (NEW!!)

[>Sense Evolution Triggers]

[>Comprehend Contract]

[Were-for-the-Invincible]

[Level: 10] [Experience: 0/102,400]

[Path Talent: Fuse Lv10]

[Fuse (Path Talent)]

[>Fuse with your Contract and gain <100%> of their stats]

[>Fuse with <1> Contract at a time]

[>Fusion process takes <2 seconds> to complete] [>Fusion lasts <128 minutes>]

[>Semi-Fusion] (NEW!!)

As expected, there was an overhaul of the talents the moment they crossed the Level 10

barrier, and several new additions were added to the Talents.

It seemed that while Taboo Bond had a huge change every five Levels, Were-for-the-

Invincible and One Kind For Me would have one every ten.

And the new additions were excellent.

626,000 Free Experience remaining.