There was a flicker of defiance in the young man’s eyes before he looked away. Clearly, he didn’t want to admit his mistake, but judging by the aura he was radiating, he was clearly well past the F-tier. What good was it for him to have an F-Grade Legendary Gene now?
If Sylas were in his normal state of mind, the answer would have been obvious from the context of their conversation. Judging by whatever realm these two ca from, the young man was probably quite young when he was completing his F-tier Foundation—maybe even a toddler. The odds that a child would make a mistake were quite high.
The fact this middle-aged man thought Sylas’ Rune would fix things also probably ant that this young man hadn’t made the sa mistake again. So could that an that Sylas was eting the first Spark Masters other than himself now?
"Less of that defiance and maybe you’d be able to keep up with the others." The middle-aged man’s excitent faded as he regained his composure.
This ti, though, it was the young man who experienced a flash of rage.
"I can keep up just fine."
"No. You cannot. Because you didn’t listen to back then—you thought you could do things at your own pace. Now look at you. You’ve been permanently a half step behind them all despite being no less talented, if not more. Have you learned your lesson now?"
"I was three years old."
"And so were they."
"They don’t have half my intellect. All they could do was follow instructors. I was able to make modifications to my Emperor Armor."
"And look where that got you."
The young man seed like he wanted to argue more, but the middle-aged man cut him off.
"Enough. Take this to the elders. They will help you to integrate it properly without destroying everything, as usual. Do not do things on your own again. Go."
The middle-aged man whipped out a box and put the Legendary Gene inside of it, handing it to the young man and shoving him away.
It only took the young man a glance to see that the box was protected in ways he couldn’t unlock even if he wanted to. Clearly, only those so-called elders would be able to do it.
Ever since that mistake so many years ago, the middle-aged man had been watching him like a hawk at every step. Even now, he wasn’t taking any risks.
There wasn’t any child in the last 20-odd years that could form an F-Grade Scorpion Emperor Armor to Spark Mastery—that they could also just take the Gene from like this—and there certainly wouldn’t be another Sylas coming along anyti soon. So this was their last chance to get things right, and clearly, his father wasn’t about to let him fuck things up again.
"What are you going to do with them?" the young man asked.
"That is none of your concern. Go."
This ti, the young man couldn’t stay behind even if he wanted to. His body was sent up in a spiral of Aether, zooming through the steps as though they were nothing more than a normal walk.
Once his son was gone, the man finally turned his attention back to the floating Will that remained of Sylas. His hand twitched for a mont, and it seed he had every intention of crushing what remained—until he sighed and shook his head.
There were two reasons he couldn’t.
The first was the sa reason Sylas couldn’t deal with a certain Florineth temptress. As important as Nyssa was to Sylas’ breakthrough, it could be said that Sylas was even more important to his son’s.
As for the second reason, it seed he had a bit of a conscience. He sent his son away because he didn’t want him to think too much about it. Though, he was probably worrying too much.
Considering his son’s arrogance, he didn’t take a mistake he made at three years old very seriously at all. It was a childish mistake he thought he could still make up for to this day. At most, he would think Sylas to be the equivalent of a plumber he called to his house to fix a leak for him—even though he was well capable of doing it himself.
He wasn’t worried about this affecting his son’s Will or future. Once again, he was just being overly cautious.
But...
The middle-aged man shook his head.
"You might be angry, or maybe not. I can sense your Will right now—it’s quite distraught, broken, even. It’s hard to tell if you’d ever recover. But you would do well to rember that whether I took your accomplishnts away or not, that Legendary Gene isn’t sothing you could absorb. In addition, without my intervention, today would be your death date.
"The world is an unfair place, and one genius isn’t enough to reverse things. Maybe you have a right to stand by my son’s side in your mind—maybe you even believe yourself to be above him—but the reality doesn’t bear out like that because your parents were too weak, and your grandparents before them.
"Work hard, and maybe you can beco the foundation of soone in the future who actually can. Don’t do sothing foolish and get yourself killed."
The middle-aged man looked from what remained of Sylas and then over to Gralith. He tilted his head to the side, and a hint of surprise and irony flashed in his gaze for a mont before he shook his head once again.
It wasn’t ironic at all. If anything, Gralith’s existence only proved his words all the more.
"I’ll save you and your master’s life. I can sense the Wheel of Fortune on you as well, so I will give you an opportunity. When you co to—if you manage to regain your sense of Will and purpose—maybe you will make sothing of yourself."
A glow of light ca from the middle-aged man and it washed over Sylas and Gralith.
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