[Bonus thanks to Sithaari. You're all lucky the eagles won yesterday, otherwise I would have made you bastards wait for another day while I grieved] Sylas stood with his arms crossed. Down below, there was a desert plain with raging storms plowing across their surface, but Sylas wasn't paying much attention to it. Instead, he was looking at the complex Rune across from him.
100 Foundation Runes were much simpler than Genes, which were a complex sh of Runes far more complex than even his Scorpion Warlord Armor. However, they were stil special in a way that was hard to describe.
Since this was his first ti seeing one he didn't personally create, he found it fascinating.
Earlier, he had run into a 94 Foundation Aether as a reward that he—for obvious reasons —didn't end up using. This 100 Foundation Rune wasn't bound with Aether and didn't seem to be a reward ant to trigger a change in one's Aether quality. Though, there was no reason you couldn't use it like this.
“An Elental Sand Rune..."
Sylas' eyes flashed and he saw tidbits of sothing else within, the very sa progression path his Glass Runes had once had.
This Elental Sand Rune carried aspects of ti within. If it was used, the sand could be used to accelerate erosion. If used as an Aether, it could considerably weaken an enemy's attention or be used as an attack itself. It sucked away lifeforce and crushed enemies as though locking them away in quicksand.
Back in the Africor Continent, Sylas had co across a chance to deviate down this path, but he had then run into the Glass Monkey which made things redundant.
Running into it again like this was interesting.
Sylas, of course, had no pressing need for this Rune. But that didn't an it was useless to him.
He had been slowly building up a profile of Runes of Ti and Space that he could use in battle, and this one could be added to his abilities.
So long as it was a Rune he could draw, there was no reason for him not to use it.
After analyzing it for a long while, Sylas tossed it into the Madness Key and moved on. As powerful of a Rune Master as he was, he couldn't just pluck ideas out from thin air. The more powerful the Rune, the more life experience he needed to produce it. He didn't have a Sand Elental affinity or anything of the sort to study, so he would never be able to recreate this Rune on his own.
But now that he had it to study, it was a different matter entirely.
Almost there. It should be here.
Sylas had been pressing forward toward Gogo's evolutionary chance all the while, and he had finally reached his destination.
He pressed a hand against the wall of invisible Aether and slipped right through.
The first thing he heard was the hissing. Almost like a choir, a symphony-like harmony of raging beasts.
But as quickly as they started was about as quickly as they ca to a sudden and forceful stop.
Sylas had no need to even summon his Beast Totem. All of the Serpentes in the rainforest of carnivorous plants and creatures before him fell into complete silence. Through the foliage, countless eyes looked back at him, each one flickering with fear and subservience.
Sylas scanned them one by one and then walked forward.
These Serpentes were truly powerful. Even the weakest of them had stats averaging around a quarter of a million.
The deeper into the rainforest he went, the more powerful they beca until he began seeing so with stats over 300,000.
The stats stopped climbing around here and basically stabilized. But even so, Sylas could feel that their actual effectiveness and prowess was still increasing.
Stats never told the full story. Sylas was the pri example of this.
Stats didn't account for what treasures a person had on their person, how powerful or masterful their Skills were, how strong their Comprehensions or Gene Talents were.
At most, stats were a snapshot into what sort of casual strength a person could display, but they didn't show how much power they could output at full capacity.
There was a reason why people with stats so far superior to Sylas lost to him all the ti, and there was also a reason why Sylas preferred to feel out people's strength based on his Will.
It was more accurate.
This forest seed to paint that reality all the more obviously... until Sylas stood on the forest floor, facing off against a behemoth of a creature.
its body curled in a lake as large as a kiloter across, its body wrapping around within it so many tis it felt as though the lake was far more snake than it was water.
At the very center, the eyes of this serpent barely peeked over the threshold of water, a pair of crimson, flickering masses hanging barely open. In fact, it looked like this kingly creature was still sleeping, its open eyes being more illusion than reality.
Sylas continued to walk until he stood at the very edge of this pool.
[King Serpent (222)]
(Level: 501
Physical: 423,000]
[ntal: 423,000]
[Will: 423,000]
“King Serpent?’
Sylas... didn't have any information about this serpent in his database, and that made no sense.
His Vipermancy was at E-Grade, and even if it wasn't, he should have information about any snake he laid eyes on. There was practically no limit to this.
While his Vipermancy was limited in other ways, when it ca to comprehension of Serpentes, he was second to none.
Seemingly sensing sothing, the eyes of the King Serpent finally opened fully, its silky internal eyelids sliding over its eyes horizontally as its external eyelids blinked slowly as though to wake up.
When it laid eyes on Sylas, it didn't seem to react with any sort of particular harshness. Instead, it was Sylas who ended up having the violent reaction.
That was because the King Serpent only looked at him for a short while before the aim of its gaze shifted... Landing on the Madness Key hanging around his neck.
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