Genetic Ascension Chapter 2172: Violet

'Charisma…'

The word echoed through Sylas' mind.

He had known for a long ti that his Charisma was no less important than his Will. In fact, he had a feeling that his Charisma had levels to it just like Will did.

He could feel his Charisma advancing as well, he just never really understood where its dividing lines lay. It was almost like his Charisma was hiding from him.

But after experiencing that just now, Sylas felt he had just gained an epiphany that was roaring its way through his body.

Space and Ti.

Will and Charisma.

The two felt like such a perfect mirror of one another, both interlaced in so many fantastical ways, the lines between them so blurry it was hard to tell where one started and the other ended especially as you began to approach the limits of power itself.

If he wanted to draw parallels between them, he could. He could draw so many he'd grow both tired and dizzy before he reached the end of it.

But that wasn't enough.

It was a thought, a hypothesis, but it was no conclusion.

What did it an to be a Charysm, exactly?

No, more importantly than that, why was it that the particularly first person to ever accuse him of being such just so happened to be a mber of the Gold Race?

And then why was it that directly after that, it was precisely an identity as a Charysm that allowed him to integrate into the Demon World and bend the whims of the Duchess to his pleasing?

Was it correlation? Or was it causation?

The definitions of Will and Charisma were both simple and impossibly complex.

Will was one's intent. Charisma was one's ability to apply one's intent to the outside world.

Everyone had Will, everyone had intent, everyone had what they wanted to do, to accomplish, to earn, to gain, to receive, to be awarded and rewarded.

But not everyone had the capability to see it through, to earn or to force, to gain or to take what their deepest hearts desired.

It was a simple definition, and yet the more you thought about it, the more complicated it beca.

It was the sa with Ti and Space alike.

Space was a point in three dinsions, described by how far left or right and up and down.

Ti was linear starting from one point and ending at another.

Simple in practice, more complex, looping, and endlessly fascinating the more one thought about it.

All of them ca in pairs, all were interconnected. But there was one thought that linked all four of them together.

You could not describe a person's location without three points of space and a point in ti.

You could not describe a person's presence without an understanding of their Will and how much of it their Charisma allowed them to imprint onto the world.

The largest historical figure would not be as such without a strong enough Will and a great enough Charisma to force their na to be known.

The smallest historical figure would not be as such without a weak enough Will and a weak enough Charisma such that they would blend into the infinite tapestry of the annals of ti itself.

Split Realms.

Were they not precisely the most clear representation of this? Were they not points in history where sothing of such great importance occurred that it left its lingering Charisma and Will spilling out beyond its tiline, bleeding out until the reach of its own ti relativity no longer seed to matter.

That was when it clicked.

Imposing one's Will wasn't about seeking to understand or comprehend. He didn't need to waste his ti understanding every variable and every shift, calculating every outco and every possibility.

The reason why the fusion of Space and Ti was seen as impossible was because of that red ceiling of lightning and crimson that suppressed them all beneath it.

It was the reason they were all weak, the reason they could not exert as much influence over the universe as their power dictated that they should, that they hoped they should.

Charisma did, indeed, have levels to it. But Sylas had made a mistake.

He had a Path for Will, a way that he controlled and dictated how it should move, should breathe, should exert its influence.

He had never quite nad it, but it followed in his Pride wherever he should stand and exist. Its presence, by its very Virtue itself, manifested in a way so very true and real.

He never bestowed it a na, but he never really had to. That was because the only na it needed was the one he already carried around himself.

His Will was the representation of his intent, of his life, of his Pride. His Will was Sylas Grimblade.

That conclusion was so clear and obvious to him. But he could not make the sa conclusion for his Charisma. In fact, until now, he had never even thought of giving it the sa treatnt.

While he had never actively done anything for his Will, he innately understood it. What it was went without saying, so he didn't need to na or even think about it. It had naturally blood into his Pride Seed and it had only grown from there.

His Will continued to skyrocket forward without even his input.

But he never thought about his Charisma in the sa way. It was an afterthought, a distant mory, sothing that felt foreign to him because it required sothing he never did.

Compare himself to others.

That was ultimately what Charisma was. It was a comparison of others, it was the bridge through which Will exerted its influence through everything else.

But he was Sylas Grimblade. The only asuring stick he used was that of his own, so he never naturally considered about Charisma the way he so naturally comprehended Will.

Until now.

All it took was the slightest shift in thought, just the slightest tweak in how he viewed the world.

He still had no interest in comparing himself to others. He was too much better than them. Who celebrated stomping ants by the road side? Not even the smallest child did so.

And that was how Sylas too often viewed the world.

But now he viewed it just a little bit differently.

What he had wanted most from the very beginning was simply control, control to exert the most influence he could over his own life and nothing else.

But now that he understood his reference fra was constantly being influenced by others, he finally ca to understand what it ant and what it would take to actually accomplish this.

Reaching the point of being in unbridled control over his own life ant just one simple thing…

Being in control of everything else as well.

Sparking lines of lightning appeared around Sylas, first erald, and then gold, and then black, but then a fourth color appeared.

Violet.

It overwheld the black as though swallowing chaos itself and then the world trembled as a Charisma the likes of which the world had rarely ever seen blood into existence.

A pair of magnificent horns grew from Sylas' forehead as his body expanded to be more than a foot taller.

He exhaled a breath that sparked with the fla of chaos.