Chapter 175 Bronze
Sylas could only try again, pulling at the uneven portions of his Aether skin bit by bit.
As he did so, he found that his control was really being tested. If it was because he had used Extricate on the Intelligence Gene, he wouldn't have felt it so clearly. But right now, it felt like he was slowly pushing a hidden muscle beyond its limit, no different than how he would lift a weight.
It was taxing, but not to the point of collapse.
Finally, two minutes later, and barely a couple of minutes before his Aether skin succumbed to the heat, <Maddened Enlightenment> responded to his call.
Sylas almost let out an audible sigh of relief. Aether rushed toward him, and it was dense to a level beyond what he had experienced before.
He looked around the world he was in. This was the first time he was truly doing as much. Before, his mind was too foggy, and after that, he was too focused on survival.
Without any context other than the lava, he would have thought that he had ended up in an active volcano. But looking up, there was no obvious opening to the top.
This wasn't likely a volcano. Or, it was at least one that hadn't erupted yet to force an opening on the surface.
'I guess it's technically magma then…'
The magma stretched out as far as Sylas could see, but what he did notice were several islands. Embarrassingly enough, there was actually an island much closer to his original location than the one he had initially been running toward.
Sylas shook his head. His mind had really not been on his side.
That thought made him recall how this had happened to begin with. All he had done was wrap his Will around the disk he was standing on, then he passed out.
'This place seems endless. There's also no sign of everyone else, they likely got caught up in the violent change to the disk as well… but where is the portal in that case?'
The portal should appear on both sides, and without the disk, it should have expanded substantially.
In addition, the beasts around here should be attracted to the portal as well. But the region was quiet and there were no obvious surges toward it.
Unless there were no living creatures in this area at all?
By normal Earth standards, this was the obvious conclusion. There was no creature in existence, extinct or otherwise, that could survive these temperatures.
But the logic of this Aether Plane was obviously not the same.
'Pick a direction and move.'
This was Sylas's conclusion.
But he couldn't just leave the disk here, and he certainly couldn't use his telekinesis on it again.
Sylas thought of the solution quite easily. This forcefield seemed to be permanently in place. Why not take advantage?
First, he adjusted his Aether skin. He was much more familiar with it now and he managed to even it out well and appropriately thicken it.
He jumped down from the forcefield and tried to scoop it up. He failed to quite get under it, so he changed tactics and tested his telekinesis on the forcefield alone.
The feeling was odd.
Surprisingly, his visualization picked up on the forcefield quite well although his eyes wouldn't be able to see it if not for its interaction with the magma around it.
To Sylas' mind's eye, though, it looked not much different from how Aether appeared to him. Clearly, this disk was a conduit through which Aether was filtered and forced to behave in this way.
However, while this was the case, when his telekinesis tried to pick it up, it failed. Or, rather, Sylas didn't allow it to continue its attempt.
When his telekinesis came into contact with the forcefield, rather than interacting with it like it did an object, it infiltrated it. It was like his telekinesis was trying to forcefully pull the Aether into his control rather than just pick up the object.
Sylas frowned.
This was troublesome. He didn't want to go all the way for fear of what his mind might experience again. Until he was in a safe place, he couldn't test this.
Sylas could only take the crude approach again, thickening the Aether skin around his arms and scooping into the magma to pick it up.
The disk was relatively small, but the forcefield around it was about 2 meters in diameter. Luckily, it was incredibly light.
The last worry was that his Scorned Wraps might act up, but luckily that didn't happen this time around.
Sylas made his way to the island as quickly as possible. It was about time he got out of this endless flow of magma.
The heat was no less here, and he had no doubt that if the soles of his feet touched this ground, he would probably lose them. Still, it didn't attack his Aether nearly as forcefully. The rate slowed down by at least 50%.
For the first time since he woke up, Sylas could truly take a breath. The heat from the air seemed to be cooled by his Aether, leaving a warm, but manageable current.
As much as he wanted to ignore it, he still remembered those thoughts.
It was said that a person would be their truest self when they faced death. Although Sylas never stopped trying to run to the island, his mind had all but collapsed in those moments.
He had always been a person with strong willpower. The system seemed to have agreed, giving him 10 Will from the outset.
But when Sylas thought about it, much of his willpower came from setting guardrails that dictated his life. He was forcefully changing himself to conform to what he thought was the best for his life, even if it meant doing what he didn't like.
Was it annoying to walk to and from his university every day instead of just taking a car? It was, but he did it anyway.
Did he like cheesecake and other sweets? Of course, he did, who didn't. But he never ate sugar nonetheless.
His own doctorate was chosen based on a casual interest because he felt he had to complete one. He was never chasing some higher purpose.
Was he suppressing his real character with all of this discipline? Or was discipline part of his character? Where did the line start and finish?
He didn't know.
Was he being too hard on himself? No one wanted to die, it was natural to fear it.
But this was how Sylas had always been. He didn't like sensing imperfections within himself. He preferred to stamp it, chain it, and bring it under his control.
The aura of Madness on Sylas fluctuated.
---
[Madness (F)] - Bronze
[The Madness consumes you, but does not control you. Instead, it becomes your tool to both control yourself and others. You, while steeped in Madness, maintain your wits about you. Your enemies, though, are not so lucky]
[+300% Charisma]
[+200% Will]
---
From +200% and +150%, his Charisma and Will boost, respectively, had increased by a large margin.
With this sort of boost, his telekinesis would be able to exhibit 153 Physical. The leap was simply enormous.
He had already been close to Bronze Mastery after consuming his reward from the Castle Main Quest. It seemed that life and death had allowed him to cross that threshold.
This was the good news.
The bad news was that he still didn't know how he had ended up in this mess.
He looked toward the disk. Something about imprinting his telekinesis into its runes had triggered all of this, but right now his telekinesis couldn't even penetrate the forcefield to check again.
Plus, considering how long it had survived in the lava unscathed, Sylas had no shot at breaking through this shield.
'After I recover, the only choice is to pick a direction and go.'
Sylas made his choice and settled down to meditate, activating <Maddened Enlightenment> to the greatest degree.
He should have noticed this earlier, but with the improvement to Madness, the Skill derivative was even more potent. In not even ten minutes, not only was all of his Aether replenished, but his mind felt refreshed.
Before, when his Intelligence was just 23, he could replenish his Aether in just five minutes. Though, this was while walking, so the Skill wasn't as potent.
This meant that it would have taken Sylas 50 minutes to replenish his current Aether stores. Even if he meditated like this, before his Madness improved, it would have still taken 25 minutes to replenish.
Now, that time had been cut by more than half. It was simply an enormous change.
Sylas looked up and stood. Taking the disk with him, he began to tread lava.