Chapter 630: Big [Bonus]
Sylas forcefully dismissed the Runes in his eyes and the pressure vanished. At the same time, he felt a wave of fatigue hit him and he nearly stumbled backward before he flexed his core and caught himself.
This was only the second time he had experienced Will fatigue. The first time had been when they first entered the world of that statue, and now he had suddenly come across a second example.
It made him realize something quite profound...
He hadn't been using his Will properly all this time.
Until now, his Will had been trapped behind a dam with hairline cracks running through it. From time to time, sprinkles of water would come out in tiny droplets, but in action, they didn't have much strength to them at all.
But now, he had control of a faucet and he had accidentally turned it on full blast.
Never did he think that a simple 20 Foundation Rune could lead to such a large change in him. Unfortunately, there was no easy way for him to learn Runes like this.
The Inheritance of the Scorpion Warlord might allow him such a chance, but he would need to find Silver Genes first. This world seemed like a great opportunity to do so... but there were no Gene Cores in any of the creatures that he had killed.
Still, he could maybe rely on Extricate, but all of the enemies he had come across until now were compromised in one way or another. The golems wouldn't have Gene Cores because they were manmade, and the Rotten creatures had Corrupted Genes...
When Sylas had this thought, he froze as a sudden surge of enlightenment hit him.
"The first time I met a Rotten creature, I failed to claim its Genes because they were Corrupted, though the Madness Key absorbed them just fine. I wonder... would that work to suppress Nosphaleen as well?'
Every time Sylas used the cancer Gene, it broke apart and its Durability lessened. He had already estimated that this would likely be the last time he could bring Nosphaleen out. There wouldn't be another opportunity to store her as a Contract again in the short term...
Unless he could use Corrupt Genes in place of the cancer Gene.
For a moment, Sylas forgot about Leg 003 as he was distracted by the corpse of the Rotten Chimera. He stood over it, and with his uninjured hand, he pressed a palm to the mangled body and used Extricate.
As expected, a black blob took shape. But what shocked Sylas were the hints of Silver.
'Silver Gene...'
Sylas didn't expect that he would find his first Silver Gene like this.
'Can I find more?'
Suddenly, Sylas felt somewhat anxious. He had allowed the Rotten wolf to sit there for a while, and his understanding of Genes had deepened to the point he knew that they would degenerate after death.
He didn't normally have to worry about why the corpses were in the Madness Key... well, aside from when he had to stop it from devouring everything in sight.
But now Sylas felt like something had lit a fire beneath his feet.
If this was the kind of powerful creature it took defeating to get a Silver Gene, who knew when he would get another opportunity?
Even with the strength increase of the Basilisk King, his body would only be able to take its unboosted stats on, and ultimately, the Basilisk King was still an FFF- creature. Its Will, for example, though high, was of far lower quality than the Will supplied to the Rotten Chimera. This was all to say that Sylas wasn't comfortable with the current state of things. He still felt like danger was looming above him, ready to fall down like a guillotine.
However, if he could get the Madness Key to explain to him how to take the complete Scorpion Warlord Inheritance for himself... that would change everything.
He needed just three Corrupt Silver Genes to do it.
And he found exactly how much he needed. Not one more and not one less.
**[How can I use this Scorpion Warlord Inheritance Crystal and avoid all latent dangers at the same time?]**
[–]
[Cost: 3 Silver Genes]
**[How can I use this Scorpion Warlord Inheritance Crystal and avoid all latent dangers at the same time?]**
[Place the Inheritance Crystal within the Madness Key and only observe it through your senses.]
The solution was so simple that Sylas felt that he had been scammed. He spent three Silver Genes just to learn that the solution had been on him the entire time?
But in the end, he almost smiled.
Almost.
There were two reasons for that.
First, no matter what, he wouldn't have been able to use the Corrupted Silver Genes anyway.
Second, this solution was definitely transferable. If he ever ran into another such problem, he would know exactly what to do.
Sylas had known that he could observe the Inheritance Crystal through the Madness Key before. What he didn't know was that this would protect him from any untoward aftereffects.
'Hm?'
With quick hands, Sylas suddenly picked the Madness Key up off his neck, staring at it
intently.
He could swear that just now he had heard a childish giggle. But just as quickly as it appeared, it vanished again.
It was that playful side again... but before, he had felt it coming from the Gluttony Seed, and now he sensed it from the Madness Key.
Unless...
'They're one and the same? Could it be that the Gluttony Seed isn't just a byproduct of the Madness Key, but that it was always meant to be symbiotic with it to begin with?'
If that was the case then he had always been meant to unlock the Gluttony Seed. Did that mean that other Madness Disciples would unlock different Seeds depending on what kind of Madness Key they ended up with?
If that was true, then Sylas was even more sure of his previous assumption... the Greed Seed wasn't something he was supposed to have, and the only reason he did... was likely because the Greed Madness Disciple was planning something big.