Chapter 638: A Path [Bonus]
Sylas opened his eyes to the bright rays of the sun, but the fatigue between his brows was clear and evident. He needed rest, real rest.
He allowed himself to drift off again and when he awoke, the rumbling of the carriage had stopped for the night and the moon beamed its silvery blue lights from on high.
Although he felt hunger, he didn't move immediately, recalling his experiences instead.
As Gralith had said, he had mastered the first layer of the Scorpion Warlord armor. But the problem with only grasping the first layer was that without the second layer, he couldn't link them.
It was the second layer where all the connections between the various bits and pieces of the armor could be formed. Without them, the armor could only work on the merits of its individual pieces, which obviously made it far weaker than when it was working as a cohesive whole.
Of course, even if he grasped the second layer, it wouldn't be until he grasped the third that the armor truly began to work as one unit.
The second layer were the linkages, but they could only connect adjacent pieces and try to smooth over the communication between them. It was only when the third layer, the mesh layer, came into the picture that every piece of the armor could communicate with every other piece, resulting in a substantial increase to power.
Sylas was a bit disappointed because he felt that he still had so far left to go. Sure, he had grasped the Runes to all of the pieces of the first layer, but the only part that he had grasped to 40% Breath Mastery was a single segment. The rest were all hovering between 20 and 30%.
What Sylas had learned was that he wouldn't have to tattoo the Scorpion Warlord Armor onto his body if he could just reach Breath Mastery. At that point, the armor would be self- sustaining and wouldn't be nearly as much of a drain on his body.
But of the 100 Runes, only a single one of them had reached that 40% threshold. And to make matters worse, it wasn't even complete.
There were 68 Runes for the limbs and 32 for the torso alone. Of those 32, there were eight Runes designated for the tail of the armor. Its segments needed four Runes, and its stinger alone had four more Runes to itself.
Sylas had only grasped one of the segment Runes.
Rarely did Sylas find himself struggling with things, but it was too much information in too little time.
If he could succeed, just the first layer would give him +1000 to all of his Physical stats, a +10 boost for every 40% Rune he managed to successfully draw.
And this was just the base of the armor. Even without the second layer, there were Skills that he could activate, namely ones revolving around the complexities of the stinger.
Every +10% jump in Rune Mastery would give double the effect. Theoretically, even if Sylas didn't learn anything about the other layers, and by some miracle managed to match the system and the universe in Rune drawing skill, he would have an illusory armor he could form whenever he wanted that came with +7000 Physical.
When the second layer was mastered, this effect would be double, for +14000 Physical.
When the third layer was incorporated, there would be a five times difference on top of that, for +70000 Physical.
Of course, all of these numbers were assuming 100% Rune Mastery, when in truth, Rune Spark, the highest level of Rune Mastery there was, only required 85% Mastery.
In addition, it was common knowledge that unless your macro Rune Mastery was at a certain level, your micro would never reach such a level. This meant that as someone with Rune Essence, Sylas would only ever be able to draw Runes at the Essence Mastery level. Or, in other words... 75% Rune Mastery.
All of this was just speculation on Sylas' part. Gralith had only told him how the armor scaled up to 60%, or Rune Soul Mastery. For all Sylas knew, there was either no increase after that or a large leap instead.
But what he did know was that the Physical boost was still just the foundational level of the armor. Unfortunately, without grasping the armor up to the second layer at Breath Mastery, these thoughts were all useless to think about.
And that was just the first of Sylas' worries.
Being able to draw the Runes was one thing, but how fast could he do so? Even if Breath Mastery took a lot of the weight off of his shoulders, it would still take effort and stamina to upkeep the armor, even if only in part.
He couldn't keep it active forever.
That meant he would also need to work on his speed drawing abilities so that he could deploy the armor quickly if he needed it in battle. Or at the very least, he needed flexibility so that he could summon them piece by piece without interrupting the flow of things.
That would take even more practice.
Sylas had been hoping for an immediate jump in his battle prowess. But... it didn't seem like he would get it, not at least for a while.
'No. I can do this.'
Sylas' gaze flashed with a dense light of determination.
If he couldn't grasp the armor to 40% Mastery, then he would have wasted his time, time he couldn't afford to waste in a Dungeon like this one.
But how could he quickly get 100 Runes to level?
'The Foundations...' Sylas quickly came to an answer. '... No, the Strokes.'
If something was too complicated, break it down. Every aspect of this armor was formed by ten Strokes. In addition, there were 2300 or so Foundations that formed the first layer and its 100 Runes.
'There's a path... not just the Strokes are repeated, but the Foundations are as well... if I break it down...'