Chapter 662: Himself
Sylas felt a great deal of pressure on his mind, but his stubbornness bore its own fruit.
He had gone through cycles of different schools of thought in this world. At first, he refused to acknowledge that a metric could decide his Will. Then he was forced to accept that maybe there truly was a technology out there beyond his understanding that could do precisely that. But the more he learned, and the more he came to understand that even the system was flying blind in regard to Will a lot of times, the more he realized just maybe... he had originally been correct in his stubbornness.
There was a reason he had used up 1010 Will during his battle with the Glass Monkey, and yet he was still standing here just fine without a single dip in his Will stats.
But it was also because of this sacrifice that he wasn't in the best position to fight such a battle of Wills... and the Greed Seed seemed to be very much aware of that.
A tearing pain ripped through Sylas' mind and he found his consciousness was already fading. In this tug of war, he had started off on the losing end, and he had no one to blame but himself. Had he just allowed the Glass Pinecone to do as it pleased, this would have never happened. But instead...
Sylas clenched his teeth, barely holding onto the strands of Will he had left. But as he had also learned recently...
There was a limit even to that.
'No. No, there is not.'
Veins popped up across Sylas' forehead as he recirculated the medicinal effects of the Targeted Healing Elixirs to his head and then did something he would have never tried in the past.
His fury seemed to have gone to his head and he felt that smirk lurking to his back again, looking over his shoulder and sneering down at him as though he was a mouse stuck in their playpen.
'Not today. Not ever.'
Sylas forced his Fusion with the Basilisk King to activate once again and then used Semi- Fusion on Nosphaleen. But this time, rather than taking her Charisma, he took her Will stat. Sylas roared, his Madness Comprehension blooming in a violent torrent.
Then, as though he wasn't even remotely satisfied...
He used the Beast Totem.
BANG!
His outer layer of skin immediately splintered. Blood would have been pouring out of him in waves if not for the fact it splattered out with such force it almost formed a fine mist.
[Will: 1999] (Base Will)
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[Will: 3570] (+Basilisk King)
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[Will: 4569] (+Nosphaleen)
[Will: 9711] (Beast Totem Activated)
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[Will: 33 989] (Comprehension Activated)
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[Will: 19 999] (Comprehension Limit Reached)
A blazing light was practically coming out in beams from Sylas' eyes. He gave it everything he had, his Will stat jumping off the charts as the embers that remained suddenly truly caught fire.
The Greed Seed reacted like it had been doused with a bucket of ice water, snuffed out akin to a wavering flame.
The Glass Pinecone, by comparison, was ripped apart in the struggle, the energy that had once been so pure and controlled spiraling until it almost dissipated into the air entirely.
But Sylas still managed to stay focused. Or maybe it was precisely because his Will was so shocking right this moment. Even with the pain jetting through his body, his mind maintained an unprecedented state of sharpness.
His original plan wasn't to give the Glass Pinecone over to the Gluttony Seed. Although the Gluttony Seed was a great asset to him, and it didn't seem to want to harm him like the Greed Seed did, it was ultimately still an item that he knew too little about and one the Madness Key refused to answer for.
However, during its trip through his body, Sylas had sensed something very special from the Glass Pinecone, something that reminded him very clearly of something he was quite familiar with...
It was a Spark.
Without even the consultation of the Madness Key, Sylas understood the purpose of the Glass Pinecone. It was meant to be a shortcut to forming a Sparking Will. If it was given to someone without a proper form or formation to their Will, they would instantly become on par with Sylas.
In fact, they would be better.
Although the Path of the Mancer Quest claimed that all Mancer Paths were created equal, the more Sylas learned about things, the less convinced he was of this.
Sure, technically speaking, all Paths of the Mancer could have 70+ Foundation Runes to support them. But that was a big technicality.
An Ice Path of the Mancer, for example, would certainly have such powerful Runes. But it would almost have a shocking number of far weaker ones as well.
By comparison, the more complex the Path of the Mancer, the stricter the successful Rune formations were, and the more likely you would be to have run into a powerful Mancer should you meet an expert of one of these paths.
It was a simple law of probability.
A Frostbane Sylph was more likely to be more powerful than a normal Ice Sylph because the selection of Frostbane Paths was far narrower.
In this case, this so-called Glass Path was precisely such a narrow one. It was an incredibly unique Path of the Mancer that incorporated Ice, Sand, and Poison.
As Sylas had said before, the Path of the Poison here was incredibly unique. That was because it was a Poison that was very good at targeting inorganic matter, but not so much organic
matter.
Glass was incredibly fragile because of its chemical structure. A single fault could end up in a large crack, and this unique Glass Poison could force such things onto any material it came
into contact with.
But that was less important for now. Or, it was only adjacently important.
That was because the main point here was that this Glass Pinecone was capable of evolving
Sylas' Will that currently only had a Poison Spark... toward this Glass Spark instead.
But rather than relying on the Aether Treasure to do it for him...
Sylas wanted to do it himself.