Sylas stared at the screen for a long while, so much so that he didn't even read the answer he had paid for immediately.
Gold? He didn't even have a consistent supply of Silver Genes? Where the hell was he going to get Gold Genes? Even if he could find a place to gather such Genes, how was he going to defeat the existences that had them?
Not only would the difficulty of opponents skyrocket off of Earth, but the beasts or people that would have Gold Genes would have foundations that were unfathomable to the current Sylas.
What was somehow even worse than all of this was that he needed 10 of them every week. He would be lucky to even battle and survive an existence with just one Gold Gene. How was he supposed to do that ten times over?
Experience tales at My Virtual Library Empire
He didn't even consider fighting someone with more than one Gold Gene—or god forbid ten of them—to get it all out of the way in one go. That would be worse than a death sentence. He might as well put his head on a platter at that point.
After his thoughts ran through things, Sylas calmed down considerably.
'… There is a solution. It seems that I can only do that…'
He exhaled a breath and finally looked to the notification on his screen.
—
[What does it mean to Bond Free Chaos?]
[The body is separated into nine layers in practice, but eleven total in reality. Beginning with Genes, progressing to Gene Talents, then Blood Essence, Bone Essence, Comprehensions, Soul Constructs, Will Manifestation, Will Core, and finally Race Quintessence. Hidden beneath these are Free Chaos and —.]
—
The next was cut off. There was an itch in Sylas' heart, but he didn't dare to ask. What if the thing demanded a Legendary Gene next? He was already screwed enough.
—
[To call these layers is not accurate. They are more like the roots of a fungus. The deeper one goes, the more they spread and intertwine with one another, making it exceptionally difficult to tell the difference between them.]
—
Sylas slowly nodded. Even as early as Blood and Bone Essence, it was difficult to draw a dividing line. He still didn't quite understand the difference.
Blood Essence seemed to have a million different uses, but what was Blood Essence without Bone Essence? Even in this world that felt more like fantasy than reality, bone marrow gave birth to blood. They were intertwined in ways that couldn't be explained simply.
—
[Free Chaos is the culmination of all of this.]
—
Sylas couldn't help but notice that what came next was not described or mentioned at all. Was Free Chaos really the culmination?
—
[Life is unpredictable. As much as your parents decide not what you will be, but rather what you can be, there is always room for randomness. It is this randomness that allows mutations the universe has never seen before, allowing a chance to progress.
[These mutations are not always positive, but when they are, they can trigger the birth of some of the strongest existences to ever be born. Free Chaos gives even the weakest a chance to rise up in the world… should they be lucky enough.
[To Bond Free Chaos means to increase the randomness of your body, its ability to shift and change. While in many cases this will lead to a regression and spontaneous reduction in your strength, in others it could allow you to soar forward in ways you might have never expected.
[However… that would also depend on the quality of Free Chaos.]
—
Sylas stood in silence at the core of Earth. With his memory, especially when boosted by his stats, a single read through was more than enough. But after sacrificing so much, he felt that he almost had to read it more than once.
By the time he read it a third time, it had been so firmly ingrained in his mind that it even began to form spontaneous deductions.
'I can…'
Sylas didn't expect such a random benefit, but after reading it once, as though the Madness Key sensed that he was trying to understand it to a deeper level, it actually began to translate it to Ancient Ithkuil.
He had been thinking in Ancient Ithkuil ever since the Mountains of Giza, but the Madness Key was still set to his default language. After all, when he bonded with it first, he could only speak the universal language of Earth.
'… Interesting…'
The concept of Free Chaos was even more firmly ingrained in Sylas now than before, and its applications were wide ranging.
Everyone had Free Chaos within them. Maybe much of the random boosts Sylas got from time to time when seemingly unrelated Genes interacted with one another came from his Free Chaos.
For example, why did his Charisma randomly feel stronger now after he strengthened his eyes? What was the correlation?
Something told Sylas that it would be impossible to understand this unless he could at least understand the division between Blood and Bone Essence first, not to mention all the other following layers. Only then might he get a small inkling about how Free Chaos worked.
But…
There was something even more important than all of this.
'I'll never need to rely on a Gene Elixir again. But it's not just me, everyone around me will benefit as well.'
This was huge.
One of the biggest bottlenecks in the universe was Gene Elixirs. They didn't seem to be a big problem on Earth, but that was only because Sylas had sacrificed a lot to ensure that he never suffered from it. Not only did he rely on Extricate, but he had already sacrificed more Gene Crystals than he cared to count.
He had also suffered his fair share of big losses.
As you went up in Grade, Gene Elixirs only became rarer and more expensive even when they existed.
This problem would rear its ugly head the most when Sylas needed to build his E-Grade Foundation. The large number of Genes he would need to consume, especially those beyond Bronze hopefully, would need something more consistent.
He might have given up a lot for this… but there was a light at the end of the tunnel.