Without a solution, Sylas found himself running around, hoping to run into his targets, or at least hoping that someone would observe him like Aurion had so that he could use his Luck to find them.
Anxiousness should have been running him ragged. It had already been two hours now since he killed Aurion, and he had slipped out of the top five of the rankings, one person after another overtaking him.
He finally noticed that Emperor Eurpeia was gone, but he wasn't exactly sure when it happened, or who gained his points. Sylas knew that he would be missing out on important information by not paying attention to the leaderboard, but it was a conscious effort he had made.
Plus… he finally felt that there was something here he could grasp.
"Gogo."
The Basilisk King took shape.
There was one anomaly that Sylas had picked out, and that was, unlike his other high-tier Profession Skills that were blocked out… Total Merge was still available.
Or more accurately, Total Merge with Gogo was.
There was a clear and obvious reason why. Total Merge was based on nothing more than a fusion of Wills. It was more so an exercise of trust than it was a complicated process.
Because it was just a melding of Wills, there were no complicated Gene puzzles or configurations to figure out, nor did it matter if Sylas fully understood Gogo's body or not. That was because he would be borrowing Gogo's body, not combining his own with it.
However, if this was just a matter of using Total Merge and calling it a day, Sylas wouldn't have spent an entire two hours on this problem when he only had three days to work with.
By now, a quarter of the first day was quickly coming up to being over. He wouldn't have used up such valuable time if the solution was so obvious.
Sylas jumped into Gogo's mouth. This was still the easier method they had to protect his body while he did this. He was never one to care for how things looked and felt if it was in the goal of something greater to begin with.
Taking a short breath, Sylas exhaled.
Total Merge.
His Will left his body, fusing into the Basilisk King's. Soon, their eyes had opened and he looked out into the world once more.
The Basilisk King's Crown manifested above their heads, a radiant black gold pulsing.
Sylas suppressed Gogo's thoughts for a moment, trying to feel it out.
'It's not everything… but it might be enough… maybe…'
Within the first few minutes of his thoughts, Sylas realized that Gogo might be the solution to his problem. There was something quite royal about the Basilisk King Lineage and bloodline that made it feel somewhat similar to the Beast Totem.
But there also had to be a reason that Gogo was still impacted by the Beast Totem nonetheless. Even if there was some semblance, it wasn't enough for Gogo to ignore it.
Still, there was a clue there.
If Sylas could feel out the presence within Gogo, and use it to comprehend the Beast Totem to a deeper extent, then he should be able to trigger the changes he wanted.
This sounded smart, but Sylas knew that he was still missing something.
If he wanted to use Gogo as a proxy to activate the Beast Totem in part, he needed a method of amplifying and projecting said power. If not, the range would be highly limited.
By Sylas almost immediately thought of the solution to that as well…
Gogo's language.
There was something ancient and regal about the moment Gogo tried to speak his true name to Sylas. Even now, Sylas didn't understand exactly what Gogo had been trying to say.
But during these last two hours, what he had really spent all his time doing was translating those fragmented memories in Ancient Ithkuil.
This was what really had taken him two hours, because a name that sounded like two syllables to his ears actually required a near novel-length of Ancient Ithkuil to convey the meaning of.
To Sylas, this was its own shocking matter. He thought that Ancient Ithkuil was already a language capable of being extraordinarily precise, but how much superior was Gogo's Ancient Tongue if just a name from it required so much Ancient Ithkuil?
When Sylas realized this, he obviously came into another problem. There was no way he could just stand here and read out an entire book's worth of words just to trigger a technique once; that was ridiculous.
The obvious answer seemed to be to just have Gogo say his own name. But that wouldn't work because the Profession was within Sylas, and while they were in Total Merge, the Fusion of their Wills threw Gogo off.
It was already difficult for the infant Basilisk King to say his name in the first place. With Sylas' Will in him, interfering with his ancient memories, it was impossible. This meant that it would all be up to Sylas to make sure they could do this.
So Sylas needed another method of conveying Gogo's name and using it as a trigger to pull Beast Totem up to the Level that he needed it to be… because Level 1 simply wasn't enough.
That was when Sylas felt his Rune Spark activate.
Why did he think in Ancient Ithkuil to begin with? Not only did it increase his speed of thought, but it had made his Rune Mastery far more efficient.
After trying to decipher Gogo's Lineal Language for so long, his Rune Mastery began to react, and slowly, Sylas built up a model of Runes that would represent one very important thing.
Gogo's name.
It wasn't complete, just a fragmented piece, a small understanding. And yet…
It carried 81 Foundations with it and over 300 Strokes.
It was the strongest Rune Sylas had ever drawn, and yet it was only capable of doing just one thing.
Roaring out a name.
They tilted their head to the skies, a pair of golden slit eyes manifesting behind them.
A Roar that parted the clouds echoed, a complex Rune of black gold emitting from their throat.