Sylas didn’t have much resistance to the mission at all. In fact, he couldn’t ask for anything better. It was just that he also knew that this matter would be quite dangerous.
Any portal in the surroundings would certainly have the eye of the government on it. And even if he ignored that, there would be waves of beasts in the surroundings.
The good news was that he was only meant to document their appearance, so it shouldn’t be too dangerous if he was cautious.
After accepting his task and a section of the map that he was responsible for, Sylas set out.
This region was known as the Ice Ring Forest. It was just short of the true hellscapes of snow and ice on the Aether Plane, but it had its own frigid regions.
The place was filled with tall, evergreen pine trees. They were so tall that it was hard to see their peaks looking straight up. Much of their trunks were bare, and it wasn’t until dozens of meters up that their first branches and leaves began to appear.
These were certainly trees that weren’t easy to climb, and the soil they rooted themselves in was as tough as tightly packed ice.
It could be said that this was a truly uncomfortable region to live in, and there would certainly be no farming. It seemed that it was northern enough that there was a perpetual cold year-round. For this reason alone, the cards Lucius had drawn were pretty bad, but he was making do.
Sylas had many of these thoughts as he made his way toward his piece of the map, but then a thought struck him.
‘Why are there no beasts?’
His eyes couldn’t help but narrow. He wasn’t aware of anything that could stop beasts from surging toward portals, but Lucius seemed to have such a treasure.
It was somewhat disappointing, though also somewhat of a relief.
He had been looking forward to battling beasts not for the challenge, but rather because he needed to quickly gather up more Genes for the Madness Key.
This close call had taught him a valuable lesson. He definitely had to keep an excess of Genes on him just in case, or else who knew the next time he’d fall into a deep sleep, only to wake up to the Madness Key devouring him?
It wasn’t until he traveled at least 10 kilometers that Sylas finally started coming across beasts. They were mostly weak, but he still tossed them all into the Madness Key.
He certainly didn’t have to worry about space issues anymore, and he hoped that by having an excess of common beasts, the Madness Key would choose to consume them instead.
After having this thought, Sylas almost laughed at himself.
The Madness Key was literally inflicted with a Gluttony Curse. It would probably trip over itself to ignore the less significant corpses for a bite at the stronger ones if he continued to let it reign free.
‘I wonder… The Gluttony Curse, the Gluttony Seed… Are they related?’
The Madness Key was always talking about Hunger this, and Gluttony that. Now that he was stuck with a Gluttony Seed he didn’t understand and didn’t dare to ask about, would he end up the same way in the future?
What was the relation between a Gluttony Seed and the Madness Key? Was he always meant to form one?
Sylas shook his head, regaining his focus.
He was moving deeper into the forest now, and danger would lurk from all sides.
While he was in the Amazonian Wilds, he had always skirted around the outside. But from his understanding, the truly horrific beasts tended to be closer to the center of territories.
He didn’t know why, but maybe it was just a protective mechanism to give them a chance. If he had to face off against a dinosaur the moment he stepped foot into those Amazonian Wilds, he would certainly not be here today.
He hadn’t forgotten that it wasn’t just the common creatures of Earth brought back, the strongest predators of their entire history had all been resurrected.
Since he had a duty to scout out the more core regions of his forest, it was inevitable that he run into some of those creatures, creatures that even Lucius would likely not take lightly.
‘Still about 50 kilometers to go… Let’s pick up the pace.’
Sylas’ mind focused and he chose to use this as a chance to train.
Not only was he stacking up his reserves for feeding the Madness Key, but he was also taking advantage of his Quasi Brittle State and Extricate.
He wanted to return himself to a State of Wealth where he had excess Genes to work with. He also found that he recovered more quickly when he did so as well.
By the time he was just 10 kilometers from his destination, despite the fact he only had a 20% success rate in absorbing Genes, he had killed so many that it didn’t matter.
—
[Gene State: Quasi Brittle]
[Fragmented Genes: Grimblade Lineage (F); Voice of a King (F)—]
[Common Genes: (20) Strength (F); (20) Constitution (F); (20) Dexterity (F); (20) Speed (F); (7) Intelligence (F); (13) Wisdom (F); (3) Will (F)]
[Bronze Genes: Basic Aetherflow (F); Enchanted Scribe (F)]
—
It was far harder to find non-Physical Genes, but at the very least, he had raised all four of his Physical stats to their Gene Limit.
Unfortunately, though his Bronze Gene Limit had increased from one to two, his Common Gene Limit stayed at 20. It felt like this was a hard cap, though Sylas wasn’t very certain just yet.
Regardless, this also raised his Dexterity from 120 to 140 points as well.
Soon, though, Sylas had reached near the region he was meant to scout, and he was surprised to find that he had already run into the very creatures he thought he might.
—
[Woolly Mammoth (FFF+)]
[Level: 3]
[Physical: 210]
[Mental: 57]
[Will: 131]
—
Sylas was stunned. Why did a Level 3 have such ridiculous stats?
