Sylas hurriedly stopped, but the bloating didn’t go away. In fact, it was slowly getting worse. Thinking quickly, he began to gather up the Aether to form a thicker and thicker layer of Aether skin, but just the process of expelling the small bits of Aether he had gathered was so painful.
His pores were forcefully dilated, and there was even a bit of a poison etch being drawn across his skin. Clearly, his immunity was still there, but only in part. As such, his body was fighting back as viciously as it could beneath this new and improved Aether.
It took Sylas several minutes before he managed to reverse the situation, but that didn’t change the pain his body was under. Luckily, he had noticed the issue quickly, mostly thanks to his experience with Intelligence Genes allowing him to be very sensitive to the changes in his Aether Pathways. Otherwise, he might have accidentally hit a point of no return before he even understood what had happened.
He exhaled a breath, but it was frosty and cold, carrying a hint of a blue tinge.
‘My Class is limiting me…’
His Arctic Royal Class was able to allow him a natural affinity to catalyze the Aether in his surroundings into Ice-Poison, or rather, the Ice-Poison that he was innately familiar with. However, it didn’t allow him to be immune to any and all Ice-Poison.
His affinity seemed to be limited to Common, but this wasn’t an arbitrary limit. It was a limit decided by his Class, and also a reminder that his body couldn’t take in more than that.
Sylas frowned. He had just made a great breakthrough, and learned to control two new forms of Ice-Poison that he believed had great potential. But if he didn’t have the Aether control to back it, while it wouldn’t be entirely useless in battle, it certainly wouldn’t be as effective as it should be.
Taking a breath, Sylas steadied himself.
‘Maybe…’
Sylas delved into his body, trying to find his Aether Pathways. He always had vague feelings about where they were, but he, much like everything else, mostly relied on Skills to trigger on their own. It was only after the Aether in the surroundings was moving like he wanted could he use his mastery over Runes to amplify them. It wasn’t an internal process.
Even when Sylas used Aether skin, it was just a general process of osmosis, moving something from an area of higher concentration to lower. He was essentially just opening up his pores to allow his Aether to flow to and coat his skin. This didn’t require knowing exactly Aether Pathways either.
But right now, he felt like he needed that, and he also felt that he knew exactly how he was going to find them.
Sylas brought out his reward for the month: a three-day Flexible Elixir. Then, he downed it.
He was already about three-quarters of the way through the month now, so he might as well finally use it since he was getting another soon. Plus, he had a feeling that it was about time he needed such a thing anyway.
Sylas felt his body open up and almost bloom. He had had many Gene Elixirs before, but this was the first time he was having such a powerful one, and the difference truly showed…
He couldn’t help but wonder if 65% felt so good, what would it feel like to have a Free body where he could take in 100% of all the Genes he tried to?
Sylas refocused himself.
First, he amped himself up on Common Genes, using Extricate every time. It was almost too easy for him to reach his cap of 20 Common Genes, at least for the Physical stats, due to the sheer number of beasts he had killed and caught until now.
He had been planning on using them with his Transmutation Beast Skin, but that wasn’t necessary for now.
After putting himself in a State of Wealth, he brought out General Aleen’s corpse and used Extricate on one of his Intelligence Genes. He moved so fast that he didn’t even notice that his Physical Stats had actually ticked upward as fatigue hidden deep within his body was washed away.
But there was a reason he didn’t notice. That was because he immediately hit the jackpot.
The first Intelligence Gene he absorbed was a resounding success, but what shocked Sylas even more was that the feeling was far more potent than anything he had ever experienced.
This wasn’t the first time he had absorbed a Bronze Gene, so what was the difference?
His first thought was that it was the Flexible Gene Elixir. It was truly powerful, and it was only natural that it had such changes.
But he dismissed this thought. Although this was a “successful” absorption, he had already reached his cap of two Bronze Genes. That meant that although it felt like he had successfully absorbed this Gene, his body was soon about to reject it. The Flexible Gene Elixir thus couldn’t possibly display its full strength.
That was when it hit Sylas.
‘Runes?’
Indeed. Genes really didn’t look a lot like Runes after he used Extricate on them. Extremely complex Runes, but Runes nonetheless.
Could his breakthrough to Rune Breath be helping?
What Sylas still didn’t know was that he had already comprehended Rune Flesh and Rune Soul. The potency of the feeling Extricate gave him, as a result, was many times more.
To put this matter into perspective, the difference between Sylas now and before was akin to if the Sylas of before had managed to use Extricate on a Gold Gene!
He was able to get the same potency of experience a layman would get from a Gold Gene with a mere Bronze Gene simply by virtue of his comprehension of Runes.
And that came with benefits that were truly hard to describe… even Sylas couldn’t because he was completely lost in this world.
The world of his Aether Pathways.
