Sylas stood in silence for a long while before he managed to settle his emotions. The indifference on his face practically became etched in stone as he stood in a stoic sort of silence.
All he could swear was that he would one day figure all of this out.
After a breath, Sylas didn’t make a move to leave just yet. Instead, he turned his attention to his 20,000 Free Experience points and put half of them directly into Taboo Bond.
By now, he had already realized that Taboo Bond would maybe be his greatest reliance in the future. If he got a chance to upgrade it, he should take it.
Even if it was once.
The result, though, deviated from his expectations.
—
[Taboo Bond]
[Level: 5]
[Experience: 0/20,000]
–
[Path Talent: Extricate Lv5]
–
[Extricate (Path Talent)]
[>Extricate
[>Extricate
—
Sylas calmed quickly. He realized that he should have expected such a change to begin with.
It had to be remembered that the cost to upgrade from Lv3 Extricate to Lv4 had only required 800 total Experience. But the cost from Lv4 to Lv5 had jumped by more than ten times.
It was only natural that there would be a qualitative change of sorts, and clearly that was represented here.
Unfortunately, the Experience cost had begun to double again, but this could only be expected as well. There was no doubt that into the future, Taboo Bond would be by far his most expensive Legendary Path to upgrade.
But the results were more than worth it.
‘The question is… what does it mean by Common Gene Talent?’
Sylas had only ever seen Gene Talents between F- and FFF-, could it be that they were all considered Common?
The only way to see was to test it on himself, so he did exactly that. He turned his new and improved Extricate talent on himself and started to probe around.
As expected, he found that he had the ability to Extricate every one of his Gene Talents. It seemed that all of these Gene Talents were considered to be “Common.”
The ranking systems of the, well… system had always been confusing. But ever since he learned that the current system was just a slapped-together version of an older model and a new one, he began to accept it more.
However, every time he came across a situation like this one, it made him realize that something truly big must have happened in the past.
By almost all metrics, the “old” system seemed to be better. The F- to FFF+ ranking seemed to always be below the Bronze to Legendary standards, and it made one wonder if the creation of this new system caused the loss of a great number of abilities of the past.
‘Maybe in some sense. But I can’t help but notice that Taboo Bond always starts at Common Grade as though it doesn’t know a Fragmented Grade exists… it’s possible that in the past, while the ceiling was much higher… the floor was much lower as well. If that is the case, this “new” system might be much more forgiving than the old one once was.’
Sylas wasn’t sure of the truth and was just speculating, but he also had no skin in this competition of new and old. All he cared about was what would make him the strongest.
He would use both if he had to.
Just as he was about to use his remaining Experience on either One Kind For Me or Were-for-the-Invincible, he paused as he realized something.
‘I might not be able to get away with Extricating the Grimblade Lineage Gene, but can’t I Extricate the Blade Aura Gene Talent? Maybe that will make me feel better?’
After having this thought, Sylas tried it out.
‘Hm… it seems tied to the Grimblade Lineage. It would be very difficult to separate them without them coming out together…’
The Blade Aura Gene Talent only came from the existence of the Grimblade Lineage Gene. This was clearly different from a Gene Talent that existed on its own.
However, from Sylas’ understanding, there was no Gene Talent that truly did exist on its own. A Gene Talent was like a net that caught a bunch of smaller Genes to make them work together to meet its ends. This was why using a new Gene Talent required so much aerobic fitness. It was almost like doing a completely new exercise for the first time.
This meant that if his Extricate Talent allowed him to pull Gene Talents out in the first place, there was no reason for it not to work this time.
As expected, Sylas tugged just a little harder and he felt the Unranked Gene Talent separate from his body.
All of a sudden, he felt several times lighter. And when he checked his stats, he was surprised to find that all of his Physical Stats had actually increased by 20.
His power surged again and it was almost like a wet cloth was removed from his mouth.
He could breathe. Truly breathe.
Sylas looked down at his palm to find an amalgamation of twisting Runes. He could see that it was broken in several locations, but it was also far too complex for him to fix.
‘To think that the problem was mostly this Gene Talent and not the Grimblade Lineage itself…’
Sylas had an inkling of what happened. Back then, his Stat Limit had been 50, as opposed to around 25 to 30 like most people, thanks to the Grimblade Lineage. But he had also speculated that the Stat Limit of the Grimblade Heirs might be even higher.
Now, he had definitely confirmed that.
His first Stat Limit had increased from 50 to 70, and that was why his stats had suddenly just taken a leap.
If he was correct, the Level 0 Stat Limit of the Grimblade Heirs was probably closer to 200 or maybe even more.
However, this also meant that Sylas couldn’t just casually take the Grimblade Lineage out of his body. It was best he find a Gene Crystal he could use that would swallow it up and replace it with a more perfect version. Or else rather than his stats increasing like now, they would plummet instead.
