After this experience, Sylas was finally starting to feel that something was off. The difference between the Skills with and without his Rune Soul was too drastic.
According to his understanding of the Rune Realm he thought he was in—Rune Breath—he shouldn’t be able to do all of this. He had thought that maybe he was underestimating Rune Breath a bit too much, but the evidence was piling on further and further.
So he chose to ask the Madness Key about the various Rune Realms.
Rune Sight. Rune Visualization. Rune Enlightenment. Rune Breath. Rune Flesh. Rune Soul…
Rune Essence. Rune Vitality. Rune Spark.
These were the nine levels of Rune Mastery. Though, there was something odd about the Madness Key’s response that made Sylas feel as though there might be more to this than what met the eye.
Still, after reading their descriptions, Sylas was almost certain he had somehow leapt over Rune Flesh and entered Rune Soul directly.
He could easily manipulate his Rune control with his Will and work with them interchangeably. That sort of soul or mental control was the characteristic of Rune Soul.
By comparison, Rune Essence was another huge leap forward, similar to the gap between Rune Enlightenment, which was just about naturally comprehending the Runes you saw, and Rune Breath, which crossed into a level of Rune manipulation.
Rune Essence was a level where you could practically speak Runes into existence.
If with Rune Sight one became aware of Runes, and with Rune Breath one could communicate with and begin a rudimentary usage of Runes, then with Rune Essence one could think of a Rune and have a subconscious understanding of how you might go about creating it even if you had never seen or studied such a Rune before.
It was an intimacy of the highest levels.
‘I see…’
There was something about understanding his true level that seemed to make his Rune Soul settle down… as though its foundation had deepened or it had taken a small half-step forward.
Sylas basked in the feeling for a moment before he pressed on.
‘It’s possible to use
The Skills would be worthwhile to have in different application situations. He couldn’t see a clear line to connect them all just yet. But the huge plummet in Aether requirements made it more than worth it.
And all of this had only taken him half a day. That still left him with about two and a quarter days to work with.
‘Let’s see about this egg…’
…
Sylas sat in silence, his Aether slowly circulating as
An egg that was almost half the size of his body at about three quarters of a meter tall.
There were no special patterns on it at all. In fact, it looked like a super-sized chicken egg.
The surface was smooth, it was a nice off-white color, and its shell was especially thick.
Sylas could tell that so long as he kept it in a sun-rich, warm incubator, it would hatch in about another three months or so.
The egg itself, oddly enough, would grow more, reaching about double this already obscene size.
‘This should be related to its bone abilities… this egg is like an extension of its body rather than a true egg. But that’s a problem…’
If things continued like this, the beast would have to crack apart its own skeletal system in order to hatch, and the odds that it would survive such a thing were minimal.
A baby couldn’t withstand such torture.
That said… Sylas had his Hibernation Realm. Even if the process was hundreds of times more lethal, it wouldn’t matter.
But whether he could use it or not would depend on whether he could contract this egg.
‘Let’s see the situation.’
Sylas pressed down with his Will and activated Extricate.
The body of the beast, or rather the embryo, was incredibly loose and easy to probe. The layers it took so much effort for Sylas to see through in Nosphaleen’s body became like thin paper planes.
However, although they were easier to see, there was another challenge that was presented.
They were amorphous, difficult to understand and track. Luckily, Sylas had the Insight Talent.
Another Beast Master wouldn’t be able to make heads or tails of this soup of Genes. But Sylas only had to ask himself one thing: would this make the little creature more Serpentes or not?
Sylas didn’t hesitate to start Extricating everything he felt wasn’t Serpentes.
There were things that began to manifest that even made him dizzy. The complexities of the bodies of living beings left him in a state of wonder.
However, he didn’t lose focus.
When he sensed something that synergized with the Genes remaining, he left it. When he found something that clashed with it, he suppressed it.
Sylas wasn’t ashamed to say that he was flying completely blind. It was like he was untangling a den of wires by randomly pulling at any somewhat loose wire he came across.
He was completely relying on his Legendary Profession, and there wasn’t the slightest bit of Skill involved.
For the first time, he began to feel some fatigue while using Extricate. All around him, Runes more complex than any he had ever seen before floated around him, slowly disappearing one by one with the ticking time.
Sylas had long since reached a state where he could contract this egg as it was more than Serpentes enough by now. But he wasn’t satisfied with this alone.
Once he put the egg into the Hibernation Realm, it would only be about 16 hours or so before it hatched. Meaning, he would lose the opportunity while it was so malleable.
He had to push this to the limits until its current body was as close to the legend of the Spinecoil Serpent as possible.
An hour later, Sylas exhaled a breath, his body covered in sweat.
He had done all he could.
