Genetic Ascension

Chapter 424: Everything?

[Frostbane Escape (FFF-) (Race Skill)]

[Deconstruct the body into Frostbane Runes and reappear in any location with <10> meters with sufficient Frostbane Aether concentration]

[Note: Limited to Elemental Races]

—

Sylas sighed.

This technique should be similar to something that Vayu had used. During their battle, he shattered into a rain of ice and then appeared near him, almost catching Sylas off guard. However, Sylas had luckily been able to grasp where he would appear thanks to Rune Soul.

He had been very interested in this technique, and this Skill even seemed to be an upgraded version of it, but unfortunately he didn’t have the body composition to use it.

The Sylphs were certainly an “Elemental Race,” whatever that meant. But humans very obviously weren’t. He would have to find a way to change his Race, upgrade it, or maybe use another method entirely if he wanted to make use of this Skill.

Either way, he wasn’t going to have such a chance now. Shaking his head, Sylas could only put the Skill away.

For now, he didn’t learn it. Who knew, maybe there would be an opportunity to sell it in the future. Or maybe he could study the Runes of the Skill to figure something else out.

Sylas had a feeling, though, that most movement Skills related to his current Class would probably require this sort of thing.

Ice-Poison was unlikely to have an ability like <Shadow Warp>. That meant that he would likely need to find a Skill unrelated to his Arctic Royal Class.

‘Maybe…’

Sylas’ thoughts drifted to Slow and Freeze. He might be thinking of things too simply, but whether he would get a chance to take such a step… only time would tell.

Plus, if he could manage to find a worthy chance at a second Class, then it might cover his weaknesses regardless.

Since Arctic Royal was so heavily defense and control focused, it would be nice if his second Class had more explosive attack abilities. But he wouldn’t snub his nose at a movement and evasion type if its Grade was high enough.

Sylas turned his attention to the final award. It was odd because it looked like a feather carved from ice. It was even more beautiful than the white-blue peach from earlier, and so delicate he was hesitant to even reach out and touch it.

When he popped the bubble, something surprising happened.

The ice feather fluttered in the air.

—

[Frostbane Feather (Silver) (Consumable Treasure)]

[Sacrifice to trigger upgrade in Mount or Combat Mount, or turn beast into Mount or Combat Mount]

[Mutate or replace Aether affinity]

[Improve Grade to FFF-]

[Note: Function of Consumable Treasure will depend on the Gene Constitution of target beast. More control will be granted depending on Brand Grade]

[Uses Left: 1/1]

—

‘What an interesting treasure…’

It was the first ‘Consumable Treasure’ that Sylas had ever seen, but more importantly than that, it seemed to have a wide range of outcomes.

It didn’t specify whether you would be able to turn a normal beast into a Mount or Combat Mount, and it didn’t specify what it meant by “mutate” or “replace” Aether.

Sylas could make some extrapolations of his own, but nothing was absolutely certain and it made it quite fascinating… especially this mention of “Branding”.

It seemed that he had to leave a mark of some sort on the Feather so that when he used it, the Mount or Combat Mount created would be recognized as his own. Clearly, a hidden function of this treasure was to also do the taming process on his behalf.

In the right situation, this could actually save his life and net him the perfect mount at the same time.

‘Improve to FFF- Grade… that’s also a bit odd. What if the beast is stronger than that? Would it just not work? Or would it forcefully decrease the strength of the beast?’

The Frostbane Feather was a Silver Grade treasure, but it only allowed one use to create an FFF- Mount. There had to be a reason for that.

It seemed that he would just have to find out the hard way.

Sylas took a breath and exhaled.

He wasn’t in a rush to use this Frostbane Feather. Like he had said to Cassarae, he technically did have a Combat Mount already; it was just a little less convenient in some ways, but also far more convenient in others.

If he got a real Combat Mount, he would have to learn how to fight while on the back of a beast. By comparison, just fusing and gaining the necessary stats, or sending out the Basilisk King to fight on his behalf without having to mount it, was far more flexible.

Knowing that, Sylas had a very clear target. If he was going to use this feather, it had to be a Combat Mount that had strong defenses or area control, and most importantly… could fly.

The convenience of having such a creature would help him tremendously, not just in combat, but to escape combat should he need to. Now, he would just have to find a large bird beast to target.

With that thought, he stored the Frostbane Feather into his Madness Key. The rewards this time were great, though two of them were useless to him for now.

He was only supposed to have received one of these rewards, so it was bound to be good stuff regardless. If he had only had one chance, and had gotten the armor out of it, there would be no room to regret.

‘Is that everything?’

Sylas looked around again and nodded.

‘I see. The reason they probably wanted to fight it out should be for the Frostbane Fruit. They were all Level 9, and having high Frostbane affinity before their Class acceptances would have been a huge boon to them.

‘But it’s still odd that it was done in teams of ten, then. Were the others not supposed to get anything out of this?’

Sylas had only just had the thought when a pressure descended from above. His expression couldn’t help but change.

He did not want to Level up right now!