Genetic Ascension

Sylas shook his head.

It was good that he had passed the First Floor so easily. What wasn't so good was that he didn't like not understanding why. It was possible that whatever he used to easily pass this round could come back to bite him heavily in the next rounds.

But it didn't.

---

[Floor Two of Slithering Madness Cleared]

[Rewards]

[>Middle Madness (Skill)]

---

Sylas stood in the middle of Floor Two, stumped once again.

The tingling sensation on this floor was a little stronger, but he shrugged it off just as easily. The floor itself was practically identical. The only difference was that the faded images on the stones were far clearer and he could see them even from a distance now.

'Comprehension… that's the only explanation.'

Maybe there was a path to comprehending Madness in this dungeon, but because he had done so unconventionally, he took something that should have been a challenge and shrugged it off.

Thinking about it now, what if he had chosen this path first? Maybe he would have still comprehended Madness, but then, when he got to the end, wouldn't that mean he would have to face a 100 Physical Big Madness when he went through the dungeon a second time?

Sylas didn't know if he was lucky or unlucky.

On the one hand, he didn't have to face off against truly monstrous creatures.

But on the other hand, how many more Genes would have been available if he managed to defeat a Little, Middle, and Big Madness that were twice as powerful?

He managed to shake himself free of those angsty thoughts, though.

Setting aside whether his Madness alone would have been enough to deal with them after even the weaker Big Madness managed to keep its wits under his influence, none of that would change his stat cap.

Sylas stepped onto the third floor.

This time, there was a substantial change.

The drawings felt alive and looked as though they had been painted into existence by a large amount of blood.

The more Sylas stared at them, the more real they felt until they suddenly began to move.

It was so much clearer than the barriers. They didn't fade in and out depending on his touch, but were really there, living and breathing.

He no longer saw it as a series of separate actions, but rather a cohesive whole, and it seemed to embody passion in three different forms.

Passion you were willing to put your life on the line for.

Passion of love and affection.

Passion of raw emotion, not necessarily love, but happiness, anger, even… arrogance.

---

[Floor Three of Slithering Madness Cleared]

[Rewards]

[>Big Madness (Skill)]

[>Madness Key (2/2) (Treasure)]

[>Common Gene Crystal (Treasure)]

[>[VOID] (Title)]

[>[VOID] (Skill)]

---

The list was mostly confusing. He wasn't sure what three of the five items were, and by the chosen words [VOID], it seemed the system didn't really understand either.

But quite quickly, both [VOID] rewards took effect on their own.

---

[Title [VOID] has taken effect]

[Big Madness Slayer, Middle Madness Slayer, and Little Madness Slayer have been fused]

---

[Title Unlocked]

[Title: Madness Conqueror]

[The Madness does not sway you, instead it fuels you. You have conquered the Madness]

[+50 Will]

[+100 Charisma]

[+10% success in absorbing all Genes]

---

Sylas' brows raised. Until now, whenever he got a boost to Gene assimilation by any one of his Titles, they always specified Fragmented Genes. But this clearly did the exact opposite of that.

He braced himself to hear the familiar chime of his stats having reached their cap, but instead, his world actually went white.

When Sylas' vision cleared, he found himself gasping for breath on the ground. Something wet was on the side of his face, and when he reached for it, he was shocked to find that it was a striking shade of red.

'I'm bleeding from my ears?'

It couldn't be a coincidence. Will and Charisma seemed to have both to do with his mind, and now he was bleeding from his ears? Had he ruptured something? Were his eyes bleeding too? How was his brain actually doing?

It wasn't until several seconds later that Sylas realized he was thinking just fine and there wasn't the expected fogginess in his mind. Instead, he felt unprecedented clarity.

---

[Skill [VOID] has taken effect]

[<Big Madness>, <Middle Madness>, and <Little Madness> have been fused]

---

[Madness Control (Skill)]

[Your body is your temple, and it listens to no commands other than your own]

[+ Dexterity]

---

That was it. There was no number, no percentage, it just said + Dexterity as though that was supposed to mean something to Sylas.

Subconsciously, Sylas tried activating the Skill, half expecting it to rocket up to Legendary Mastery just like the others had. But instead, everything seemed to slow down around him.

When he looked down at his hands, he could seem to see afterimages being left in the air as though he was watching still frames of himself rather than true fluid movement.

And then it stopped.

He felt an emptiness in the pit of his stomach and at some unknown point in time, he had already gotten up from the ground and walked around the entire region before returning to his original spot.

'I ran out of Aether…'

The weird part was that Sylas could usually guesstimate how much time had passed while he was out of it, but this time there was nothing. His sense of time had been too distorted just now, and it felt like hours had passed at least, but he knew that was impossible.

He wasn't foolish enough to think that this Skill gave him control over time. Rather, it gave him such a high level of control over his body that it made whatever his Dexterity stat was meaningless…

Maybe that was why there was no number attached to it. This Skill could raise his Dexterity to whatever it needed to be for him to unearth his full potential and then some.