Genetic Ascension

Chapter 1359: Rules

With a flash, a familiar elder appeared. It was the very one Sylas had only just brushed by. He looked down on them all, having regained his composure.

"Is the Beast Warlord Sanctum sure that you will only have one representative? The rules allow for three."

"One is enough," Sylas said calmly.

The eyes of the elder narrowed. Sylas’ arrogance was well and truly beginning to grind on all of their nerves.

It was just as Wei said. No one knew who this man was. It was ridiculous for him to take such a stance, especially against such well-known figures.

The rules they had negotiated had made the situation more tenable, but still impossible. It seemed impossible even to win the F-tier with this current situation, let alone the entire thing.

The fact that the Scorpion Lineage was purposely sending Sylas alone, taking two zeroes on purpose... that was just absolutely ridiculous.

But if they wanted to be arrogant, Sylas would show them what true arrogance was.

The reason he was being so disrespectful was because he was being disrespected right now.

Not only had the Thryskai only sent two when they could have sent three, but the reason Furon and the others were here was all too obvious...

No one knew who Sylas was.

Everyone knew who they were.

If they were going to apply pressure on the upper echelon, they needed Furon and the others as foils. By comparison, beating Sylas—who was a nobody—was meaningless.

And Sylas took that to heart.

"Alright," the elder said somewhat coldly. He was meant to be an impartial third party, a powerhouse of the Central Hub that worked for all of the powerful Clans and organizations. But it was obvious from the start the Thryskai had already brought him to their side.

Luckily, that didn’t matter.

"All of you already know the rules, but I will reiterate them anyway. Starting with Sight Mastery, you will all face a series of challenges. Usually, for an acute competition like this one, you would be measured against yourselves. However, the rules this time have been laid out by the Sanctum. As such, you will be ranked against the current Rankings and even your own past scores.

"Sight Mastery has a time limit of one full minute. Completing in half the time nets you full points. Breaking the generation record doubles your points. Breaking the all-time record improves your points by a factor of five.

"Sight, Visualization, and Enlightenment Masteries will all net the same points. Upon reaching Breath Mastery, there is an increase of a factor of ten. This doubles when improving to Flesh Mastery, and doubles again for Soul Mastery. Upon reaching Essence Mastery, there is another factor of ten improvement for points, yet another factor of ten increase for Vitality, and a factor of one hundred increase for Spark Mastery."

The elder explained the rules in detail, taking his time, even down to describing situations he felt none of them would ever be in.

"If for any reason someone who completed a weaker Mastery has the same points as someone who completed a higher Mastery, the higher Mastery will take the victory.

"Usually, there are no real points given. They are measured in terms of Full Sight Points, Double Sight Points for breaking the generational record, and Transcendent Sight Points for breaking the all-time record.

"The same would be true of all Masteries.

"This time, we’ve taken the liberty of assigning real points, but they will only be used if the race is close.

"For the sake of full disclosure, Sight will be arbitrarily set at 1 point for completing within the set time, 2 points for double, and 5 points for breaking the generational record. This will scale as previously explained.

"The last points that can be gained will be designed by the tower spirit itself. This will be dependent on how it feels about your performance.

"Finally, for the Sanctum’s challenge, your points will be tallied. Whichever group or individual has the highest average will win. If there is a 20% margin between the two, then it will go to whoever has the highest median. If the medians are within 20%, then it will go to whoever has the highest lowest number."

...

These rules were what truly made Gwenu and Khan nervous. Their eyes were glued to the screen as though there was nothing else important in their entire lives. Because right now... there wasn’t.

Sylas entered alone. Meaning, his average would be dragged down by two zeroes. If after being divided by three, his total was within 20% of theirs, the deciding factor would go to the median. And right now...

Sylas’ median would be zero because he had no teammates, while the median for the two Thryskai would be whichever one of them had the lower total. Either way, it would be more than zero for sure.

The truth was that they had other members here for the E-tier and D-tier. It was just the F-tier Sylas had insisted on entering alone in. And for some reason, their usually level-headed master had agreed as though the stakes weren’t sky-high.

But very soon...

They would find out why.

...

"If there are no questions, we will begin." The elder swept a gaze, his eyes landing on Sylas for a moment that was just a fraction of a second too long.

Sylas completely ignored him.

"Good. Begin."

The elder vanished and the world warped around the candidates. Then, a light lit up beneath Furon.

It looked like the Sector’s number one was first up.

Standing confidently, Sylas could see a streak of arrogance between the latter’s brows that said he wasn’t satisfied with his role in all of this either.

Pa.

The Rune had hardly appeared when Furon slapped out a palm, a perfect replica appearing before it in an instant.

Pa.

Then another.

Pa.

And yet another.

Sight Mastery had always been the easiest. See a Rune and replicate it. That was all. It was where Sylas had learned to stamp his Runes into existence, and clearly... this was something Furon was capable of as well.

—

[Furon Leava]

[Time: 00:00:07]

[Generational Record Broken]

[Double Points Awarded]