Genetic Ascension

Chapter 1853: A Thing or Two

The composition of Earth had essentially completely changed. There were land bridges where there had once only been large stretches of water, small hills had become mountains, and rivers had become valleys.

On the surface, this seemed horrible. Earth's ecosystems were probably being devastated, and now there was a whole host of new land to battle over on top of that.

Whether socially or geographically, this was a huge problem.

As though this wasn't enough, the rivers that now formed rings around Earth-acting as the perfect protection against basically any Mortal Race threat-were also heavily increasing the water vapor content in the air while decreasing the density of oxygen.

It was slowly beginning to feel like one was literally breathing water, and that was its own separate problem. Superhuman or not, there wasn't much good that could come from such a thing. People would have to quickly adapt to filtering out the air they needed.

However, the First Race wasn't a Race of fools. They knew what would happen. And from Sylas' understanding, their attempts weren't just valiant-they were genius.

Earth had a problem. That problem was that their world had been continuously harmed, weakened by the actions of outsiders. Their Runes had been crippled, and though it had undergone a great process of rebirth over the last year, Earth had not returned to its previous peak yet.

This was quite the shock, especially since Earth was already a Gold World now. One could only imagine what its original tier had been.

Regardless, there seemed to be a reason the First Race had concentrated so much on the oceans. These regions were the areas most resistant to change.

The First Race were a land Race, like the vast majority of the people of Earth had been. So...

'When they originally opened to influence change, they focused on the Runes that directly affected land creatures. It was also easier to do this because a much smaller segment of Earth was made up of land compared to everything else.

'The First Race noticed this and used the oceans to hide their most secretive matters and even build up Earth's defenses for the future. In fact, it might very well be because of this that the Clypsians became the next Overlord Race.

'With so much focus on the oceans, and protection from corruption, it was logical that the next Race would come from the oceans.

'The timeline of the Dogons and Clypsians is completely off. It was said that they appeared at the same time. But, maybe... maybe the Dogons were rapidly created in response to a Clypsian Race that seemed to come out of nowhere. At no other point in history did two worthy Races appear at the same time.'

The more Sylas mused about it, the more respect he had for the First Race.

The creation of the Clypsians took the eyes of their enemies away from what they were doing. While it seemed like a byproduct of the First Race's actions... Was it really just an accident?

While their enemies were pouring resources into stopping the Clypsians from completing their Summoning, the First Race's plans were already steadily forming in the background.

Regardless, the details of this didn't matter much to Sylas outside of appreciating the efforts of the First Race. What was truly important was that now that the protective layer of the ocean was gone... Large amounts of land Humans could now use were suddenly opened up to the masses.

And their relatively more intact Runes would also come with it.

Not only did this mean even higher-quality resources than before, but it also meant that Earth would likely be upgrading even further in the coming years, decades, and centuries.

From a cursory guess, Sylas felt that over time, they might even have enough to become a Grade 7 or even Grade 8 Gold World from this alone.

At that point, they should be able to birth children and resources that could produce A-tier results with relative assurance so long as their Race Grade was high enough, that is.

The Grimblades certainly had that, and after enough generations, so too would several other Clans.

If they ascended to Demi-Godhood, it would become all the easier.

"Young master, young master," Szorn zipped to Sylas' side, practically panting and pleading. "Please take me back!"

Sylas raised an eyebrow and looked at Cassarae. But she only looked up to the skies as though nothing had happened.

Sylas shook his head. "From now on, you'll be helping my mother mine whatever resources she wants."

Isolde smiled a meaningful smile. "You've figured it out?"

"A little," Sylas said calmly.

And by that, he might as well have meant he understood it all.

In all the chaos, Sylas hadn't forgotten about the meal his mother had given him. It was too odd. He had seen enough of the world to know it didn't make any sense for it to be so powerful—even he could barely withstand eating it.

If not for the fatiguing battle just now, he would still be digesting it.

The answer to that was, obviously, the duo that was currently not present...

Cassarae's parents.

Cassarae's mother, Geraldene, was a marine biologist. In fact, one of the first conflicts Sylas and Cassarae had dealt with together was a falling out caused by one of Geraldene's colleagues.

Now that Sylas had seen all of this, the connection was obvious.

Everyone wanted to be useful. Geraldene's husband was helping out a lot with trade routes and communication with the Golden Grove. Obviously, that had fallen through recently, so instead of going back to be humiliated or even asking Sylas for help, they had chosen to pivot-instead making themselves useful elsewhere.

The end result? They had learned of the value of the resources under the ocean's surface before even Sylas had, so much so they had learned how to take advantage of it and cook meals better than any Sylas had had anywhere else.

His mother's smile only became more meaningful.

While her son was too afraid of not having anything to look up at, he never spent enough time looking down.

He could learn a thing or two by listening to his mother.