Genetic Ascension

Chapter 1979: Not Stupid

The Dance of the Serpents. The roar in fury, their happiness in peace, their lustful grace in coitus, Sylas could perfectly recall each one from the images he had seen in the Slithering Madness Dungeon.

It was a depiction that showed the avenues of Gluttony all too well. It wasn't something that Sylas had understood back then, but the overlap between the Sins was all too obvious.

Where did Gluttony stop and Greed start? Could you only be a Glutton for food? Could you only be Greedy for money? What was the use of the distinction?

Both seemed to mean over-indulgence, however the means of over-indulgence was where the difference truly lay.

Sylas had pondered over this matter for a very long time. If you wanted to, you could blur the lines of each as much as you wanted until there was practically no difference between them at all.

But... for Sylas, even if he had little affinity for something, if he spent as long as he had on Gluttony on anything else, he was bound to understand it.

There was something that Fanelei was particularly wrong about. It wasn't that Sylas hadn't understood his Gluttony Seed enough to evolve it, it was instead that the Gluttony Seed was something that Sylas would only ever see as a tool, and as such allowing it to integrate with his body too much was something he would never allow.

The use of his Gluttony Seed and Lust Seed weren't limited because he didn't spend any time thinking about them, but instead because he didn't want to have to use them.

After Cassarae's demand of him, both had become entirely useless. There was a reason why, since then, he had hardly thought about them.

However, using them for himself was one matter. Grasping them for others and incorporating their Will into an Armor...

That was a utterly different matter.

Sylas could say it with absolute assuredness.

Gluttony. Over-indulgence and waste, over consumption for the sake of it. It spilled over into other Sins so easily precisely because of that concept of over consumption, but also because Gluttony was all about over-feeding for the sake of taking more.

Greed. This wasn't over-indulgence, it was almost over-reliance. The Glutton didn't believe they needed everything they took, but the Greedy person did. They believed they deserved it, that it was theirs to have, that their life would be significantly worse without it. So they took it regardless of what it did in hurting others.

A Glutton would eat even if they were full.

A Scorpion would take for itself regardless of the cost thinking that just this little bit more would satisfy it...

Until the next shiny thing caught their eye.

That was the dividing line. The more Sylas thought about it, the clearer it became.

Sylas' body pulsed with a rouge light, his eyes firmly closed regardless of what was happening around him.

He should have already started to form the Serpent Armor after he was finished, but he didn't.

Like Sylas had said... he wouldn't do something just out of Pride, and he certainly wouldn't do something idiotic.

If he crafted an Armor purely based on any one of the Sins, it would be like a beacon asking The Sanctum to get smitten.

Others would retreat in the face of this possibility, but Sylas took another approach.

Be bolder.

The current Serpentes Armor was quite pathetic in Sylas' eyes, that was because it leaned heavily on Charisma. It also had strong Poison characteristics as well, but it was completely unlike Arcane Madness. It felt like a bastardization of what a Serpentes should be.

But right now... that was actually helpful to Sylas.

Lust.

Ironically enough, Lust was something that Sylas felt far more frequently than one might expect. Every time his body underwent a strong bout of evolution, the Lust came in droves afterward as though to force him to procreate in response.

His Genes, his body, his very nature itself fed off of Lust. If not for Cassarae, he would have had no real place to vent it.

He was far too Prideful to allow his emotions and actions to be dictated by something like Lust, so he had never allowed it to happen.

However, much like Gluttony, that didn't mean he didn't understand it. If anything... there were very few people who understood the Virtue of Lust more than Sylas did. He had felt the true essence of it too many times.

While Keyesen's father had enraged him, his words would have been right 100% of the time. It was just that Sylas had become the hundred and first percent.

Successfully improving so much in a single generation was impossible. Most people laid a foundation that their children and then their children's children built upon. That was the way of the world.

The shoulders Rhykan stood upon now were quite tall, and while he had ambitions of reaching Godhood, it had taken him decades of effort just to make it to Demi-Godhood.

Granted, it was also thanks to Rhykan's efforts that Sylas had a path to Demi-Godhood right now as well, so he was surely a talent.

But someone like Sylas who headed from Mortal to Demi-God in not just a year's lifetime, but a handful of years....

That was unheard of.

And by extension, Sylas had felt the intimate revving of his own internal Lust so very many times before. He had sensed the truest kernel of Lust more than even the truest kernel of Pride.

It was as Sylas stood there, beginning to combine the Sin of Gluttony and the Sin of Lust into a single Rune Armor that he realized this for the first time.

The Sin of Lust... it was energy sapping, crippling. It forced one into a state of languidness because one's body believed it had already completed its task over and over again. Since you had already passed on your Genes and didn't seem intent on improving them again, all you had left to do was die... That was the Sin of Lust.

The Virtue of Lust, however...

It was the Gift of Life.

A white-gold Aether formed into chains around Sylas' neck.

[Congratulations, you have completed the journey of Madness]

[Would you like to activate the Madness System?]

[Yes][No]