Genetic Ascension

Chapter 2034: Teach [Bonus]

[Bonus thanks to The HonoredOne69 <3]

There was a radiant chill in Sylas' eyes as he came to his conclusion. Nothing else in the world mattered anymore to him at this moment.

It was like the instant the last shred of doubt vanished, the entire world became brighter and his heart became lighter.

The conclusion was simple.

If what he feared was mistakes, then he would simply never make a mistake again. He swore it.

Any chance there was, any moment that he might slip, every instance of the potential whip of backlash he might receive, he would crush it beneath his heel until not the slightest bit of it remained.

That was what he had sworn to himself.

A mistake would only be a mistake if he allowed it to linger, to fester, if he wasn't able to fix and change it for himself. So long as he could accomplish this, then it wouldn't matter.

It wasn't truly until this moment that Sylas realized just how much that day in the volcano had bothered him. It was like he had spent his entire life thinking that he was one sort of person, only to think that he was a coward in the end.

The amount of relief he felt when he realized it wasn't cowardice, but his own insecurities about a matter he hadn't been able to put into words until now... it wasn't something that he could properly explain, even if he wanted to.

But what he could do was feel the change.

He experienced light. He felt free. He felt like he could conquer the world.

In truth, maybe in part, he had always felt this way. There was little that he felt that he couldn't do.

But every step he took felt like it was being dragged back just a little bit. While he never necessarily took a step back, he wasn't striding forward as much as he could.

At that moment, there was a shift in the Omnimous, and a familiar clicking sound echoed as it unlatched and unwound itself.

It appeared outside of the Madness Key as though it wasn't restricted by it at all. And maybe that made sense. The technology of the Omnimous wasn't something that followed the normal logical threads of the current world. The Madness Key was a matter of Aether and Runes. The Omnimous was outside of its purview.

Rather than saying that the Omnimous was something that was stronger than the Madness Key, it was more accurate to say that both were powerful in their own ways and were mutually restraining on one another.

Much the same way the Madness Key couldn't easily stop the Omnimous from doing what it wanted to, it was the very same way that the Omnimous had no real ability to stop the Madness Key from doing anything either.

"It seems that you have awakened... at least in part..." the voice said softly.

There was a flicker in Sylas' eyes as he looked at the floating cube of jigsaw-like three-dimensional pieces, and somehow he felt there was a fourth hidden within it, and then a fifth, and then a sixth beyond that.

Sylas looked at the object with both curiosity and something more. In the world he understood now, there were only four dimensions, three of space and a fourth of time.

But this felt different from those. It was like there were endless folds, impossible possibilities hidden within the Omnimous that he could see now but hadn't been able to see before.

There was something entrancing about it.

"Awakened?" Sylas asked.

"I did not mention it before because there was no point in doing so. In fact, mentioning it might have only made it harder for you to reach this point. For reasons I can't fully understand, you seem to restrain yourself greatly while interacting with the world. It's a level of arrogance I've never truly seen before."

There was something entrancing about it.

"Awakened?" Sylas asked.

"I did not mention it before because there was no point in doing so. In fact, mentioning it might have only made it harder for you to reach this point. For reasons I can't fully understand, you seem to restrain yourself greatly while interacting with the world. It's a level of arrogance I've never truly seen before."

"Why does this matter to you?"

It was a question that most people wouldn't have asked. Maybe they would have considered why it was they did this to themselves, or maybe they might be curious about what their new limits were now, but instead Sylas wanted to know why the Omnimous, which hadn't said anything in the last several weeks, suddenly found this matter important enough to speak on now.

No, it wasn't just speaking on it; it had even made a way out, displaying its power on its own.

Sylas didn't know much about the Omnimous even now, but what he did know made it clear that it was most interested in figuring out how to conserve energy first and foremost. Everything else made little sense from its perspective.

But there was no doubt that the Omnimous had thrown its original thoughts out of the window in order to do this. It was doing something that made it feel like it was worthwhile to use more energy than it normally would.

"The reason I've come is because I believe that right now there is no need for you to consider anything else but taking the full inheritance of the Omnimous."

To the side, Alex remained silent. From the beginning, he had needed to learn from Old Brama, so it was safe to say that he was quite invested in the Omnimous. But it hadn't chosen him; it had chosen Sylas.

That was a bit frustrating, especially since he couldn't easily display his talents without exposing what the other half of his race was. But even if he could, he knew that he probably wouldn't be more enticing to the Omnimous than Sylas was.

He never could be.

But maybe that was why it made what happened next all the more shocking.

"You believe that I have only just reached an adequate threshold for you to do this?"

As far as Sylas knew, the Omnimous' inheritance was already fully at his fingertips. Where this differed was that the Omnimous was essentially saying that it would no longer conserve energy with the thought of a future successor in mind.

Even if it burnt to the ground in this endeavor, it would follow Sylas to the end.

"You long reached the threshold," the Omnimous said.

"And you say I've only partially awoken?"

"That is correct."

"In that case, you must do anything I say, correct?"

"That is the decision."

Sylas pointed toward Alex. "Teach him everything you know."