Genetic Ascension

Chapter 2225: Rune Duel (1)

Sylas looked around him, reaching a hand to the side and pressing his fingers to the barrier that appeared near him.

"Sylas, are you alright?" Magnus immediately asked, but Sylas couldn't hear him. He only knew what his grandfather said based on the movement of his lips and a little bit of his Will leaking.

Sylas nodded in response. He would be fine.

He turned to face the old man who had slowly risen from his seat. Wispy white hair danced in the wind from both his head and his chin.

The old man clasped his hands behind his back, his movement slow and deliberate as though he was dragging out every moment.

On the sidelines, there seemed to be a growing crowd. They muttered out of curiosity, all of them stopping their endless flow of movement to pay attention to what was happening as well.

However, surprise wasn't something that any of them had on their faces. Rather than that, it was like this was more like a pleasantly uncommon event. Confusion, though, wasn't something any of them wore.

Sylas could guess at what sort of situation he was in now, but he was more curious about how it worked.

This was probably a duel of some sort, but in what way was it triggered? What were the rules? How was the winner decided? And if there was a vast gap in strength, then how was fairness decided?

Or, maybe… there was no real fairness at all like much of the world.

On the outside of the bubble, Magnus couldn't help but frown. He knew his grandson, so he knew that Sylas wasn't paying attention to the people around him much at all. And even if he could read their lips by just looking, he wasn't going to spare them the time of day.

However, Magnus could hear everything from out here.

"A Rune Duel. Lucky me."

"The stakes are getting higher every day. I bet that this is going to happen a lot more frequently the closer we get to the wonderful stuff appearing."

"You say the 'good stuff' like you wouldn't be lucky to be acknowledged by what's already hanging around now."

"Don't put me in the same bucket as that guy. It's not like I was the one looking down on everything, I'm just stating an objective fact."

Their laughter followed their words.

"Well maybe he has some skill. Don't be too heavy handed, you really don't know who you're facing in this space."

"He's human." The man replied as though that said everything that needed to be said.

"There are powerful human Rune Masters."

"Not base humans like that. He looks as base human as you can get." The man paused. "Hey, old man, what's your relationship with the boy?"

Magnus barely realized that he was the one being spoken to. He looked over with a serious glint in his eyes.

"My grandson."

"Hoho," the man chuckled.

Getting a good look at the speaker, Magnus realized that calling him a "man" might have been doing a lot of heavy lifting. He was more bull than man, quite literally having the head of one.

His fur was a pristine gold, and his horns were pierced through by looping, jingling gold rings. But he sounded no different from a man of high noble standing.

Yet, when Magnus looked at him, he was almost sure that while the horns were very much real, the bull head… was a mask.

"So you're the one who raised him to be so arrogant? Well, with any luck, his Rune Will will remain intact after this. Otherwise, I fear that you've lost your family a scion."

Magnus' gaze became cold and the bull man raised his hand and chuckled.

"Hey, I'm not the one who challenged him, don't blame me. I'm just trying to help out. I can see that this is your first time here."

Magnus turned away, looking back to the so-called Rune Duel, and the bull man only continued to laugh with the others.

"What an arrogant family. I see where he gets it from."

"How do you think they got in here? Someone should check their credentials, honestly. We have enough arrogant people in here without people who don't deserve it also being arrogant. Imagine how annoying it would be if we had to deal with this all the time."

"It's a good thing Old Man Webb is the one taking action now."

"Ah, that old man's a bully always looking to vent on somebody."

"Well he picked a good target this time. I was going to let it go, but those words the kid stated earlier were really too much. You can't just go around every day with that kind of head on your shoulders."

"How many would this be this time?"

"How many what?"

"How many rookies has Old Man Webb crushed?"

"Last I checked the number was probably somewhere around the low sixties. It's really been too much."

"He's too stubborn. He's been trying to form that Rune Crushing Path of his for too long, but he's a fool. What sort of Rune Crushing Path only targets the weak."

Several gazes looked over to the person who spoke those last words. They were quite bold. Not as bold as Sylas', but bold nonetheless. The reason for that was that the only reason Old Man Webb kept getting away with this was because he was a great power himself.

He was a B-tier Spark Rune Master, an A-tier Vitality Rune Master, and had reached Rune Creation in the Heaven Path to the F-tier.

He wasn't exactly in the top echelon of the organization, but he was still far better than average. Not just anyone could say those words about him… and certainly not someone who hadn't reached Rune Creation in at least the F-tier as well.

But when they saw the man standing at nearly eight feet tall, his robes flowing, their hearts seized.

The robes of the guild were only given to those who reached Rune Creation. The patterns dictated what path they reached it in, and the aura of the robe dictated the level they reached.

This man was an E-tier Rune Creator of the Heaven Path.

Heaven Creator Medeit.