Genetic Ascension

Chapter 399: Elemental Healing [Bonus]

Sylas focused one of his minds on circulating Aether to his arms, trying to heal them as quickly as possible.

With another, he began to go through the spatial devices that he had gathered. He ignored most of the treasures, sifting through the Elixirs instead.

Unfortunately, he was disappointed.

It wasn’t that the Sylphs didn’t have Elixirs. It was rather that, well…

—

[Frostbane Elemental Healing Elixir (FF-) (Consumable)]

[A sweet nectar pulled from Heavenly Dew. Drink this and heal yourself. For every 20 points of Intelligence, boost healing capacity by +100%. Effects last a single day]

—

This was clearly a Healing Elixir designed for Races like the Sylphs. They had poor Physicals, but their Path of the Mancer was strong. They were practically elemental creatures.

The problem was that while this Frostbane Elemental Healing Elixir would be a tonic to them, to Sylas, it was little more than poison.

Sylas had Ice-Poison affinity as well, but his was far weaker than the Frostbane Rune. While he could control stronger Ice-Poison Runes with his Rune Soul, his body wasn’t strong enough to keep up. Namely, his Ice-Poison affinity was still too low.

Ultimately, he only had a Fragmented Class and had a long way to go.

As Sylas continued to search, he could only continuously circulate his Aether to his arms and ankle, hoping for a better result.

However, whether it was the Healing Elixirs, the Aether Replenishment Elixirs, or even some rare explosive strength increase Elixirs, they were all reliant on Frostbane.

Sylas grit his teeth. There was only one way, then.

He shrugged the first ape off of him and gathered the one solid gain from their spatial devices: Aether Stones.

They were abundant, and Sylas was actually pretty sure that there were two E-Grade Aether Stones in Vayu’s ring. He didn’t know what this meant, or what kind of value it had, but he was sure it was quite a lot.

Well, in killing them, he also inherited all of their F-Coins and his totals right now could only be said to be truly astronomical.

—

[Coins: 1,387,372 (F)]

—

Wealthy was an understatement for these people. Even with his placement on the leaderboards, it would take Sylas half a year to accumulate this amount of wealth. Well… if he ignored the increases that were coming.

Sylas arranged the Transmutation Beast Skin and used an Aether Stone to trigger it.

‘Hm? Failed? No… Out of energy.’

Sylas only needed one Aether Stone to activate the Beast Skin. Last time, he had taken one from Lolaleen, but it hadn’t ended up needing the entire thing, so he had used it again this time only for the process to stop halfway.

Pulling out another stone, Sylas triggered it again.

This time, the Beast Skin finished its job and Sylas popped the pill into his mouth.

The result was completely out of his expectation.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

His blood began to boil, a large amount of nutrition rushing through him.

The swelling on his arm began to go down at a visible speed, and his ankle snapped back into place all on its own. At the same time, the accumulated fatigue, and wear and tear on his body began to fly away from him like steam on an engine.

Sylas’ eyes brightened. He had still underestimated just how strong the bodies of the Clandestine Apes were. The abundance of energy in their bodies was so great that it was only natural they be able to heal him like this.

He had thought that there would be a problem because they lacked Aether, but that only weakened his Aether and Mental recovery.

Although he was trading off a chance to replenish his mind and Aether, the healing to his body made it more than easy enough for him to ignore this.

The trouble was that he needed his mind to fend off this cold. If his concentration ran out, he would end up just like Lolaleen.

The simple solution seemed to be to absorb the second ape, the one he hadn’t taken a Gene out of and would still have access to its Aether and Mental stats.

However, there was no way Sylas would do that, not if it meant putting that mutated, cancerous Gene into his body. He didn’t want to find out what would happen if he took such a path. He might end up killing himself for all he knew.

It seemed that he was just going to have to rely on <Maddened Enlightenment> and hope that it could carry him to the finish line.

Sylas took a deep breath, feeling his body crackle and pop. He looked toward the second stair again, his eyes blazing.

Standing to his feet, blood that was both his own and that of the apes fell from him in waves. He used Extricate on the second ape, pulling out its mutated Gene before using the Transmutation Beast Skin on it.

This was going to be his path to survival.

…

Aerwyna and her team appeared. Beads of sweat fell down their faces, and some sported some injuries, but she hadn’t lost a single member. By comparison…

Several minutes later, Brisa’s team appeared. They were down to just seven members, and their giantess of a team leader couldn’t help but look at Aerwyna with a scalding gaze.

After failing to catch up to Vayu the first time, the cooperation between these two had obviously fallen apart… and it was likewise obvious which of the two had taken the upper hand.

Looking around, Brisa also realized that Aerwyna had gotten here first. That meant that she would get to choose which door to enter after the team battle first, leaving the rest of them on tenterhooks.

But at this point… Brisa just wanted her to pick anyone but her.

The minutes continued to tick by and the two were surprised by the time they had. Realizing that this was a rare opportunity and that they wouldn’t be jumping into battle instantly, they immediately commanded their team to start focusing on healing themselves.

By the time Sylas finally appeared, most had recovered to more than 80%. As for Sylas…

Beaten and haggard, covered in blood from head to toe, he trudged forward. The only points of light on his entire body were his glowing pair of green irises.