Genetic Ascension novel Chapter 2459

Chapter 2459: Evolution [Bonus]

[Bonus thanks to TheHonoredOne69 <3]

Sylas let the Vipermancy screen remain before him while his attention moved past the numbers and into the changes beneath them.

Reaching Level 200 mattered, but only in the most ordinary sense. Vipermancy had finally caught up with his C-tier existence, raising its old limits and dragging abilities that had lagged behind him into a realm where they could be useful again. The more interesting question was what Dragon Will had taught the Profession while it was being forced to accommodate something it should never have been capable of touching.

Vipermancy had always grown through synergy. One Kind For Me understood Serpentes, Were-for-the-Invincible allowed Sylas to cross the boundary between himself and his Contracts, while Taboo Bond reached beneath the surface and manipulated the foundations that made an existence what it was.

Their individual functions had become less distinct with every evolution, and this time that trend had accelerated.

—

[Myriad Intuition (EVOLVED!!!)]

—

The old Intuition had always been one of his most useful abilities, despite how unimpressive it looked on the screen. It allowed him to sense evolutionary directions that should work for his Contracts, sometimes guiding him toward answers he lacked enough information to calculate for himself.

Now, when Sylas focused on the Ruby Ouroboros within his Hibernation Realm, that familiar sensation appeared and immediately stretched outward.

His Voidborn Wisdom followed it beyond the boundaries of this universe and Paths returned from elsewhere.

They weren’t hypothetical possibilities. Myriad Intuition was sensing what the ideal evolutionary path for Ruby would have been had it existed beneath the laws of another universe entirely. One reality favored Eternal Cycle, another pushed Infinite Hunger farther, while others produced answers that couldn’t have naturally emerged beneath the laws surrounding Sylas now.

That alone was useful, but then several paths began overlapping.

Myriad Intuition didn’t require him to choose between them. It could recognize what made one path superior in one area, preserve that strength, then take something else from another universe’s answer and incorporate it as well.

Sylas’ eyes narrowed.

Before, Intuition found the best road available to his Contract. Now it could search across universes for countless best roads, tear away the strongest parts of each, and cobble them together into a path that stood above them all.

That then brought his attention to the first new ability.

—

[Apex Imposition (NEW!!!)]

—

The mechanism was familiar the instant he understood it. The Beast Totem had always carried suppression, but before, that suppression came from the authority of Vipermancy itself. Apex Imposition instead allowed Sylas to nominate one of his Contracts as the summit around which that authority organized itself.

Dragon Will had shown the Profession why such a thing worked.

A Dragon had no need to actually exist for generations of Serpentes to place it above themselves. Enough Will, belief, and Karma could establish a hierarchy first, leaving everything below it to reinforce that hierarchy merely by acknowledging it.

Apex Imposition stole the most useful part of that structure.

If Sylas chose the Ruby Ouroboros, then within the reach of his Beast Totem, other Serpentes would be pressured to recognize Ruby as something above them. Tier and Race Grade wouldn’t disappear, but the natural authority those differences provided would be blunted by a second hierarchy forced over the first. It also had potential to work against more than just Serpentes, though that much wasn’t quite yet so obvious.

That had obvious combat uses, though Sylas found himself more interested in what came next.

—

[Self-Made Myth (NEW!!!)]

—

His thoughts slowed.

A Contract’s victories, the fear it inspired, the reverence directed toward it, the stories others carried away after surviving an encounter with it—those things usually dispersed into countless strands of Karma, attaching themselves to broader bloodlines, Races, Clans, concepts, and whatever else had contributed to the event.

Self-Made Myth gathered a portion of that weight around the Contract itself. 𝔣𝐫𝒆𝕖𝘸𝚎𝘣𝓃𝒐𝖛ℯ𝓵.𝖈𝘰𝗺

The implications ran much deeper than a simple increase in strength. If enough Karma accumulated, a Contract could begin becoming its own evolutionary reference point rather than continuing to measure itself against whatever ideal its ancestry had placed above it.

For a moment, Sylas thought of Gogo.

The Contract between them was gone, shattered by Gogo’s own choice when he took half of the Fate Dragon and left for the God Realm. At the time, Sylas had understood the distinction clearly enough. Becoming stronger than the ceiling was one thing, but deciding to become a new ceiling was something else entirely.

Self-Made Myth operated on that same principle.

A creature didn’t have to spend eternity becoming a better copy of something that came before it. Given enough accomplishment and enough weight behind its own existence, it could eventually force future generations to measure themselves against it instead.

Sylas moved on.

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