Genetic Ascension

However, he wasn't even at that level. At best, he could gain an extra 5%, raising the 66 overall Physical to 69. This seemed like a small boost, but 69 was already almost 20 stats over his current Physical. This was a huge boost.?",

The best part was that Sylas also didn't have to project it out. He could attack directly with his fists and use his telekinesis and Aether to drive through the opponent, thus boosting his current Physical to a new level.

Even with all of this said… there were clear drawbacks.

The first and most obvious was the consumption, consumption that would only increase as his combat skill increased and his ability to visualize the projection of his fists and kicks likewise increased.

Right now, he was using as much as 0.2 Units of Aether for every attack. Considering an Aether Unit was considered to be 10 points of Intelligence human like him, that meant he was using up 2 of his meager 28 Intelligence every time he punched or kicked.

When he stacked Tail Whip with it, his Skill, as directed by the Gene Talent, rose firmly to the level of an F- Talent. That meant that he used 0.5 Units of Aether or 5 points of his meager 28 Intelligence every time he used it.

And, because an equivalent Gene Talent was akin to a perfectly mastered Skill, it should have raised his Strength output by 40% on top of that. Unfortunately, Tail Whip was a talent designed for an appendage Sylas didn't have, so it was closer to a 20% boost instead.

Even so, this raised his 69 Strength output to 79! On top of that, it concentrated it into a blade-like consistency that made it almost gain some characteristics of Pierce. This was why he had been able to cut a gash across the head of the basilisk despite its Constitution being so great.

<Maddened Enlightenment> could replenish around 30 Intelligence, or three Units of Aether, in five minutes, under the condition that he was moving, and also considering his current Mastery. This was mostly in thanks to the boost from Madness, otherwise it would just be one Unit of Aether per five minutes.

If he was in real meditation, it would be easily twice as fast, and replenish him in just two minutes.

Assuming he never used Tail Whip, though… he would only be able to send out 14 strikes in battle. In this dungeon, that might be enough, but what about against stronger enemies? And also, who was to say that the main BOSS would be as easy to deal with?

Also, even against the more normal BOSSes, was he capable of harming them to this extent without using Tail Whip? In which case, he could only use just five attacks?

This was just the first of two problems, the second of which being the fact that if he was using this ability, he couldn't use his telekinesis in other ways.

His Wisdom was only high enough to control one dagger at a time while he fought. It wasn't strong enough for him to visualize the projection of his attacks while also wielding a dagger.

It could be argued that the tradeoff was worth it, but depending on the situation, he might like the added flexibility of a magically floating dagger.

'Ultimately, I need to raise my Wisdom and my Intelligence or else I won't be able to use my greatest strength.'

And there was only one way to do that: by unlocking Basic Aetherflow.

Sylas took a step forward and appeared by the corpse of the beast, pressing a hand down.

---

[Basilisk Minor]

[Gene Detected]

[Common Gene: (3) Intelligence (F); (3) Charisma (F)]

[Attempt Assimilation?]

[Yes][No]

---

Sylas' eyes flashed when he finally saw the Charisma Gene he had been looking for all this time. Without hesitation, he sacrificed the entire corpse to the Gene Crystal, relishing in the sight of the five Charisma he needed to fall to two. That should mean that he was just the defeat of one BOSS away from truly unleashing his Stat Limits.

---

[You have slayed Basilisk Minor]

[Rewards]

[>Astral Bind (1/3) (Skill Fragment)]

[>Inflexible Gene Elixir (Consumable)]

---

Sylas raised an eyebrow, finding the screen curious. This was only one piece of the Skill, so he had to defeat three BOSSes to get the full thing? Or was it instead that he had to defeat a specific number of the three BOSSes in order to get the full Skill, in which case he might have to fight all nine if he was unlucky enough?

Honestly, Sylas wasn't too bothered by this. With his new breakthrough, not to mention the one he could see quickly coming over the horizon, he was much more confident in fully clearing the Dungeon before he faced off against the Final BOSS.

He pulled out the Dungeon Map and was ready to target his next BOSS when he suddenly frowned.

There, on the map, there were a pair of dots moving together.

'What?' Sylas was startled, not understanding immediately.

His first thought was that the minions were ganging up and working together. Maybe if he took too much time to clear the Dungeon, they'd all eventually become a hoard, and he'd have no way out. There were some mob clearing games that might work like that on occasion.

This was especially possible because he had spent so long meditating in an attempt to make a breakthrough in his Comprehension earlier. So although he might have cleared the first BOSS with quite some speed, overall, he had been slow.

But then he watched as one of the other dots met up with the duo and then blinked out. Then, he traced his eyes across the paths they should have taken and found that there were a great deal of missing dots where there likely should have been more minions.

His eyes widened, and he came to a realization.

'The entry limit…'