"The Basic Scouting Skill costs 100 coins, Sylas," Olivia suddenly said.
Sylas had no idea that Skills could just be bought like that, but he was also a bit hesitant to ask more questions. The more he revealed what he didn't know, the more they would be able to deduce about him.
Things seemed harmonious now, but the words of Astrid still echoed in his mind.
She claimed that it was human disharmony that led to their downfall during the Sixth Summoned Ascension. They took drastic steps to mitigate that, race mixing to the point there were no obvious traits that distinguished them. The entire world even spoke just a single language. But if Sylas knew humans… there was always a way.
If it wasn't race, it would be location, if not location, then it would be class. If not class, it could even become something like hobbies or skill or anything of the sort.
The fact that the survivors of the Sixth Summoned Ascension chose to take such drastic measures told him all he needed to know. The capacity of humans to be disharmonious was like a malignant cancer.
"Alright," Sylas said.
By this point, Vorak's corpse had already begun to emit a light of Aether. Then, it coalesced into an orb that had its innards obscured by a fog.
Sylas took it and crushed it in his palms. Maybe he should have waited until later, but he felt that he had already shown too many signs of standoffishness and distrust just now. In the end, he had to maintain a balance.
While Sylas seemed to act one way, he was quite adept socially. At the very least, Morgan was right about the fact he could blend in easily enough while also being himself.
They were all working together right now, and he had to show a carrot after using the stick. As for his questions, didn't he have the Madness Key? It wasn't as though he'd be able to break free of the 50 Physical cap anytime soon.
[Genes Detected. Convert to Pure Aether?]
Sylas immediately chose [No]. He had already confirmed with the Madness Key that his hypothesis was correct. The further he could push himself at Level 0, the better he would be.
[Common Gene: (2) Will (F); (3) Intelligence (F)]
Sylas' eyes narrowed when he saw this. It wasn't because he had finally found a method to find these Genes, but rather because he was suddenly wary.
He put the Gene Core away in the Madness Key space.
To have three Intelligence Common Genes, Vorak's Intelligence had to at least be 60, likely more. That left his Wisdom and Charisma on the much weaker side, but that wasn't really the point.
What Sylas was thinking about was how their battle might have changed had Vorak started using Skills. If Sylas hadn't reacted quickly, with Intelligence this high, the battle could have gone left and his entire advantage might have been thrown out the window.
Gene Talents allowed a sudden spike in Physical related to the talent in question, while Skills used Aether to create a similar effect. In practice, it was difficult to tell the difference between the two for most. Though, for some reason, Sylas had been quite certain that Vorak had been about to activate a Skill.
If he went a layer deeper, it was even likely that Vorak had been so hesitant to use his Skill for fear that Sylas could disrupt his mind while he did so. In which case, it was a more of a fluke than anything else that Sylas had won so easily, because he certainly couldn't activate Madness in range of so many allies.
'There should be two more on the level of Vorak and another on a level above the three of them, the City Lord… This will be troublesome without a plan.'
The Bone Ax fell toward the ground, but Sylas caught it with his telekinesis. After weighing it for a moment, he shook his head.
He had learned several things about his telekinesis in these last few days, however the most important thing was that its "Physical" was the average between his Will and Charisma divided by four. Meaning the Strength, Speed, and Dexterity of his telekinesis right now was 27.
The trouble was that there were layers to this information.
For example, if the 27 Strength of his telekinesis was stressed too much, then Speed and Dexterity would fall. That essentially meant that anything a human or beast with 27 Strength would find too heavy to carry would put a ding on his flexibility in using his telekinesis.
27 Strength was exceptional, and it was already far beyond the human limit. However, it wasn't enough.
Sylas found it best to imagine telekinesis like a swing of the arm. A strong man of Earth at the elite level, before the Summoned Ascension, could lift over a thousand pounds off the ground, but certainly not above their heads. And even if they could, swinging a 30-pound sword was out of the question.
Sylas' current limit for comfort was probably around 20 pounds, or fewer than 10 kilograms. This bone ax was almost double that, and he obviously couldn't wield it with his hands.
He looked around for a moment as everyone else looked at their own loot, trying to see something. As he expected, they mostly just got coins and Genes, and he didn't see any other items drop.
But more importantly than that, he saw their disappointed faces.
If he had to guess, their Gene States probably weren't high enough to allow them to succeed in taking the Genes they wanted.
"Can you tell me the specifics of the Skill?" Sylas suddenly asked, noticing Olivia's gaze on the floating bone ax.
It was clear that this bone ax was much better than the ungraded weapons the gnolls had been using. The others didn't even look at them.
"I can just show you."