Genetic Ascension novel Chapter 176

Chapter 176 Bronze

Sylas could only try again, pulling at the uneven portions of his Aether skin bit by bit.

As he did so, he found that his control was really being tested. If it was because he had used Extricate on the Intelligence Gene, he wouldn't have felt it so clearly. But right now, it felt like he was slowly pushing a hidden muscle beyond its limit, no different than how he would lift a weight.

It was taxing, but not to the point of collapse.

Finally, two minutes later, and barely a couple of minutes before his Aether skin succumbed to the heat, <Maddened Enlightenment> responded to his call.

Sylas almost let out an audible sigh of relief. Aether rushed toward him, and it was dense to a level beyond what he had experienced before.

He looked around the world he was in. This was the first time he was truly doing as much. Before, his mind was too foggy, and after that, he was too focused on survival.

Without any context other than the lava, he would have thought that he had ended up in an active volcano. But looking up, there was no obvious opening to the top.

This wasn't likely a volcano. Or, it was at least one that hadn't erupted yet to force an opening on the surface.

'I guess it's technically magma then…'

The magma stretched out as far as Sylas could see, but what he did notice were several islands. Embarrassingly enough, there was actually an island much closer to his original location than the one he had initially been running toward.

Sylas shook his head. His mind had really not been on his side.

That thought made him recall how this had happened to begin with. All he had done was wrap his Will around the disk he was standing on, then he passed out.

'This place seems endless. There's also no sign of everyone else, they likely got caught up in the violent change to the disk as well… but where is the portal in that case?'

The portal should appear on both sides, and without the disk, it should have expanded substantially.

In addition, the beasts around here should be attracted to the portal as well. But the region was quiet and there were no obvious surges toward it.

Unless there were no living creatures in this area at all?

By normal Earth standards, this was the obvious conclusion. There was no creature in existence, extinct or otherwise, that could survive these temperatures.

But the logic of this Aether Plane was obviously not the same.

'Pick a direction and move.'

This was Sylas's conclusion.

But he couldn't just leave the disk here, and he certainly couldn't use his telekinesis on it again.

Sylas thought of the solution quite easily. This forcefield seemed to be permanently in place. Why not take advantage?

First, he adjusted his Aether skin. He was much more familiar with it now and he managed to even it out well and appropriately thicken it.

He jumped down from the forcefield and tried to scoop it up. He failed to quite get under it, so he changed tactics and tested his telekinesis on the forcefield alone.

The feeling was odd.

Surprisingly, his visualization picked up on the forcefield quite well although his eyes wouldn't be able to see it if not for its interaction with the magma around it.

To Sylas' mind's eye, though, it looked not much different from how Aether appeared to him. Clearly, this disk was a conduit through which Aether was filtered and forced to behave in this way.

However, while this was the case, when his telekinesis tried to pick it up, it failed. Or, rather, Sylas didn't allow it to continue its attempt.

When his telekinesis came into contact with the forcefield, rather than interacting with it like it did an object, it infiltrated it. It was like his telekinesis was trying to forcefully pull the Aether into his control rather than just pick up the object.

Sylas frowned.

This was troublesome. He didn't want to go all the way for fear of what his mind might experience again. Until he was in a safe place, he couldn't test this.

Sylas could only take the crude approach again, thickening the Aether skin around his arms and scooping into the magma to pick it up.

The disk was relatively small, but the forcefield around it was about 2 meters in diameter. Luckily, it was incredibly light.

The last worry was that his Scorned Wraps might act up, but luckily that didn't happen this time around.