Genetic Ascension

The people of Earth all looked up when this creature formed of Runes appeared. The roar and cry they had heard only a single time for a brief instant before echoed in their ears over and over again.

They lost themselves, their eyes falling into a trance as they watched.

For many of them, they only felt a slight stir within their bodies, a silent shift that might help in the future or it might not. But ultimately, it would do very little in 99% of circumstances.

But in some…

Everything changed.

They didn't even notice it, but their bodies began to give off Wills of their own and they entered Will Shaping without even noticing what was happening.

Some even entered Will Forging instantly, lost in so much of a trance they couldn't have told the world what was happening to them even if they wanted.

And those people, that small collection of talents that could really feel what was happening…

Their Wills shifted again, not to an even higher level, but instead to a different form entirely…

Their Wills began to spontaneously produce Runes.

Every one of these select few instantly stepped into F-tier Spark Mastery, losing themselves in the sounds.

Sylas sensed every one of them as it happened.

Earth's population right now could be stated to only be a fraction of what it was in the past. Too many people had died to the Tutorial and the after-effects preceding it. Though the death tolls had fallen substantially after Sylas broke them free of the endless cycle that was the Summoning, it had only been less than two years since then and the environment wasn't exactly conducive to baby making.

Setting aside the fact that it was marginally more difficult to have children now than it had been in the past—even as mere F-tiers, there was a slight uptick of difficulty—there were just very few hubs left on Earth that made people feel stable enough to have children.

The only reason Sylas had had children so easily despite his talent and Race Grade was because of the Virtue Lust Seed. By this measure alone, it was certainly one of the most broken of the Virtue Seeds there were.

The idea that it could break past the limitations of bloodline, well…

Maybe Sylas could find out soon that there were some Races that would go pretty far to have someone that could so easily help to reproduce their bloodlines—especially in the Demi-God and even more so on the God Planes.

Of course, Sylas wouldn't become a breeding bull for anyone if he had the choice. But this and that were two different matters.

What was important was that Earth's population could now only be measured in the tens of millions. And yet, amongst that number, over 30,000 Spark Masters appeared.

These were people who had—for the most part—not once touched a Rune in their lives.

But there were others who existed to them adjacently…

Like Nathan of the Grimblades, Sylas' distant cousin and the man who had taken up Archibald's legacy.

Or… Alex himself, who had never really been all that interested in Rune Mastery, but had found himself with an Omniimus in his possession.

Or several of the Ravenclaws and Darkmanes…

And an especially large number of the Clypsians.

With a single point of a finger and a moment of enlightenment, Sylas had completely changed the lives of thousands, and from those thousands, thousands more would spring forth.

These were just the few who had managed to reach Spark Mastery instantly. There were many others with the talent, but not quite as much, that just might be able to reach Spark Mastery in the future diligently.

And with this many Spark Masters appearing at once, and the number of quality Dungeons on Earth skyrocketing once more…

There just might be an endless number of resources available to them all very soon.

Sylas very slowly regained his senses, looking down at his hands in a small bit of a daze. The echo of the dragon and phoenix were very much still in his head, and he felt like it was trying to tell him something.

Like he had said, he didn't think that those were real dragons and phoenixes. He had never heard of either truly existing in the world. As far as he could tell, dragons were probably the Serpentes by another form, and the phoenixes, well… he wasn't sure. Maybe they too were mimicked by something else.

But what he did know was that those cries were the underpinning of some great mystery of the universe. They were the universe speaking itself. They represented the highest form of Rune Mastery there was, a cry that only Rune Creators could decipher and comprehend the Will of.

And yet, despite having mimicked it just now, Sylas felt like he had only touched the barest corner of it all. There was just so much more to it… so much more he didn't quite understand.

Sylas' gaze suddenly sharpened. He twitched, about to stand and move, but he was still a moment late. The pressure of the Crimson Eye staring down at him, refusing to vanish, was too heavy.

In her room, Isolde Grimblade sat in meditation, swirling white gold Runes dancing in a beautiful union around her. She had seamlessly entered Spark Mastery along with the others, but along with a very small segment, she remained in enlightenment even after the roars and cries stopped.

Something crackled and a radiant light formed around her.

Then she vanished.

Cedric Grimblade had been sitting right next to his wife, the two of them having a rare moment of intimacy when the world caused his gaze to fog over.

He entered a state of enlightenment of his own, Runes dancing around him in a falling rain. Crackling lightning took shape and then sparked out in streaming rain. It was an odd sight, almost like electricity was sparking into water and then back again.

Something crackled.

Then he vanished as well.

And he was far from the last.