Chapter 53: The System

Elias smiled in satisfaction as he saw his unique traits. It seemed as if the Status Screen had left the best for last. The first of his unique traits was his Elder Talent, Extreme Adaptation.

His smile widened as he read further into the descriptions of this talent; not only did it not passively upgrade his body, mind, and power to any environment or threats, but it also accelerated his growth and converted not just hostile Lumina but also Fragments of Divinity to his strength.

Elias’s talents were powerful, so powerful that he thought they were not meant for mortals, but his path forward had not been cut off. Alongside his Titles, Abilities, and his unique Traits, there was a chance that he could turn this situation around and become a truly powerful being.

By coincidence or design, he had been given enough power at such an early stage, and it was up to him to properly nurture this strength, or it would lead to his doom.

His second unique trait was his Ascendant Swarm Symbiosis, which his Status screen noted had been fully unlocked. The changes to his Swarm went beyond their color, as they were now symbiotically linked to him and were no longer just parasites that saw his body as a home.

They were no longer the Green Swarm but the Ascendant Swarm, and with the bond they had formed with him, they were a part of him as much as any of his limbs.

He could now summon and dismiss them any time he wanted, and what made Elias more excited were the powers they gave him. The Swarm not only multiplied his health pool, but could also grow as they adapted to his needs.

They could grow in size or become faster, and what drew his attention more than anything was that they could absorb both Lumina and Ascendant Energy.

Elias believed that if he was to grow, he would need a crazy amount of energy, so much energy that he wondered if slaughtering the entirety of Stormfall would push him to the Fury Forge Stage.

Luckily, it seemed that his evolution had taken him in the direction where he would become a Lumina absorbing monster. Elias did not know if it would be enough, but the world was a wide place, and he did not know how long he would live. There could be many chances in the future for him to devour Lumina on a level never seen before.

The last power of his Ascendant Swarm was Construct Creation, and Elias would never have known how powerful this power was if he were not presently wearing breeches that were indestructible.

However, Elias knew that he was just scratching the surface of what he could do with this power. Could he create more complex weapons beyond blades, or instead of breeches, he could make a full suit of armor? Could he create wings for himself or construct an entire house using them? How deeply could he control the Swarm?

So many questions and mysteries to be discovered, and Elias was so eager to experiment and unleash his powers on everything, but he held himself back, knowing a hasty move would spoil a thousand years of preparation, and the time spent sharpening the axe by a woodcutter was never wasted.

His Status screen was his tool for survival and domination, and if he did not properly study every change upon it, he would not know how to properly handle tasks that he had the tools for.

The last unique trait he had, Pillar of Sorrow integration, not only served to evolve his body, which Elias thought was something that every Angel who had assimilated a Fragment of Divinity had access to, but for him, it was like adding wings to a tiger.

His Elder Talent was already passively evolving his body, and adding the Pillar to it increased his evolution rate, and Elias wondered if this was the reason he could make so many drastic transformations despite his Esoteric Attribute being at 0.

Its second trait was also a headscratcher, but it tied in with his Sovereign of Hundred Pools Title, which gave him an infinite but contained Lumina Capacity.

Elias felt that he was being teased by these descriptions, but if he figured it right, it was still possible for him to grow, though it would be slow and involve a lot of killing… a lot.

The last trait it gave Elias was a passive aura of sorrow around him. Elias did not know what that meant at this time. Would everyone around him begin to feel sorrowful, or did it mean something else?

Finally, he reached the last part of this section of the Status Screen, and he could not help but smile. He knew that the Commander knew more about his situation than he had first believed and may have been the one to place him in danger, but Elias did not dislike her for it.

Power came to those who craved it. How could he expect to gain power if he did not suffer for it… If he did not die for it.

Elias squeezed his fist, and he could hear a faint popping sound inside it, as if the air were being crushed, causing small explosions. As a mortal, he had no right to decide his fate for himself, but now everything had changed. She could play with his destiny before now, but her attitude from this point forward would determine how he would treat her.

She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, but with the growth of his Will, the memory of her face became easier for him to process, and he was no longer left in awe at the sight of her beauty.

Her power had been expended, but a remnant had been left behind, a Fate Shell, and somehow his body had assimilated it to become one of his Unique Traits, and he wondered if this had happened because of his Sovereign Fate or if Sovereign Fate had been acquired because of this shell.

Elias finally reached the end of his Status screen, where he believed that it was the area where the Status communicated with him, and he saw something shocking.

His Status had labelled him an Ascendant Candidate with Mutated Bronze potential, but tucked away in the final corners of his Status Screen was the fact that he had been reclassified, as the System could no longer quantify his potential.

It was also the first time Elias saw the word ’System,’ and he wondered if this was the name of the massive presence that had reshaped his Lumina Space and assimilated the Fragment of Divinity with him.

Elias thought that System fit such a being, given its cold, mechanical nature, which made it seem like a tool rather than a person. Elias would trust a tool before he could trust an individual to peer into his deepest secrets, no matter how noble the individual was, and he was sure that most Siphons shared this sentiment.

His potential that could not be ascertained was troubling, but it seemed that the system gave him a Bronze potential to serve as a placeholder, and since he did not think he would be needing this tag any time soon, he placed this matter aside.

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