Sylas' Aether Pathways thrummed.

From an outsider's perspective, it looked as though a second, illusory form of himself was trying to peel away from his body, almost as though he had been possessed by someone who looked completely identical to himself.

An Aether with a strong spatial—but also chaotic—character to it shook the space around Sylas and made it even harder to tell exactly what was going on.

One vibration. A second. A third.

Pa.

The bubble suddenly popped and Sylas stepped forward, his body leaving afterimages in his wake. This wasn't because of his speed. If anything, he was moving even slower than he had in the Envy Aether Maze.

Instead, that illusory version of himself seemed to continuously lag behind, almost as though it couldn't decide whether it wanted to be a part of Sylas or not.

A second bubble took shape by Sylas, latching onto his shoulder.

Pa.

'0.42… still not fast enough.'

Salivar was surging ahead. He hadn't looked back a single time, but the gap between himself and Sylas was slowly widening.

There didn't seem to be a clear or defined end to the sea of blue they stood upon. There was no goal ahead, no path to take, and it felt like they could even accidentally run askew and there would be nothing to tell them if they were on the right track or not.

Yet, whether it was Sylas or Salivar, neither of them seemed to care, continuing to walk forward aimlessly.

'Faster.'

Pa.

Pa.

Pa.

Bubbles began to boil out of the sea of blue at faster and faster paces. They latched onto their bodies from odd angles, forcing them to prove their Aether control from various portions of their body.

Not only did they need to have strong reserves, but they needed the ability to expertly divert their Aether to very specific locations of their body, even locations they might not otherwise even have Skills that made use of.

A bubble latched onto the back of Sylas' neck and he felt like his brain was going to freeze over for a moment. But his eyes hardly flickered.

Pa.

His ghost stretched out of his body, lines that looked like silky fabrics pulling taut against its skin before it snapped back into Sylas' body.

'0.39…'

Every time a bubble appeared, it was a rush to fill it with enough Aether that it would be satiated. But if your control was poor, you could easily end up using more Aether than you needed to. Over the course of the entire challenge, even small, incremental mistakes could boil over.

As you grew more tired, your control would also slacken, and the issue would only compound.

It could be said that the problem was especially bad for Sylas. Without his Legendary Genes and his various Comprehensions, he wouldn't even have a single Skill that was above the Common Mastery Level.

When it came to Aether control and comprehension, he was pathetic. If he was compared to a genius of the Seeing Eye Guild, he was worse than pathetic.

The idea that he would come here to challenge them like this of his own accord was absolutely ridiculous. If the elders and disciples of the Seeing Eye Guild were made aware of this, it would only be all the more shocking.

And yet, there Sylas was, falling behind, and yet not by nearly the margin he should have been…

Then something changed.

By the end of the first day, Salivar was barely in Sylas' line of sight, so far ahead that he could have very well disappeared in another few hours.

But he had begun to slow down.

As for Sylas, his pace remained the same. Even and unbothered.

By the end of the second day, they were nearly side by side once again.

By the end of the third, it was Sylas that was moments away from disappearing from Salivar's eyesight.

Not once did he move any faster than the pace he had decided on from the very beginning.

The bubbles were appearing faster and faster, though, latching onto them as though they wanted to drag them down into the depths of the sea they walked on.

And yet…

Pa.

Pa.

Pa.

The end result was much the same. A stretch of a ghost, a silent roar, and then a quick shattering.

Never too slow, and never too fast. Impossibly even.

Sylas took a step forward and the waters churned. The trembling nearly knocked him off his feet, but he steadied himself, that illusory ghost forming at his feet.

He paused for a moment, his forward momentum stopping for the first time in these three days. Closing his eyes, he fell into thought, looking as though he was resting. But in reality, he was calculating something with exceptional speed.

Then he nodded to himself.

Sylas took a breath and sank into a horse stance for only the briefest of moments.

BANG.

He shot out like a cannon. His last worry had been solved. There was no need to hold back anymore.

…

Sylas stepped out of a swirling portal, his eyes as calm as could be.

How long had it been… since he had the time to truly prepare for something?

Honestly, he couldn't think of a single time since that notification appeared. No, since before that… since he walked into his basement to find his father and grandfather arguing with one another.

Since then, he had been forced to constantly react to the world around him.

One could argue that this time was no different. He was only here because the system had thrown a near-impossible Quest at him.

But compared to other times before… this just felt… different.

He felt that the world was no longer moving faster than he could keep up. The one thing he had never lacked in his life was confidence in himself.

If he had time to prepare, enough information at his fingertips to comprehend and understand ahead of time…

There didn't exist a challenge he didn't believe he could crush.

This was no different.

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