The Gene Gamer

Suddenly remembering the lines that had come out after the black out, a realization seemed to come to Garen as his body started glowing and scales started appearing on his body. 

After that, a sudden burst of flames overtook everything as after a minute or two Garen showed up but this time, he had drastically changed. 

He had grown taller into 1.9 meter height as his hair had a flame red color into it with a darker shade at its end. His facial features had grown sharper to become more handsome with his eyes glowing red and an everchanging dark flame rune shining and twitching within his pupils.

His teeth sharper, his tongue had changed to become more slim and long. His body muscular looked lean with each of his muscles tightly fit in together. He now also had a unique charm that made him look demonic, he would easily attract women's attention.

This was the form he wanted, otherwise since he wasn't an incubus [1] demon, his physical looks wouldn't change by much. 

As if welcoming him, the entire volcano breathed in joy welcoming the new arrival of a high demon. 

From the power obtained by genes, the human development could be fastened which was also the reason that 14 year olds were considered adults. By the time they obtain their genes, their growth would be going rapidly until they would reach their own race's peak potential. 

...

Far to the north, on a land of ice.

In the island of ice, there existed a large tree. The tree radiated an ancient aura as looking at gave birth to respect and pity in the human heart. Time seemed to have eroded it as the once tall body of it had hunched a little.

At first glance there was nothing under its branches but if they were to look at the place for long, there seemed to be a silk cocoon existing motionless. But if they took notice of it, they couldn't seem to take their eyes off it, also resulting in them noticing the slow and steady pulse the cocoon went through.

However, as time went on and day and night switched endlessly, the pulse started to become faster and faster as its steady pace had changed to an unstable one. 

As the pulse started becoming more unstable, people seemed to see the illusion that a certain existence was trying to desperately get out of it. 

However this didn't affect the surroundings resulting in nothing taking attention of it.

As the pulse started getting faster and faster, it reached a line where even the hard shell couldn't endure it. But instead of the expected explosion, it slowly disintegrated into bits as all of it was absorbed by the existence inside it. 

As the shell slowly disintegrated, it revealed an elegant yet handsome young man who had a silver white eye and a long blue flowing hair. 

With cold eyes, snow seemed to dance within his eyes as wherever his sight went, the pressure intensified to make the wandering snow immediately fall to the ground. 

The fallen snows would combine with each other creating a harder one and within a second, the snow would've become ice. 

If Cylius was here, he would've been surprised to find that his rune- Coldness have already reached 10% in completion. Rather than ice or water, him choosing the rune 'coldness' meant choosing long term benefit rather than the short term. 

As for why, the reason was because the rune 'ice' was a weak one that was medium quality at best. Its power wasn't too much compared to the coldness rune and its law level was 'coldness' while the coldness rune's law level was 'motionless'. 

Although the coldness rune and the coldness law had the same name, due to their level difference, their power was worlds apart. The coldness rune could be said to be an extremely mini version of the coldness law. 

Why the law level of the coldness rune was motionless was because: 

Energy meant heat and the existence of things. Without energy, there would be nothing, thats why it was described as coldness. Why coldness exists is because it lacks energy which could be traced to the state of nothing itself. 

But the law nothing was too complex and advanced for seventh-tier creatures to understand thats why its law level was 'motionless' which meant there being no motion. And the concept was terrifying. 

If Fanton had chosen the ice rune, he would've already become a rune existence. 

If said, Cylius could be considered a half rune existence since his body and soul had already evolved to become similar to them and he was only lacking the complete comprehension of a rune. 

This made him far above his peers. He could even compete with his teachers if he is in school but he would of course hide his ability. People didn't judge others by their age because with genes, they could completely have the same mind and body as an adult even if they are a child.

People would be perplexed if he had reached such a stage within just a short time of cultivation- 1 year. 

But he had a plan. To show cultivation similar to Fanton in the eyes of the public and not hiding his cultivation from his master. His master was destined to be a fourth-tier existence since he contained such potential. 

His master would also like this idea because he himself also wouldn't want to reveal he has such a brilliant disciple. The cultivation he shows to the public would be enough to show he is already brilliant. 

With Fanton and Farold, he was sure that he and the other two will be the rising stars of the new generation. 

As for whether his master will sacrifice him and make him become a test subject? They won't at least for the time being. He was sure because they would want his full potential to make him a test subject and that meant he had to at least become a fully developed ghost. 

The higher ups also wouldn't have much thoughts about him because detecting his perception talent is almost impossible unless one is a sixth-tier highness. Finding people of his heritage would be easy for them since they must have shady deals with the various sacred monster clans. 

He had predicted that ghosts will have a fast growth in the initial stage and their cultivation pace would only decrease when they are in the third-tier and almost completely stop when they are a fourth-tier. 

Him gaining this cultivation in a short span of time would be completely logical and only when he becomes a fourth-tier would the higher ups be interested in him. 

His master then, when he's a third-tier would also not dare to experiment on him since the higher ups would rather want two fourth-tiers rather than one fourth-tier that will have an indefinite amount of power after sacrificing a future fourth-tier. 

The experiment might just fail and result in nothing.

When he's a fourth-tier, they would be interested but won't take any action for a long time. And when they had decided to make him become an experiment subject, he would have left this world after reaping all the benefits.

The reason his plan of staying low had changed was because he had personally experienced the immense power of a fourth-tier and knew that there was no chance of him hiding his cultivation and ghost talent from them. 

But one thing he was sure of was that they had no chance to know of his perception talent, it was truly immense that even the heaven of this world was trying to snatch it from him. That one heaven that stayed indifferent to sixth-tiers and seventh-tier gods was trying to snatch the talent away from him. 

This just meant the significance and the power of this 'perception talent'.

Although this conclusion had various defects and objections, he was betting on it. 

...

The cold face of Fanton looked over from the top as the animals around this area was immediately notified by his presence. 

However, as soon as his aura spread, a monster not far away from him screeched in anger as the snow around on the peak of the mountain fell. With the snow in the air, it wasn't possible to see anything within it but the sharp eyes of Fanton could easily detect that a huge object was heading his way. 

The object had an enormous build along with a powerful aura but Fanton wasn't moved by it at all. Instead he just looked coldly at the monster heading his way. 

With a flicker of his finger, suddenly all of the snow in the air vanished, revealing the huge bird heading toward him. While heading toward him, the claws of the bird was directed towards Fanton, prepared to grab and split him into pieces anytime. 

The bird was fast, that was also why it only took half a minute for it to pass a distance of several hundred meters. 

Although the momentum of the bird was strong and it would've scared any other creature within the area, Fanton wasn't moved by it at all. Instead, he just kept looking coldly at the bird while floating in the air lightly. 

When the bird was just ten meters away from him, its muscles tightened as it looked down at Fanton just like it was viewing its prey. 

While it was right there, the finger of Fanton slowly rose to point to the bird as a ray of beam flashed before disappearing. It was fast so it was impossible to see anything but a moment later, the bird suddenly stopped diving as a hold formed inside its chest, immobilizing it completely. 

As soon as it became motionless, the body fell down as its lifeless eyes revealed that it was dead. 

While the bird's body was falling down rapidly, Fanton made a gesture with his hand making the bird stop in place and start heading toward him. When it was in front of him, people could see the size difference where Fanton looked like an ant next to the gigantic bird which was ten times his size. 

Although there wasn't much use to him, he could use the carcass as food to create a puppet that was only loyal to him. 

Bringing the carcass with him, Fanton flew downwards finally reaching a shaking snow leopard. The snow leopard had its head down as it shook intensely in fear to the man floating above him while also having an intense greed and hunger to the carcass the man was holding. 

But it didn't dare, it truly didn't dare. Compared to the greed it felt, the fear it was feeling for the man overwhelmed it by much. 

It was of the peak limit-break creature which meant it had to comprehend a rune to reach the next tier. Although it already had a direction, it was hard for such a creature to reach the second-tier without any external help. 

And Fanton was precisely the external help that would help it reach the second-tier. 

1. Incubus- male version of the succubus. A demon who seduces females to sleep with them.