The intuition that came from his Legendary Path Skill was quite shocking to Sylas, but it was also a bit uncomfortable. As he continued to look around for more Arctic King Cobras, he couldn't help but feel slightly unsettled.

It was a lot like how he felt about his Will state. It felt uncomfortable that the system could impact even such a thing, and now it seemed like it could rewire even his brain, making him understand things that he had never understood before.

There was no reason for him to understand how to make use of Runes like this. His skill in this regard was still infantile.

Everything about this world left him feeling like this somewhat. The reconstructed clones of extinct beasts, the spawned workers of villages, and now this…

It was hard to not feel as though everything was being manipulated behind the scenes to make a person feel as though little was actually in their control.

Ignorance was bliss. You could only grasp everything through absolute power… but what if you were stuck in the middle of the two? Were you just supposed to wallow in despair? And how long would it take to get there if your goal was to finally grasp everything in your hands? Would you even be able to get there at all?

Sylas continued to look around, but he found absolutely nothing. It seemed as though this cobra was either the only one that had come or it was the only one in this region.

After some thought, Sylas found a cabin, cleared it out, and then locked himself in its cellar. Once this was done, he took out the cobra's corpse after lighting the fireplace.

He sat near it and then slowly began to use a dagger he had found in a Legacy member's spatial device to begin carving into the creature.

As expected, the Constitution of this beast was exceptional. As he slowly worked, carving into its body, he began to wonder about something.

[What separates a strong Mancer affinity from a weak one?]

[The affinity of a Mancer is often decided by their Class, their Comprehension, and their Race.]

Sylas' eyes narrowed. This wasn't exactly the answer he was looking for, but it was an answer nonetheless.

When he thought of Mancers, he thought of fire, water, earth, or maybe more shocking elements like darkness or lightning. He had more thoughts than he cared to admit about the latter two and those that fell into their categories.

The only reason that he had ultimately chosen the Arctic King Cobra could be summarized in a single word: time.

He didn't have the time to wait around, hoping to find the very best Mancer Path to follow. So, the moment he found a beast that was a Mancer, he pounced on it.

In truth, Sylas didn't know just how right he was to make this choice. The difficulty of his Quest wasn't just in how hard it would be to kill these beasts, but how hard they were to find. Not just any creature could be considered a Mancer. Even those that had special elemental Aether might not be. It was a special categorization.

Of course, another reason he was so eager to take this route was likewise because of his Beast Totem. Not only was the Arctic King Cobra the first Mancer he had found, but it was also the creature he could most easily defeat as well. And after fighting it, he realized just how right he was.

If all Mancers were this powerful, the current him had no right to fight them, especially not if the first leg of the Chain Quest required him to kill a Level 10.

[How does Ice-Poison stack up to other Mancer Paths?]

[All Mancer Paths are created equal]

Sylas took a breath and shook his head. He had already seen that this was the case based on the first answer, but he had ended up wasting the necessary Genes this time anyway. That was a bit disappointing, but at least now he knew for sure instead of just guessing around.

Like it had said, the Mancer Path wasn't important. It was what you used to supplement it that was.

His Comprehension, his Race, his Class… all of these would be important cogs to the wheel.

Seeing how defensively powerful the Ice-Poison Mancer Path was, though, Sylas felt that it was perfect for him. What he lacked the most in right now was defense. Unlike others, he couldn't wear fancy armors or stat-laden robes and such. He had to rely on his own flesh and blood.

Aside from maybe Earth itself, Sylas probably couldn't end up with a better path forward.

Sylas sucked in a cold breath as the temperature suddenly plummeted. He had finally gotten down to the venom sack of the cobra, peeling through layers of thick, meaty, and extraordinarily fatty flesh.

The moment he saw the slightly blue-tinted flesh sack, he felt as though someone had reached out and grabbed his throat.

He activated Enchanted Scribe, and he saw all sorts of blue Runes floating in the air. They latched onto the heat and suffocated it, smothering it from all sides. Even the fire of the fireplace seemed to be slowly tinging blue, but what was odd was that the flames weren't going out. Instead, the embers were doing something odd.

Every time the embers separated from the main body, they would burst apart and become a rain of blue fairy dust. But Sylas knew that if he touched this dust, he would be truly screwed over. Just a single wisp could infect him with those blue Runes.

Even so, watching it like this felt particularly magical.

When the sparkling blue fairy dust hit the wooden floorboards, ice spread like cracked cobwebs, racing across the ground before the energy gave out and another speck followed it.

It felt like Sylas was experiencing a cycle of life, one of ice, poison, and decay…