Lost

They were even clearer now than they were before.

There were three distinct sections.

The battle section.

The mating section.

And the baring fangs section.

Each one exuded its own peculiarity. In the past, they had blurred into a single bundle of Madness. But now that Sylas had actually comprehended Madness, he could feel the subtleties.

Sylas became a bit lost.

It was odd. He could innately tell what the snakes were doing, but he didn't have an easy method of translating it to his own body. There was a barrier that lay between him and them. It was one part frustrating, but another part curious.

He was ultimately a scholar. He had spent more time than he knew with his head buried deep in his research or a paper of some sort. His discipline was often what carried him through those moments, but often it was fascination as well.

His doctoral thesis had been about moving the world of antivenom toward the world of vaccines, namely mRNA vaccines.

It was quite useless, honestly. A large part of why venom used antivenom as a counter—a more short-term solution—was because venomous creatures were rare and only a small segment of the population met them. No one would feel the need to immunize a large population of people against a snake they only had a one-in-a-billion chance of coming across.

Even so, he had been fascinated by the topic because of the mongoose. It was a small, almost adorable creature. And yet it was well known as the bane of venomous snakes due to its natural defenses against venom.

He had found it funny that a cute little creature could do what humans couldn't, so he had chosen this route for his doctorate. It was just pure curiosity.

Something about this felt so similar.

Sylas suddenly shook his head, feeling that he was getting sucked in deep. When he did, he found that his body had recovered from the Madness already.

'Has it been that long? Or was it something else?'

He wasn't sure, until he saw something new.

---

[Skill: Maddened Meditation (F)]

--'

Sylas had been so engrossed that he hadn't noticed this change at all. He hadn't known that it was possible to miss notifications.

—

[Maddened Meditation (F)]

[You are deeply in tune with the Madness of your Ancestors. It helps you to focus and relax. Understanding yourself is a form of peace, and with peace comes healing]

—

It was only after reading the description that Sylas realized the oddity. All the time he had spent "observing" the mural of snakes, he had been thinking about himself. He hadn't even thought about his doctorate in years. Why had it even come to mind?

It wasn't like Sylas was passionate about snakes, he just found them somewhat interesting. And he was feeling that now he might be a little bit of an adrenaline junky on one hand, and a control freak on another.

What was a better rush of adrenaline than handling creatures that could kill you with a single nick? And what was a better form of control than facing them without a hint of fear?

'I'm insane.'

Sylas was speechless toward his own thoughts.

He felt that he had great self-discipline, and he even had daily meditation rituals. Simply put, he spent a lot of time in his own mind, but he had never assessed himself in this way.

Was it because of the Madness? Was it influencing him more than he thought? Or was this truly him?

Sylas pulled away from the barrier and looked at his notification. The moment he wondered if there was a way to check what he had missed, a new menu appeared. This menu seemed to list all of his previous notifications in chronological order, starting with the most recent.

Everything looked normal and the only thing he had missed was the new Skill. He wasn't sure how powerful or weak this Skill was, though. He found himself once again feeling that there was too great a lack of information coming from the system.

'The system is already enough of a help. I'm not sure what I'd do if it didn't exist.'

Sylas concluded his thoughts with that and turned his focus toward understanding everything about Madness now. With Maddened Meditation as a support Skill, it went along much faster.

Upon activation, the most obvious change was his stat boost to Charisma and Will. However, Sylas felt that this was only a surface level change.

The elevation of Charisma and Will likewise seemed to bolster his other stats. Although it wasn't reflective in the numbers, it just felt like his body was running like a well-oiled machine, almost like his stats just… meant more per point.

This was most obviously reflected in Blade Aura which could now be used for just over three minutes. What was more interesting than that was that Blade Aura also seemed to be applicable to his body now. Well, it was before as well. But this time, it didn't make him feel like he was boiling from the inside-out.

When it was applied solely to his body, it could last for about five minutes, which was the whole length he could have Madness activated for as well.

However, while Blade Aura could last longer applied directly to his fists, it was also weaker. The quality-based amplification was still there and obvious. Clearly, Blade Aura believed his femur short spear was the better weapon.

Maddened Meditation made the various experiments far easier on Sylas. It only took about five minutes to recover completely from five minutes of usage, so it was a nice trade-off. Without Maddened Meditation, it took upwards of half an hour.

It was just unfortunate that he couldn't use Maddened Meditation on the move. He had to be completely still, and except in this environment where the only threat was locked away in a far-off region, he would be hard-pressed to find a place where it would be easy to use it.

Sylas took a breath.

It seemed that really was all there was this time. It was time to see what this Little Madness creature was all about.