Transcendent Gene
Chapter 149: First Moves [1]

Chapter 149: First Moves [1]

The vehicles used to get around the estate grounds, which were, in essence, golf carts, were easily accessible to anyone who wished to use them.

All one had to do was contact the office and make them aware. They would then send a code that could be used to activate the cart.

Such a process was both simple and secure, ensuring that no accidents could happen.

But that was only if those on the estate grounds didn’t know how to hotwire those carts.

Gio’s mischievousness when he was a child didn’t need to be mentioned again. Learning how to hotwire any vehicles near him to cause havoc was a basic skill he acquired when he was young.

He was an old man now and didn’t care much for havoc, but those skills still came in handy.

Gio couldn’t bring anyone else with him, after all. He couldn’t have the servants drive him over.

At his current height, he could see over the wheel just fine while he was driving.

The location he had in mind was in the middle of nowhere, really. It wasn’t a part of the Atmos Clan, but instead something that just happened to be part of the land they inhabited.

Gio drove for half an hour through neatly trimmed grass, assorted trees, and man-made lakes before finally arriving there.

’Honestly, I didn’t give [Memory Book] enough credit in the past.’

The Original Gene really made life more convenient in a lot of ways. He was in the middle of nowhere, several kilometers from any occupied land in the territory. Everything around him was natural.

If beasts were allowed this far into human territory, they would have lived in a place like this without a doubt.

Gio stopped the cart and hopped off, following the map in his head until he arrived where he’d found the Sequence last time.

’Everything was already destroyed then, so it was just lying around. This time, it’ll be a little different.’

Gio placed his hands on the ground and brought Hekat’s power into the world. He slowly used the ability of change to displace the soil under his palms, rapidly digging a hole into the dirt.

The hole became larger and larger as Gio dug deeper. He kept his power activated, his eyes trained on the dirt in front of him and to his sides until finally...

"There you are."

He grinned and took his hands off the ground below, placing them on the wall to his right instead. He pushed the dirt aside until he finally saw what he’d glimpsed out of the corner of his eye.

A wall of obsidian-like stone.

No, it was a door. Engraved in its surface were several mysterious runic characters that Gio couldn’t read or connect to any existing language.

’This stele was just rubble when I first found it, but if I hadn’t accidentally interacted with it, nothing else would have been possible.’

The reason he knew about this Sequence, really, was luck.

But he was more than happy to have luck supporting him enough to show him these kinds of things.

Facing the stele, Gio took a blade and slit his palm. He held it up to the obelisk, allowing his blood to drip down the obsidian material.

However, before even a single drop of blood could touch the ground, it was all absorbed into the stone.

It rumbled. The ground around Gio followed. The dirt displaced itself without its interference, parting and revealing the full extent of the door Gio unlocked.

The stele was much wider than he expected, but that was hardly important. The important part was that it moved to the side, revealing behind it a gaping abyss.

’A passage...?’

In the previous timeline, Gio found the Sequence easily. It was practically on the ground waiting to be found.

Sure, there was a crater filled with the rubble of the stele and other similar things, but the Bloodline Sequence in question was just lying in its center like nothing.

’I expected a vault...’

...but was it a labyrinth?

Regardless, Gio had no choice but to enter.

Burrow Grade, Esper Grade, Terra Grade, Aurora Grade, Titan Grade, and Nova Grade. Bloodline Sequences were separated between these levels depending on their potency and potential.

Above them was the Equinox Grade that was only speculated to exist.

By combining the Essence Blood within the abyss with that of the Blackwing Blood Serpent that was safely in his Storage Hole at the moment, Gio planned to create an Equinox Grade Bloodline.

His hesitation was only caused by the unexpected tunnel beyond the stele. He didn’t hesitate one bit to enter it.

’Logically, it should be safe.’

When the estate was destroyed in the past and Gio found this place, there wasn’t a single sign of danger in the vicinity. There was nothing; whether it was living guardians, signs of traps or elaborate mechanics in the ground, or anything else.

Gio walked into the darkness, his pupils dilating to accommodate the space. His steps were slow and methodical even if he believed he wouldn’t encounter danger. He couldn’t be too careful.

His eyes changed as he focused his energy into them to sense change. The world went black without the fuzziness he saw in real life, but the only change within it was his own footsteps.

’There’s really nothing...’

Gio kept walking, occasionally looking to the ground when he felt his foot bump into something.

Some of them were just rocks, but others...

’Corpses.’

Decayed corpses. Not of humans, but of beasts and animals. They were so long decayed that most of them were piles of yellow bones. However, some of the most recently deceased still had bits of flesh stuck to their skeletons.

Evidently, the labyrinth was once filled with trials. Gio even thought there was a chance that the halls moved and rearranged themselves. After all, he’d been walking on a straight path thus far that never diverged, but he could see and feel the signs of branching corridors all around him.

’It definitely had to move on its own. The Essence Blood I found was somewhere near where I found the entrance stele. It should’ve been a path that looped around and ended where it began in a completely different way.’

The final room was just a step away from the entrance, but it was impossible to reach without completing the labyrinth. That kind of trick was quite common, yet, after walking in a straight line and stepping over bones and debris for ten minutes, Gio found himself in front of a perfectly square wall engraved with images of wild animals aiming for each other’s throats.

[If you are worthy, step forth.]

At the center of the engravings were six simple words.

’Well, it’s not a question anymore. Anyone who finds this place would be worthy enough.’

Gio stepped towards the wall and placed his hand on the words. He moved around a little until he found the hidden button on its surface and pressed it into the wall.

It, as expected, rumbled as it tried to move to the side.

Only, the wall aged just as much as the rest of the labyrinth. It tried its best to activate when it was forced to wake up after so long, but there was nothing it could do. The wall only rumbled a little and remained stationary.

Gio smiled wryly and shrugged. If it wasn’t going to open, he could just open it himself.

Using Hekat’s power, he broke the wall down into chunks on the ground and stepped over it.

The room beyond was certainly dark and mysterious, decorated properly like the final reward room of a dangerous and ominous labyrinth.

’None of that matters, though.’

Without a single worry, Gio practically glided through the room to the pedestal in the center. Its top was protected by a glass case similar to what one would find in a museum, and inside that case, it was waiting for him.

A deep wine-red color closer to black than crimson. A liquid of that color contained in a vial that looked much older than anything produced in the current day and age.

’Finally,’ Gio thought to himself as he lifted the glass cover.

’The Dark Demon Tiger’s Essence Blood.’

The Essence Blood of a Grade 1 monster that went down in history as one of the greatest threats humanity had ever faced.

Here it was, in Gio’s hands, several centuries after its death.

Truly, fate worked in mysterious ways.

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