Book 4 Chapter 14.3 - Habit
Just like Persephone, Kane's wife and Li Gaolei's Sally were both left behind in Dragon City, and they had lost all communication with them. The only thing they could hope for now was that the eyes of someone so high up like Bevulas would not stoop down to target ordinary people. This was not completely without hope, because in the standard doctrine of the Blood Parliament, only dragonriders, subordinates, or family members would have the basic human rights. Ordinary people without any abilities or background were no different from slaves, to the extent where they were even a bit inferior. This type of belief had long been entrenched deeply without their hearts during the last few dozen years, becoming a part of general knowledge.
Where there was general knowledge, there were also blind spots.
In the eyes of any normal dragonrider, the love Kane shared with his wife was incomprehensible. Who would love something that wasn't of the same species as themselves? What kind of love could a human and a monkey share?
This was what those of the Blood Parliament believed. Between those with abilities and without, there was already a difference that made them entirely different species. This type of general knowledge, or perhaps norm, is something that would gradually develop over an entire generation. It was because there were too many instances that proved the descendents of ability users had much higher chances of having ability talents. That was why in the eyes of high level ability users, ordinary women simply became tools for one to vent out their desires, not even enough to serve as child bearing tools. That was why Su was hoping that Bevulas wouldn't think of using these people to threaten him. Even if Bevulas did decide to do this, it wouldn't produce any threat. Su still didn't wish for those at his side to suffer harm, but what he could do right now, was only this much.
However, right now, there was another problem that made Su worried, and that was that Kane already didn't have much life left. When he had Kane's body inspected, Su discovered that his body already displayed signs of aging. Those of the new era, for the sake of adapting to this world and continuing their survival, greatly shortened their physiological cycle but also sped up metabolism. The price for robust bodies, greater fertility, and improved recovery power, was a shortened life expectancy. Few people struggling in the wilderness lived past the age of 60, and most of them would die around the age of 40, whether through natural or unnatural means. Only by having abilities would one's life have a chance of lengthening.
From the rate of radioactive decay within Kane's internal organs, Su deduced that he had less than two years of vitality left. Kane's innate talent wasn't as outstanding as Li or Li Gaolei's, and earlier on, he even used excessive amounts of ability formulations, and it was because of the permanent damage this brought to his genetic sequence that he would show signs of aging at this type of robust stage of life. Increasing abilities, from a certain perspective, was like setting a large tree aflame. The greater and more intense the flame burned, the faster the tree would turn into ashes.
Su already started his own body's crazy evolution, and this process was irreversible. Su could only watch as the flames burned greater and greater, burning until the day he watched himself burn to nothing. Something that could be considered both good and bad was that Su wasn't clear on just how enormous his own 'tree' was, but currently, it seemed like it was quite a thick and tall tree, so he should still be able to burn it for a while. However, if one were to talk about the bulk of a tree trunk, Madeline's was definitely a heaven reaching ancient tree.
If he wanted to prolong Kane's vitality, he needed extremely high level genetic repair medication, for example, the medication that almost dragged Persephone into bankruptcy. However, even if they had money, with Kelen City's level of biotechnology, it was unlikely for them to be able to produce such high level drugs. Even with the genetic repair medication, they also needed someone who could carry out surgery on the genetic level. Meanwhile, someone capable of this, even within the entire parliament, was only Dr. Connor himself. This surgical means of life prolongation was was extremely limited as well, normally not exceeding ten years, and it would also bring about a fixed amoutt of damage to one's potential in developing abilities. Unless one was close to the end of their life, no one would be willing to undergo this type of surgery. However, for those truly great figures, at the critical moment, even if they could have as single year more of life, it was still good.
Kane wasn't a great figure, and Su didn't have the financial resources or the background to ask Dr. Connor to help him out. That was why unless something unexpected happened, in two years, Kane would be the first of his subordinates to leave Su's side.
As he watched Kane work tirelessly day and night, Su could only hide this secret. Regardless of who it was, the day would come when they would die. He himself was no exception.
Su knew that the day would come when he would be destroyed as well, departing from this world and leaving behind Madeline and Persephone who he wanted to protect, as well as his subordinates and those he remembered. However, before that day came, he still had to do everything he could to allow those at his side to live a bit better.
That was all he could do.
Su never thought of himself as someone who had huge ideals. He just wanted his own life to be a bit simpler.
During this period of time, for some reason, Su discovered that his mind was filled with random thoughts. Perhaps because it had been too long since he obtained peace and rest, but now that he left the battles and struggles that made it hard to even breathe, he was instead not used to it.
However, these ten or so days of peace allowed him to once again sort out his own, as well as his subordinates' abilities. Su had saved up large amounts of evolutionary points to autonomously produce a ninth level ability in the Perception Domain, but Pandora's unexpected attack forced him to change plans and display the Extreme assault he stole from Claudia. However, extreme assault was an eighth level ability, so how could he obtain this ability from nothing? Previously, Su only had three levels of power and speed in the Combat Domain. To obtain Extreme assault, he directly raised his speed to the seventh level, as well as increased his power to the sixth level, and only then did this lay out the path that led to Extreme assault. If he didn't have enough power, Extreme assault's might wouldn't even be displayed. In terms of power, Extreme assault actually didn't lose out to a ninth level ability. This ability relied on the strength of a few basic abilities like power and speed, but it also had a strict requirements regarding control over energy and one's own body. If one wanted to display its true power, they actually needed nine levels of power, speed, as well as the various eight level or higher Magic Domain energy control. Of course, if Su satisfied these conditions, he would have the strength to fight against Pandora.
However, the result of forcefully evolving Extreme assault was that Su was left without any evolutionary points, unknown as to what day it will be before he would reach nine levels in the Perception Domain.
Meanwhile, Madeline also used up all of her evolutionary points in the battle that night, developing five levels of power, four levels of speed, as well as two levels of dexterity, flexibility, and defenses. In Su's opinion, Madeline actually had great talent in all five ability domains, so if her strength was supplemented by other ability domains' lower level abilities, her combat strength would increase substantially. However, this blue eyed girl obstinately focused on developing Combat Domain abilities, not willing to use even a single evolutionary point in other domains.