Nosphaleen’s father felt as though his mind had been shaken. All of a sudden, so many things made sense to him. Even little tidbits that he hadn’t even considered in the past shook him to his core.
The Clypsians actually rose up during one of Earth’s Ice Ages. They adapted to live in the water many generations after that, and they mostly had surviving these harsh conditions to thank.
So when Sylas said that they were trying to recreate a version of Earth here, he was actually referring to one of Earth’s earliest periods. This entire planet, its existence, and the so-called Frostbane that dictated everything…
It was nothing more than a method of trying to recreate Earth.
This alone didn’t seem to make sense. If recreating a world was so easy, then everyone would do it.
But the point here wasn’t a recreation of Earth, but rather to use this as a canvas of sorts, an experimental hub to test and measure things—a trial run to see if their plans were working or not.
By having a quasi-Earth here, it would be possible to see how the Sylphs were adjusting and if they were ready to step onto the real Earth or not.
In fact, this was likely not the only planet they had done so with. How was it that the Sylphs were able to step onto Earth during the Summoning, no less? It was by using these quasi-Earths to learn to mask their intent.
And it was through the use of the Clypsians that they had been able to do this, relying on the proliferation of this Race to tap into what versions of Earth had once existed and learn from them.
This was why, other than some relatively minor measures, the Sylphs mostly allowed the Clypsians to live out their lives as though they weren’t trapped in captivity.
This was also why from the moment Sylas stepped foot on this world, he had felt such a closeness to it. How could he not? He was a Progenitor of Earth. This was a version of the world he ruled.
Of course his Luck would be exceptionally sharp here, as would Palms of Fate activate with much greater ease.
“This is why… they don’t kill us?” There seemed to be something particularly broken in the man’s voice. He didn’t realize that the stronger he got, the more information he was giving the Sylphs, and the easier he was making it for them to grasp the intricacies of Earth and exploit them.
In fact, the fact they weren’t Overlords was exactly what the Sylphs wanted. Because of this, these Clypsians had to find all sorts of unique methods to improve, touching upon a concept that was long lost to time… something those of the past Legendary System once called Cultivation.
Cultivation was a process of improvement that didn’t rely on a system to level you up, but instead used unique methods of forging Genes, circulating Aether, and improving Comprehension that could help you level up.
It was far more demanding, and a far slower process as well, but those that improved through Cultivation tended to be far stronger than those that didn’t…
But by the same token, a single mistake on the Path of Cultivation also meant that one could take a wrong turn at any time that would cripple you for life or ruin your chances of ever improving again.
By its very nature, the Path of Cultivation was all about unearthing the secrets of the world and using them to your advantage to improve.
The sick, twisted reality here was that every little step the Clypsians took, every victory that allowed them to take another step forward, was like handing the Sylphs and their masters gifts on a silver platter.
What they also hadn’t realized until Sylas said it in so many words was that because they were once Overlords of Earth but were placed on this planet instead, the Path of Cultivation most suited for them didn’t even exist here when they first arrived.
In order to make things work, they had to work hundreds of times as hard. And by virtue of that hard work…
They were actually taking on the task of changing the world around them in place of the Sylphs.
It could be said that the effort the Sylphs had put in practically started and ended with keeping the Clypsians trapped. Outside of that, it was the Clypsians themselves keeping themselves in a perpetual trap, all while forging their own prison into something stronger and stronger… that would only help the Sylphs enslave more of their kind in the future.
Sylas had only spoken out a single sentence, but every deduction came flooding into the minds of the Clypsians one after another. They were clearly an intelligent Race of people, but it was hard to see the full scope of the board when you were trapped on a single square.
Sylas himself was only able to grasp these concepts so easily because he had vastly expanded his scope of the world after his time with the UniForm. He was already aware of the bridge plan, and when he learned more about the concepts of Luck—how it worked, how it changed depending on the world you were in, or how it might interact with Lucks that were weaker or stronger than your own—he was able to piece all of this together.
This was the power of knowledge.
From the time he was a child, Sylas had always been exactly this intelligent. When he stepped out into this world, though, he had felt almost small, and though not quite inadequate, he knew that he couldn’t make full use of his scope of intelligence because he was functioning with too little information, too much of the time.
But now, things were very different.
Very different.
He was the one with all the cards in his hands now, so he knew exactly how to exploit this situation.
The Sylphs wouldn’t know what hit them.