God Ash: Remnants of the fallen.
Chapter 956 - 956: The Keys to Evolution (3).

"Still... Everything is such a broad scale. Why not tone it down a bit for me?" Steve said with a chuckle as he leaned back.

Cain grimaced,

"Then, what the hell happened over here? What the hell is... that thing?!"

Steve paused then took a sip. Letting out a satisfied sigh, he cleared his throat then spoke,

"You mean the {Poison God's Heart}? It is a stabilizer."

Cain's expression turned dark,

"Stabilizer for what, damn it!"

Steve guffawed,

"It is a heart that stabilizes the essence of nature itself."

Cain frowned, "What the hell does that mean?"

Steve chuckled,

"Poisons are a fundamental part of nature, Cain. It represents death and is a rather terrible thing to deal with. However, something came to me in my sleep. Call it a revelation, or whatever. A revelation to take and wield the power of poisons."

Steve took another sip,

"Of course, doing so normally would result in a not so pleasant death for not just me, but possibly everything in this island. So I decided to create a stabilizer. A magic item that can process these poisons and help me harness their powers. There's nothing more to it."

Cain couldn't help but freeze.

'That... is actually not too bad.'

Steve grinned,

"What, you expected me to have some underhanded evil plans to, I don't know... scourge the world with plague and disease?"

Cain brought his cup to his lips and took a sip,

'It's delicious.'

"Yes."

Steve clicked his tongue,

"How blunt. But in any case, you now know I am not planning a revolutionary coup."

Cain shook his head,

"That's not the point. Don't you think having something like this here is risky?"

Steve shrugged,

"Every aspect of the mysterious arcane is fraught with danger and risks, Cain. Besides, it's all for the sake of research, so it's fine. A risk or two isn't the end of the world."

'You say that, but...'

Cain sighed,

"In any case, try to keep it as safe as possible. I heard from Blaze there was an incident a while back..."

Steve frowned, his eyes narrowing as he clicked his tongue,

"That bloody snitch. He will be dealt with."

'Sorry, Blaze.' Cain silently apologized.

Steve sighed as he took another sip,

"If you are that curious, I can fill you in on what I have learned so far."

Cain raised a brow, now a bit curious.

Seeing this, Steve grinned.

With a flick of his wrist, he pulled out a few sheets of paper and a journal from thin air,

"This here contains all my entries. You can read through them while I brief you." Steve said, then cleared his throat.

Cain took the papers and the journal off the table. Ignoring the leather bound book, he skimmed through the papers.

The first thing that caught his attention, was the heading in the first page.

'The Keys to Evolution?'

He glanced at Steve who seemed more than eager to start running his mouth.

"After performing countless operations and tests, I've been able to come up with three conclusions."

"I'm listening..." He said as he read through the papers.

"The first, is that mana does not create mutation. The second, is there is an energy imbalance in the world. The final one, and the most surprising of them all, is the further a creature progresses down the evolution line, the greater the difference between each stage of evolution. While this might sound obvious, it is a far greater discovery than you can imagine..."

Steve had a strange smile on his face as he pulled outw three small transparent containers filled with a clear liquid and placed them on the table between them

Cain glanced down.

Suspended within the containers were three creatures that looked rather different.

Cain's eyes narrowed,

'No, not different.'

Steve pointed at the first one,

"I was a bit shocked to discover that mana isn't what forces mutation. We've got it all wrong..."

Cain frowned.

All this time, he has been under the impression that mana, magic, and changes in the spiritual realm were what facilitated the changes in the physical realm. Could it be that he had missed it somewhere?

"If mana doesn't, then what does?"

Steve grinned,

"Progression."

Cain narrowed his eyes,

"What —"

Steve put a hand up,

"Mana is a powerful energy source. But its nature isn't to distort. Rather, it is to change and bring about variations that wouldn't exist in normal trends. What I am trying to say, us that it cannot be the cause of the evolution of all beings. At least, not the primary cause."

Steve took a sip of tea then continued,

"Rather, it is the very path forward we take that initializes these changes. And I can prove it."

Steve pointed at the containers,

"These containers hold three different evolutions of the {Steelhead Mayflies}. Do you want to know the greatest difference between them?"

Cain was silent for a moment,

"Judging from the state of the corpses..."

His eyes flasged with a golden light,

"And the signatures I'm reading, they all have mana readings below ten thousand, but above five thousand."

Steve nodded,

"Exactly. Such small changes in mana content should absolutely not bring about such great changes in appearance and physical male up. I meanz look at you. Although you look rather steamy and terrifying now, you looked almost the exact same when you had a few tens of thousands less points of Magic."

Cain glared at Steve, forcing him to go silent.

He shook his head and returned his focus to be papers.

Steve had given him a bit more detail, but all he had said aligned with what he had read so far.

"Then are you saying..."

"Have you never wondered to yourself; what exactly are levels? What value does it measure? How does the system grant us attribute points that help us evolve our bodies? Why can we only ascend to the next tier until we have reached a certain level threshold?"

Steve's eyes were wide and his gaze burned with an austere light.

"I believe, these are the keys to evolution, Cain. If we can discover the secrets, we might have an advantage lying on the other side of the door."