Grand Ancestral Bloodlines

It was the first time that Ryu had laid his head down to rest in several years. This wasn't the first time Ryu had entered a deep sleep after a long while of wakefulness, but the circumstances around this time were entirely different.

Setting aside the fact that Ryu's Focus Qi was almost entirely drained, the changes to Ryu's cultivation were most definitely the largest, ignoring his Dao for the moment. The problem wasn't just that Ryu had broken through to a new realm, because this also wasn't the first time that had happened, obviously. The problem was that Ryu's body chemistry and biology had completely changed.

Accommodating a new Spiritual Foundation sounded simple enough, until you remembered just how important the structure and pathways of one's Meridians and Meridians Nodes were. You couldn't just randomly form a new attachment and expect everything to work the same.

The moment Ryu's eyes closed and his body entered a dormant state, his Chaotic Silk Meridians reacted, beginning to slowly grow and expand. New pathways began to form within his body, gathering strength from his Beyond Perfect Extreme Spiritual Foundation.

This was a process that probably should have taken decades, centuries, even. By the time Ryu woke up, given the suppression of the True Martial World and its variety of changes on aging, he would have probably been a middle aged man if he was lucky.

Of course, that was only if no one was paying attention to him. Because Mae was by his side, she would have realized that something was wrong and stepped in to place him in a medicinal pool or something similar that could supply him the energy that he needed.

One might wonder why this was. After all, the Chaotic Silk Meridians were connected directly to the Chaos Plane. Why would it even need external measures to build more of itself?

But the trouble here was the process of Meridian formation itself. There was a reason the Chaotic Silk Meridians were so sturdy. Although Ryu was immune to Chaos Qi, there were other qis that he most definitely wasn't immune to like Primordial Chaos Qi, the substance of which while not necessarily ubiquitous in the Chaos Plane, was prevalent enough to cause a worry.

For the safety of its owner, the Chaotic Silk Meridians severed the connection to the Chaos Plane during this evolution, stopping this dangerous qi from potentially leaking into the rest of the body, and especially not its owner's more sensitive inner organs.

However, this ultimately meant that Ryu had nothing to rely upon other than qi he could passively absorb through his breathing, he could only rely on the Qi Fumes of his Spiritual Foundation. These Qi Fumes, though, couldn't possibly be compared to the Qi Fumes of most other Spiritual Foundations, and that was especially the case since the Dao Pedestal Realm allowed Spiritual Foundations to truly start exposing their real strength.

Under the influence of his Spiritual Foundation, Ryu was flooded with Essence and the process of restructuring his Meridians moved so fast that if his body was cut open, it could be observed with mortal eyes.

However, this wasn't all.

Rather than spinning out a spiraling pair of Meridians of dense black, Ryu's new Meridian Pathways radiated a bright pearly white. His closed eyes leaked these strikes of white, and as his pores which opened and closed with his breath did so as well.

After the first month, Mae woke to a milky light gliding across her skin. It was sticky and didn't disperse easily, it seemed to want to seep into her, but unlike Ryu, she couldn't cultivate through her pores. However, when she touched her lips, she realized that that milkiness was something she had been inhaling already.

Mae blinked, looking down at her skin again and realizing why she had woken up. She felt a separate stickiness that didn't come from the milky energyj. Instead, it came from the waste her body was expelling. Not just her, but Ryu as well.

Her brows jumped. 'This is...'

Mae was certain, this was Embryonic Qi, it was Qi that only appeared in the womb. The amount of it that gathered was directly proportional to the kind of talent your child would have, but it was usually impossible to sense ahead of time and people knew very little about it. Often, because a child was too talented, a pregnancy could extend for millennia just so that a child would have enough time to absorb all that they were owed.

But why was it appearing here? Was she pregnant?

Mae panicked somewhat. It wasn't like she and Ryu had used protection, and though it was unlikely, technically it only took one time.

Mae quickly calmed down. Being pregnant right now was highly inconvenient as it would likely ruin her cultivating prime years, but it wasn't the end of the world either. At worst she would lose out on a few years and have to deal with some annoying rumors, but ultimately Ryu was her Dao Companion and his future was bright. It wouldn't be long before those people shut up.

After a small while, Mae calmed down and smiled. But with her mind clear, her brows furrowed.

Embryonic Qi wasn't supposed to be detectable during pregnancy, so what was going on?

Also, her cultivation... She had only just entered the Lower Dao Pedestal Realm not long ago, why was she already on the verge of the Middle Dao Pedestal Realm?

Mae's expression changed several times.

In the end, she shook her head. Sliding off of the bed, she carefully carried Ryu to a cleansing pool. What was shocking, though, was that Ryu showed no signs of waking up, even after she cleaned the both of them up and changed the sheets to their bed, he didn't even so much as flinch.

The months continued to tick by and a larger and larger tornado of qi formed above Ryu's Immortal Abode, expanding to the point that it even became visible to normal eyes from thousands of miles away.