Grand Ancestral Bloodlines

1249 Absolute Shock

'This should be the area.'

Ryu had done a lot of preparation in the last month or so. For most, a month wouldn't be nearly enough to gather enough information to find a Ruin, but Ryu wasn't a normal individual.

For one, his memory was immaculate.

After the Origin Flame had reached the Transcended Grade, he found that he not only remembered things like he could before, but he did so with far greater ease and clarity. Clarity was easy enough to describe, but what was more abstract was this so-called "ease".

If he had to describe it, it felt like his mind had far more neuronal connections. When he had a thought, if in the past there would be two or three ways to reach the same conclusion, each with varied times of deduction, now he had ten times that amount.

If there was an objective measurement of intelligence, it would be this. The amount of flexibility his mind had now, and the number of unique connections he could make between seemingly unrelated information had undergone an astronomical change.

The greatest fundamental change that this had caused was that mastering techniques and other matters related to comprehension had skyrocketed, and this was especially so for Daos.

Ryu had felt that his Dao had reached a bit of a bottleneck after entering the Peak Ancient Grade. He was already on the verge of entering the Cosmic Seed Realm, but his Dao was still at the First Cosmic Grade. He was on the verge of going from a genius who had been two grades ahead of his cultivation realm, to one that was only on par.

Although geniuses usually had a Dao one realm behind their cultivation Realm, this was unacceptable to Ryu for obvious reasons.

As things stood now, his Dao was the only thing allowing him to stand up to the geniuses of his generation, if it continued to slip, he wouldn't have any method of challenging such geniuses any longer.

The easiest method to deal with this was obviously his Realm Heart. But after it had also entered the Cosmic Grade, its progress had slowed down considerably even with the backing of Essence and Chaos Qi. Of course, this was still much faster than trying to wait for him to be capable of killing Sky Gods to upgrade it first, but it wasn't fast enough.

However, it seemed that the Origin Flame would help more with this than he thought. Not only could he use the Realm Heart to peer into the secrets of the universe, but he could use the Origin Flame to organize and analyze this information with much greater speed, and as a result, improve his Dao with greater speed.

All of this paled in comparison to what Ryu felt was his greatest gain from all of this, and that were the changes to his Focus Qi.

His Focus Qi didn't increase, nor could the Origin Flame replenish it. That said, because of the increased efficiency of his mind and the additional neuronal connections he had gained, he had functionally gained a ten times increase in Focus Qi only because he used it up so much slower.

When Ryu realized this, he came to understand that a lack of Focus Qi could also be dealt with like this. In that case, wouldn't it also be possible to try to see if there were any methods of streamlining the usage of his techniques and talents to make them more usable?

This was a very difficult task and Ryu even felt that it would require a whole new branch of Dao than what he was currently working with.

When Ryu had that thought, he realized another thing that was astonishing.

Wasn't that fundamentally what a Dao was? A shortcut to executing something that usually took a lot of effort under usual circumstances.

Ryu came to a stop in the middle of nowhere, his gaze blazing like a torch.

That explanation, no matter what Dao you were talking about, it fit.

Aika's Dao gave her the control of a God over her qi, how it functioned, how it moved and operated, and she could execute it all with a thought. But if she didn't activate her Dao and instead tried to manually do everything, how much more effort would it take?

Ryu's Dao was an even more obvious example of this. It helped him see through things and their fundamental nature. How much more effort would it take him to do the same thing if instead of relying on his Dao, he tried to learn everything from the ground up instead?

The tall grass around Ryu rippled and an upswell of qi formed. The hum of what could only be said to be the foundation of the universe echoed in his ears.

Ryu could see it... He could see his Founding Dao...

An illusory Ryu raised his foot, looking toward the threshold before him. However, Ryu hesitated.

He felt like he could have formed his Founding Dao whenever he wanted by relying on the Realm Heart, but this felt different. This sort of enlightenment was completely different, one that solely relied on himself... It was an even further sort of realization that no amount of observing the Realm Heart could have led him to.

However, there was a reason he hadn't gone full steam ahead on forming his Founding Dao until now.

At that moment, Ryu's gaze became quite frighteningly cold.

He didn't think anymore as his body seemed to cross that threshold.

The world became silent.

Frighteningly so.

There wasn't a rumbling of the earth or the skies. No formation activated, there wasn't even the slightest hint of lightning in the skies.

Ryu's hair gently rose before settling down on his back. The grass around him stopped swaying entirely, the small sounds of insects and chirping birds vanished, it suddenly felt neither hot nor cold as though temperature had become a figment of his imagination, and even when he subconsciously breathe, the vacuum of his lungs couldn't seem to pull any air in as though the air molecules themselves were frozen in time.

Ryu vaguely realized that he was observing his lungs attempt to expand and fail to suck in any oxygen. It was a vision that felt far different from turning his Spiritual Qi inward... it was as though his chest had been cut open, his ribs split, and his lungs put on display for him to see.

Then Ryu seemed to realize that this vision wasn't real at all. No... He was envisioning what his lungs would look like with such precision, such perfection, that the thoughts in his head actually felt so real, so alive.

He suddenly thought about his heart, and there it appeared..

Ryu's mind flashed through countless thoughts, countless scenarios, even things he had never seen before, and yet they all appeared with just as much clarity and realism. It felt like he could just reach out and touch them if he wanted to, as though he wasn't just imagining them, but that he was also imprinting them onto reality, creating them, even.

Shifts and changes began to appear in Ryu's Realm Heart. Its entire foundation seemed to have changed entirely. The overall difference felt too subtle to point out, but Ryu felt that the change was huge even though he couldn't quite point out why.

There wasn't the slightest peep or rumble. However, at that moment, on the Ninth Heaven, several figures slowly opened their eyes. Even with such a simple action, the bounds of reality before them shattered, the void tearing open under their slight movement.

It had been too long since they had been stirred by anything. They immediately tried to find what had awakened them, only to realize that there was nothing to pin their senses onto.

To these individuals, distance didn't matter, space didn't matter, even reality itself didn't matter most often. Anything they wanted, they could make appear with a wave of a hand, anything they wanted to find could be found with a thought, and yet...

They couldn't find anything.

"A Founding Dao..."

The voice sounded ancient, too ancient. It roused Mother Earth and stilled the skies.

This was the only thing that could possibly escape their vision, it was the only thing outside the bounds of their control.

They had no way of knowing where this feeling was coming from, but their immediate assumption was that it had come from the Ninth Heaven, how could an existence born anywhere else possibly form a Founding Dao?

But it was also because of this that they didn't act. Whichever Clan or Sect had birthed this person would keep it as a complete secret for as long as possible. In fact, these people observed one another, wondering if this individual had come from one of their powers. They knew such a thing would be fruitless, though. If they revealed this matter too early, there was no doubt the others would team up to address them. How could they possibly allow a single power to have two Founding Fathers?

That said, there was one person who knew exactly who this individual was. She was a woman sitting in despair, looking at the world with hollow eyes. Ever since she had come to understand the mistake she had made, she didn't know how to confront the world. She gave up on cultivation and her Dao Heart seemed to have been entirely shattered. The only reason she didn't directly die was because she had already taken on what lifespan Flowing Frost should have had....

However, when she perceived the changes around Ryu, the stare of the Favor Alchemy Sky God shifted from one of helplessness to one of absolute shock.