Grand Ancestral Bloodlines

Ryu's hand gripped down, shattering the face of the 999th Bronze Protector Spirit. After the first hundred, the rest had become even easier to kill as the power of the spirits flooded through him. By this point, his Bronze Aura shone so brightly that it could be mistaken for gold under certain lights, and a blazing pillar of light surrounded him constantly. He could feel without even checking himself that his presence alone could be spotted from dozens of kilometers away through sight alone, if one used the feel of his aura and matched it with their Spiritual Sense, hundreds of kilometers shouldn't be a problem.

By this point, Ryu had already completed the Martial Forms to a standard of the True Martial World. When he used them now, he felt the world reacting just as violently as they once did in Sacrum, the problem was that he still felt that... this wasn't good enough.

He imagined that this was enough to stand tall in the Seventh Heaven, but the Eighth? Definitely not. In fact, he wasn't sure if completing the Silver Protector Spirits would allow him to reach that level, it was likely that it would take him assimilating some Gold Protector Spirits to do that.

As he thought about the matter, he flowed from one Martial Form to the next, his body practically screaming with excitement. His fused Bloodlines agitated themselves in a positive way, reacting with a beauty and understanding that made Ryu's bones sing.

Using the Martial Forms was far sharper than just relying on the insight the Protector Spirits gave alone. That was because these insights came in bits and pieces, and while it was subconsciously ingrained into your bones, what it lacked was the nuance necessary to flow from one state easily to the next.

For example, if Ryu wanted to be explosive, his body would naturally tap into the bear spirit and spirits like it. If he wanted to be fast, it would tap into the scorpion spirit and ones like it. However, he couldn't seem to be both fast and explosive at the same time.

This made sense. After all, the muscle memory was built in pieces rather than holistically over a long period of time. It was like training running form and breathing technique separately. If one wanted to go and run a marathon right afterward, but had never practiced them together, who was to say how well things would go?

At the same time, Ryu could tell that once this round was over and the power of the Protector Spirits drained from his body, the feeling of sharpness that he got from the insights would also dull.

The Martial Forms were different, though. By practicing them together, Ryu was getting this exact sort of holistic result that he was looking for. Over time, it would only get sharper and benefit his combat prowess. He would thus have to rely on his Dao and his Origin Flame less in analyzing his battles and he coul act and respond more instinctually.

If he succeeded in doing this, he could free up bits of his mind, or even allow his mind to work more efficiently, raising the level of his battle prowess, and that would both be in his ability to read and react, but also in how well he used his strength too.

Flexibility, for instance, was a huge part in how well a cultivator could use their strength. If your hips were locked and your knees weak, how would you properly drive a fist through an opponent? The same principle could be applied across all disciplines, and of course, since Ryu had mastered so many God Auras, he was well aware of this as well.

He clenched and unclenched his fists, taking a large, sweeping breath that formed a vortex of wind in the surroundings. The ground shook and the trees swayed wildly from side to side, their weaker branches and leaves being

ripped from their bodies as Ryu flowed the Ice Phoenix Martial Form.

"This also isn't enough... for me...'

Ryu thought this as he slowly closed his eyes, pressing down his palms toward the ground and exhaling a slow breath.

His gaze flashed open with a hidden sharpness, his very cells singing. The Martial Forms were good, excellent, even. The reason he said it wasn't enough was because he felt that he could take it to another level, he could fuse them and make the perfect Martial Form for himself, one that only he could use... he just needed more insight.

'Silver it is...'

It was time. Ryu took a step and vanished.

He was getting a bit obsessed to the feeling of this kind of speed, this kind of power. The Protector Spirits flowing through his veins threatened to overload his mind, and would have overloaded practically anyone else's. But from what Ryu could tell, both his soul and his Dao worked in tandem to suppress and control them.

Once he fused with the Silver Protector Spirits, they would become the de facto rulers of his consciousness and this strength, and it would then become up to him to suppress and control them.

Regardless of what it was, he felt confident in his success.

Even though he thought this, he knew that the more powerful he made the Martial Form individually, the more difficult they would be to fuse. He had to be cautious with how he approached this, but he would also prefer nothing at all than settle for something imperfect.

"This region is a bit...."

The terrain didn't change much as it was still a dense forest, but Ryu realized now why he hadn't really been bothered until this point. It wasn't just because of Primus' protective shield, but also because the elite had already begun hunting much higher Protector Spirits. Clearly, they hadn't thought to limit out like he did, they probably didn't have sharp enough senses to realize that there was a "max" in the first place.

Ryu came across the first Silver Protector Spirit almost instantly and he was immediately interested.

The issue was that the aura he was intrigued in wasn't the spirit itself, but rather the cluster of five battling it, each of them with a slight silver aura themselves.