Grand Ancestral Bloodlines

Rather than redirecting the lightning toward his Bloodline, Ryu directed it toward his Realm Heart and his Spiritual Foundation instead. But after just a few split seconds, and before the little woman could talk, he realized that he was being foolish.

He didn't have to do all of this. He thought back to when he first summoned the Divine Chains and how they had come from his Spiritual Foundation. Then, instead of directing Lightning toward his Spiritual Foundation, he instead directed his Tribulation Lightning Seed toward his Spiritual Foundation instead.

Ryu's thoughts were simple. His Tribulation Lightning Seed wasn't very strong, especially not compared to the spirit of lightning before him. However, it contained ancient markings that represented the very core of an extremely important Lightning Qilin talent.

These ancient runes had been refined over countless generations to do just one thing: absorb lightning. And on the other hand, his Spiritual Foundation seemed to be very good at copying.

It had taken hundreds of thousands of years of being sealed for his Spiritual Foundation to copy the Divine Chains, however his Lightning Seed was his own. He already had a perfect understanding of it. As a result, copying it...

Was as easy as thinking it.

Above his Spiritual Foundation, dozens of lightning seeds appeared, then hundreds, then thousands.

They were but hollow constructions. Although Ryu could give them form and use them each as their own vessel, it wasn't worth it. This was because his body had already reached its limits, having an extra Tribulation Lightning Seed would only be a detriment to him.

But the lightning spirit didn't know that. All it could feel was a dense aura, the very essence of his Tribulation Lightning Seed, increasing in momentum. Soon, the Fundamental Runes that were the most appetizing to the lightning spirit came out in such large quantities that it could no longer ignore it.

Ryu saw the spirit stir, but this didn't make him happy in the slightest.

He didn't want the thing to wake up, he wanted it to just move into his Spiritual Foundation. If it woke up, it might be able to see through what was happening. After all, his intention was to turn it into a Cosmic Seed.

'That's enough!' The Little Woman said quickly.

Inwardly, she was panicking as well. Why couldn't Ryu ever do anything in half measures? It was getting ridiculous.

When she said to make the best environment possible for the spirit to fall into, he didn't mean to make it this good. Although it was artificial, the aura Ryu was giving off right now was countless times more potent than even the sea of lightning they were standing within right now.

When a good thing became too good, the spirit wouldn't just naturally drift toward it, it would salivate and rush toward it. The former would be done gradually and the likelihood of waking up for a spirit was next to none. But if it was the latter, the result would be obvious.

'Now touch it, it shouldn't resist!'

Ryu acted quickly. He didn't really question the little woman, mostly because he had already had the intention of doing so and he had his own failsafes.

But to his surprise, the moment he did it was as though he was guzzling water into a funnel. The spirit disappeared instantly, appearing within his Realm Heart.

Soon, though, Ryu understood what was happening.

Lightning always followed through the path of least resistance. He had made his Spiritual Foundation so appetizing that rather than moving through his body, the instant he touched it, it had already shifted through the planes.

But that made him shudder as well. Even he, as a person with an extraordinarily high Spacetime Soul Nature, couldn't shift through the Planes. By his calculations, it would take until he was at least a Dao Lord before he could do that even with his talent.

And yet, the spirit had done so with such ease.

He understood he couldn't let it just float around. If he did so, then...

Ryu soon understood that he was worried for nothing. Gazing upon the spirit within his Realm Heart, hovering above his Spiritual Foundation, it was so utterly and completely... docile.

It didn't move, it didn't shift, it didn't even crackle with lightning or attempt to lash out. It was like it had been completely and utterly subdued.

Ryu's brows shot up, however he didn't have much time to consider how his Spiritual Foundation had done what it did, because the sea of lightning began to scream out of control.

That was when he understood. The little woman had said that the spirit picked this environment, that meant that the spirit wasn't the source of this lightning at all, it was actually something else, something even more unruly. Without the spirit as a conduit for the largest and most violent lightning strikes, the entire region would soon become hundreds of times more dangerous.

'... Dammit.'

Ryu began to carry out his retreat plan instantly. His body shifted and the glowing golden runes pulsed as he shot into the distance. He could feel his Focus Qi draining even faster now, but he didn't really have much of a choice. It was either this, or, well... die.

The pressure should have been diminishing the further out from the core he went, but instead the opposite was happening. Because there was no longer such a large, insatiable funnel, the realm was gradually intensifying instead of weakening.

As Ryu zipped by, his gaze narrowed as he sensed someone approaching. However, obscured by lightning, and not daring to release his Spiritual Sense, he couldn't see exactly who it was.

However, he was relatively calm. That was because if even his Void Spiritual Sense couldn't handle this environment, there was any other talent that he knew of that would be capable of it. From his estimation, only someone who both had an exceptional Lightning Soul Nature, and had a Spiritual Sense of at least the Dao Lord Realm, could endure it.

Of course, the odds of such a person being here wasn't exactly low. If there was any place such a person would come, it would be here. But Ryu had a feeling that this wasn't what he was facing.

"Who are you?"