Grand Ancestral Bloodlines

Ryu felt the changes for a long time before adjusting himself and accepting what he was sensing as fact. Things were not always as good as they seemed, but at least in this context, it seemed as though it was more good than it was bad.

His Embryonic Qi had become a bit of a sore spot for him, and rightfully so.

Much like everything else, his Embryonic Qi had changed after he stepped into the Sky God Realm as well. It became akin to a raging river, whereas before it was just a trickle of milky-white droplets. And yet, it still took him using over a third of it before he could actually heal himself.

There were always trade-offs with power, he understood that. But this was too much.

A single drop of Embryonic Qi had been able to heal a Transcendent Sky God like Eska back to a full bill of health, and yet it took so much of it for him to move the needle for himself.

Granted, most of the injuries "Eska" had suffered back then had been taken on by Isemeine, but even so, it might have taken a second drop at worst for Ryu to fix them up even if that was the case.

It felt like he had been granted great power, before an anchor was strapped to his ankle just before he was tossed into the ocean.

But at the very least, he had gotten a portion of that back just now.

The White Phoenix had been greedily absorbing the Embryonic Qi all this time. Usually, a Life Spiritual Foundation like this one would take quite a number of years to grow, but this one had already zipped into maturity not long after Ryu awakened it and it was only getting stronger by the day.

Ryu didn't know why this creature needed so much Embryonic Qi, but given the fact that he needed a third of his reserves to heal his body now, he wasn't exactly in the position to ask questions. At the very least, the White Phoenix didn't suddenly drain him of everything he was worth in a single instant of time.

Now, it seemed that it was capable of manipulating the Embryonic Qi to a certain extent and Ryu could go back to using just a single drop to heal himself.... Sort of.

Instead of the burden being on the Embryonic Qi, it was now on the White Phoenix. It seemed to have done this easily, but from Ryu's estimations, it could probably only do this two or three dozen times before it went into a dormant state.

Even so, over 30 times was still better than just three times. That was an easy ten-fold increase and this White Phoenix finally seemed to do something other than just take from him.

It still didn't seem to have roused any other abilities, but Ryu was pleased with this for now. This change was a huge help to him. Being able to heal his body back to full health that many times would be a great bid for his survival.

Ryu stood to his feet again. There was really only one other thing to try. An idea popped into his head when he called the White Phoenix for the first time in such a long time... Somehow, it reminded him of his Birthed Phenomena, but different.

He punched out, using the White Phoenix as a guide.

After the Heavenly Path closed, every one of Ryu's motions had become in turn with the Heavens. After he forged his own Martial Art, every one of his attacks seemed to carry what could almost be called a hint of divinity within them.

Just a simple punch seemed to cause the world around him to pause, but at that moment, something different happened.

Dense white Runes crawled up his arm and his fist inexplicably accelerated out of his control. The illusion of perfection was broken and a rocketing punch caused the air to almost look as though it had imploded.

'An amplification?' Ryu thought this, but immediately shook his head. That wasn't what happened just now.

'It found the rules of my Martial Art and broke them? What a useless ability. The punch was more powerful, yes, but it was errant, hard to control, and it could even end up harming me. Plus, in service of doing that, it stripped me of my Childe of Order constitution, though Childe of Chaos seemed to have gained a small boost. Even so, it wasn't enough to offset the loss, not at all.'

Ryu frowned. He didn't like that feeling at all. If the ability of the White Bird was just to tear down everything he had created, it was really too useless.

He looked toward the White Bird silently flapping its wings. It looked almost like a real creature, solid and without the slightest hints of transparency. If it wasn't for the fact a beast of this caliber should be much larger than the less than three-meter wingspan this bird had, it could have truly looked like a creature of legend.

'Forget it. For now, this will just have to be enough.'

Ryu dismissed the White Bird and only now did he seem to realize just how tired he was. It had already been over a year and this was the longest time he had ever spent solely focused on his improvement.

He imagined that if he had spent this much time in a single sitting back before he was in the Sky God Realm, his progress would have sensed much greater. But this was just a bit of a reality check for him as well.

Progress in the Sky God Realm would take time, and that was something he simply didn't have.

'Once I wake up, I will break into the Middle Fragmented Sky God Realm.'

He collapsed into his bed and fell into a deep sleep, vaguely wondering where Eska had gone before he drifted off.