Grand Ancestral Bloodlines

Ryu's eyes narrowed. He couldn't help but feel that Eska was on to something. He had never really thought about it before, but there seemed to be a semblance of propriety from the higher-ups.

The Fourth and Fifth Heavens only descended to the Third Heaven, but not to the First and Second. The Sixth Heaven didn't even participate in the Incomplete Heavenly Path, only descending to the Fourth and Fifth Heavens after it had completed. Then, the Seventh Heaven only descended to the Complete Heavenly Path, while the Eighth and Ninth Heavens did no such thing.

In fact... wasn't the only exception to that Starlight?

Originally, Ryu thought that this was because they couldn't be bothered to participate in the gatherings of small fry. But was that really the case?

This was the Convergence. It was essentially the Heavens supplementing the growth of countless geniuses, or what should have been. How many things had Ryu already found that could rival the resources of the Ninth Heaven?

He found not just one, but two Taboo Sect Inheritances. On top of that, he had gained a shocking Childe of Order Constitution, on top of the Heaven's perfect cultivation plan, tailored just for him.

That was just the tip of the iceberg too. How many world-ending treasures were floating in his Beyond Perfect Extreme Spiritual Foundation.

No, if he took yet another step back, wasn't it the culmination of Heavenly Favor from the Incomplete Heavenly Path that allowed his Beyond Perfect Extreme Spiritual Foundation to be released in the first place?

If he was analyzing a gathering of Faith, he couldn't just think about external items he had received, he also had to acknowledge the changes within himself as well.

His Spiritual Foundation... His Boundless Cosmos Bone Structure... The changes to his Bloodline... The unsealing of his eyes...

That wasn't all either, he had even gone to the True Nether Plane and basically stolen a large amount of their Faith as well. His Birthed Phenomena was probably a deity down on the First and Second Nether Planes. He even elevated his wife from a mere Fifth Heaven genius to a Direct Disciple of a Dao Goddess.

Then there was his Internal Matrix. He basically shattered the rules of the Heavens, and his current False Grade Dao was already the equivalent of a True Grade Dao, and that was accomplished within the Complete Heavenly Path.

When you compared Ryu's gains to everyone else, the gap was so enormous that they couldn't even be compared. He was like an oppressive star in the skies while everyone else was only a tiny solar flare.

But that went back to the original question...

Could it be that the reason higher Heavens geniuses didn't descend to take all the advantages for themselves was because they knew there was an issue with doing so?

However, how was this Ryu's fault, exactly? He wasn't a Ninth Heaven genius, and he certainly hadn't been at the start. He rose up from nothing, and now there would be a problem caused because he was too good at subverting exceptions?

A dense fog billowed out from Ryu, and when it enveloped him and Eska, his eyes shone bright as he looked into the skies.

His eyes landed on his Fate Star. It looked just the same... for the most part.

Its former brightness had dimmed considerably, but it wasn't dying like it had been in the past. Instead, this was just a consequence of the Fate that surrounded him weakening considerably after his chains had been undone.

The good news was that it was spinning normally.

He frowned. Were he and Eska just thinking too much? Or was there something else going on here?

He looked at it for a long while, trying to see something.

His pupils suddenly constricted.

His Fate Star was not much different from the sun in the sky in terms of how it acted. It had different shades of a gorgeous silver dotted across its surface. From time to time, a flare would erupt from its surface, lashing out at the world. It looked much more lively than it did in the past.

However, Ryu finally noticed that those solar flares weren't as one sided as they seemed. In fact, they seemed to lash out at the world for energy, absorbing something and incorporating it into itself.

This should have been a good thing, no? His Fate Star was strengthening itself. With all the Faith that he was gathering up, this was inevitable. Right...?

And yet, Ryu's reaction was incredibly fierce.

You couldn't just casually add or subtract from your Fate Star. It was the foundation of the luck you'd have in your life, and it illuminated your path forward. You couldn't just take Heavenly Favor from one origin and push it into another.

If Heavenly Favor was just Heavenly Favor, why was it that Ryu had to concoct a very precise kind of pill when practicing the [Refinement Sutra]? The pill had to be aligned with his talents or else it would never work properly.

Taking in Heavenly Favor you shouldn't was a lot like stuffing your face with random medicine after you got the sniffles.

The best way to break free of the limits of a Fate Star's limitations was by meeting those limitations in life and shaking free of them. This could be by cheating death or by meeting a bottleneck and finding a lucky opportunity to shake free of it.

This wasn't what was happening right now, though. There was so much Faith gathering around Ryu that it started leaking to his Fate Star, and now a whole host of Heavenly Favor that wasn't in line with his goals or path were seeping into him.

This would have never happened with his original Fate Star. Like with most things, Faith in this situation was flowing from areas of high concentration to low. It saw his Fate Star as an easy outlet.

'Shit,' Ryu's pupils trembled.

He suddenly remembered the Throne Challenge. Were all those flubbed rules really just the action of the Fading Star Sect?

"Where did Aika and the others go?" Ryu asked, a bad feeling swelling up in his chest.