Grand Ancestral Bloodlines

Ryu stood before a familiar altar, his arms crossed.

In truth, he was a bit confused.

On the one hand, the sacrifice that Elena made was noble, and considering her father's status, getting her hands on these cultivation methods was probably not beyond what he could accomplish.

But on the other...

It made little sense whatsoever.

He didn't mention it because he felt that it would be too cruel to Elena to have suffered so much, and yet for it to bear no fruit whatsoever. But logically speaking, the Martial Gods knew of him, they knew of his relationship with Elena. If they went so far as to seal him away when he was a mere baby in his mother's womb, why would they so gleefully place something like this on a silver platter?

There were a few reasons that Ryu could think of...

The first was that maybe they really didn't know about his and Elena's relationship. After all, from his understanding, it was Elena's mother who had acted on her own in an attempt to maneuver her way into a far higher position in the family.

Ryu found this explanation unacceptable because it required a level of incompetence that bored on the mentally ill. A family willing to go as far as to seal a child from a small world would never make such a stupid and obvious mistake.

The other reasons were much more reasonable.

Maybe he was wrong in assuming that they feared his Beyond Perfect Extreme Spiritual Foundation's combination with his Chaotic Silk Meridians. Maybe there was no special synergy between the two at all and he had been thinking too much. Maybe the real reason they sealed him was purely because of his overwhelming Fate Star, and now that his Fate Star was less than middling, they felt that he was nothing to fear any longer.

Ryu could find this explanation reasonable, especially with what he had learned about Great Circle Talents and how Clans and Sects at this upper echelon.

Even if there was some special synergy between his Meridians and original Spiritual Foundation, would it be able to supersede a synergy between all Six Pillars of Cultivation?

Maybe he had truly been looking in the wrong direction all this time and he had already lost what made him the most special.

And then there was the second possibility... And that was the fact that these cultivation methods had been modified. Now, they were likely riddled with pitfalls and traps just waiting for him to fall into.

Honestly speaking... Ryu was almost 100% certain that this second possibility was the reality.

There was a simple reason for that. Why seal his Spiritual Foundation and his Fate Star?

If his Fate Star was sealed, why worry about whether he could cultivate or not? Wouldn't he not make it far anyway?

And if his Spiritual Foundation was sealed, he wouldn't be able to cultivate anyway, so why bother sealing his Fate Star?

There were a myriad of reasons one could think of toward this end... but there was one nail in the coffin for Ryu.

If they were going as far as to seal two of his talents... why did they leave his eyes alone? As a mortal, could he even have made so much progress without his eyes? Why seal off two paths, and yet leave a third open?

The obvious answer seemed to be that those two paths were so far beyond the third that the third was neglected.

Would the Martial Gods care about the Seventh Ranked Heavenly Pupils?

And if they placed his Spiritual Foundation and Fate Star at much higher priority, how could they ever let him get his hands on such a thing without first modifying it so that he would never benefit?

Ryu waved a hand and the jade slapped into his fingers. It was extremely cool to the touch, and with the heat emitting from Ryu, this was more obvious now than ever before.

Then, he sunk his mind into it.

Soon, he pulled away.

'Interesting...'

Ryu's reaction wasn't what it should have been. This technique was one that he had always wanted, and now it was in his hands. But instead of enjoying it, his mind was racing with thoughts of what pitfalls there might be.

It seemed that he was correct. There was a shocking synergistic effect between the Beyond Perfect Extreme Spiritual Foundation and his own.

The trouble was that the method mentioned that this effect was the creation of Essence Silk Meridians... not Embryonic Qi Meridians like what Ryu had truly ended up with.

This was almost enough to break Ryu's foul mood, because it meant that the changes the Martial Gods had forced onto him resulted in changes they couldn't even fathom.

Obviously, the original Beyond Perfect Extreme Spiritual Foundation was meant to be in his dantian, not his heart. At the same time, it was also sharing a space with a Realm Heart that had its own unique Natural Enlightenment tied to it.

Clearly, a combination of these factors had ended up in the birth of a pair of Meridians the Martial Gods had absolutely no idea about.

However, the synergistic effects didn't end here.

According to this method, the true fearsomeness of the Beyond Perfect Extreme Spiritual Foundation was in what it could do to your second Spiritual Foundation.

Apparently, if the Beyond Perfect Extreme Spiritual Foundation was in Ryu's dantian, not only would it be able to apply the same effect on his second Spiritual Foundation, but it was also meant to be able to double the effect of his Chaotic Silk Meridians as well.

Essentially, it should have been capable of pushing his second Spiritual Foundation to its own Extreme. And then, if this method was used, he should have been able to create a third Spiritual Foundation that went Beyond Extreme. In addition, if he commandeered yet another Spiritual Foundation for him, he would be able to have two sets of Meridians and four Spiritual Foundations total... all at their Extreme.

Reading all of this, Ryu suddenly understood why the Martial Gods feared the combination of these talents so much.

What did four Spiritual Foundations even mean?

If your Beyond Perfect Extreme Spiritual Foundation was occupied by Natural Treasures, and your second had your Dao, then what would your third and fourth have?

Obviously, you could do what others could not, establishing a second and a third Dao for yourself!

If Ryu had followed the path he was meant to, with his Heavenly Pupils and his natural comprehension talent, wouldn't he have been able to form not just one, but three separate Founding Daos? Forming three separate Godhoods in a single body? Just what kind of strength would he be able to wield at that point?

Maybe... there was a potential third reason the Martial Gods had allowed him to have this technique... maybe they already knew it was no longer possible for the Beyond Perfect Extreme Spiritual Foundation to be Ryu's main Spiritual Foundation.

That was when something else struck Ryu.

That was right... at the moment, his Beyond Perfect Extreme Spiritual Foundation didn't have a Godhood, it was instead an amalgamation of Natural Treasures instead...

What if someone was born with it alone, but didn't have the Chaotic Silk Meridians that allowed one to assimilate a second Spiritual Foundation?

In that situation... wouldn't such a person be entirely reliant on outside sources they couldn't even manage or control? How could you even progress through the Sky God Realms in that situation? Would you be stuck at the Fragmented Sky God Realm for eternity?

Could it be that the Chaotic Silk and Essence Silk Meridians were the only ones in existence that could even begin to allow the Beyond Perfect Extreme Spiritual Foundation to reach its full potential?

Ryu could only sigh. In the past, he would have likely felt a raging tempest of fury. He might have formed a new set of Meridians the Martial Gods could have never fathomed, but look at what it had cost him.

Though... it was hard to say. If he could pick, would he give up three Daos and four Spiritual Foundations for an endless well of Embryonic Qi?

If he was honest... it was a closer call than he'd like to admit. So why fret so much about what he had lost?

There was another silver lining too. Now he didn't have to be tempted into using these methods completely. He could take what he needed from them and ignore the rest. From the very beginning, he only needed a reference. A book of insights would have been just as useful to him.

But there was something else that made Ryu stand there for a long while.

It was easy to forget, but his Fate Star and his Spiritual Foundation weren't the only things stolen from him...

He hadn't forgotten.

Originally, his soul was incredibly weak, stripped away and locked in the Death Shrine for reasons he still didn't understand.

However, he now had an inkling.

The truth was that this method in the palm of his hand now was sheer speculation, conclusions drawn by some of the best minds across the cultivation world. No talent with Ryu's particular synergy had ever appeared before, or else they would probably be ruling the world right now.

And due to that, there were certain extrapolations taken in these methods that wouldn't normally be there otherwise.

One such extrapolation was what it would take to be able to use both Essence and Chaotic Qi at once...

It detailed a Soul Quintessence with a Devouring character that would be capable of taking both in and creating the first qi to ever surpass them both, a qi to end all qis, one unmatched now and into forever...

And wasn't that precisely a description of his Perfect Blackbody Soul?