Grand Ancestral Bloodlines

Ryu thought that Ailsa might have just been saying things previously, maybe she was just joking around. But, with their minds practically being one, he was instantly able to throw this thought out. Not only was she serious, she was maybe the most serious Ryu had ever seen her be. In fact, she seemed to know that this was a fact. 

"… What's going on, Ailsa?"

Ailsa looked up toward Ryu. 

"After the seal on my soul was undone, I'm a lot more sensitive to things. What used to be just a few guesses to me seem far more obvious now to the point I feel stupid for not guessing them to be true long ago."

Ryu's brow furrowed. 

"I don't know about the details, but what I am certain of is that the process of your birth was most definitely tampered with. The result was your poor soul talent. And, as though that wasn't enough for them, they made certain that your Spiritual Foundation would be a False one. 

"As for what they did with your true soul talent and Spiritual Foundation, or how they managed to do these things without your family being aware... I am not certain, though I do have a guess for the latter."

"A guess?"

Ailsa nodded. "Whatever are the underpinnings of all of this, there is no doubt that whoever was responsible is not only adept at manipulating Fate, but there is no doubt that their Mental Realm exists on a level that's difficult for me to fathom."

"… So you mean to say the reason my family had no defense against this is because we banned Mental Realm cultivation…?"

Ailsa didn't respond immediately, but it was clear by the look in her eye that Ryu was more correct than not. But, this alone made things even more complicated than they already were. 

Where did the schemes stop and where did they begin? Was it really a coincidence that his family was left so vulnerable to such an attack? Or were the circumstances around that ban curated just like everything else seemed to be? 

And, beyond just that, why would they target him? Sure, he was a great talent, but given the timing of their attack, Ryu still wouldn't have had a chance to grow by the time they chose to act. By then, he would just be another dead genius not worth much of anything. 

Though there were a few million years between Ryu's death and the appearance of the Martial Gods, Ryu's progress in this life shouldn't be extrapolated to what he could have done in the last had he had all of his talent. Much of Ryu's progress in this life was reliant on fortuitous encounters, encounters he might never have had under the umbrella of the Tatsuya Clan. 

If Ryu gave himself a favorable evaluation, taking into account the near endless resources he would have at his fingertips, he would still probably be at the Cosmic Seed Realm at best. 

To put this into perspective, to reach that level in just a few million years, Ryu would be almost a hundred times faster than those who were his peers. But, that wouldn't be nearly enough because Ryu wouldn't have nearly to combat prowess he had now. 

It had to be remembered that Ryu's combat prowess wasn't rooted in his Bloodlines. Though his Heavenly Pupils played a key role, the greatest reason for his superiority in a given cultivation Realm was his Chaos Qi!

Chaos Qi was very opposite of Essence, but it was a form of energy just as high. Being able to use it freely was like Ryu having a constant fuel of Essence to unleash as he pleased. This made it so that the quality and strength of his qi was far beyond most he faced. Thanks to this, he was unmatched at the same cultivation Realm. 

This was the core reason for his being able to surmount so many cultivation levels to battle, even against an absolute genius like Sarriel. 

However, if Ryu hadn't been born into a second life, there was no way that he would have failed his first Severing. Without failure, he would have never learned the true nature of his meridians, nor would he have ever found a Realm Heart to accelerate his cultivation through the mortal Realms. 

This was all to say that as unlucky as Ryu seemed on the surface, he was still innately very lucky in many other ways. 

"It's impossible to tell exactly what the truth is, but there's good reason to believe that that is the case. If your family had such experts, I highly doubt that the plans of the Martial Gods would have gone so smoothly. In fact, it likely would have been the opposite. They would have faced terrible backlash as a result."

Ryu shook his head. He understood this, but it still didn't make sense. They really didn't have to go so far for him. 

Plus, in order to pull this off, it had to be done some time between his mother conceiving him and his Seventh Birthday. No, they would have definitely had to do it before he was born and before the Heavens could bestow him with his talent. 

Snatching Bloodlines, Bone Structures or Meridians away would have been a bit too difficult. The same went for his Pupils. They were tangible, real parts of him, steadily growing within his mother's womb and under her constant nurturing. 

However, his soul and Spiritual Foundation were different. They existed on a different plane and were far more susceptible to being tampered with. It wasn't outside the realm of possibility that his Spiritual Foundation could be snatched away, nor was it impossible for his soul to be tampered with on the Ethereal Plane. Regardless of which these two it was, the possibility was there. 

But for them to target him as a baby not even fully grown from a fetus… 

Why? What did they know that he didn't?