Grand Ancestral Bloodlines
chapter-1828

1828 Ice Lily (1)

Ryu traveled the world with much greater speed now than what he had done in the past. He was no longer worried about finding exact locations of enemies and planning out his attack. Instead, he was trying to find something very particular.

He was focused on large gatherings of Faith and pieces of land that called to his affinities.

After his breakthrough, he was quite shocked to find that Spirit Bodies actually had multiple levels that they could reach.

In Sacrum, the Spirit Body was only known as either existing or not. He had never considered improving his Spirit Body, let alone what that would mean.

But he found that now that he had after his hyper-focused state on the Ice Element, his sensitivity to this element was likewise on another level.

In the past, his Spirit Body could really only do two things. The first was transform his body into the element. This was decent for movement speed and evasion. The second ability was the weakened healing factor that allowed him to heal himself through the absorption of enemies.

But now, things were different.

It was actually quite similar to what the Fiends were capable of. Now, the elements couldn't just come from his body, but the best way to describe it was that if he wanted, there would be no difference between elements outside of his body and inside. He could even expand his body with ease.

It had to be remembered that Little Nemesis' ancient Talent allowed him to maintain a small size. This Taboo Talent seemed to be foolish, until one understood that his power continued to scale regardless. Meaning, the stronger Nemesis became, the more exaggerated the value of this Talent became.

The reason this talent was so powerful was because there was an inevitable dilution of strength when a body increased in size. The only way to counter this was by applying far more energy in return.

That was what the Fiends could do by absorbing the elements in the surroundings, and it was likewise what Ryu could do. Not only could he do this with Idol Control, but he could do it now with his Spirit Body as well… but with even more flexibility.

Because not only could Ryu increase the size of his body, but he could also separate it into countless clones.

And now, he was using that very same sensitivity to the elements to find what he was looking for.

It didn't even take more than a few minutes to find what he needed.

Ryu bent down to get a good look at a delicate lily that seemed formed of ice. Blue veins ran through it, and the entire region around it had turned into an icy lake.

It was a gorgeous little flower, but more importantly than that, Ryu could see a great many things that weren't obvious.

For one, this small lily had a root system that passed through the ground for dozens of meters. This wasn't a large distance, especially at this cultivation realm, but for such a small flower, it was too peculiar.

Second, this region was decidedly colder than any other in the vicinity. In fact, the region just outside was actually a slight bit warmer than usual, which was also odd.

Third, this flower had an aura that seemed to surpass the True Sky God Realm, and yet didn't at the same time.

On the surface, it seemed to be like any other True Grade Spiritual Herb. But the closer Ryu observed, the more he felt that it was too… perfect for the True Grade. It felt like a Crown Herb, but somehow even more perfect than that.

A Crown Herb was, of course, a Herb just on the verge of evolving, allowing it to carry some of the benefits of a higher Grade Herb, but was also safe to consume for a lower Realm existence.

Of course, usually, absorbing an Herb that was too high of Grade could cause a weaker cultivator to implode. The only exception was a Crown Herb that gave the benefits of both.

However, Ryu had seen many Crown Herbs before and this wasn't one…

For one, a Crown Herb only existed for a short time as it was a state of evolution. You had to harvest it at the perfect time, but even after observing for several minutes, this ice lily showed no signs of changing.

Second… Ryu was still certain that the aura was slightly different.

'I see… What a coincidence…'

This state of perfection Ryu was sensing… it represented a theoretical limit, a level of attainment that embodied the absolute pinnacle of the True Sky God Realm.

Were the Dao Gods of the Real Plane fools? Was this really supposed to be a punishment for him?

He had just been thinking about perfecting his Realm and taking his time to solidify his foundation, and now he had found the perfect opportunity to do so.

'I get it. It's doubtful that they can see what I can see. This feeling of perfection I'm getting is from what I can observe from its Karmic Strings. However, this world might be on a higher tier than the True Martial World, but it's lacking in understanding of Karma and Faith…'

Ryu had realized this the moment he saw just how lowly ranked his Mysteries of Heaven and Earth Pupils were.

No matter how long it had been since his Pupils appeared in this world, there was no way it should be ranked as lowly as not even top 30.

This was proven with how quickly he had managed to enter the 20s in rank after just a single feat.

Granted, that feat was absolutely ridiculous and was related to helping to slaughter a Dao Sovereign as a True Sky God, but it was the truth nonetheless.

If Ryu was correct, the people of this world saw these Spiritual Herbs as incredibly valuable and consumed them to increase their affinities and comprehension of an element…

But they missed the forest for the trees.