Grand Ancestral Bloodlines
chapter-1886

Ryu's Realm Heart had gone through a lot of changes in its life, and everything seemed to deviate it further and further from what it was meant and designed to be.

When he first got it, it was used as a replacement for his dantian, and that much was fine enough. However, after he reaffirmed his connection with his Chaotic Silk Meridians, it was forced to undergo a different sort of change, being influenced now by both its own path and that of Ryu's.

As though that wasn't enough, Ryu then began to use it to store his true Spiritual Foundation, and that inevitably caused another series of changes.

After all, it had to be remembered that the Spiritual Foundation was the manifestation of one's Dao Heart. The form itself was less important than the soul it represented. That meant, in essence, Ryu's soul and the soul of the Realm Heart were suddenly occupying the same space, causing it to undergo even more changes.

But even that wasn't the end of it. That was because Ryu then used his Beyond Perfect Extreme Spiritual Foundation to copy and multiply his Cosmos Fog, enveloping his Realm Heart and effectively cutting it off from the Heavens.

This forced the Realm Heart to undergo yet another mutation.

It could be said that until this point, although Ryu had some inklings about what the path of the Realm Heart might be, it had changed so many times, and been forced to undergo so many mutations, that it was simply impossible to tell after a certain point.

That left Ryu a bit helpless, but what was the most frustrating was that he had missed out on what should have been one of the strongest abilities of the Realm Heart…

His own personal Natural Enlightenment.

Realm Hearts were the embryos meant to one day become worlds, and every world had its own unique quirks and tendencies. These tendencies would then take the form of Natural Enlightenments, but these Natural Enlightenments were far from the normal kind.

For example, Ryu's Shrine Mountain Natural Enlightenment could be considered to be the Natural Enlightenment of Sacrum. It was the very foundation of the world and there was no Natural Enlightenment stronger than it on that particular world.

This was why the Heavenly Knights had told him that if he could raise it to a certain level, perfectly controlling his Beyond Perfect Extreme Spiritual Foundation wouldn't just be a pipe dream.

Of course, Ryu was looking forward to what the Natural Enlightenment of his Realm Heart might be, but after so many years, nothing had come up, and even when he thought he had understood what it was, it slipped away out of his control and he was left right back at square one.

Still, Ryu had made peace with this matter because it was a tradeoff. He would rather rely on his own power, so he would choose his Spiritual Foundation over the Realm Heart ten out of ten times.

The issue was that after all these years, the Realm Heart had quite literally become a part of Ryu no less inseparable than his Spiritual Foundation. It could even be said that the Realm Heart was effectively Ryu's heart. There was a reason why his real heart had gone from what should have been one of the most vital parts of his body to a part that could be blown apart at will while Ryu still managed to keep his life.

All of this was to set the backdrop for just how shocking it was to Ryu that his Realm Heart suddenly moved.

The Realm Heart, for all intents and purposes, should have already lost much of its former instinct, having become nothing more than a vessel for Ryu's Beyond Perfect Extreme Spiritual Foundation to rest and proliferate.

But now… it seemed to want this world?

Ryu frowned, but in the end, he chuckled.

"Fine. Why not?"

The Realm Heart could be considered to have given him a great deal of help. Without it, that day in the pocket dimension, his road of cultivation would have likely come to an end.

He had taken a lot from it, cutting off its future and strangling its process. The irony was that in a lot of ways, he had done to the Realm Heart what the Martial Gods had once done to him.

The Ryu of the past couldn't even begin to see such a thing, and maybe he wouldn't care at all even if he did. After all, he never thought himself to be a saint and would even shrug at the thought that he was a hypocrite, because he was aware that he was.

But now, he might as well do something for the Realm Heart that had followed him for so long.

"Go on. Take it."

Ryu's Realm Heart thrummed, and the energy that was about to be diverted to his Inner World was taken by the Realm Heart instead.

Ryu watched with rapt attention, but to his surprise, the Realm Heart just seemed to be a bottomless hole. There were no changes, and as the Holy World's potential was swallowed up, there was absolutely nothing to show for it.

A chuckle left Ryu again and he shook his head. Even if that was the case, it was fine. He didn't believe that something that would benefit the Realm Heart wouldn't benefit him even if he couldn't see what it was immediately.

But then his heart shook.

'No way.'

Ryu's eyes opened wide.

The moment the last bits of the world were sucked away, an even greater surge of energy began to be pumped out. However, this one was so far and away superior to the energy that had come before that Ryu was left floored and speechless.

The energy rammed into his body, and yet despite the description, it was as gentle as a drizzle of rain.

Ryu realized what happened right then.

Did his Realm Heart just take a Perfect Grade world and turn it into a God Grade one?