Even though the pain Ryuk felt was unlike anything he had ever felt—something that most cultivators wouldn't even be able to endure for a few seconds before they were turned insane.
But within, everything was going in an orderly form.
On the first entrance, the Void energy meandered through various organs present in the body.
Their first point of contact being Ryuk's own veins.
But the second they touched the veins, a velvety silvery aura burst out from Ryuk's veins—none other than the Ice Apex Energy fiercely fighting back against the intruder.
Banished by the Ice Apex Energy, the Void energy swarmed forward with power, trying to forcefully erase the Ice Apex Energy.
But they were of no match, as the Ice Apex energy often tore them into nothing, blasting them backwards, the result sending some of Ryuk's other body parts corroding away, resulting in even more pain.
When the Void energy sensed the Ice Apex Energy refused to make way, it ignored it, instead inflating towards the remaining nannies coiled around Ryuk's body silently.
The nannies were unreactive and unresponsive, allowing the Void energy to meander around. It was like a wanderer walking through his new home and dismally looking through it.
Once the Void energy properly looked through the entire structure, it started gathering into an area.
An area which was none other than Ryuk's own brain.
In this place, the Void energy sensed something that was reactive, but not only was it reactive—it also wasn't banishing them away like Ryuk's Ice veins.
So in the end, the energy began flooding more and more into the brain, attaching itself to every strand and infiltrating it, and after they infiltrated about a few thousand neurons, they started taking control of the neurons, shifting them together and making them revolve around each other.
It started as a small rotation between two neurons, but soon it multiplied, as the Void energy took control of as many neurons as possible.
They all began syncing into the same formation—rotating and orbiting—until a small rotating vortex of neurons was formed in the brain.
Once the vortex of dark blueish shadow had been formed, the Void energy meandered through some other parts of Ryuk's own brain and began infiltrating, turning it pitch black. And slowly, a mutation began.
It was like dangling tendrils that began extending from Ryuk's own brain, latching onto the rotating neuron portal and fusing them in place with the brain itself.
The Void energy had created a rotating node of neurons, and then forcefully creating a brain mutation that wrapped around the neurons, holding them in place.
Once that was in place, the remaining Void energy just kept going into the rotating vortex, causing it to be denser and denser, turning larger and larger.
And suddenly, a notification flashed in front of Ryuk.
[Congratulations, The First Node, Cerebral Node, has been created!]
[Host has reached the Initial Origin Stage.]
[Host Must Continue to ENDURE.]
The system announced it, but Ryuk was long gone. The only thing he could barely see being the last emboldened word.
The Void energy, once it created the Node of the brain, kept trying to creare more brain mutations—but then it was suddenly blasted apart.
It tried once more only to be blasted away again, like how Ryuk's veins had banished it before.
It was like a signal that was sent to the brain that it has had enough, and after fighting hard to take some strands, it eventually got banished—and in the end, it could only leave the brain alone, with its formed Node standing at the centre of it.
It began meandering through Ryuk's body looking for another source, and quickly it found it.
It was none other than Ryuk's lungs.
Another one that seemed relaxed and also wasn't trying to refuse it.
Excitedly, the Void energy got to work.
As it appeared before Ryuk's lungs, it began amassing the sources.
From it, it began forming along new veins, covered in bluish dark energy, and began wiring them around Ryuk's entire body, placing it parallel to the Ice veins that were in Ryuk's body.
It used them as a model to form its own veins but was also meticulous not to touch the Ice veins in order to not get erased.
Quickly enough, a new set of mutated bluish dark veins had been created in Ryuk.
They were the same exact length as his Ice veins and moved through the same place.
[Congratulations, Void Veins have been created, allowing for effective use of Void Energy!]
[Host has reached the Mid Origin Stage.]
[Host Must Continue to Endure.]
Once the various veins had been created, the Void energy began meandering through the entirety of the veins, ensuring a connection and pulsing straight into the rotating vortex of neurons in Ryuk's brain.
It was then that the veins began automatically lighting up, with the Node in Ryuk's brain as its source. But then it soon noticed some of the veins, the ones at the lower end, were getting slower to get the Void energy.
And therefore, it meandered into Ryuk's own spine, where it quickly found another group of neurons and, willingly enough, the Void energy began gathering it in tissues, tying them together and placing them to rotate.
After enough flowing, it was able to generate a total of three new rotating nodes of neurons on Ryuk's spine—the same as those in his brain—and it quickly mutated some parts of the neurons to anchor the nodes into Ryuk's spine.
Once it was done with that, it connected them with Ryuk's own veins, awakening the lower part of Ryuk's Void veins and allowing it to light up just as quickly.
[Congratulations, Host has created the Three Spinal Veins!]
[Host has officially broken into the Initial Plane of Ascension!]
[Host Must Keep Enduring!]
With a total of three nodes created in the spine and one more node created in the brain, the Void energy moved into Ryuk's heart.
And quickly enough, it picked up neurons like before and quickly began forming a new node in the heart.
This time, it moved even faster with the node, creating a new twisted thread around it, and once it was done, it moved into Ryuk's knees and began creating new nodes once more.
After a long bit of time had passed and hard work had been done—
A total of nine nodes had been created around Ryuk's own body, all linked together and bringing the emerging foreign energy coming into Ryuk's mouth before distributing into the newly created Void veins.
The First Stage of the Technique has been officially completed.