Ryu stood, facing the sea of lightning. He felt his body brimming with power, but he found it quite incredulous at the same time. His senses told him that his Lightning Qilin blood was only about thirty percent satiated at this point, but he had already surpassed the fifty thousand jin mark by ten thousand! What would happen when he homed in on his other three bloodlines?!
Ryu sighed, beginning to understand more and more about just what Ailsa meant when she painted him as a lucky son of heaven. What right did he had to complain about his lackluster Mental Realm when everything else about him seemed so heaven defying?
'It's time.' Ryu didn't allow himself even an inch of hesitation, the moment he stood from his Seeking Wood tub of blood and Spiritual Roots, placing them within his spatial ring, he surged forward.
If one could see the peak of Flash Mountain, a place even its King Beasts avoided, you would see the nonsensical seen of a young man streaking naked into a rain of lightning, covered from his chest to feet in thick multi-colored blood.
Ailsa, who had wanted to stop Ryu, could only watch on with a helpless expression. She knew best that Ryu didn't allow her to speak for fear he would give in to her and turn back. And soon, it became clear why he would want to do exactly that…
Ryu had only taken a single step into the rain of lightning when his body was suddenly struck by a two-finger thick crackling line of yellow lightning.
His body was blasted into the ground. All the strength he had accumulated seemed completely useless in the face of this strike. It bore into his body, turning his porcelain skin into a bed of cracked burnt black.
Ryu felt his face tear, not because of the lightning, but because his cheek slammed into the tough obsidian rockface of Flash Mountain.
Memories suddenly flashed with Ryu's mind. His Grandpa Kunan's boisterous laughter filled his ears as he struggled to crawl forward. It was as though his old man, with fluttering dark blue hair and an outrageous beard, was standing right before him.
The Tribulation Shrine. It had one been controlled by the Kunan Clan, Ryu's maternal Clan. However, in Ryu's Grandpa Kunan's lifetime, it fell out of their control. Aside from the matters surrounding Mistress Holy Wing and his bastard daughter, this was Saint Kunan's greatest humiliation.
In truth, Ryu's grandfather tried more than once to gain the Shrine's acknowledgement. Ryu's body was never powerful enough to witness it personally. If he went anywhere near an unrestrained Shrine, his only path would have been death. But, despite his first life having only last a thousand year, a mere blink of an eye to experts on his parents and grandparents' level, Ryu had witnessed the aftermath of his grandfather's attempts more than a half dozen times.
This number seemed small. Seven or eight tries over the span of a thousand years from a certain point of view could seem like far too few. However, there was a reason many saw Ryu's grandfather as a mad man. To take on the trials of the Tribulation Shrine so often… It was practically seeking death.
Tribulation Lightning. It wasn't something cultivators had to face. Ryu only heard faint rumors and read obscure texts about Sky Gods having to face one in order to reach their level, but other than that, cultivators had little contact with this phenomenon. Yet, Ryu's grandfather weathered its rage, regardless of his accumulated injuries, time and time again, as though he was attempting to wash away some hidden humiliation.
Another strike of lightning collided with Ryu's back, splitting his back into a shower of blood that quickly cauterized by the savage lightning.
In truth, Ryu knew the reason his grandfather continually failed. Everyone assumed that the Tribulation Shrine was only about ferocious strikes of lightning, but if that was the case, it would be redundant. What reason would the Lightning Shrine have to exist if a greater Lightning Tribulation Shrine existed?
No, it was more than that. Though tribulation lightning was a part of it, it was only a part. The true reason Ryu's grandfather never cleared this Shrine's trial was due to his second humiliation. He constantly faced his inner heart demon, related to the daughter Mistress Holy Wing snatched from him.
Ryu had such a deep respect for his grandfather for precisely this reason. He was willing to face such vicious attacks of the heart so often. Even after billions of years, he was unwilling to give up. He was a true man, a man willing to face anything. Whenever Ryu thought about how his grandfather's laughter would be just as bright whenever he returned from another failure, his eyes brimmed with a reddened rage.
"HOLY WING CLAN!"
Ryu's roar was drowned out by continuous rumbling thunder, but the maddened glint in his eyes had returned. He forgot about his task. It was as though there was nothing more important than reaching Flash Mountain's true peak.
Ailsa watched on with a worried expression. Because she could exist between reality and imaginary, the lightning couldn't touch her, but every strike of lightning that hit Ryu felt like it was hitting her.
Still, watching Ryu's Mental Realm rapidly react, she knew that he wouldn't be willing to take a step back. This sort of cultivation speed, it could only be matched by someone prepared to take it to such drastic measures. With Ryu's Mental Realm talent, it would have taken decades to reach this level of growth. In the end, it would have resulted in him stalling at the Immortal Ring Realm. But now…
Ryu furiously formed his second Thunder Formation. Even under inhuman amounts of pain, the Origin Flame stayed true to its abilities. A perfect picture, without flaw, was projected from within it, giving the violent lightning no recourse but to listen to Ryu's demands.
At the same time, Ryu's Lightning Qilin blood boiled violently, as though enraged that such pitifully weak lightning was actually influencing it so much. As a result, though the lightning violently rampaged along Ryu's skin and shallow muscles, it became a docile child within his body. Thanks to his Kunan blood, Ryu's wounds, though painful, remained relatively superficial as he crawled toward the denser streaks of lightning.
He had entered such a devilish state of cultivation that he hardly realized when the third Thunder Formation of the first of ten stages formed. The three formations arranged themselves from smallest to largest, forming an inverted cone as they allowed the roots of the Immortal Sakura to stabilize them.
It was then that an abrupt change occurred. Ryu's Immortal Sakura shone brightly, finally accumulating enough strength to evolve to its next stage.