"The rare few never discovered, hm…" Ryu muttered to himself.
In truth, Ryu knew that one of the most important things to him in the coming future would be the legacies he had under his control. The good news was that there were many hidden legacies within his bloodline that he could slowly come to understand. However, the bad news was twofold.
Firstly, as a human attempting to comprehend a beast bloodline, the threshold he needed to cross was much higher. It was for this same reason the Little Rock, despite only have a wisp of Ancestral Roc blood, still exuded a fiercer aura than Ryu who had four complete Ancestral Bloodlines.
Secondly, even if he managed to communicate with these legacies, comprehending them was another matter entirely. If he had the comprehensions of his ancestors, it would be one thing. But, currently, Ryu was alone, which meant he would have to relearn everything by himself.
Of course, Ryu felt there was a small bit of hope in this matter for two reasons. According to Monalise's understanding of the Shrine Realm's current events, the Martial Plane was actually the original Shrine Plane, just renamed. Apparently, a large portion of the Plane had been sealed off by Ryu's mother, Himari. And the second light of hope was that Ryu had reincarnated with everything in his pupil's inner world, meaning he had his Clans' Four Emblems, used to access their Holy Lands, with him.
Maybe, when Ryu grew in strength enough, he could bypass his mother's seal and benefit from the Holy Lands of the Phoenix, Tatsuya and Kunan Clans.
This was all to say that the current Ryu, even if he didn't trust how useful this 'Ice Devil' might be to him, couldn't ignore the opportunity it presented. A cultivator's two foremost greatest strengths were their comprehension of the Natural Order and their actual cultivation. However, in close proximity at third place was the techniques and legacies they had available to them. To the current Ryu, an Ice Legacy would be greatly beneficial as the Awoken Moon Sect was too weak and couldn't provide to him anything better than an Earth Grade technique.
"So what do I have to do?" Ryu asked, looking up from his thoughts.
"What do you have to do? Nothing!" Melody said in exasperation. "I didn't come here to tell you about this so that you would participate, I came here because I knew I couldn't hide this news from you anyway. I wanted to be the first to tell you so that I could also tell you to not go!"
"Oh?"
Melody had never been so frustrated in her life. Was this the response of someone to another who clearly cared about their safety?
"Impossible." Ryu replied plainly. "I will participate."
Melody nearly pulled her hair out. She had displayed more emotion in the past few weeks of knowing Ryu than maybe she had in her whole life.
"You don't understand. This isn't a selection for those of your cultivation. Those your age aren't even qualified to pass a preliminary round as many of them are still Pulse Opening experts. The minimum cultivation you need is of at least the Higher Spiritual Severing Realm, and even that won't be good enough in the long run, especially when those of the Inner Ring and Core Region begin to participate. You're very talented, but it's too early for you!"
"It's not a problem, I'll just breakthrough to the Middle Qi Refinement Realm."
Melody's brow twitched. "What did you just say?!"
She lost her temper, involuntarily leaking some of her aura. The space around her quaked, not because her strength was so great, but because it seemed to have a great affinity for her.
'No… That's not space qi, it's something different… But what is it…?'
Ryu was more familiar with space qi than practically anyone. His adoptive big sister and Death Guard, Nuri, was half elemental sprite. Usually, elemental sprites were ranked below the top tier Faeries, but there were always exceptions to rules. In this case, Nuri was the exception. One of her parents had been from the exceptionally rare Inanis Faeries.
This race had deft control of space and the capability to manipulate it to their wills. If Ryu remembered correctly, Nuri once told him she had incredible difficulty cultivating when she was younger because of this. It seemed Inanis Faeries cultivated differently from others, or maybe all Faeries did. This was because, unlike humans, their qi affinity was the only qi they could cultivate.
Either way, Ryu knew that this fluctuation in qi definitely wasn't evidence of a rare space affinity.
"I said I would just breakthrough." Ryu replied as though he couldn't tell Melody had asked a rhetorical question only to point out the ridiculous nature of his words.
"Do you think cultivation breakthroughs just fall out of the sky?! If you rush it, you could cause irreparable harm to yourself!"
Ryu was slowly beginning to understand why it was Melody was acting like this. She had so suddenly gained all of Granny Miriam's care for him due to their shared Bone Structure, but her personality wasn't as gentle as her elder sister's. In the end, the clash resulted in this.
Still, Ryu wasn't joking. If he did nothing but cultivate, he estimated he could clear a cultivation stage every two to three weeks, at least within the Qi Refinement Realm, anyway. The only reason he hadn't was because he knew there was more to cultivation than just a higher Realm. Plus, he needed to focus on his weaknesses first.
But, now seemed as good a time as any. It would probably only take him a few days to breakthrough now since he had already accumulated so much momentum within the Lower Qi Refinement Realm.
"You'll be going with me, right? You seem to have entered the Peak Spiritual Severing Realm recently and you're not too old."
Too many emotions bombarded Melody at once. First, she was shocked that Ryu could see through her cultivation when even some of their elders couldn't. Second, she was enraged by the fact he simply ignored her words and acted as if he had already decided for her. And finally, she nearly passed out after he mentioned her age. Didn't he have a mother?! What did she teach him?!
Wherever she was, Himari was probably sighing in defeat while Elena was likely laughing out loud, happy to see someone suffer through a small percent of what she had to while courting Ryu.
Gritting her teeth, Melody felt resigned to her defeat.