[Bonus Chapter for 350 golden tickets]
Day after day, Ailsa worked on what remained of Ryu with everything she had.
Even though their intimacy had deepened, she could still only maintain her true form for an hour a day. In the end, this left her with very little time, and often, she wasted much of that period ensuring Ryu would survive long enough for her next hour to come.
These unfortunate circumstances led to Ryu's vitality ticking violently upward and downward in twenty-four hour increments.
Ailsa focused on finding all of the Body Realm Spiritual Herbs she could. If Ryu had no hope of experiencing Rebirth, his only chance was the overwhelming vitality of his four Ancestral Beast bloodlines.
Suddenly, it became a blessing that Ryu had chosen to complete his Ice Phoenix Bloodline first over his Lightning Qilin Bloodline. Had he chosen the latter… He wouldn't have stood a chance.
Though the rage in Ryu's heart seemed completely unwilling to settle down and allow his Ice Flame space to breathe, his Phoenix Bloodlines began to display their prowess. Under the perfect balance of the Ice Jade Crystal Body, not to mention this Bone Structure's own overwhelming healing capabilities, Ryu's body finally took a turn for the better.
Why was it that anyone who used [Phoenix Heavenly Body] without a Phoenix Bloodline died? It was precisely because this technique made use of the heaven defying recoverability of the Phoenix Bloodlines to create a godly Body Realm cultivation technique.
If one without this bloodline used this technique, they wouldn't be able to recover from the damage caused quickly enough to give them a path toward survival. As a result, [Phoenix Heavenly Body] was known for its overwhelming speed and efficiency, because only an individual with such a bloodline could survive such vast changes in their body's strength occurring in such a short period of time!
Others needed to slowly adapt, allowing their bones and muscles to incrementally increase their strength. However, Ryu could speed by this, relying on his healing factor to make up for any damage caused. How else could Ryu increase his body's strength so quickly without any worry?
However, what was truly scary about this truth was that when Ryu first began using this technique, he had yet to begin to strengthen his Phoenix Bloodlines! But now, he had raised both his Fire and Ice Phoenix Bloodlines to their maximum potential within the Pulse Tempering Realm!
Even this was still only one aspect.
If one thought that just because you had been born with these bloodlines that you would definitely awaken the Ice and Rebirth Flames, you would be sorely mistaken.
Why was it that Ryu had gone through so much trouble to find the Death Shrine? It was precisely because his Grandma Kukan's Ice Phoenix Clan was weakening because no one had awakened their Ice Flame in several generations!
This wasn't a problem only the Ice Phoenix Clan faced, but the Fire Dragon and Fire Phoenix Clans also had issues awaking their Innate Flames, albeit to a more minor extent.
So why was it that Ryu not only awakened one of these flames, but three so easily?
The answer was simple. The Origin Flame!
Ryu was completely unaware of this, but Ailsa was very certain of this deduction. The Origin Flame was the King of Flames. Its importance and strength were clearly exposed in its very title. If it couldn't elicit the awakening of flames an entire grade below it, would it still dare to call itself the King of Flames?
There were thirty-three flames of each grade… But there was only one Origin Grade Flame!
What was the significance of all of this?
Some beast bloodlines were special and wouldn't awaken their true strength until a particular Bloodline Talent was awakened. Should the particular Talent never awaken, their strength would be capped, sometimes only becoming capable of displaying the strength of a bloodline several grades below it.
Phoenix Bloodlines were one such example. They wouldn't be able to show their true strength until their Innate Flames were awakened! And Ryu had awakened them both!
What Ailsa sent Nemesis and Little Rock to find weren't herbs to increase Ryu's body strength, but rather herbs that could quickly replenish lost blood.
Ryu's life was hanging on by a string, but as long as his blood could be filled back to capacity, it was very possible that he would recover in just a few days!
If it wasn't for the fact Essence was a higher grade energy than Ryu could imagine, forcing him to severely injure himself in order to burn it all away, a mere deep cut across his torso wouldn't have been anywhere near enough to put him in such dire straits.
One had to understand the core of one's bloodlines weren't actually found in the normal blood stream. Blood was split into two major types in the case of Humans: Blood and Blood Essence.
Blood was what Ryu had lost. However, Blood Essence was where his true strength lied. Even if he was bled out completely, he would never lose his Ancestral Bloodlines as long as his Blood Essence remained intact.
Due to the importance of Blood Essence, it was given certain protections by the Heavens. No one could forcefully take another's Blood Essence without the consent of the person in question. This was regardless of whatever strength difference there was!
What Ailsa needed to do was stimulate Ryu's Blood Essence to make it produce more Blood!
It was on a day Ailsa was diligently following her plan that Ryu's body suddenly convulsed. In that moment, a blazing blue crystal flame erupted from his pores.
However, Ailsa didn't even get the chance to be shocked as an even more dazzling scene took place.
A gentle red-gold flame followed right the royal blue flame. They blazed together as one, melding into a beautiful violet color that coated Ryu's body. In an instant, Ryu's body began to recover at a visible rate!
**
"Where the hell is that bastard Amell?!"
If Ryu was here, he would be shocked. Reason being that the speaker of these harsh words was a young man he was very much familiar with… Tharon Basteel!
Once Ryu realized this, he would immediately deduce many things, maybe the most important of which was that his grandfather hadn't been accepted into just any ordinary Clan, but had actually been taken in as an Outer Elder of one of the five Core Clans of the Inner Ring!
This made sense. After all, the Tor Clan was born with the Iron Bone Structure and were rulers of the Heavenly Body Sect, it was logical that the Basteel Clan, known for their special earth bloodline that gave them strong bodies, would be interested in taking in such a talent.
Still, after understanding this, Ryu would be confused. As for why he would be confused, this much is obvious after thinking for just a small bit of time.
The Core Clans of the Inner Ring and the Core Region were already colluding with one another. This collusion led to the Core Clans being represented by Connecting Heaven Realm experts of the Core Region. After all, wasn't that the purpose of all of this from the very beginning?
The issue was that each Clan was only allocated three spots, but the Basteel Clan was already represented by Vygil and his two henchmen who were much older than the supposed five-hundred-year-old cut-off.
Clearly then, the question becomes obvious. Why would Amell be here if the three-person quota was already met? Why would Tharon be here?
Could it be that the Core Clans were actually cheating to this extent? Ignoring both the age rule and the participant cap rule as well?
Or could there be another reason…?