Melody felt a charming smile curl her soft pink lips as she watched Ryu eat.
'He's so cold all of the time, but it's really too difficult to keep up that oppressive aura while eating so much food so quickly.'
Melody watched on like a mother treating her son to a meal. Of course, she had no idea that Ryu was actually a few times older than she was.
In his first life, Ryu didn't have a great appetite. In fact, most of his meals ended in one or two bites. The kinds of foods he had were extremely dense for a mortal body, so he didn't eat much.
However, in this life, he consumed food like a glutton. His strength had actually deteriorated after spending those six months in a Loom City cell. To his current self, his bodily strength could only be upheld by copious amounts of high-quality foods. Feeding four Ancestral Grade Bloodlines wasn't an easy feat.
The two of them sat a table meant for at least twelve, but a plate of food seemed to cover every inch.
"Where've you been for the past year?" Melody asked after a while.
She found that this young man wasn't actually terrible at socializing. Maybe if he was, he wouldn't have asked her to this place in the first place. Though his answers were usually tepid and emotionless, he had a knack for keeping the flow of the conversation going.
This made Melody quite curious. These were skills that had less to do with how much Ryu liked to talk, and more about his upbringing. Remembering that he was a prince from the Higher Mortal Plane, she felt that this made sense.
"Training, mostly." Ryu responded between bites of food. "It seems, though, that your speed of improvement is even quicker than mine."
Ryu and Ailsa realized that there was actually something about Melody's constitution that they missed. The build up of Karma didn't only encompass her two hundred years of life, but also Granny Miriam's more than two hundred years of life! It was no wonder her speed of improvement was so potent.
"I don't understand much of myself." Melody replied with a sigh. "It just seems that sometimes, especially when I meditate, my body cultivates all on its own. It's been slowly down in recent days, but this is already more strength than I ever thought I'd achieve in my lifetime. It's just…"
A sadness pervaded Melody's gaze as she absentmindedly pushed food around her plate with a fork.
Ryu placed down the meaty leg of a Fifth Order beast with a slight sigh.
"There's nothing that I can do to repay what I owe Granny Miriam, but I will do my very best to support you. This promise probably doesn't mean much to you now as you're already so much more powerful than I am, but I'll fulfill its weight one day."
Melody was stunned by the somber note of Ryu's voice. The cadence he spoke with was so deep and rich, the kind of voice filled with endless confidence.
It was much different from his usually emotionless words. That lack of feel almost made one forget how pleasing to the ears his voice truly was.
"You don't need to feel this sense of responsibility." Melody said after she collected her emotions. "It wasn't you who killed my sister. It should be me taking care of you, this is what I owe Big Sister Miriam…"
"Melody."
Ryu's voice changed once more, almost becoming forceful.
"Since I have decided that you are one of my people, I won't retract my words."
Melody was silenced once more, losing herself in the determination flashing in Ryu's beautiful silver eyes.
"Here."
With a sweep of his hand, Ryu passed forward numerous jades. However, what truly shocked Melody was that aside from a very small number that were green, the vast majority were actually blue!
Memory Jades, starting with white, increased in value to green and blue and finally violet. Beyond violet, there were red, black and crystalline Memory Jades, but when it came to storing techniques, only the first four were important.
A Violet Memory Jade could store an Origin Grade technique! The fact Ryu took out so many blue jades, which could store even Mystical Grade techniques, showed the value of these jades with just a glance.
"Most of these are actually Earth and Heaven Grade techniques. However, a friend of mine added insights that might help you cultivate easier, which was why they had to be transferred into blue jades."
The value of Memory Jades wasn't actually in their scarcity, but rather the difficulty in finding and mining them. Ryu had found Memory Jade ores in the depths of the Mortal Qi Small Realm, so he casually kept a few. As a Ruin Master, did there even exist a resource he didn't know how to collect?
Melody was shocked awake. Her slender neck whipped around nervously as she tried to cover the Jades from prying eyes.
"You have to be more careful!" She scolded, hurriedly pushing the jades back to Ryu.
"You don't have to worry, I already cast a simple mirror type Visualization. You can see outside, but they can't see or hear you. Of course, if someone in the Soul Birth Realm tries to take a look, this would be meaningless. But I doubt someone so powerful would be so bored."
Only after hearing this did Melody sigh a breath of relief before her gaze became complicated.
"Ryu… I can't accept this."
Ryu shook his head, grabbing Melody's retracting wrist and stacking the jades in her delicate palms.
"These mean little to me. In addition, they're only copies."
Ryu had no method of taking the Memory Jades in the Zu Palace out, so he could only copy them. This wasn't as easy as it sounded considering the complexities of such high-level techniques, but it was a walk in the park for Ryu who had the first ranked Heavenly Pupils.
"Take these and grow stronger." Ryu said lightly. "I hope that you'll one day achieve your dream."