This was already the second time in too short a span that Ryu felt that he would need to rely on someone else in order to advance his strength, and he didn't like it in the slightest. Though he seemed to have vented his frustration by leaving the Bowman Branch of the Armament Guild out to dry, it wasn't much of a surprise that Ryu wasn't very satisfied with this alone.
As far as he was concerned, the one that needed to be punished was Supreme Blacksmith Arcus, but this was, at most, a slight inconvenience to the Fragmented Sky God. The ones that would truly suffer in the rampage of the Ancestral Beasts were the weak and fragile. The Sky Gods would suffer in that many of their investments would be ruined and they would lose some wealth and prestige, but outside of that, there was nothing.
Plus, there was the fact that True Sky God Arcus had tried to kill him. Though it was passive initially, he had actually blocked Old Man Abe from coming to help him afterward. Of course, Ryu still came out completely unscathed, but that was, once again, not the point. If he punished people only based on what happened to him, then that would mean that the person who eventually killed him would get off scot-free, that wasn't the way he liked to do things.
Then there was one more matter to consider. Ryu remembered that feeling he got when Sarriel told him just how useless much of his treasures were in some places. What Ryu felt first when he heard this wasn't inferiority or even defiance, it was rather… excitement.
What was surprising though was that this excitement wasn't through the lens of battle and growing stronger, but it was rather through the lens of innovation and invention. Ryu was actually excited to see where his Herbology skills could go by entering such a world, a world where he could divert his attention from resurrecting extinct species and rather focus on creating new and intriguing forms of life.
To Ryu, this had been a greatly shocking thought for obvious reasons. In his first life, he had only learned Herbology, the Four Arts, Formation Theory, or any other endless number of things he had completely ignored in this second life of his because he didn't want to be seen as useless. He couldn't fight, so he strove to make an impact in other ways, in a way that could help his parents and repay their kindness to him.
It was quite funny. Ryu abhorred being tested by others. He didn't see them as worthy of his time or effort. Someone testing you always implied that they saw themselves as a superior authority, as though their opinion mattered in the grand scheme of all that was much more than yours did. It was the kind of feeling Ryu hated the most… And yet, it was exactly the kind of pressure he always put himself other when he sought ways to improve without being able to cultivate.
To Ryu, those kind of things were a cage. But, interestingly enough, wasn't he still trying to prove himself now? He was growing stronger not just for revenge, but also so that he could carry on the mantle of the Tatsuya in a way that would make his father and grandfather proud. He had just traded in one cage for another.
If things were framed in that way, maybe trying to 'escape' what he had done in his first life was the wrong approach to begin with. Or maybe, there was no escaping it to begin with. He had made it such a large part of himself that it couldn't be separated… Or maybe, it was just as simple as him being so jaded in his first life that he couldn't even see how much he was enjoying what he was doing.
When Ryu thought about it, if he had to choose a hobby, which one could possibly suit him better than Herbology? The idea of becoming the god of a patch of land, bending its nature to your whims and terraforming what the Heavens had formulated into your own image…
'Huh…? Terraforming what the Heavens had formulated into your own image…'
A breeze whistled by Ryu, making him feel as though he was walking on air.
Ailsa and Yaana, who had been watching him this entire time, couldn't help but be baffled. A breakthrough? Again?
Ailsa's gaze flickered with complicated emotions. Just how much was this? It didn't even seem to make sense anymore. It was as though Ryu was taking the world of cultivation and turning it into a joke, comprehending things that it took the greatest geniuses across countless epochs and eras trillions of years to accomplish and grasp once every few months it seemed.
While it wasn't a cultivation breakthrough, Ailsa could feel that Ryu's Dao had taken another large step forward. But, such an advancement in Dao, even without the slightest tick upward actual cultivation foundation, was still as good as causing a qualitative change in combat prowess. Simply put, Ryu had grown stronger again.
Ailsa sighed. 'Am I even useful anymore?'
Ryu's hair gently flowed in the wind.
With how firm his Dao was, he felt like he could cut through the Path Extinction Realm and step into the Dao Pedestal Realm with just a few days of meditation.
The Path Extinction Realm was difficult because most who entered it were still considered among the younger generation of the martial world. They had yet to form their Foundational Dao. As such, when asked to challenge and destroy the comprehension they had of their Inheritances, most couldn't withstand the backlash.
But, as things stood now, not only was Ryu's Dao incredible, it was no less firm than many World Sea Realm experts already. What was a challenge for others had suddenly become as easy as breathing to him.
However, there was something that held Ryu back from moving forward, something that told him it was in his best interest to stall his cultivation right here and now, something that told him not to take a single step forward in anything but his Dao.
Ryu would have never expected that his third and final use of <Intuition> would come like this.