Sarriel coldly matched Ryu's gaze.
There was no doubt that asking about someone else's cultivation technique was rude and could be considered a taboo within the martial world. Ryu was aware of this, and, obviously, so was Sarriel. However, neither of them would get anywhere without compromises.
In truth, Ryu wanted to see the cultivation technique itself, but there was no way that Sarriel would allow that, so he could be considered to have taken a step back, albeit a small one. At the same time, considering what was at stake, Sarriel was forced to think about it.
While she was willing to waste another thousand years for nothing other than her pride, she also wasn't stupid. The ask wasn't large. The only problem was that Ryu had also said that this would be the beginning. What other things would he ask of her after she agreed to this? And, most importantly, she hated seeing that smug look on his face.
"… In this world the four pillars of a cultivator are the Spiritual Foundation, the Meridians, the Bone Structure and one's Bloodlines. However, there's a fifth one that's too often neglected—The Soul."
Ryu frowned. The soul was obviously deemed as important, but what Sarriel said was true. It was never really considered a Pillar. It also didn't help that Ryu's Tatsuya Clan had had such a large influence on it falling into obscurity.
However, now that Ryu thought about it, it was more odd than not that the Soul wasn't considered one of the Pillars of cultivation.
The Meridians and the Spiritual Foundation both accounted for Qi Realm cultivation. Bone Structure and Bloodlines both accounted for Body Realm cultivation. But… What of Mental Realm cultivation?
Ryu's pupils constricted.
The more obvious and widely accepted the flaw, the more difficult it was to pick up and see. The Four Pillars of cultivation were so widely accepted that no one wasted any time questioning them. But, there was such an obvious problem with them all. Ryu almost wanted to kick himself for not seeing it previously.
"The Soul and The Dao and the fifth and sixth Pillars of cultivation, each just as important as the first four, and it's often a weakness of cultivators. Most grasp their Dao too late to use it as a foundation of for their cultivation, while with the Soul, it spend much of its time idle until you reach the Immortal Ring Realm and can unleash its true potential.
"But, in wasting all that time idle, many make the mistake of believing that the soul has nothing else to offer when in reality, it's an indispensable part of having a powerful Dao.
"My cultivation technique homes in on all Six Pillars, but has a great focus on the Dao and the Soul as they are the ones that need the most support. Each stage of my cultivation technique is separated into Peaks and Valleys. During the Peaks, I am myself. During the Valleys, I lose my sense of self and conform to whatever personality type the technique deems fit for my future.
"These valleys are tribulations my soul undergoes, making it stronger and sturdier. Every time I come out, my soul undergoes a qualitative change and my Dao is reaffirmed, becoming stronger. The more tribulations I surpass, the more perfect my technique becomes and the faster my cultivation speed becomes as well.
"Enough?"
Ryu's brows remained furrowed. Such a cultivation technique seemed almost too magical. And, though Sarriel was purposely vague, Ryu could grasp one very important point from all of this: Her Qi Realm, Body Realm and Mental Realm cultivation were all handled by a single technique.
No… Maybe he had jumped to that conclusion too forcefully. That wasn't necessarily true. But, what was undeniable was the fact that the three so-called Realms of cultivation had become so blurred that they may as well have been one. And… That felt like the natural state they should have been in.
Ryu realized at that point that he was too ignorant of a lot of things. The complexity of this technique, even from such a vague explanation, was beyond anything he could wrap his mind around. Just the idea that a cultivation technique could help you speed up your cultivation speed was absolutely unheard of.
In Ryu's world, cultivation speed was entirely reliant on your own talent. How could a cultivation technique help with that? Sure, there were more efficient cultivation methods, and even better cultivation methods, but none that could exchange comprehension for speed.
Even the idea of having to comprehend a cultivation technique was baffling was Ryu. A cultivation technique was just a formula to follow, a pathway to guide energy down or a method to manipulate said energy under a unique set of circumstances, what was there to comprehend? It was either you could do it or you couldn't, there wasn't the normal gradient scale one should expect from something you had to comprehend.
That was when something else dawned on Ryu. If the difference was so large now, what about later down the line? Could it be for this reason that his <Intuition> had told him not to cultivate any further? He had guessed before that it might be because his cultivation technique was lacking, but he didn't think that it would be this exaggerated.
Ryu had thought it was because his approach to Qi Realm cultivation was too bland and simple. He had originally chosen his cultivation techniques to take advantage of the sturdiness of his meridians but his Chaotic Silk Meridians were obviously far more than just this now. What he hadn't expected was that it wouldn't just be his cultivation technique that was too bland and simple…
But every cultivation technique in the whole of Sacrum as well!
The gap was so enormous that Ryu had trouble even fathoming it. What else didn't he know? What else was he missing? What other mysteries were there?
And, even more poignantly, how did Sarriel know about all of this and was her goal really as simple as just taking advantage of the resources of the Chaos Plane? Something told Ryu that her scope was far larger.