Sarriel frowned. She still couldn't make sense of how Ryu had done this. The Chaos Qi was especially bad on real planets as well, making it all the more baffling.
The Chaos Plane was like the mirror image of the Real Plane. While on the Real Plane the volatile stores of qi could be found in the dimensions of space and soft, malleable qi was found on worlds, it was the opposite for the Chaos Plane. Ryu had essentially just dropped into a hotbed of volatile qi and shrugged it off as though nothing at all had happened. It was one part baffling and another part mildly infuriating.
Of course, another part of it was that this annoying man that had just been ogling her suddenly completely forgot her existence. He didn't even care that she didn't come down to the planet with him, nor did he ask why. He had already lost himself in his own world, entering a Meditation State without the slightest effort.
Sarriel truly believed her own Heavenly Pupils to be superior to all others. However, if there was one ability she wished she had that was in Ryu's possession, it was most definitely <Focus>. The ability to enter a State of Meditation whenever you wanted as a cultivator was absolutely invaluable to the point a price couldn't be placed on it. Yet he was so casually flaunting it in her face. It was annoying.
Even for a genius like Sarriel, she had only experienced three States of Meditation in her lifetime. Of course, if others heard this number, they would have been astonished to an unimaginable degree. One would usually be lucky to have one such opportunity in a lifetime. Even Old Man Abe was endlessly grateful just for that much and he had lived for billions of years. Yet, Sarriel, who had only lived for a few thousands, had already experienced three? And somehow, she still had the audacity to be jealous.
Ryu, though, wasn't thinking about any of this. He stood frozen before the tree, unmoving, his mind wandering to places unknown.
He really wanted to know how a land filled with Chaos Qi could allow life to flourish, he wouldn't wrap his head around it.
Ryu had realized something. He never felt the danger of Chaos Qi because there was no danger to be found in it. It had to be remembered that Chaos Qi was the equivalent of Essence, a high form of energy that was rare and couldn't be easily called upon. Only Ryu, and presumably others who had unlocked the secret of the Chaotic Silk Meridians, could use it so freely.
What did this mean? Well, it meant that what Sarriel was called 'Chaos Qi' wasn't exactly Chaos Qi. Rather, they were derivatives of Chaos Qi just like all qi within the Real Plane were derivatives of Essence. And, Ryu was intimately familiar with how dangerous derivatives of Chaos Qi were. After all, he had almost killed himself many times using Primordial Chaos Qi.
When Ryu was enlightened by this, he understood that everyone who came to this world simply called everything Chaos Qi, maybe not realizing that there was a true Chaos Qi at the end waiting for discovery. The question was… Was there another way to access it?
How did one earn Essence on the Real Plane? It was by comprehending Inheritances and being blessed by the Heavens for your accomplishments.
Ultimately, or so Ryu had always thought, cultivation was the pursuit of Order. This was how cultivators gave back to the world they took so much from. Everything in the universe tended toward Chaos and it was the presence of cultivators that could reverse this. This give and take relationship allowed the life of a universe to be prolonged. The stronger the cultivators, the higher levels they reached, the more a universe would gain in return.
This was the understanding Ryu had always had. But, Sarriel's introduction of the Sky God of Chaos Realm threw a wrench in Ryu's comprehension of cultivation as a whole. In fact, it was a massive upheaval.
In truth, Ryu didn't expect to unearth the truths behind this now. The Chaos Sky God Realm was the eighth of nine total Realms and likely wielded power beyond Ryu's imagination. He wouldn't be surprised if such an existence could wipe Sacrum from existence with a thought, let alone an action.
However, it was interesting food for thought and an answer he would likely need to find in order to complete his Dao and raise it to its ultimate levels.
If he was wrong about cultivation necessitating Order, then it was likely that life didn't necessitate Order either.
That was an even more fundamental assumption that Ryu had always made. How could life be bred from Chaos? It was hard to wrap your head around. In fact, the reason the universe tended toward Chaos now was because Order had to come first for life to come…
But maybe things weren't so simple…?
"This tree…"
Ryu mumbled under his breath after a while.
Its structure was unlike anything Ryu had ever seen before. But, this didn't seem to be because it was so special or out of the box. In fact, it was fascinating in how much of it was in line with biology Ryu was well aware of.
If Ryu had to describe a tree that was exactly the same as this one even down to the environment, with the only difference being that it had been raised in an environment with Ordered Qi instead of Chaos Qi… He would describe exactly this tree.
That was to say that there didn't seem to be anything special about this tree that set it aside from other Ordered species. If there was any difference at all, it would just be that as an Origin Grade Herbologist, Ryu had actually never heard of this species of Spiritual Herb.
"Wait, that's not right… This…"
Ryu's heart skipped a beat. This was absolutely game changing.