Ryu stared at it for a long time. Maybe he wasn't aware of what it was to begin with, but it grew on him almost immediately. The center of Existence itself, the land without a name because it couldn't be named, the greatest hub of cultivation to ever be created… The location of the highest peak Ryu sought after with all his being…
Deep within this endless pile of worlds was one that stood out from the rest and the singular most important location to the whole of the martial world, and the only place that might appropriately earn the capitalization of Martial World.
Ryu knew almost instantly that the location Sarriel had been speaking of all this time was this place and he knew that he didn't care to explore any other world but this one. Everything else was meaningless to him. He didn't care about low level worlds, middle level worlds or higher level worlds, he only cared about THE world.
The realization made his spine tingle and his hair stand on end. He almost couldn't control his grin, his chest rising and falling to a deep and steady rhythm.
The map Sarriel had of it was actually quite lacking. At best, it only marked some of the outskirts and its greatest powers, among which was the Hidden Blade Sect. However, it still captured Ryu's awe. Despite only such a small segment of it being outlined to begin with, it was impossibly large, so much so that just this segment alone was about three times as big as all six Planes of the Shrine World combined.
'This Hidden Blade Sect that Sarriel was so apprehensive about is only a middling power of the outskirts of this land, huh…'
Ryu's lip curled.
What fascinated Ryu the most about this was that Sarriel had said that the full power of this Sect could destroy Sacrum a hundred times over, probably assuming the Heavens not interfering, was that according to this information, the strongest experts of the Hidden Blade Sect were only in the Fragmented and False Sky God Realms, they didn't even have True Sky Gods.
This told Ryu one of a few a things.
The first possibility was that the cultivation system of Sacrum was inherently flawed, something that was very possible. The potential was there that their understanding of the Sky God Realm was too riddled with holes to properly label them, and as such, what they thought of as True Sky Gods weren't really True Sky Gods at all.
The second possibility was that becoming a Sky God in the Martial World was both worth more and much more difficult. In that case, lower ranked Realms bestowed more power despite their lower grades and as such, a Fragmented Sky God in the Martial World was more than enough to destroy even a True Sky God of Sacrum.
There was also the third possibility that it was a combination of these two things, something that Ryu believed was likely true. The fact that he had never heard of a cultivation method like Sarriel's spoke volumes. It was clear that they were on a completely different level.
In addition, what Ryu had experienced with Mortal Qi was another enormous watershed to his understanding. It was likely that this secret of Mortal Qi and what it represented was well known to the people at the core of Existence. And, as such, their Realms of cultivation were worth far more per a single step.
'I see…' Ryu nodded to himself.
Beyond these maps there was next a whole host of societal rules and norms that Ryu may very well not be used to.
The first was the most obvious, and that was related to Faith. Ryu couldn't expect civil and logical treatment just because of a public venue like he had in the past. There were simply certain things that those of lower standing had to be more careful of.
And that led to the second odd rule. Rogue cultivators were greatly looked down upon. Ryu had been a rogue cultivator practically the entirety of his second life and there were even many avenues in Sacrum to facilitate his loner mentality. But, in the Martial World, there didn't seem to be anything more important than Lineage and with the true use of Faith in action, there was even less turnover when it came to Clans and Sects.
As old as Clans and Sects were in Sacrum, lineages of several trillions of years was the norm in the Martial World. In fact, it was so common that lineages weren't counted in years any longer and rather counted in Epochs. An Epoch in the Martial World was a ten trillion year period.
Lineal. Dynasty. Sovereign. Dominion. Hegemony. Ancient. Founding.
Those families and Sects that had survived a single Epoch were known as Lineal Clans and Sects. Those that had survived ten were known as Dynastic Clans and Sects, a hundred and you could be known as Sovereign Clans and Sects, a thousand and you'd reach the Dominion Clan and Sect level, being separated into One Star, Two Star, and Three Star Dominions.
Beyond this, the jumps were even larger. It took a million Epochs to touch upon the Hegemonic Clan and Sect level, a billion to be known as Ancient Clans and Sect. And finally, at the greatest and untouchable echelons, there were Founding Clans and Sects sitting at a trillion Epochs.
Each of these two penultimate levels, Hegemonic and Ancient, were broken into One to Three Stars, while Founding Clans and Sects had no such division between them. According to a note left behind by Sarriel, this probably wasn't because there weren't divisions between them, but more likely because there was so little known about these Clans and Sects that it would be the pinnacle of arrogance to try and parse and categorize them.
'There doesn't seem to be a division of power between these existences like First to Eleventh Order Sects… But, I would assume that the longer a Clan or Sect could survive, the more powerful they would be.'
It was hard for even Ryu to wrap his head around just how long a Founding Clan or Sect would have existed for. In fact, Ryu didn't think Sacrum had history that extended back further than a Sovereign Clan or Sect, let alone a Dominion Clan or Sect or anything beyond.
In fact, that was just a guess on Ryu's part. It was hard to tell if they were even at the level of a Dynasty. And, that was their world as a whole. There most definitely wasn't any single Clan or Sect that had existed for that long.
'I wonder… Are there old monsters that could live for that long…? Could there be any Ancestors of a Founding Clan that had experienced their inception…? And just how powerful would such a person be?'
Ryu suddenly found it difficult to slow his heartbeat down again. He had usually been good at reining in control over himself, but right now, he couldn't seem to do it no matter how hard he tried.
These Clans and Sect… No, the Ancestors that backed and propped them, the disciples they touted as extraordinary geniuses, the leaders that had climbed upon a mountain of corpses of their peers to reach their positions…
He wanted to fight them all.
A bloodthirsty sort of aura radiated outward from Ryu, his blood boiling.
"Are you finished observing me yet? Or are the true experts of the Martial World only as good as this?"
Ryu's gaze glowed with a fierce light as his head slowly tilted up to a certain direction. The churning of his blood didn't seem to want to stop and this seemed like the absolutely perfect target. His canines lengthened and his hair lifted from his back ever so slightly, falling back down in a gentle wisp as the wind caressed it.
His Dragon Soul danced, his skin flickering with subtle scales before receding and reappearing again.
At that moment, a pair appeared in the skies, seemingly stepping out of the void. One had an oversized mechanical right arm while the other had the metallic nose of a bird's beak over their face and a monocle over a single eye.
They seemed part surprised that Ryu had actually found them and another part shocked that he would actually dare to say such words. What he said seemed to imply that he knew about the outside world, but if he did…
How could he still be so brazen?
In their minds, his apprehension should have been no different than Sarriel's. Only the ignorant should dare to say such things to them.
Ryu saw through their cultivations in a single look. Both were within the Path Extinction Realm. One was at Tier 3 and the other was at Tier 4. However, their foundations were firmer than anything Ryu had ever seen.
Ryu flipped his palm over, putting away the Red Jade and sliding two knives into his hands. His aura flourished and the roar of a Red Dragon seemed to rock his chest.
Leolar, the Stage Four Path Extinction Realm expert gaze sharpened.
"A Fragmented Dao?!"