It took about another hour, but Ryu finally felt that his legs were okay to walk on. In that time, he had three more run-ins with beasts where he was forced to fight on his hands and palms.
Although he was annoyed, he had to say that it was an interesting and new sort of experience. But, aside from that, it didn't do much else to help his mood.
Ryu flipped through the air, landing on his feet. Before him, scattered a few meters apart, there were three stone bears and a stone viper. Well, there were four piles of ash, more accurately.
It seemed that Ryu had likely stumbled into the territory of the stone bears in all likelihood. He would have to leave soon before things got any more troublesome.
However, this experience has taught Ryu many interesting things. For one, these beasts were actually quite small. Even the largest of them was barely over three meters tall. It was as though they all had Nemesis' Adept Body Talent.
In Sacrum, beasts in the Immortal Ring level realms should have already been dozens of meters in size, or at least in the tens. But, this didn't seem to be true for the True Martial World.
Ryu wondered if that made Nemesis' Adept Body Talent useless, or if that just meant that beasts in this world took longer to grow larger. He was leaning more toward the second, but he wasn't willing to make a conclusion just yet, not until he understood more about this world.
Ryu dug through the piles of ash and pulled out what looked like four crystal balls filled with fog. He had purposely controlled his <Thirteen Soaring Azures> to avoid burning these to ash as well, as they were yet another difference between Sacrum and this world.
In the True Martial World, the Spiritual Root of beasts underwent a special sort of change where their blood could crystallize into Beast Cores. These Beast Cores were concentrations of a beast's talent and was also part of the reason beasts here were so much more powerful than beasts on Sacrum.
By cultivating these Beast Cores, beasts of the True Martial World had the ability to purify their blood and elevate beyond their current levels, thus giving them an easier path toward higher grades.
Of course, 'easier' was subjective. It was easier than it would be on Sacrum, but not easy, per se. It was still an arduous process.
'No Dao Runes… I was probably expecting too much from a bunch of Common Grade beasts. If they had Dao Runes, they would be far more difficult to kill than they ended up being.'
Beast Cores allowed beasts to also form Dao Runes. These Dao Runes would manifest in their Beast Cores and could speed up the process of cleansing their Bloodlines and returning to their origins. But, it really was expecting too much for Common Grade beasts to form a Dao Rune.
Much like Dao Charm techniques, Dao Runes were rare and also placed beasts who had them in a class all to their own. A beast with a Dao Rune could display prowess beyond realms of understanding of both their Bloodlines and their Realm of cultivation.
Likewise, Dao Runes also had added benefits for human cultivators.
While in Sacrum, Ryu used to soak in blood he gathered from the Spiritual Roots of beasts to strengthen his body, Dao Rune Beast Cores took it even a step further.
If you found one, you could use it to gain the Bloodline of the beast in question, it was a far easier method than anything Ryu had ever seen.
In addition to this, if you already had a compatible Bloodline, you could use the Dao Rune Beast Core to either strengthen your Bloodline, or, there was a small likelihood that you could fuse and mutate both Bloodlines into something entirely new.
Due to this, Ryu was quite certain that he would probably run into all sorts of Bloodlines and talents he had never even heard of on Sacrum.
Ryu wasn't very interested in evolving or strengthening his Bloodlines as he didn't even understand what he had now to the fullest extent. However, Beast Cores were a shortcut to undoing the shackles that Sacrum had placed on him, for sure, especially if they were used in pill concoction.
Ryu stored the four beast cores, only to realize that the space in his spatial rings had severely shrunk forcing everything into a cramped space.
His spatial rings had once had dozens of kilometers of space, but now it could only be counted in hundreds of meters.
It was a good thing that there had been so much empty space, otherwise Ryu had no way of telling how many things would have been destroyed.
Ryu shook his head, orienting himself.
He might have been lost, but he was an Origin Grade Ruin Master. If he wanted to find civilization, it wasn't difficult for him in the slightest.
Ryu shot forward, gliding through the foliage. His body flickered as he became a streak of lightning, buzzing through the forest like a bolt.
…
A day later, Ryu appeared at the edge of the forest, beaten and ragged, not to mention drenched in sweat. However, with a thought, Little Silk had formed him new clothing and his sweat had vanished.
Remembering his experience of the last day, he could only shake his head.
Up ahead, a small city stood. It felt a bit inappropriate to call it small since its walls were dozens of meters tall, but considering the scale and reference of Sarriel's notes, this was, indeed, a small city.
Ryu went up to the gate and paid the entrance fee, this time using Beast Cores. The Twin Phase Merchant Group had an easy conversion between middle world Qi Stones and their exchange, but Ryu doubted this city did. So, he chose the easier option and entered.
After this, he would have to take his time to allow his Qi Stones to perfect their fundamental runes before he could use them freely again. But first, Ryu needed to orient himself properly, then figure out his next plans.