Grand Ancestral Bloodlines

Ryu's mind was churning wildly, quickly making deductions and then tossing them away.

He, of course, didn't think that the Phoenix Sky God did this out of kindness, that was asinine. If he died or was ruined prematurely, how could he be of use to this God among Dao Gods?

Ryu didn't know why the Phoenix Sky God wanted him to have this Spiritual Foundation, but what was a fact was that he wouldn't have been able to form it in the first place if he didn't piece together the Phoenix Sky God's story, and he wouldn't have been able to piece the Phoenix Sky God's story without great comprehension skills, great comprehension skills he had in large part due to his Heavenly Pupils.

Ryu's baseline of comprehension ability was high, that was how he had managed to form a Founding Dao even with his eyes sealed. However, with his eyes, he was on another level entirely, one that put shame to the greatest minds to maybe ever exist.

And even he felt like he was pushed to his very brink just piecing together the Phoenix Sky God's story.

It had to be remembered that Ryu was fiendishly looking for anything that could allow him to cultivate during his first life. He left no stone unturned.

Obviously, then, the idea of inheriting a Spiritual Foundation had been the first thing he thought of and he spent an entire almost 1000 years researching these matters.

That amount of time to most high-level cultivators was a blink of an eye. But for it to take Ryu of all people that long, when he was specifically looking for it in the first place, went to show just the sheer level of difficulty.

But that was another layer of the mystery he didn't quite understand.

If the Phoenix Sky God wanted to use him, why make the hurdle so difficult...?

Unless that was part of the Phoenix Sky God's test to begin with?

Ryu rubbed his temples. It had been a very long time since he had run into such a difficult problem.

Not understanding something because lack of information was one thing, he could accept that. After all, he had easily decided that he needed a reference cultivation method for his Meridians.

But right now... he felt like he had all the information before him and was still somehow missing the forest for the trees.

"My Spiritual Foundation is my Dao Heart... but..."

Ryu's heart skipped a beat.

That was right, he had almost forgotten. He had spent so long with a Dao Heart at all, so much so that his body had adapted to a life with two Incorporeal Souls instead of three.

That was a huge discovery he had made in the True Nether World.

But had he been looking at it wrong this entire time?

The Phoenix Sky God had taken his soul. The Martial Gods had taken his Dao Heart...

Could it be that he had actually adapted all this time to life with just a single Incorporeal Soul?

But what did that mean?

"The Yin Spirit, the Yang Spirit, the Original Spirit..."

The Original Spirit represented was the root of intelligence. The Yin Spirit was the source of your life and what fueled you. The Yang Spirit was self-awareness and identity.

The first should be his Perfect Blackbody...

The third should be his Spiritual Foundation, or more accurately, the Dao Heart hidden within...

But the idea of losing any one of these sounded ridiculous.

"Unless the translations are off... but I cobbled together this understanding through countless scattered texts, it's impossible for me to pin it down to the origin language, not unless I find a new core source material..."

Ryu cast the thought away, working on a new theory. His mind continued to move through thought after thought until he continuously came back to a single one.

"... The Phoenix Sky God wants my Spiritual Foundation to destroy my Perfect Blackbody?"

The thought sent him reeling.

It wasn't that the Phoenix Sky God wanted him to destroy it, but rather that the Phoenix Sky God had primed his body, and practically personally sculpted him into a being that could withstand having his soul put through such a thing.

He had learned to live without his Yang and Original Spirit... so if they were a bit unruly or if they were even a bit crippled...

How would it affect him at all?

"Is that it? Is that the secret? The secret is that a pitfall for anyone else... is actually just another Tuesday for me?"

Understanding bloomed like a lotus in Ryu's mind.

The Beyond Perfect Extreme Spiritual Foundation was an insatiable existence. It was powerful, but it completely removed a cultivator's sense of self.

If he just thought about it... it was a Spiritual Foundation that didn't even allow you to form your own Dao, you had to rely on external treasures to forge your path, and while normal cultivation was usually about going against the Heavens, the Beyond Perfect Extreme Spiritual Foundation was the exact opposite.

It seemed exceptionally powerful, but ultimately once you reached the end of the path... you would be capped by whatever grace the Heavenly Treasures you used to unlock it allowed you.

This was the fate of someone who had been born with the Beyond Perfect Extreme Spiritual Foundation.

It was likely that you'd become more powerful than any Dao God of the True Martial World... but would you ever be able to break those limits and reach lofty existences like the Phoenix Sky God who stood beyond the Realms of reason? Beyond maybe even the Heavens themselves?

And would you even be able to reach that stage anyway? How much energy would you need? How difficult would it be to comprehend those Natural Treasures? Would you even be able to gather them up before your lifespan ran out unless you got as lucky as he had?

If you had a set of Chaotic Silk Meridians, you could break past one barrier... if you had his Heavenly Pupils you could break past another... if you happened to store it in a Realm Heart, you could break past another...

But eventually you would run headfirst into a bottleneck. Ultimately, the Spiritual Foundation would never be yours truly because any action it took on your behalf would be akin to stripping your cultivation path of its autonomy and placing you firmly on a track set by the Heavens...

A powerful path for certain, but in the eyes of the Phoenix Sky God, was it even worthwhile to experiment with such a thing?

They were looking for a way past their current limits, seeking a new peak beyond even the one they had laid their eyes on, wanting and striving for more.

But what if those limits didn't exist?

What if Ryu was capable of using his Dao Heart and Perfect Blackbody Soul as bridges to one another, without worry of corrupting or crippling because he had already long since learned to live without them?

"No... he hadn't just learned to live without them, that was inaccurate. His body had adapted, learning to fill in what weaknesses might be created should they falter on his own."

In that case, in the history of this enigmatic Spiritual Foundation...

Only he, Ryu Tatsuya, could bring out its full potential.

BOOM!

The burning shadow of a vast Spiritual Foundation formed in Ryu's chest.

What if his entire body was taken Beyond its Perfect Extreme?