Grand Ancestral Bloodlines

Ryu's body brimmed with power, his qi around him growing more and more solid with each passing moment. If one cut open his body now, it would be possible to find Heavenly Patterns floating about his blood like raging torrents.

Unlike his Ice or Dark Phoenix Heavenly Patterns, the Emperor Heavenly Patterns that flowed through his veins now were almost like the delicate striations of golden feathers. If one didn't looked closely, it would seem as though these miniature feathers were swimming about in Ryu's body, boosting his strength greatly.

By the time Ryu had saturating his Vital Qi with Heavenly Patterns, his power had grown explosively. From a strength of 5.5 billion jin, Ryu's strength had ballooned to over 50 billion jin just as his grandmother had promised. The tenfold increase in strength was palpable and it only came from recultivating the complete [Phoenix Heavenly Body]. Even now, Ryu had yet to take a single step forward in his cultivation and yet his strength had risen so far.

Ryu was already originally far stronger than a Body Realm cultivator of his level thanks to his Bloodlines, but now it was even more exaggerated. And, though the Heavenly Patterns interacted with his Phoenix Bloodlines best, they weren't barred from fusing with his Dragon and Qilin Bloodlines as well, giving him a holistic boost to his power.

It could be said that the Ryu of now could crush the Ryu of just a few days ago without any effort whatsoever. And yet, Ryu had still not finished.

What remained for Ryu to do was to properly choose techniques for himself that matched up to his level. With his skill and the current level of his Heavenly Pupils, the months he had left was almost overkill to master these techniques even if Ryu closed his eyes and chose randomly.

However, Ryu wouldn't do such a thing. What he needed was a cohesive style.

Ryu had already dabbled in creating a style of combat for himself with his Necromancy. It was just unfortunate that this style had been too weak against Sarriel, forcing Ryu to do other things. It wasn't that the Necromancy techniques he had were useless, but rather that he had already outgrown his Skeleton Warriors—even the Higher level ones.

The trouble with coming up with a new style, though, was that Ryu felt he was too good at too many things. And, even when it came to things that he wasn't good at, he felt that he was just a few moments away from changing that truth. This might very well be a curse of being too talented.

At the same time, Ryu was aware of the pitfalls of stretching himself too thin. If he tried to learn too many things, even he couldn't guarantee reaching the pinnacle in all of them. Though he had yet to see them, it was impossible to conclude that the Mysteries of Heaven and Earth Pupils didn't have their own limits.

'What I am the very best at are Visualizations. This is especially so after my soul evolved into this odd state. My stamina feels endless and what I can do feels limitless. But, if I have to sustain [Immortal Sakura], [Divine Chaotic Annihilation] and [Elemental War God] all at once, even this version of my soul will quickly reach its limits.'

These three techniques were the life's work of three Sky Gods. It was no surprise that they'd take an obscene amount of stamina to sustain. Due to this, Ryu wasn't sure if it was a good idea to learn more Visualizations. Plus, one of his greatest assets was his Chaotic Qi. How could he possibly ignore it for the sake of building his combat prowess entirely on Visualizations?

Unfortunately, that just added another layer of complexity because Ryu's Chaos Qi wasn't just about it, it was almost about all the Primordial Chaos Qis it could become. That once again left Ryu with near infinite options he had to grapple with.

'Then take it one step at a time.

'For now, my Great Swordstaffs are too flawed to use in battle, they'll be more of a hindrance than anything else. So, this style will have to have some temporary portions within it, but not enough that I'll have to rebuild it from the ground up once I've fixed my Great Swordstaff Inheritance.

'In that case, I need to focus on close combat, my movement techniques and Elemental types techniques.'

Ryu had always been terrible at close combat but this was only because he never placed emphasis on it, choosing to take his time to master his Tatsuya Saintly Weapons. But now that there wasn't a quick fix with his Great Swordstaffs, he had no choice in the matter.

In addition to this, Ryu's Heavenly Pupils weren't just something bowman would kill to have. What was important for a close combat expert was a powerful body—which Ryu had—in addition to reaction speed and the ability to read an opponent. With his Heavenly Pupils and Bloodlines, Ryu was uniquely suited to close combat.

This opened a new door to him with a few possibilities.

There were fist techniques, palm techniques, leg techniques, claw techniques and finger techniques. There were many variations on these but Ryu believed that these were the main five tenants of close combat.

Ryu was probably uniquely suited to claw techniques for obvious reasons, but he also didn't really feel the need to box himself in. After all, there wouldn't be a claw technique stronger than his Dragon Claw to begin with so taking this route would not only limit his flexibility, but it would feel like settling.

'Start with a momentum building technique.'

Ailsa's voice drifted into Ryu's ears like a fragrant wind, causing his pupils to constrict. Somehow, she always managed to find the root of it all.

To a close combat expert a momentum building technique was invaluable. It was what allowed an expert to store energy over the course of battle and unleash it at a perfect moment.

Ryu immediately began to rifle through the momentum building techniques he had before stopping on one that called out to him.

[Reflective Counter].