Grand Ancestral Bloodlines

Ryu retracted his palm and rotated his shoulder a bit. The only real drawback was clearly the backlash. If his body wasn't strong enough to handle the increase in strength, then he would obviously suffer for it, much like a mortal smashing a fist against a concrete wall.

However, Ryu wasn't too worried about this. If he was in a situation where he needed to make use of such strength, he would be beyond needing to worry about such minor injuries. In addition, he had many methods of reinforcing his body that he hadn't used just now, and even if he didn't, with his current healing factor, dealing with such a minor ache didn't even take a single second.

This 'Art', as it was called, wasn't even the only one he had in his arsenal either. There were Arts designed to increase technique strength for example, and such Arts would only place pressure on his Meridians. But since when did Ryu care about pressure to his Meridians? In fact, he often worried that there wasn't enough.

If Ryu used the [Art Mantra] on his Qi Realm techniques, or even his Mental Realm techniques, his battle strength would soar. Although he was limited to just 20% now with his current understanding and soul strength, such a boost was ridiculous, especially if he applied it to the right things.

And the best part was that the ask on his soul stamina felt even less than when he was using the [Unbalance Mantra]. If Ryu was already satisfied with the [Unbalance Mantra] being the reward for this trip, receiving the [Art Mantra] right afterward was more than just a cherry on top, it felt to him that his luck was truly great this time around.

The opportunities of the Convergence were excellent and he had only just appeared.

Ryu turned his gaze toward the formation jade. The jade was filled with formations capable of being applied in battle to bolster one's strength. It seemed that, ultimately, the people of this Sect were formation masters first and foremost, so this was definitely by far their strongest techniques.

Even if the [Unbalance Mantra] and the [Art Mantra] weren't applied, from what Ryu could see, just applying the formations as is would give one a great boost to their strength.

There were nine formations within the jade, however, each of the nine had variations that started from the Heaven Grade and increased to a grade that Ryu simply couldn't see through at all. There were three formations for offense, three formations for defense, and three enigmatic formations that were difficult to see through.

However, if Ryu was correct, if the [Unbalance Mantra] was applied, the lowest grade would display the strength of an Mystical Grade formation, and if the [Art Mantra] was applied on top of this, it would display the strength of an Ancestral Grade formation.

If he managed to fuse the two into one and apply the [Unbalance Art Mantra] to the formations, the weakest Heaven Grade formation would display a strength equivalent to a Fragmented Sky God!

Of course, these were just based on the standard of the Third Heaven. Ultimately, it would still be a Heaven Grade formation and thus designed to be used by Immortal Ring and Path Extinction Realm experts.

Still, this was a shocking realization, but it was also because of this that Ryu looked at the jade without any hurry to continue onward. He wasn't quite sure of how to proceed even after several moments of thought because there were no clues on how to fuse the two Mantras together.

Ryu had a feeling that the secret to proper fusion would have been hidden in the slave mark the person who set up this Ruin had tried to brand on him, and if that was true…

He would have to figure it out on his own, and he wasn't exactly sure how difficult that would be. In the worst case, it would probably require deducing a portion of the cultivation technique he didn't have any access to. That would be just shy of rebuilding this technique from the ground up in difficulty.

The trouble was that these techniques were so profound that it was far beyond Ryu's Dao to even begin to analyze them to such depth, and without full and complete comprehension of both halves, it would be foolish to even think of fusing them.

It was unfortunate, but it seemed that he wouldn't be able to bring out the full power of this technique, but he didn't regret his decision at all. If he had to choose between being branded like a slave again and dealing with an incomplete technique, he would choose the latter a hundred out of a hundred times.

'Not only will I fuse this technique one day, I'll make it even better than what it originally was.'

After this thought, Ryu flipped his palm and put the three jades away, looking over to find that Mae had woken up with a somewhat dazed look.

At first, she had woken up with a genuine smile she couldn't seem to wipe from her face, but then she remembered what happened. She blinked a few times, shook her head, and then seemed to notice that Ryu was looking at her.

After a moment of silence, Mae looked down to find that her breasts were exposed to the air, but she didn't immediately hide them. For one, that would just make her lose more face, and secondly, there wasn't much of a point anymore, was there?

She looked around at the plush pillows and covers around her before she scoffed. While that brute was fucking her he didn't think about this sort of comfort at all and they did it directly on the cold, hard, marbled floors. It seemed that he finally remembered that she was a lady.

Mae's gaze shifted toward the three podiums and frowned somewhat when she saw that the three jades were gone. From what she remembered, it was impossible to take all three at once, could someone else have been here?

Mae shook her head and stood to her feet, her nude body glistening with a rosy light. It was clear at a glance that she looked even healthier than before.

Ryu hadn't noticed it before, but her body was dotted with crimson-black scales here and there, it gave her a somewhat exotic look and made her exposed skin all the more alluring. Of course, that was if her wings and tail weren't already enough to accomplish that.

"You took my Primordial Yin?"

Mae opened her soft cherry lips to speak and these were the first words she uttered.