Grand Ancestral Bloodlines

The avalanche of insights made Ryu feel as though he was riding on a cloud. He was sure that if he hadn't fused his Inheritances with his Dao, allowing the former to progress smoothly along with the latter without much effort, he would have formed yet another right this moment, and this Natural Endowment might be even more powerful than his Shrine Mountain Natural Enlightenment.

What mattered most in cultivation wasn't that you knew something, but rather how you came to know of it. One conclusion of the exact same thing would be worth different weights to different people depending on how they had made their way to said conclusion.

Ryu had always known that beasts were more in tune with the Heavens, he had always known that they were more blessed and that their cultivation was often smooth sailing so long as they had the talent to continue forward. These were things that everyone knew.

But it wasn't until now that he understood what it truly meant.

This was why Ancestors couldn't just pass down their Dao insights to their juniors, it was the one pillar that couldn't be messed with, at least not by normal means. That you knew something didn't mean that you understood it. and even if you felt you understood it you might have come to understand it poorly or in a manner that was far too lacking compared to what its true grandeur deserved.

That path before Ryu seemed to have opened up wide and he knew what he had to do.

Somewhere within his Seven Corporeal Souls and the eight organs that made it up, there were the secrets of his Bloodlines. He now firmly believed that some combination of pathways in his veins and arteries, and certain links between these organs could represent that natural path of his Bloodlines.

For example, his Fire Dragon Bloodline didn't just represent wrath or rage, that was just a singular aspect, and maybe even a foundational aspect, but it wasn't the whole. In Ryu's understanding, the Fire Dragon represented Defiance of the Heavens, or maybe the will to battle against the Heavens.

The wording could change in countless ways and each might have a slightly different approach or produce a different result. The closer he got to the truth, the more strength he would be able to pull from his Fire Dragon Bloodline and the more powerful the talents would become.

If he took on Defiance of the Heavens as the foundation, it would incorporate some of the Aggression organ, but it could also incorporate some of the Desire organ as well. Defiance could mean several things in several languages, but it ultimately boiled down to "will to resist, the important part eing the word "will", which would definitely require the Desire organ.

f he took Battle Against the Heavens as the foundation of his Fire Dragon Bloodline instead, it would incorporate the Aggression organ as well, but the Desire organ would fit less. Such a path might incorporate more of the Joy and Pleasure organ, representing a love of battle, or it might incorporate more of the Fear and Melancholy organs, representing an unwillingness to do battle, but an understanding that it had to be done.

Just laying out these two paths that seemed to mean the same thing, but had completely different approaches compared to each other-not to mention within each other-made Ryu realize just how complex this could become.

The complexity would only become worse when one understood that Ryu didn't just need to come up with a path for each one of his Bloodlines individually, but then he would need to find a method to fuse them all into a single cohesive whole. Only then would he be able to pull out the truest strength of his body.

However, this didn't dismay Ryu. Instead, it made him grin ear to ear.

He might struggle bringing his Bloodlines to 100% efficiency, comparable to what Dao Gods could do, but with his mind now, would he be weaker than what a World Sea Realm expert could do? Given some time, he might even be better than what Fragmented God Beasts could accomplish with their Spiritual Roots.

If he wanted to use his Bloodlines one at a time, he could even accomplish that right now. He would need even more time to find a path to fuse them all together, though...

Or would he?

There was one piece to this puzzle that Ryu hadn't slid in yet, and it was a piece that was resting on his palm, prepared to be used whenever he so chose.

His grin widened.

Under normal circumstances, he would have to be very careful about what wording he chose or what way he selected even after choosing a wording However, that was only when he had to consider the binds of Fate that bound him.

If one could theoretically disregard those ties of Fate and the paths their predecessors had taken in the past, so long as they chose a road that their Bloodline was compatible with, one wouldn't be hindered at all.

For example, in such a situation, one could turn the Fire Dragon Bloodline from a more intricate and inwardly brooding Bloodline, to one that was purely rage filled. You could discard all the complexity and just focus on wrath, and the Bloodline would be perfectly fine with that. You could even make it even more simple and shed the pretext of emotion entirely and just focus on the power of the flames, and the Bloodline would still be alright with that.

Without the influence of previous karmic ties, one could follow any number of paths their Bloodline was suitable with.

And Ryu... just so happened to have a method of doing exactly that.

Time? He didn't need duration to figure out a optimal method of weaving a needle through all of his Bloodlines that would make all of his Ancestors happy.

His Boundless Cosmos Bone Structure thrummed and his Cosmos Fog pooled into his Blood.

"Take Form and Conquer the Heavens."

The world around Ryu shattered as his Bloodline Phenomena appeared once more.