Grand Ancestral Bloodlines

Ryu's actions had been extraordinarily subtle, so subtle, in fact, that most wouldn't have realized that he was looking for something, they would have only thought that he was following a map in his head.

After learning how to use his soul properly, many of the weaknesses Ryu had gained with the loss of his eyes could be made up with a combination of his Void Spiritual Sense and his Dao. Paired with the knowledge he had, even if he wasn't familiar with the history of this world, Ryu had a lot of skills that he could still easily apply.

And yet, Selheira had seen through him, so clearly, she was also a very skilled Ruin Master.

Truthfully, if it wasn't anyone else, this would have greatly put Ryu off. This wasn't because Selheira was hiding her skill. After all, they hardly knew each other, so why should she tell him everything she could do?

It was rather because of Ryu's run in with the Ruin Master Guild of Sacrum. He still remembered how they tried to interfere with his home and even tell him that he should obediently give it up for the greater good.

Ryu wasn't a fool. He knew by now that this Guild that had always been so mysterious in all his lifetimes had a connection with the True Martial World. That was the only way to make sense of a lot of this stuff, and it was quite easy to deduce.

Logically, it was also quite easy to deduce that this Ruin Master Guild wasn't a small, insignificant existence, especially since he had yet to hear of them on the First Heaven. But considering Selheira's mysterious origins, and now the fact that she was exposed to be a Ruin Master as well, the odds that she was connected to them seemed quite high.

The smart thing to do would probably be to cut Selheira off completely, but Ryu simply didn't feel like doing so. So, he didn't. It was as simple as that for him.

He was a man who wanted to wield power first and foremost for the selfish satisfaction it brought him. He had always wanted to reach the top of the world, even when he thought that his family had already claimed such a spot. His original aspiration wasn't something as noble as protecting his family or even as understandable as wanting to leave behind a legacy.

He was just arrogant. He was arrogant enough that the idea of anyone being above him was infuriating, so he wanted to make sure that by the time he reached the end of his life, no one could claim such a thing.

Ultimately, it was a selfish desire, a selfish desire to act as he pleased.

Since this was the root of his desire to begin with, he obviously wouldn't allow this desire to make him do something he didn't want to do. And since he didn't want to cut ties with Selheira, he wouldn't.

"Let's enter."

Selheira's brows raised.

That was all? He didn't ask any questions? He didn't even seem to care about the answers.

The more time she spent with Ryu, the more interesting she found him. She had met many arrogant young masters in her life, too many to count, and probably many with more license to be arrogant than Ryu himself. But, none of them actually were more arrogant than him.

Somehow, though, this arrogance wasn't as annoying.

Selheira had no doubt that this was likely because she hadn't done anything to piss Ryu off yet, but the idea of arrogance not being a complete turn off for her was new. It only made her more interested in Ryu.

Without much more thought, she followed in after Ryu, wanting to see how deep his Ruin Master skill and knowledge went.

The entrance to the Flowing Frost Ruin was quite large, so much so that one might be shocked that it managed to remain hidden at all.

The floors, walls and even the ceiling above were covered in a thick layer of crystal clear ice that even cultivators could easily slip and fall upon. And yet, neither Ryu nor Selheira seemed very bothered by it at all.

Despite knowing that the likes of Jeneless knew of the location of his Ruin, Ryu wasn't worried about them returning. They weren't fools, after such a terrible failure the first time, they wouldn't return again until they had some assurance of success.

Please, while the entrance was enormous, finding it was counterintuitively extremely difficult.

Ruins, especially ones formed by high level experts, wouldn't normally fit within the normal bounds of logic. That was just how things went.

Soon, Ryu's steps came to a pause.

At the end of the large cavern of ice there were three entrance ways, each one perfectly identical.

It was just the first test of the Ruin. Although others had come, everything reset to its infancy. This was the only way a cultivator could guarantee being able to test multiple people at once.

This was one of the simplest and most commonly used tests in a Ruin, it was called the Path Test. Depending on the path the dead cultivator that built this Ruin followed, a Path Test would be used to test a test taker's fluency.

While the test was simple, the content itself could be endlessly complicated depending on the standards of the Ruin Creator.

For example, this one. The paths looked identical but there were three subtly different Daos swirling about them. Despite this subtly, when taken to their extreme, these Daos would have drastically different power and strength outputs, making the choice incredibly important.

If Ryu had his eyes, seeing through this subtly would be as easy as breathing. After all, that was what his eyes were designed to do.

Ruin Masters without Heavenly Pupils, though, would have to use a Matrix to calculate things, the Matrix being none other than the greatest companion a Ruin Master could have.

Ryu, though, only had a Tenth Order Matrix from Sacrum. It was entirely useless here.