Grand Ancestral Bloodlines

Ryu realized that he should have thought of this long ago. He wasn't doing a very good job of upholding his master's legacy, the Elemental War God Visualization wasn't even at the forefront of his mind in recent times. In fact, he mostly used the Outline Stage to make himself clothes, but even that came to a stop after he got Little Silk by his side.

Truthfully, it was quite disrespectful of Ryu to do things like this since he was the heir to his master. He should be doing a better job of upholding his master's legacy than he was.

Unfortunately, the Visualizations that he had mastered had greatly weakened. The Fundamental Runes they used were from Sacrum and were lacking in comparison to the Fundamental Runes of the True Martial World.

That said, improving them wasn't actually all that difficult, especially for Ryu. It only required rebuilding the Visualizations from the ground up using True Martial World Fundamental Runes instead. This wasn't too difficult, actually, since Fundamental Runes were exactly that… Fundamental. There were often perfectly analogous Fundament Runes to be found across all worlds.

The only reason Ryu hadn't done this was because it required time and he found Soul Techniques to be far more fascinating.

However, the Visualizations of Sacrum surprisingly held up quite well. In fact, so long as Ryu diligently swapped the Runes, the power they would be able to display was not small. At their peak, they should be able to match True Sky Gods and maybe even Perfect Sky Gods.

Of course, it would likewise be difficult for Ryu to re-imagine them to this level. Once again, it would take time.

That said, Ryu's Master's Visualization was a bit special to begin with.

It had to be remembered that the Elemental War God Visualization was divided into five stages: The Staff Stage, the Outline Stage, the Skeleton Stage, the Vein Stage and the final Wheel Stage that Ryu had still not quite grasped out used before.

The Staff stage allows one to summon an Elemental Staff, however Ryu had instead chosen a grimoire as it fit his style of battle much better.

This stage allowed one to tap into pure Elemental energy a lot like a Faerie. You can also snatch the Inheritances of other races using it, or copying that of other races, more accurately.

In the second Outline Stage, it allowed you to apply a thin layer of skin onto your body. You could even use it to form Elemental Armor and as a foundation to form a domain on the Monarch level.

The third stage, the Skeleton Stage, allows you to make changes to your body, even allowing the formation of Spirit Bodies.

The third stage was the original reason why Ryu had insisted on taking Balaur as his master. Because he already had a Spirit Body, he could finally perfect the third stage of [Elemental War God] and form his Soul into a Spirit Body as well. As a result of this, he was able to break the shackles of his poor talent and it had even allowed him to form an Indestructible Soul in the end.

If not for his master's Elemental War God Visualization, Ryu would have still been stuck with poor soul talent and he might have even died when his Perfect Blackbody Soul fused with him. This was because during the process of fusion, his soul had actually shattered! Without the resilience of an Indestructible Soul to maintain his consciousness, he could have died that day.

It could be said that Ryu was only standing here thanks to his Master passing this technique onto him…

Right now, however, it would be the fourth stage that fixed everything for Ryu… The fourth stage was his key to reforming the foundation of his body!

As his master had described all those years ago, the Vein Stage was something that he managed to create near the end of his life. Originally, the Wheel Stage had been the final step, but when he had a sudden moment of enlightenment, this stage became the new fourth stage and the Wheel Stage was pushed to become the fifth.

The Vein Stage was the result of his master's research into various Elemental Races. It fuses with the Outline Stage and allows one who had comprehended the Elemental War God Visualization to etch their own Meridian pathways!

The main design of this stage was to allow someone of the human race without special bloodlines to gain the special pathways usually reserved for very specific and even high class races!

In the past, Ryu hadn't really cared much about this stage. Not only was the third stage the most important to him, but it had to be remembered that he had four Supreme Bloodlines rushing through his veins. He already had the patterns of the Dragon, the Phoenix and the Qilin, he really didn't need to mind thinking about what other races he wanted to emulate, it was a waste of time for him.

He had only briefly considered maybe copying something from a high level race with wind affinity so that he could maximize his Northern and Southern Heavenly Winds, but if he wanted to do this, he would have to first catch such a mighty beast and then dissect them.

In fact, because each body had slight variations between them, he would have to catch numerous such beasts just to parse apart which meridian pathways did what, and only then would he be able to decide exactly what he needed to copy to have his desired effects.

His master had copied quite a few of these for him already while he was researching for this technique, but obviously by now, what was recorded was stored away in his eye's Inner World and he could access it even if he wanted to.

However… Ryu didn't need to do any of this to accomplish his goal! He already knew the exact pattern he needed because it was already within his own body! He just needed to copy it!

The technique was originally designed to copy Meridians, but one had to remember that the bodies of beasts weren't like that of humans to begin with. Beasts had "Meridians", yes. But they weren't a separate entity from their veins and bodies like with humans.

Beasts had Spiritual Roots, an organ that was almost like a second stomach in their gut. From this Spiritual Root, their "Meridians" branched out.

The reason Ryu's Master used his technique on Meridians specifically was because he was a Mental Realm Master, it would have been a waste if he used it on his veins and arteries. After all, he didn't have the Vital Qi necessary.

However, for Ryu, he could once again perfect his Master's fourth stage just like he had the third!

Etching new Meridians was by far more difficult than etching out new pathways for veins through which Vital Qi flowed.

If Ryu wanted to etch new Meridian Pathways for him, he would have an extraordinarily tall mountain to climb, his Meridians were simply too extraordinary to begin with.

As such, his Master's Vein Stage actually had three separate stages within it: Rudimentary, Average and Perfect.

Rudimentary reconstructed Meridians would appear no different from Common Grade Meridians regardless of what your true Meridian Grade was. Average reconstructed Meridians would be somewhere between your original Grade and the Common Grade. Finally, Perfect reconstructed Meridians would be truly your own.

The higher you wanted to climb, the more resources you would need. For example, if Ryu wanted Perfect reconstruction, he would need to pour a large amount of Ancestral Grade Elemental Essence into his body. In fact, it might even need to be Origin Grade with how his Meridians were currently evolving.

However, this was only the hurdle one would face if you had to reconstruct Meridians. Reconstructing veins and arteries was so laughably easy in comparison that Ryu almost laughed to the skies.

Ryu's Master needed the extra step because his Body Realm cultivation was weak, as such most of his research was spent on finding a way to convert the changes to his Meridians. However, not only was Ry's Body Realm cultivation talent extraordinary, what he needed right now was precisely a change to his veins and arteries!

By now, what Ryu wanted to do should be very obvious.

He would use the Vein Stage his Master had created to form new circulation pathways in his veins. This new circulation pattern would be precisely the exact same pathway that could be found in every human, a pathway that would allow him to call down and absorb Heavenly Favor!

Like this, Ryu would be able to circulate his blood and Vital Qi along this path, allowing him to use [Refinement Sutra] to recultivate his Body Realm just like he had his Qi Realm!

The only difficulty lay in making sure that this newly created circulation pathway didn't interfere with the pathways he already had. If he ruined them, he would lose access to many of his Bloodline Talents and the exchange wouldn't be worth it.

Lucky, his Master's Vein Stage came with the calculation methods to maneuver around these complex systems. And for Ryu, who was a Ruin Master very much used to using such elaborate calculation methods, this step was probably even easier for him than the already extraordinarily simple etching method!

By this point, the only thing Ryu needed to consider wasn't whether he would succeed or not. In his mind, that was already set in stone.

What he needed to decide was whether he would continue down the path of pills to re-cultivate his body… Or if he would try something else.

After all, he had changed the name from [Pill Refinement Sutra] to [Refinement Sutra] for a reason.

And he felt that he had already made his choice. The pill was an absolutely perfect stand-in for the Qi Realm. Although there were many body refinement pills, the number for qi refinement was easily thousands of times more.

Likewise, Ryu felt that Blacksmithing was the perfect stand-in for the body.

And while he was at it, he felt that Formation Mastery was the perfect stand-in for the soul... Maybe the [Swallowing Darkness Mantra] was never the path he was meant to rely on in the beginning.

As for the problem of the circulation method, it was even easier to fix for the soul than it was for his body.

Ryu's Dao was simply too perfect for this. This felt like the path he was always meant to take, the one that had been waiting for him all this time, and also the perfect method to fuse all of his talents into one cohesive whole.

The [Refinement Sutra], maybe the simplest and most ubiquitous cultivation technique in all of existence, would become the foundation of Ryu's rise to the peak.