Ryu glided from tree to tree. The miraculous feeling of one's body feeling as light as a feather was so foreign to him that he almost laughed out loud. Was this what it meant to be a cultivator? How amazing.
While he trained his Martial Forms, he had avoided using his Heavenly Wind. He knew it would give him an unfair advantage in mastering certain Forms, so he banned it from himself all together. But, now that he had unleashed it to the best of his abilities, he felt so free.
The truth of the matter was that what limited Ryu's speed right now wasn't the Heavenly Wind. If it was up to the Wind, Ryu would already be as fast as a lower level Immortal Cultivator even at the Awakening realm. Unfortunately, it was Ryu's body that couldn't handle such speed. If he tried, he would disappear into a cloud of meat paste.
Still, this was plenty fast enough. Ryu doubted that any Pulse Opening realm expert could keep up with him now. Only a lower Qi Refinement realm expert who specialized in speed could.
As his cultivation increased, so would the limits of the Heavenly Wind. One day, he would supply it with enough energy to evolve from its Embryonic phase. When that day came, Ryu would truly become one with wind and would no longer be limited by his body.
Under normal conditions, it would take a healthy, pure bred stallion one year and a half to travel to the Opes Kingdom's territory. But, it took Ryu only two months.
Dressed in the pristine black fur of a mountain panther, Ryu looked quite sinister. He no longer cared to dye his hair, letting it flow in the wind. His frame had grown, matching the stature of the only man he truly saw as a father, Titus Tatsuya. In fact, he stood even taller that Cayden despite being almost three years younger. The frail Ryu no longer existed.
Still, his eyes remained closed. He wanted to get into the habit of doing so. Without his family's backing, exposing the secret of his pupils would be tantamount to death. Until he gained the cultivation necessary to hide it, it was best he continued to pretend to be blind.
However, this wasn't bad. Now that he had partially opened his Spiritual Entrance Pulse, his senses had become far more refined. Although he wouldn't gain true Spiritual Sense until he entered the Soul Birth realm, he still felt like he could see with his eyes closed. He suspected that this was an additional effect of the Origin Flame.
Ryu glided through Opes City unseen, his presence completely concealed by his black cloak. He had no idea where the exact location of the Natural Order Sect was, but what he did know was that it was definitely within range of the Kingdom it protected. Although Ryu could blindly search, he felt like it would be more efficient to steal a Memory Jade from Opes Palace.
The layout of Opes Palace wasn't too different from Tor Palace, but its atmosphere was far heavier. That said, Ryu thought this only because he didn't know the kind of strife his disappearance had caused. If the two Palace's had to be compared, Opes Palace could only be said to be slightly worse off only because they were facing the might of three Kingdoms at once while Ryu was an unknown commodity.
Although the Opes Kingdom had been given a lane to survival, they swallowed it like a bitter pill. Considering the King's mood as of late, even the plants and animals seemed to be walking on eggshells.
Slowly making his way through, checking every room, Ryu eventually made it to the Palace Library.
Ryu paused for a moment, breathing in the smell of endless rows of books. Much of his first life had been spent in such a place, and although this Palace Library paled in comparison, Ryu couldn't help but reminisce for a moment.
Unfortunately, the good atmosphere didn't last very long. Although Ryu had expected it, he was still disappointed to find no information on the Natural Order Sect. This made sense though, such important information wouldn't be left in a place Ministers could frequent at their leisure.
'If there's nothing here, it's likely that the King keeps it either with him, or in a secure place only he could enter. It wouldn't be much of a surprise if this Opes Kingdom had a Kings' Garden much like Tor Kingdom.'
By now, night had fallen. The cold winter wind whipped about as coarse snow fell from the skies. The dreary atmosphere and empty streets said everything about the state of this current Opes Kingdom. While its opponents were celebrating in excitement as the Plane's first Co-Coronation Games approached, they were treating this as a matter of life and death.
"Be firmer in your strikes." The booming voice of a man used to wielding power filled a snow covered garden. Before him, two young men stood in the barest of clothing, brandishing a spear and sword respectively. "Feel the will of your weapon, learn to fade into the environment around you. There is nothing more important in cultivation than the Natural Order!"
It was obvious to Ryu that this man of grand stature was King Opes. The two young men before him were none other than his sons. The spear wielder, First Prince Kalmin. The sword wielder, Second Prince Kwan.
The hopes of their Kingdom rested on the shoulders of these two, so it was no wonder that even deep into the night, their father trained them to the bone. Although the Coronation Games seemed to encourage the building of your own faction, often times, it was those with the strongest cultivation who won.
Unlike the Princes of their three rival Kingdoms, these brothers seemed to be close. It wasn't that Ryu could tell just by watching them for a few moments, but rather that they had to come together for the benefit of their Kingdom now. They weren't stupid. It was obvious that if they experienced infighting, their slim chance of victory would only grow further out of reach.
Ryu watched these scenes silently until the two boys, barely a few years older than him, collapsed. He couldn't help but absorb some of the King's constant propaganda about the Natural Order. Though, he found it odd that he would speak such words so freely despite it was for this very reason his Sect was destroyed.
A while later, the King carried his sons away. It was only then Ryu gained the ability to move freely about the garden.
'This is so odd. Why is this place almost identical to the garden attached to that man's study?' Of course, 'that man' Ryu referred to was King Tor.
Everything he could see matched up perfectly, even the oddly placed fountain in the far corner…