Ryu panicked. This was the first time he didn’t seem to have absolute control over his qi and it was ironically because he was exerting too much control, so much so that he was on the verge of draining an entire Plane of its energy.
On the surface, this might seem benign to some. But in the martial world qi was as fundamental a part of an ecosystem as even oxygen was. Suddenly sapping it all away might not have drastic immediate effects as an equivalent loss of oxygen would, but over time, the result might even be worse.
Ryu’s skin glowed like it was a beacon. He had always been able to absorb qi through his skin, speeding up his cultivation speed far beyond most who could only absorb it through their mouths and noses, but this was ridiculous. It felt like the number of Qi Pores he had had increased a thousandfold.
Ryu could guess why. If his body had really had all those toxic impurities within it, then it only made sense that this would happen after they were all expelled. But the issue was that Ryu had no need for so much Mortal Qi.
Luckily, the surge listened to Ryu. It was forced to come toward him by his will, and it was also forcefully stopped by his will as well.
Ryu was about to breathe a sigh of relief when the wall of wind rose up.
‘Shit…’
BANG! BANG! BANG!
The forest threatened to fall completely flat. The grass was pressed down into a smooth road, the trees bowed so fiercely that many snapped from their foundations and roots, and the cries and shrieks of beasts filled the skies, only to be drowned out by the violent WHOOSH.
The likes of Ailsa, Yaana and Ryu were hardly affected by this wall of wind, standing amidst it as though nothing at all had happened. However, to the mortal creatures and beings, it was a devastating natural disaster.
Ryu frowned, reaching out his hands. His Wind Inheritance surged and began to exert pressure. Slowly, but surely, the harsh winds wailing across the Higher Mortal Plane came to a halt.
Unfortunately, he couldn’t stop it instantly, or else the result would have been just as devastating as the initial wall of wind to begin with. But, he still managed to slow the damage.
‘… It’s suddenly very obvious why Shrine Mountain doesn’t allow Immortals to come down here…’
Ryu had the strength of Dao Pedestal Realm experts. Actually, that was just the last time he checked. He had no idea what Realm his current strength was under and he didn’t dare exert himself here to find out.
To the people of the Mortal Planes, though, he might as well have been a god. With a single thought, he exerted control over the entire plane’s qi and then subsequently the entire plane’s wind. He wasn’t the type to feel pity for others, but when things were his fault to this extent, even he couldn’t help but feel a bit guilty. He could only hope that the damage wasn’t too severe and the casualties were at a minimum.
‘With how things are here, though, would there really be Ancestral Beasts? Maybe?’
Ryu had come here for the sake of his Grandpa Tor. By now, the old of the Tor Clan had already passed away and all that should be left were their descendants. He thought that he should, at the very least, help stop the Tor name from being wiped out completely. That was the least he owed a man who save his life.
But, with how fragile the Mortal Plane seemed, Ryu didn’t even know if it was possible to even open a spatial rift here without it ripping everything to shreds.
Ryu shook his head. He couldn’t think about anything else with his body in this state.
He realized that his senses were being managed by an uncontrollable faucet right now that could only turn all the way on or all the way off. In one moment, he couldn’t’ even sense Yaana and Ailsa who were right before him. In the next, he was grasping qi strands hundreds of thousands of miles away and controlling them to come toward him.
It was a shocking imbalance that Ryu hadn’t been ready for. The only explanation was that he had improved more now in one leap than he ever had before, so much so that even his own talent couldn’t immediately adjust for the changes. For Ryu, who had once leapt from the Qi Refinement Realm right to the Divine Vessel Realm, and even from the Divine Vessel Realm, right to the Immortal Ring Realm, this was a baffling conclusion to come to.
However, this time, Ryu knew that outside of his body, there was no leap. His Qi Realm and Mental Realm hadn’t experienced any changes.
Ryu could feel the changes, but this definitely wasn’t enough to describe it. There were only two potential explanations. It was either that this weird imbalance was being caused by the unsealing of Ryu’s Pupils, or it was because of these expelled impurities compounding whatever advancements he made.
Ryu leaned toward the second. He had a feeling that there was something extraordinary about the impurities he had just released. The toxicity wasn’t on a normal level at all, even to the point it felt like poison.
Just by expelling it, Ryu felt lighter, he could think faster, he could absorb more qi, he felt more flexible, he could even feel that his vitality and lifespan had skyrocketed beyond what he should have gained for the improvement in his body.
But, this was only the tip of the iceberg. The largest and greatest change were in Ryu’s Bloodlines.
One had to remember that Ryu’s Phoenix Blood was meant to give him 1000 jin of base strength. In comparison, his Qilin and Dragon Bloodlines provided him with 2000 jin of base strength. These numbers referred to what Ryu gained when he just began Body Realm cultivation and they all scaled up from there.
However, because Ryu’s body had to balance four Bloodlines at once, he lost a little of each. The result was each of his Phoenix Bloodlines giving him 800 jin of base strength and his Qilin and Dragon Bloodlines giving him 1700 jin each.
But now…