Ryu had spent most of the last several decades of his life in an idle. Most of the ti in the blackhole's range was spent repeating the sa monotonous task again, and again, and again. As such, especially with the strength of his mind, he had a lot of ti to think about other things.
In one of his many streams of thought, he thought about how important the Soul Quintessence was to Sacrum. It was a legendary Realm, one that even Sky Gods could reach. And he couldn't help but wonder...
Just how much of that was due to Sacrum's weakness, and how much of it was a hidden truth that lay right before his eyes? What was it about Sacrum that made the Soul Quintessence Realm different?
If he thought back, Sacrum didn't have concepts for the Sky God Realm, at least not in the general sense.
Back in Sacrum, "failing" to beco a Sky God represented the Fragnted Sky God Realm, and only if your Dao was strong enough could you beco a True Sky God. Most True Sky Gods didn't beco False Sky Gods first, they instead leapt direction to the True Sky God Realm.
How the system worked wasn't entirely important to Ryu. What was important was the fact that Sacrum's Sky God Realm system was completely different, so why didn't it work the sa for the ntal Realm?
Although there were so slight differences, the emphasis on Soul Quintessence was still the sa. And that made Ryu quite curious.
Why was that? What was he missing?
He didn't exactly need to figure all of these things out for himself, so he asked the one person he could at the ti: the little woman.
He didn't receive the response he wanted out of it. And how could he? The little woman didn't have any familiarity with Sacrum, so she wouldn't know. To her, the Soul Quintessence Realm was the Soul Quintessence Realm, separated into Nine States of Quintessence, each one the equivalent of Sky God Realms from Fragnted to Origin.
Much the sa way, following a similar sche, the Body Realm beca Enlightened Body Realms.
Until this point, the Body Realms were as simple as they ca. There was no comprehension needed, just pain.
Despite the change in na, nothing about this changed. Instead, the Body Realms chased such a depth of simplicity that with would beco complexity. It was a Realm where every movent of the body would cause the Heavens to move and tremble along with your intentions.
If one heard this, it would sound a lot like the Golden Runes around Ryu, or rather, Golden Runes that were inconspicuously missing.
Since he had entered Sacrum, these golden runes hadn't been ntioned a single ti because they simply weren't around him any longer.
In these years, Ryu had co to understand another limitation of his rewards. The room of white had taught him how to enter the state of oneness with the Heavens, but it hadn't taught him how to maintain it.
As ti passed, his body would change in countless unknowable ways, his strength would grow and he would have to learn to control it, his qi would evolve and gain different properties, even as his comprehensions evolved, the laws around him would manifest in different ways, aning he would have to move at a different cadence to be in tune with them.
Ryu had realized this imdiately, and he didn't have an imdiate solution. But when his Lines of Fate returned, although they were blurry, it felt like his thoughts had clicked into place.
If he wanted to maintain that oneness with the Heavens, he would have to do sothing, sothing that would allow him to rely on himself and not an external treasure like the room of white to improve himself.
Right now, he could feel that path more clearly than he ever had before.
Soul Quintessence. It ant perfection, the very essence of it. But perfection of what was the question.
Enlightened Body. It also represented perfection, but down a different path. One pushed across layers of complexity, the other through layers of simplicity.
To enter Soul Quintessence was to take your soul and allow it to grow. Spiritual Qi beca Spiritual Quintessence. And what was it the Quintessence of? It was none other than a representation of your path itself. For one with a Soul Nature, its path couldn't have been more obvious.
To enter the Enlightennt Body Realms was to root your body in Godhood, shedding mortality and bring you closer and closer to the Heavens with every step of refinent was a step closer toward that Realm of absolute simplicity.
They fed into one another rather well...
However, Ryu had yet to pick his Soul Quintessence. Though his soul had already breached that barrier, he had left it in a complete limbo because he wanted to accomplish this first.
He sank into deeper and deeper States of ditation as his enlightennt took hold of him. Cosmos Fog poured into his soul and his Seven Spirits and Three Souls lit up.
He was able to feel that connection between his body and soul, more clearly than ever before. His Soul Nature was a representation of what his soul was then very best at, but did his body not have their own souls?
He wanted sothing core to himself, sothing so central and foundational to his very being that it couldn't just be taken away or just fade with ti like everything else seed to.
He wanted a world of his own.
Space and ti already had the fabric he needed. What he was missing was a tiny kernel of sothing different, sothing that was able to make it his own.
And that was where his Cosmos Fog ca in. It was the very core of his Bone Structure, a mysterious energy that seed capable of separating him from the bounds of this current reality, forming his own.
It, too, was built on a foundation of Space and Ti. It was, after all, this sort of comprehension that had allowed the Heavens to grant him his Bone Structure in the first place.
What would his Quintessence be? What journey of Enlightennt would he take? He felt...
That they curiously be better as one.
He would call it..
The Cosmos Quintessence.
BOOM.
Ryu's body trembled. Seven points of light circles in his body, three points of light in his forehead.
His breathing entered an odd sort of rhythm, and although he wasn't moving, the dense fog of qi around him seed to form its own arms. Every ti his heart reverberated, the fog would move. As though a buddha in deep ditation, layered upon a Tai Chi master in a somber state, they moved in a steady, beautiful sort of cadence.
The runes began to appear once more.
In these decades, Ryu's strength hadn't increased by a large enough asure for the Golden Runes to completely vanish. The real reason they didn't appear was because he was storing them deep within him. He had been spending every waking mont comprehending how they ford, how they took shape, how they strengthened his movent.
And now... he would make them his.
The Golden Runes began to turn from Gold to Silver, radiating a resplendent light brighter than the golden runes had ever been.
In that instant, Ryu's soul suddenly changed. His Spiritual Sea beca so thick that it was able to be called one anymore, it was more like an endless plane of thick, black oil, even the gentle waves that usually coloured its surface were far more muted.
The void began to tremble around him.
The fog of qi around him almost seed to solidify into illusions. One Ryu after another layered atop of him, as though he was looking through every law of causality at once.
BOOM.
Ryu's Dao fused into one once again. The flood of strength caused the entirety of Sacrum to rumble and roll, the might of a Founding Dao causing every other present Dao to dim. In fact, even if they tried to use their Daos now, they would find themselves completely unable to.
All at once, a flood of strength poured into Ryu and finally, he felt his eyes twitch. It was different from what he had experienced before. It was different from just a sharpening of his vision, he was able to feel it as though it was just barely over a hill he was climbing past.
Ryu exhaled a slow breath and the fog moved again. Rather than layering upon him, they split out.
One was wreathed in chains, the other had a blindingly radiant pair of rings, and the last was an amorphous blob without pondered or structure.
Their auras would flare from ti to ti as though Ryu was testing sothing, but every ti he didn't like it, he would disperse it and then try again.
Suddenly, his eyes opened and he looked up into the skies. Reflecting in his pupils, a radiant Silver Star sat, a Star that looked so familiar, and yet so foreign at the sa ti...
'You want to take my Fate away? Okay... I'll make my own.'
The Divine Chain and Divine Wings shattered. They're two foggy constructs fusing into the amorphous blob that suddenly beca a small, rotating star.
It was a Star that looked exactly like his Fate Star. His Dao fed into it and quickly began to expand more and more powerful until it expanded once, and then twice, doubling in size every ti.
Nothing would bind him again.
Ryu's White Phoenix Spiritual Foundation shook, soon followed by his Beyond Perfect Extre Spiritual Foundation. Their Cosmic Seeds began to bind and intertwine, forming separate Godhoods of their own.
As the Silver Star grew in size, it quickly began to resemble sothing else as well.
A certain Silver Star that gave Ryu his Spaceti Soul Affinity to begin with.
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Erdiul's Note: I always had a theory that the owner of that Silver Star was a future Ryu, this kinda just makes even more confident of that theory. Could still be wrong, but I'm kinda leaning towards it more now.
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