Chapter 120: Crystalline

Within the human body, there were thirteen total Pulses. Six were known as Body Pulses, another six were known as Qi Pulses, and the final one was the Spiritual Entrance Pulse. A large part of the reason Ryu had yet to breakthrough aside from not having an appropriate cultivation technique was precisely because he felt that these thirteen should be linked in some sort of way.

Though Ryu didn't know much of anything about cultivation after the Pulse Opening Realm, his parents had drilled him continuously about the so-called perfect start. As such, he knew quite well how important opening all of his Pulses was.

Even after killing Death Guard Bhishak, Ryu wasn't exactly proud of himself. The standard of the Higher Mortal Plane was just too pitiful. Many didn't even know that there were six Qi and Body Pulses, and even those that did never dared to open the final two, sticking to four total. There was no need to even speak about the Spiritual Entrance Pulse. It was neglected entirely.

This was all to say that jumping cultivation realms wasn't as easy as it seemed. Ryu doubted that he could last more than ten moves against a Peak Qi Refinement expert of the Immortal Planes. This was simply the difference in quality of expert.

Ryu knew he had to get stronger, and his path to improvement might ironically be hidden on this Higher Mortal Plane he looked down upon so much.

Ryu stood, his eyes opening to reveal what seemed like beams of light. He felt as though the whole world had been opened up to him. Not only had his Spiritual Sense awakened long before it should have, its birth seemed to have a great effect on his [Third Perspective]. Not only was its range larger, increasing to just over one hundred meters, Ryu could faintly feel that he could see through walls. Though doing so drastically dropped his range, it still definitely intrigued him.

As for Ryu's normal Spiritual Sense, it now had a permanent range of about thirty meters without him having to enter Breath of Earth. This would make it more convenient for him to continue "being" blind. Though he opened his eyes during the Coronation Games in order to benefit his plans, he didn't want to make a habit of it until he could find something fully capable of hiding the abilities of his Heavenly Pupils.

Ryu pushed these things to the back of his mind, walking slowly to the edge of the pool of Spiritual Qi. The fragmented Memory Jade at the bottom seemed to be teasing him. However, now, Ryu felt he could finally do something about it.

Taking a deep breath, Ryu's eyes began to shine with a blinding light. Spatial Qi began to coalesce. Slowly, but surely, a small whirlpool of grey qi touched the surface of the pool of Spiritual Qi. This persisted for several minutes. Although nothing seemed to be happening, the sweat that matted Ryu's forehead told a completely different story, it looked as though he was suffering through hell.

Hours later, Ryu collapsed, gasping for breath. He could only quickly enter a meditative stance, trying to replenish his qi.

Someone who had been watching this would have been confused beyond belief. But, those who were sharper would have noticed that the square pool of Spiritual Qi had dropped by several centimeters!

This was exactly Ryu's plan, even if it took months, even if it took years, he would slowly draw all of the Spiritual Qi into his inner world. This way, not only would he gain a valuable resource for cultivating his Mental Realm, he would also gain the secrets of Memory Jade Fragment. Some might call Ryu a madman, after all, he had no idea what was in the Memory Jade. For all he knew, it carried nothing at all. All Ryu had to go on was his intuition as a Ruin Master…

Before, Ryu couldn't have hoped to do this. For one, last time he came here, he was far too weak. And secondly, he hadn't had the time. If he wasted months trying to get to the bottom, he would have missed the Coronation Games, or would have had too little time to prepare.

What Ryu could accept into his inner world was limited to his cultivation. For example, he couldn't transport those massive blocks of Breaking Ore into his eye because he didn't have the qi to sustain such a transfer.

At the same time, though, Ryu was the only one among the Heavenly Pupil wielders that could pull off this feat. This was because he was likely the only one with an Origin Grade treasure fused to his eye. Without the Incubator, this would have failed.

If Ryu tried this tactic without the Incubator, the moment the Spiritual Qi entered his eye, it would flood his Mental Realm, causing it to balloon and possibly explode. After all, his inner world was a part of his body. However, the Incubator was a separate entity entirely! Ryu was taking full advantage of this loophole.

These limitations were also part of the reason Ryu hadn't taken the Qi Whispering Grass or Bone Separating Root into his eye yet. One had to remember that the greatest function of Ryu's Incubator wasn't its ability to speed the maturity of spiritual ingredients, but rather its ability to perfectly extract the energy of these ingredients and pass it to its owner in a perfect and gentle form. This ability made it far better than pills not only in effect, but also because one wouldn't have to deal with pill impurities.

The issue was that Ryu's cultivation wasn't strong enough to absorb Earth Grade spiritual ingredients into his inner world. It was truly a frustrating thing. With the Incubator, even absorbing an Origin Grade spiritual ingredient would be gentle and easy. However, because his cultivation was too low, Ryu couldn't get it into the Incubator in the first place.

Unfortunately, spiritual ingredients all came with a large amount of energy stored within them. The higher grade the ingredient, the more energy it stored. This energy made those ingredients harder for Ryu to absorb because the amount of spatial qi required to do so grew cooperatively with grade increase.

Essentially, until Ryu's qi output could match the weakest Divine Vessel Realm expert, he could forget about absorbing Earth Grade spiritual ingredients. For now, they'd have to sit in his spatial ring.

Luckily, the Spiritual Qi pool was a different matter. It wasn't one whole entity, so Ryu could take it drop by drop. By limiting the amount he took in at once, he could bypass this weakness of his. All he needed was time.

The months began to slowly trickle. As Ryu whittled away at the Spiritual Qi pool, the flames of war were igniting as the Cedar Clan attempted to forcibly seize power. Half a year later, while the Cedar-Tor inner conflict was at its peak, the Opes-Viri-Lantes Alliance began to mobilize its army.

It was only after they finally set out that the last of the pool entered Ryu's eye. Finally, a beautiful crystalline Memory Jade cooled his hand to the touch. Just what was hidden inside?!