Even without reaching for the God Treasure, Ryu instinctively knew that it was empty. It was no wonder he hadn't sensed anything special from it to begin with, it simply wasn't that type of treasure. However, its usefulness, or the reason for its Omniscient Grade, still wasn't obvious even after acknowledging this.
At a surface layer, The Compendium was an encyclopedia, but it was one that was empty until it was fed with a source. Essentially, the ability of this God Treasure was to take a sample of an object, whether it was a Spiritual Herb, a Spiritual Ore, or any other natural treasure, and tag it. It could then connect with the stream of Faith connected to this natural treasure and compile all information that could be found on it and summarize its secrets from most important and foundational, to the most secretive and profound.
How in depth the information was depended on how much of the item you were willing to give up. A single piece of a natural treasure might only get you the foundational energy, but if you were willing to sacrifice the whole thing, the information you would receive was obviously greater.
Of course, this was only if you wanted information immediately. If you were more patient, you could allow The Compendium to passively absorb the energy of target and slowly tease apart the answers you were looking for.
The more Ryu stared at it, the more information he received, and the stronger the fire in his eyes grew. Suddenly, his heart skipped a beat.
Couldn't he use The Compendium to unlock all the secrets of his Chaotic Silk Meridians, then?
Ryu closed his eyes and exhaled a breath, calming himself before he shook his head.
The Compendium was an Omniscient Grade Treasure, obviously this was a sign of its limitations. As expected, when Ryu looked deeper, The Compendium could only look through Faith and Karmic Strings up to an Omniscient Grade, anything beyond was likewise beyond it.
Ryu didn't know much about his Chaotic Silk Meridians, but what he did know with absolute certainty was the fact that it was beyond the Omniscient Grade. It was a disappointing let down from a high he enjoyed for just a few moments, but if things were so easy, he would be far too lucky.
Even though the Compendium had such limitations, Ryu felt that it was incredibly valuable to him. The reason was simple: his Bloodlines.
Starlight's words had been annoying, but they had some valuable intel to them. Setting aside the fact that Ryu wasn't sure how to make use of his Bloodlines to a maximal degree, just clues on how to unseal it to a greater extent was invaluable to him.
While The Compendium wouldn't be able to bring his Bloodlines to a greater height, what it could do was help him brighten the path up to the Omniscient Grade.
What Ryu wanted The Compendium to do was to sharpen the vague memories in his mind. He felt that by feeding the Compendium his blood while focusing on certain memories in his blood stream would enlighten him to their secrets, allowing him to unlock the shackles on his body faster than he would be able to otherwise.
Setting this aside, if The Compendium was used cleverly, its uses were far beyond what its description seemed to suggest. When it was boiled down, the real ability of The Compendium was to peer into Fate and read it. An ability like that was invaluable.
For example, if Ryu gave it someone's item or a piece of their body, he would able to find their location through The Compendium. Beyond that, he could probably measure out what their future intentions were, or if he was talking to them, he could probably tell if they were lying or not. A single drop of blood from an enemy would probably reveal all of their abilities to Ryu, in that case, "trump cards" would have no worth before him at all.
Ryu, as the wielder of the Mysteries of Heaven and Earth Pupils, was very used to peering into Karma and making use of it to his advantage, so when he saw The Compendium, while anyone else might take its abilities at face value, he saw hundreds of steps ahead.
In fact, even what was listed here was too few.
If Ryu found a treasure, he could probably feed a bit of it to The Compendium and use it to find more treasures like it. If he had clues about a Ruin, he could feed the clues he had gathered to The Compendium to find the tracks to its entrance. In fact, with Ryu's affinity, he was certain that he could even use The Compendium to sense others trying to track his own Karma and sever it ahead of time.
In any other Dao Pedestal Realm existence's hand, this God Treasure was truly just a glorified encyclopedia, but in Ryu's hands, it was so much more than that.
Without hesitation, Ryu reached forward and removed The Compendium from its glass casing. Unlike the Quivering Spectral Wings, The Compendium didn't fight Ryu at all. In fact, it seemed to take the opportunity to move toward Ryu of its own accord.
Ryu could vaguely sense warmth coming from The Compendium, almost as though it understood him as intimately as he understood it. He could somewhat understand The Compendium.
When it was created, it was probably truly meant to be an encyclopedia, even its creator didn't realize what they had on their hands and foolishly continued to use it like that. Although The Compendium wanted to be more, to do more, it was just a treasure and could only rely on its owner to bring out its full potential.
Somehow, The Compendium could feel that Ryu saw more of it than anyone else ever had, it could feel that Ryu would use it properly, so how could it not be eager.
Ryu smiled lightly and pierced his brows once allowing it to drop onto The Compendium's pearly white and gold engraved cover.
The Compendium glowed for a moment before it turned into a blaze of light and entered Ryu's brows.
Almost instantly, a familiar rush of energy surged as The Compendium appeared in Ryu's Spiritual Sea, floating silently as it greedily absorbed what Essence and Chaos Qi entered.
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