1222 Effort
'A star map...?"
Ryu's gaze flickered several times. One of the last things he expected to see when he looked into this technique was such a thing.
Star maps were usually only useful for those like Ryu who were traveling from lower level worlds. There were also some rare instances where geniuses of the True Martial World might travel out to meet rare phenomena where they might be useful, and potentially on the surface of other Planes as well. But all in all, at least in the True Martial World, they weren't all that common. A normal map was far more useful.
Ryu's brow raised as he thought of another instance. Didn't the Radiant Star Sect also have such a thing? It was useful for keeping tabs on the constellations they thought were worthy of resonating with, as well as what their strengths and grades were.
The fact that he was seeing a star map for this technique meant that there was likely something similar here. Maybe the Favor Alchemy Sky God even had some sort of connection with the Radiant Star Sect that he was unaware of.
After a few moments, though, Ryu realized that this probably wasn't the case. The star map didn't even seem to be a real star map. No... This wasn't the proper way to look at it. Rather, the purpose of the star map wasn't in what star maps were usually used for. There was nothing conventional about these stars and their alignment at all.
After just a few breaths, Ryu was truly speechless this time.
"... Who made this overly complicated technique?" Ryu mumbled. "Who has the time to think about all of this in the middle of battle?"
"Hey, don't insult my ancestors. Obviously, it's only meant to be used by smart people. If you're too stupid, just say so."
Ryu opened his mouth to respond, but in the end he just shook his head. He didn't expect that this little woman had such a sharp mouth when she wanted to. Then again, whenever she was offended or seemed to have strong feelings about something, that side of her seemed to always come out. If it wasn't for the fact she needed Flowing Frost's body, maybe she would have already attacked to kill before when she thought he had a connection with the Martial Gods.
Ryu found that he was already being more lenient with her, though. This wasn't because he had some emotional ties to her, nor was it because she was beautiful, he had seen women just as beautiful before, and many more beautiful women that he couldn't be bothered to give a second glance to.
It was rather because he had already understood that the moment he had given Flowing Frost's body over, he didn't have much of a choice other than to see this woman as the future mother of his child. He had a strong karmic tie to Flowing Frost and he would definitely fulfill his promise. As such, he didn't really have a choice but to coexist with her.
Ryu also wouldn't be surprised if the Favor Alchemy Sky God saw things the same way. Otherwise, there was little reason for her to be so straightforward in asking to be his Dao Companion. He doubted that he was that charming.
She had already made the decision to tie herself to himself, but she didn't particularly have much of a choice. That was also the reason why Ryu hadn't just accepted her with wide open arms. Even though he would do as he pleased from now on, that didn't mean he would start letting his pants dictate everywhere he went and everything he did.
That aside, the technique was truly extraordinarily complex.
The first step of the technique was memorizing the star map and how it aligned with the locations in the True Martial World or any other world you might enter. This essentially meant that before you could even take step one, you have to memorize what most wouldn't be able to memorize even given an entire lifetime. Even for the current Ryu, if it wasn't for the fact his Origin Flame had entered the Fragmented Grade, it would take him years just to complete this portion.
Once the memorization was complete, one would need to continuously update it with the various star orbits and the shifts in the True Martial World's position in real time. Slight deviations would decide whether this technique was functional or not.
This was easily ten times more difficult than just memorizing, it basically required having a perfect star map in your head at all times.
Only when you had perfected this could you finally think of using this technique, this movement technique that could be used for nothing other than evasion.
The purpose of the technique was to read the stars in the midst of battle, comprehending their subtle shifts and using a step to neutralize all attacks. It was like finding a strand of life in the midst of death, but after looking at it for a while, Ryu realized that it could be used to find a strand of death in the midst of life as well.
However, to reach that point, you had to be absolutely perfect in your integration of the technique.
The most troublesome part of the technique that the Grade you mastered would decide what level of expert the technique worked on. If you mastered the Heaven Grade level, your technique would only be useful against those at the Path Extinction Realm plus one above, encapsulating the weaker Dao Pedestal Realm experts.
However, if said Dao Pedestal Realm expert had a Dao at the level or better than the Hegemonic Dao Grade, then the technique would likewise be useless against them. As for Cosmic Seed Realm, no matter what level their Dao was at, it would be useless.
Of course, this was great for the lower Heavens as there were only a very small number of geniuses with Hegemonic Daos considering the artificial cap placed on them. But Ryu's goal had always been far above this.
The way he saw it, this technique was a lot of work to only be useful against such a small number of opponents.
'Maybe I'm asking for too much. I can use the Mystic Grade level of the technique now, which makes it useful up against weak World Sea Realm experts. It's not really fair to ask for more.
Ryu frowned. Although this was logical, he still felt that it wasn't enough. Was it worth the effort this technique would take?
Updat𝒆d fr𝒐m freew𝒆bnov𝒆l.c(o)m