1237 In Fact
Ryu's robes fluttered in the wind. He stood in a long line of cultivators, his fingers twirling three Runed Pills. Those that were nearby him couldn't help but look over, gulping from time to time.
The worth of Runed Pills were simply impossible to measure. It could be said that Ryu had sold them far too cheaply on the First Heaven, but that couldn't be helped given the circumstances. The price you could force others to pay was only as good as the upper limit of your customer base's limits.
Seeing such pills up close and personal, many were eyeing Ryu immediately. They had almost forgotten that Ryu had stated that he would most definitely win, Originally, this was probably something he would be targeted for anyway, but before the combat stream even began, others had found a new reason to target him.
The Heavenly Dew Pavilion didn't have the face to ask Ryu to sell his pills to them. However, if someone else snatched them, such an ask would be far easier. The fact that there were three only made it all the more enticing, they could experience the feeling of eating a pill, even two, and sell just one.
Only the likes of Adlael and Juno seemed to be the picture of calmness, even Zovaes and Iroh stole glances toward Ryu from time to time. In truth, though, the calmness of the former two was likely only due to their innate personalities as opposed to any true state of calmness.
Ryu could feel the hairs on the back of his neck standing up. The gazes of so many geniuses seemed to make his body react on its own.
This was a subtle change, but it was one that made a secret look flicker in the depths of his pupils. His body was acting much more like a beast's would now than ever before. On the one hand, this was good because it meant that his Bloodlines were displaying their prominence and prowess. On the other hand, this was bad because he would normally never react like this.
His hair standing up was a fear response that wasn't reflective of the calmness of his mind or the excitement of his heart.
'How disgusting... It seems that even now you haven't learned your lessons, hm?' Ryu shook his head then raised it.
Elder Bartien's voice had just barely opened when Ryu popped the first pill into his mouth with a flick of his finger.
"BEGIN!"
His words had just fallen when the first Runed Pill landed on Ryu's tongue. Those closest to Ryu reacted instantly, shooting toward him with a violent momentum. Seeing him swallow one of the pills immediately, they felt a great deal of heartache, but they still pressed forward. There were still two remaining, they still had a chance.
One would have thought that in the face of such a talented alchemist, these people would be more focused on building relationships. However, in their minds, a Runed Pill was a once in a lifetime opportunity. Ryu might be talented, but what were the chances he would create another such pill?
However, shockingly enough, just when the first wave of cultivators had attacked to kill and snatch, another group took the exact opposite approach. They blocked before Ryu, punching out toward the coming cultivators.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
The "race" had just begun but the starting line was in chaos. The crowd was shocked before they erupted.
It was called the combat stream for a reason. Even during a so-called racing event, participants were allowed to obstruct one another and battle. In fact, it was a requirement to pick up certain markers at each checkpoint, so it wasn't rare for participants to attack one another to snatch these checkpoint markers and ruin someone else's race.
But this was the very first time that battle had erupted at the starting line.
Several of the cultivators who had blocked the first volley of attacks for Ryu looked back with smiles as though to make sure that Ryu had seen them, but to their surprise, Ryu was no longer there. They hadn't even noticed when he had so suddenly vanished. Their eyes couldn't help but widen, how had a Dao Pedestal Realm expert moved without them noticing.
BOOM!
Suddenly, in the distance, far ahead of everyone else, a violent cyclone of qi formed. This qi was so thick that it wasn't only visible to the naked eye even without the masses having Ryu's [Ephemeral Tapestry], it danced with complex golden runes, runes that could have only appeared due to a Runed Pill.
A Soul Nourishment pill wasn't a cultivating pill, it was used to quickly replenish stamina and Spiritual Qi and was mostly used by alchemists, other secondary professions such as Blacksmiths and Formation Masters, as well as Mental Realm Masters.
However, when used on Ryu who had a Perfect Blackbody Soul that had yet to reach its upper limit, matched with the power of a Runed Pill, it had such an exaggerated effect. Ryu's soul strength seemed to double in the blink of an eye, before it suddenly doubled again, then again.
By the time he reached the limit of what his current body would withstand, his Spiritual Sea was still overflowing with Spiritual Qi with nothing to latch onto. But rather than this qi suddenly becoming useless, a pair of crystalline wings appeared to Ryu's back.
The eyes of the Sky God's constricted. A God Treasure, there was no doubt.
With a single flap, Ryu vanished out of their line of sight. He was so far and away in first place that the echoes of the first clash hadn't even settled down yet when he disappeared from the line of sight of most.
Everyone's expression couldn't help but change. The crowd might be relatively more ignorant, but those of them that considered themselves experts felt that in that moment Ryu was simply too fast for the Dao Pedestal Realm. His speed just now was faster than what most World Sea Realm experts could match, and that was before he suddenly vanished into the kernels of space.
It had only been a moment, but the winner seemed obvious.
No, that couldn't be the case. He still needed to pick a Pink Rose, retrieve an Amber Crystal, and excavate a Hallow Ore. These weren't things that simple speed could help a person with at all.
After a moment of being stunned, the other four geniuses rushed forward, coming to the same conclusion, before everyone else rushed after them.
They popped their pills into their mouths one after another, rushing forward with even greater speed as their blood began to rush and boil.
They felt that they were swiftly catching up, but every time, they found nothing more than the trail of Ryu's appearance.
The residual Spiritual Qi emitting from Ryu seemed to suppress everything and he could seem to teleport endlessly at the same time.
At the end of the day, Spiritual Qi was still a type of energy. In high enough concentrations, it can move mountains. And when it was filtered through the use of an Inheritance like the Magus Sky God's, it only became more devastating.
When Ryu was finally rounding back and slowed to cross the finish line, the crowd finally got a glimpse of him, a true glimpse.
A dark gold cone of solidified Spiritual Qi hovered before him, complex runes dancing across its surface. It moved with a thought, piercing against the wind. Harsh flames danced across one side of it and a violent cold frost crept up the other side.
There was no doubt that these were residual energies of the valley and the Amber Cave. Yet, Ryu had moved so fast that they hadn't even had the time to vanish.
Ryu crossed the finish line with an indifferent expression, his hands opening to reveal the three checkpoint harvests. Even though his hand directly touched the Pink Rose, something that should have sent him into a hypnotized state, he was unmoved by it all.
With his Magus Lock in place, how could any casual attack of the mind affect him? In fact, after swallowing his Runed Soul Nourishment Pill, his Magus Lock had only gotten several times stronger and more powerful.
Ryu found his platform and sat in silence. He couldn't seem to hear the crowd around him, but maybe that was because they were entirely silent as well. Even the crowd hardly seemed to notice as the others caught up, their eyes entirely on the white haired young man who had just shocked them all. Back to back events, two first places... no, at this point, it should be three first places in a row as the Heavenly Dew Pavilion had already conceded the alchemy stream.
Of all the things that one might have expected this time around, this may very well have been the last.
Adlael crossed the finish line like second. He looked up toward Ryu who sat on his pillar, an unreadable expression in the depths of his eyes. He had just gotten two second places in a row, but that seemed to have been entirely overshadowed. The glory of twin first places should have been his...
What he didn't know was that Ryu hadn't even known about the existence of this competition to begin with. If not for Adlael's elders, he would probably be tucked somewhere in secluded cultivation, not here....
Just as an uproar was about to tear through the crowd, the skies rumbled and then suddenly split.
The expressions of Fairy Claire and the other Sky Gods all changed as they looked up. Even Ryu's eyes snapped open, his gaze looking upward as well. Only the Sky Gods knew what this meant. Someone was tearing a path open between the Seventh and Sixth
Heavens.
No, it wasn't someone, it was several someones, a large number of them, in fact.
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