1271 Fusion
Ryu felt time dilate. He realized there was a natural shift in time within his body, as though he had his own personal time dilation whenever he entered a state of cultivation.
He understood immediately that this was one of the innate abilities of his Bone Structure. He could actually dilate time depending on the strength of his vital qi, speeding up his cultivation speed with great ease without suffering even the slightest bit of distortion.
Ryu faintly nodded to himself. This was probably the basic ability that underlied on the extended benefits of his Bone Structure, and it made sense that he would have it. This was what he had been reflecting on to begin with when he had a breakthrough in comprehension, so the fact that the Heavens had gifted him this sort of ability seemed to be in line with expectations.
This, of course, made things even easier on Ryu.
Speed was only a factor of time and distance traveled. Now that he had such a great grasp of time and space, everything within his body seemed to be within his grasp. He seemed to have broken away from speed, from acceleration, everything came easy almost as though he was standing on another plane of existence... No matter how hard a two dimensional creature pushed, it would always be weaker than a three dimensional creature... That was the kind of feeling Ryu had as he fused his Bloodlines.
He brought them together, weaving their complex network of genes and mutations together.
His skin rippled with a delicate white gold light. A process that should have been complex, difficult, not to mention painful, came as easy as breathing.
Ryu felt that even his passive time dilation was 10 times. This meant that for every second that passed, he could speed up the process within his body by 10 seconds. A day was ten days. A year was ten years. However, this was still just the tip of the iceberg as he felt he could accelerate it more in exchange for this odd silvery-grey fog.
From Ryu's calculations, he could speed up his time dilation to as much as 100 times. However, Ryu would only be able to keep this up for a small time, about an hour from his estimates. It wouldn't be worthwhile unless he was in a truly dire situation where he needed to squeeze four days' time into a single hour. But other than that, it was much easier to maintain his passive strength in this way.
As a result of this, to the outside world, Ryu's process of fusion was not only smooth, but it was astoundingly fast. He sat in his pocket of the void, the surroundings completely unable to pressure him any longer. Even without the Nine Pillars, he felt that he could stay within the void indefinitely.
Although the layers of the void had closed and the distant inheritance ground had suddenly vanished, Ryu was unmoved. At this point, he was very much confident that he could find it again with an easy degree of difficulty.
BOOM!
A dull boom echoed within Ryu's body, his muscle fibers growing like the wild vine of trees and his body expanding. He went from a person of sleek, lean mass, to a thick, bulbous body builder. The steel-like cords of his muscles pulsed wildly.
Ryu could feel that this strength was coming from an entanglement of his Fire Dragon and Lightning Qilin Bloodlines. Much of their hidden underlying strength was being forced out by Ryu right this moment, causing them to quickly force his body to compensate for the surging power.
In the past, Ryu's strength had been limited. With the overlapping of his Bloodlines, bits and pieces of them were restricted so as to make room for the others for a total of 5000 jin as his baseline.
Of course, in the True Martial World, that baseline was much higher after his recultivation, but they were still individually limited by one another. In Sacrum, he had lost 1000 jin. While his baseline should have been 6000, it ended up being just 5000. However, in the True Martial World, it was even more exaggerated, he lost what felt like more than half. Even more if one considered the fact that these Bloodlines weren't at their full potential just yet.
Being able to feel the full strength now was truly shocking. It felt like so much power that should have been his long ago was being unearthed and dredged up. However, Ryu had no desire to be such a muscular man.
Much of his cultivation journey up until now, Ryu had emphasized flexibility. Of course, that was because the Balance aspect of his Ice Jade Crystal Body had made it very much easy for him to do so. It would have been foolish of him to not focus on it when it was such a large part of his potential. Even so, flexibility was more important for reasons beyond just matching the path of his Bone Structure.
Speed of reaction in battle, being able to maximize the strength within you, minimizing the chances of injury... These were all important aspects that flexibility allowed. Although it wouldn't be impossible to maintain his current level of fitness with such large muscles, not only was he not quite a fan of the aesthetic, it would also be undeniably much harder.
Ryu chose to chain the overflowing strength coursing through his body and began to focus on concentrating the flesh of his muscles. He circulated the methods of the Shadowlight Sky God, using the clashing of his Bloodlines as a proxy for the clashing of light and shadow. With the sped up time, his body quickly acclimated and adjusted to the energy.
When his muscles shrank to an adequate size, Ryu would release the chains. and being the process all over again. He was patient and unhurried. Even with the time dilation, the days began to quickly pass in the outside world, but Ryu showed no signs of moving.
Suddenly, on a day almost two months later, his eyes suddenly snapped open, a wild pressure surging out from him.
The most shocking and immediate change was to Ryu's eyes. If one looked deeply into them, it was possible to see a ring of white gold just around his pupils. At first glance, it looked like the reflect of a ring of light, but after several moments, it would become apparent that this was actually a part of Ryu's irises themselves.
Aside from this, it looked like nothing had changed about Ryu at all. His face was still shockingly handsome, his body was slim, well proportioned, and looked to have a hidden, explosive strength within its tightly coiled fibers, and his hair was still a gentle white color, although it did give off a faint light of its own external from the outside world's reflections.
When Ryu moved his wrist and looked at the back of his hand, for a split moment there seemed to be a flash of light that reflexted the line of a row of transparent, crystalline scales. But just as quickly as they appeared, they vanished. Even so, Ryu could almost "feel" them, as though they were a new organ beneath his skin.
Even without testing it, Ryu knew that his durability had been raised to an extreme level.
Although Ryu's body had always been strong, that was only relative. His bones were used to being quite fragile and weak, so the power he could. output was artificially limited. At the same time, his skin and muscles, which were extensions of his Bone Structure, were docile and soft as a result as well.
But now, he not only had a Bone Structure that carried an enormous amount of weight with it.
Ryu could feel that his Bloodline was now firmly within the Omniscient Grade, the very peak of it, in fact. With all its talents sealed, Ryu only had access to his affinities and this raw strength, but even then, the results were actually so exaggerated.
His next Life Extinction had suddenly become even more important. While he was reconstructing his body to enter the Nine Life Revolutions Realm, he would be able to gain some keen insight about this new, nameless Bloodline and the kind of things he could do.
Ryu gripped his fists and released, strong pulsing lights forming. With a thought, a layer of white gold scales appeared, somewhat reflecting an opal depth before he released and exhaled. He felt as though the power of the world was in his hands, and the best part was that it felt easy, as smooth as breathing, as natural as his gait.
Ryu lowered his hand.
Although he hadn't gotten what he had expected out of this trip, it was much more fulfilling in the end. Personal strength would always be more important than external treasures. Without the Infinity Mist restricting and solidifying the space here, making it far more docile than Ryu had ever seen, who knows how long it would have taken him to comprehend the truth of time and space?
'I'll come back to this place when I'm stronger. But first...'
Ryu took a breath and his gaze sharpened.
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