Ryu continued to travel.
In the beginning, he took his time. He killed those he came across and slowly observed each and every node. Eventually, he even had to start carving out his own tunnels to get nearer to nodes that were too far away from the paths, but even this didn't make him hurry.
The picture he had in his mind of the formation only grew clearer, and his comprehensions deepened with passing time.
Ryu's wrist suddenly flared out to the side. Without even opening his eyes, he caused a blue steel dagger to beam through the air, piercing the chest of his target in the blink of an eye.
Lightning wildly flared and danced, crushing this individual in body and soul.
'This should be enough, I understand now.'
This expert used an ingenious method. Essentially, they created their own foundational formation, stripping it of all of its complexity until it could mimic a Fundamental Rune. However, fundamentally, this rudimentary formation would still be exactly that, a Formation.
This so-called Rudimentary Formation represented the essence of this individual's Dao distilled down to the greatest and simplest concentration. It was essentially like the creation of a Dao Charm technique, but many times more difficult.
The Dao Charm techniques Ryu used now were all fairly weak. This didn't just represent the fact that they were of the Heaven Grade, but rather the Daos used as their foundation specifically. But if they were any more powerful, the idea of making them any weaker would be impossible.
For example, the current Ryu couldn't imagine forming his Hegemonic Dao into a Heaven Grade technique, the difficulty was too high, and ironically, his comprehension wasn't high enough.
In Ryu's estimation, if he wanted to create a Heaven Grade technique with his own Dao as the "Charm", he would need to bring it to at least the Fragmented Dao level first.
Back when Ryu first faced the Working Disciples of the Hidden Blade Sect, they had immediately assumed that he had a Fragmented Dao because they couldn't fathom the idea of a Dominion Dao. It was only after more observation that they realized Ryu must be the latter and not the former.
Essentially, the more complex and powerful the Dao, the higher level of attainments within it one must reach in order to simplify it.
Right now, Ryu was in an odd situation. His Dao was too powerful to make a technique suitable for himself, but too weak to form a higher level technique. Thus, he could only use it as his Dao and nothing else.
Although, of course, this wasn't a bad thing. A so-called Dao Charm technique would always be weaker than the actual Dao. What others would call Dao Charm techniques, the actual owners of the Dao would call Dao Manipulation methods.
Dao Manipulation methods could only be used by those who had actually grasped the Dao itself and not just a small or simplified aspect of it. It was instead Dao Manipulation methods that would be distilled into Dao Charm techniques.
However, that was a matter for a different time. Dao Manipulation methods could only be used by Sky Gods and Ryu wasn't nearly ready enough to start thinking about such things.
All of this was just to illustrate just how impressive what this individual had done.
Ryu's scope of understanding was far deeper now than it had been in the past. After several hours of observation, he had already concluded that this individual's Dao was at the Dynastic Dao level. Although this was three levels beneath Ryu's own, when it came to the power of the Dao, it was definitely far beyond Ryu's.
For this individual to be able to distill their Dynastic Dao down to a level comparable to a Fundamental Rune was even more complicated than creating a Common Grade Dao Charm technique.
The more simplified the Dao Charm technique, the more difficult it was to create. And the more complex the Dao, the more difficult it was to simplify.
The difficulty of creating these formation nodes from a Dynastic Dao was far more difficult than if Ryu wanted to form a Mystical Grade or Ancestral Grade technique with his own Dao. It might just barely be comparable to if Ryu wanted to make a Heaven Grade technique with his Dao.
'This is difficult, too difficult and well beyond my current self. It's unfortunate, but it's an idea that I might be able to explore in the future if it's still worth it at the time.'
Ryu didn't feel too disappointed by this conclusion. He had still gained greatly. Now he could travel to the center of this quasi Ruin and see if he could use the knowledge he had gained here to get a leg up on everyone else.
Ryu awoke from his meditative state and his figure flashed, approaching the deeper regions of the tunnels, his speed countless times faster than before. Now that he understood this formation, he had no need to be as cautious, and without the need to comprehend any more, he obviously didn't need to pause his steps.
'It's odd, though. Logically, anyone with such high comprehension abilities should have a Dao more powerful than a Dynastic Dao. Could it be that they lacked the inspiration…? Or?'
Ryu's gaze suddenly flashed, thinking of a possibility.
What if this individual only chose to use a small piece of their Dao?
Ryu's complete Dao was known as the Dividing Heaven Dao, this was the grand name he had chosen and if he even spoke these words aloud, it would be likely to trigger a tribulation. Even using the full power of his Dao caused the ire of the Heavens to descend.
However, weren't there two smaller parts of his Dao? Dividing Karma and Dividing Tribulation.
He had comprehended these Daos individually before fusing them into one. Individually, they were weaker than the whole.
What if this individual was the same, having multiple pieces to their Dao?
It was an interesting thought and it seemed to have a chance at being true.
Dividing Karma was Ryu's comprehension of people and living beings. It was most useful when he was facing an enemy with their own thoughts and aspirations, and it was especially powerful when an enemy activated their Dao as he could use it to crush them even faster as his comprehension of them deepened.
Dividing Tribulation was Ryu's comprehension of things and physical objects, things that lacked a will of their own. It was this that he relied on to sever bolts of tribulation or quickly deepen his alchemy and blacksmithing skills.
Together, they could encompass the whole of the Heavens. But each one was more useful than the other depending on the situation in question.
If Ryu wanted to create portable formation nodes to improve Morvar's Visualization, there was no doubt that Dividing Tribulation would be better, at least at lower levels. If he was powerful enough, Dividing Karma would allow the formation to adapt depending on who or what it was facing.
'Still, even alone, Dividing Karma and Dividing Tribulation was both exceedingly powerful and well beyond the Dynastic Dao level. They should probably also be Hegemonic Daos, although weaker than when they are fused into one.'
Ryu thrust this matter to the back of his mind, allowing it to brew and stew. Maybe later on, he would think of how to use this information.
Ryu's footsteps suddenly came to a pause.
The tunnels came to an end, opening up to a vast underground catacomb that was kilometers tall and hundreds of kilometers deep and wide.
However, although there was nothing that could be seen in plain sight, an overwhelming danger tickled Ryu's mind.
"Oh, look? Didn't we already kill everyone? Someone actually dared to appear? Didn't he see all the corpses?"
