1261 Glow
Despite the realization, Ryu seemed to become calmer.
"Little woman, go into the cottage. You'll find several rings filled with the umplanted seeds of quite a few Spiritual Herbs. Plant the ones for the Soul Nourishing Pill."
Ryu couldn't enter the golden moon world himself. If he did, who would maintain the void they were in currently? If it collapsed, even the golden moon world and the little woman wouldn't be spared. The Favor Alchemy Sky god had yet to recultivate to the Transcended Sky God Realm, but even if she had, without Ryu's eyes, it was incredibly difficult to enter the void in this place. Spiritual Sense was absolutely useless. The only reason Ryu had been able to enter the void was because of his eyes.
The Infinity Mist was thin enough that he could see through it as though it was fog. Of course, this means that his vision was still incredibly limited, but it was still better than most others in this situation.
This was all to say that although the situation felt hopeless, there were still some small threads of hope to grab onto.
After a moment, Ryu sat cross legged. He didn't move a single inch and his mind entered a state of unprecedented calm.
When his eyes flashed opened, a twin pair of eight trigram diagrams, one gold and the other dark gold, rotated slowly within the depths of his irises. He observed the void before him, scanning the spatial nodes.
If the Favor Alchemy Sky God was paying attention, she would have realized that Ryu was actually using his Dao to strengthen his comprehension of the spatial elemental and spatial qi.
Ryu's goal was simple. He needed to reach a state where his ability to stay in the void and his ability to replenish his stamina reached equilibrium. To put this in simple terms, he wanted to reach a state where he could stay within the void indefinitely. This was his best option currently.
Using up the last hour or two he had remaining trying to find the inheritance would be nothing short of cosigning himself to death. The odds of him succeeding were next to zero. This was worse than looking for a needle in a haystack, a savage enough analogy had yet to be created. The worst part was that the odds that he would accidentally slip by the inheritance just an arm's reach away was far higher than actually finding it.
Even so, Ryu was perfectly calm.
The reality was that even Transcended Sky Gods couldn't stay in the void indefinitely, only Dao Lords could do so casually and without much effort without having strong spatial affinity.
However, Ryu had his eyes, his Spacetime Soul Nature, an Omniscient God Treasure, and most importantly... A Dao that had become a Founding Dao.
According to Ryu's understanding, those with spatial affinity could cut down the time necessary to enter these states by a large factor. Those with high spatial affinity could enter the void as soon as the Fragmented Sky God Realm.
Ryu quite believed in himself. His soul was already more powerful than many World Sea Realm experts and could be said to be comparable to World Sea Realm experts of the Seventh Heaven by now. He didn't know if it would be possible to achieve, but he wanted to see just how powerful a Founding Dao was. If it was worthy of its rarity and title.. it would be able to help him do at least this much, right?
Ryu lost himself focusing on the nodes before him.
The Infinity Mist had a very odd property. If Ryu had to describe it, it was akin to a wheel of paddles. The harder you accelerated such a wheel, the more effort it took to spin it faster and the harder you were working. However, if you slowly ramped up the speed instead, the easier it was.
Judging by how much water was above him, appearing so far beneath the ocean should have killed Ryu instantly, it didn't matter how fast he reacted, how could the reaction speed of a Dao Pedestal Realm expert be enough?
And yet, Ryu was still here and alive. This went back to the oddity the Favor Alchemy Sky God had mentioned before. The pressure was both enormous, and yet small. However, if Ryu had foolishly rushed through the mist, he would have died before he even understood what was happening.
It was a fascinating dichotomy. This was ironically the only region of this ocean that Ryu could possibly survive in.
Up above, there was a sheet of ice billions of kilometers thick. If he had appeared there he would have frozen to death instantly. If he had appeared above that, not to mention the fact it was also incredibly cold at that depth, the pressure of the water would have killed him instantly. And, even if by some miracle he appeared at a pressured depth he could resist, the oceanic beasts would have shredded him to pieces with a single glance.
This didn't even mention the fact that outside of the Infinity Mist, breaking into the void would have been countless times more difficult with the pressure of the Ninth Heaven descending.
So, the current Ryu was in an odd duality where he was both in the most dangerous region he could possibly be in, and simultaneously the safest.
Something about this made him feel an endless sort of peace, his heartbeat was steady and his thoughts ran smoothly.
But it was also because of this that not even a minute into his deductions, he realized this plan was unfeasible. His comprehension speed was too slow, and it was once again because of the Infinity Mist.
The region here didn't quite react like normal space should.It was too calm, too sturdy. Ryu even realized that here, he could actually spend double the time in the void as usual, giving him three to four hours as opposed to his one to two hours.
Ryu shifted his focus from observing the world to observing the runes on his Quivering Spectral Wings instead. However, after another minute, he frowned. This frown though, lasted for only a moment before his thoughts shifted once again.
'I got it...'
Ryu shifted his approach once again. This time, he didn't focus on the world around him, or even the Quivering Spectral Wings. Instead he focused on the Runes of the Nine Pillars.
The Faver Alchemy Sky God had said something quite profound a moment ago. Teleporting here should be even more impossible than teleporting into a blackhole. So, how had they done it?
The space here wasn't a problem, it was actually very steady. The problem was communication. How could you draw a link between this location and another if the Infinity Mist blocked everything. The real question, though... Did it really block everything?
Weren't Ryu's eyes able to work just fine?
Of course, that was just Ryu being purposely obtuse. There was obviously a difference between him using his vision and connecting a spatial tunnel.
But there was something else that was quite important here. He was currently standing in the void right now and his vision wasn't obstructed at all, the only problem was that there was nothing to see but spatial nodes here.
The void was an expanse of nothing but black, even the spatial nodes were invisible unless one had a certain amount of affinity.
One could imagine reality like a double layer sheet. Entering the void was like peeling up one layer, forming a bubble, and slipping in between the two layers. But upon doing this, the bubble would constantly be trying to collapse around you.
·ƈθm If you looked around, all you could see were the walls of this bubble, everything else was still pressed down between the two sheets and forced into a two dimensional form factor. Only within the bubble could you directly observe the outside world, but if you tried to see beyond your bubble, all you could see would be spatial nodes, or points where these two sheets connected to one another.
Why was all of this important?
Well, these two sheets were obviously something that even the Infinity Mist couldn't penetrate.
Theoretically, if you could run a signal from one location to another using nothing but spatial nodes hidden within the void, then you could connect two locations no matter what obstructions were between them, even if that obstruction was Infinity Mist.
The problem would be exiting the spatial node and entering the first layer. This would be where the most obstruction was. Unless...
'Unless the inheritance has been within the void all along. It was never in the Infinity Mist at all, I just stepped out from one void into another and I didn't even notice because it felt like reality...'
Ryu's gaze glowed.
This realization seemed to mean nothing, after all, the void was just as large as the ocean. This didn't make it any easier to find. In fact, it only made it more difficult. That was because Ryu was in one bubble while the inheritance was in another. In order to find the inheritance, he would need to peel up the layers all around him to find the bubble, whereas if he was in the Infinity Mist, he might be lucky enough to spot it with his eyes.
However, to Ryu, this meant everything. That was because of one question...
How was the inheritance maintaining its void bubble and moving around at the same time?
That answer hit Ryu all at once: the Nine Pillars!
Ryu's body began to glow and his Nine Pillars manifested through his skin around his body. At that moment, the pressure of the void trying to collapse around him seemed to vanish in the blink of an eye.
