The process was far easier than anything Ryu could have imagined. But as time passed, he wondered why it was he had thought that it would be a complicated process at all.
These furious Heaven's treasures, capable of changing the landscape, upturning the earth, and causing devastation the likes of which could completely alter the environment of a world, had all been laying in his Realm Heart completely docilely.
They had long since lost sense of the methods that Ryu had used to deceive them inside, and yet not a single one had fought back against him.
Thinking even further back, whether it was the Infinity Mist or the Origin Flames that created his first to Beyond Perfect Extreme Cosmic Seeds, both had formed quite easily.
Origin Flames were on the more obedient side to begin with, but was Infinity Mist? It should have long since shredded him to ash, but that hadn't happened at all.
Ryu gently placed the Gaia seed within and watched as his Spiritual Foundation cracked. Large swaths of Cosmic Qi flooded him.
He had sensed Cosmic Qi long ago, but the Cosmic Qi of his original Spiritual Foundation felt so different, so utterly refreshing and almost oppressively powerful. If Ryu didn't know better, he would think that it was even stronger than his Chaos Qi.
Of course, this was nonsense. Chaos Qi and Essence were the two strongest sis in all of existence, a Spiritual Foundation wouldn't produce a qi that was stronger than them. The difference lay in the fact that as this Cosmic Qi-this Beyond Extreme Cosmic Qi-flooded his body, he felt a control over it that he had never felt from his Chaos Qi.
He still didn't have methods to perfectly control his Chaos Qi, and his body was still essentially a vessel whereupon Chaos Qi could filter into. It wasn't truly his qi, it was rather qi he could siphon from the Chaos Plane.
This Beyond Extreme Cosmic Qi, though, was well and truly his. While he couldn't control Infinity Mist perfectly-a problem that would likely transfer over to his other treasures, he was sure-this Cosmic Qi was a different story entirely. n-/0ve1bIn
Much like the white runes of his White Phoenix Spiritual Foundation, he felt an innate control over it that he didn't have over anything else.
He felt an intoxicating sort of strength flush into his body, and he began to allow one treasure after another to sink into his Spiritual Foundation, arranging them all into a perfect formation.
As the last sunk in, the blackhole, his Spiritual Foundation trembled and strength began to rise like a tide.
The final cracks formed and suddenly, there was nothing solid remaining at all.
The world whined and shook, a gorgeous ocean of endless blue, with veins of silver hidden within, taking shape.
Power rushed into Ryu's body and it truly felt as though he had broken into the World Sea Realm once again. Even his Realm Heart was flushed with strength, it made him feel like he was walking on air, as though he was invincible.
He had been ready and waiting for any number of things to go wrong. He was used to these sorts of things happening to him.
Whether it was his Realm Heart being unable to withstand his Spiritual Foundation, or maybe his body itself being too weak to withstand two such breakthroughs, or maybe it would the artifacts themselves that were only obedient up to a point and would all rampage the moment the cage of his Spiritual Foundation became a free-flowing sea.
But none of these things happened. He felt more at peace now than he ever had before, and looking at the artifacts floating within him, a smile spread across his face.
What Ryu didn't know was that his mother's eyes had widened in horror.
He felt at peace, but from her perspective, her son had cracked like fragile porcelain... Not because his body was too weak, not because his Realm Heart had reached its limits, not even because the artifacts had begun to fight back. No, none of this was the case.
The reason he had cracked like fragile porcelain, and the reason he couldn't seem to sense it at all, was because it had nothing to do with what was happening on the physical plane at all.
His potential had reached his end, his cultivation journey having taken its final step. What good was there in him continuing to exist?
In a far-off corner of existence, a Fate Star, chained from all sides, trembled in a final struggle, but there was nothing that it could do.
Its power was being sapped away by the Laws of the Heavens. Although it still had so much more to give, the Heaven's could sense it.
Ryu was disappearing because his journey had come to an end.
Primus looked toward the Life Shrine, then looked up into the skies. He could vaguely feel that something was off. But after a moment, he actually frowned.
"Mm..." his voice rumbled. "This is too much."
If he helped Ryu with his Fate Star, he would be paying back more Karma than he wanted to. Instead of balancing Karma, he would end up flooding their relationship with too much positive Karma. Whether it was positive or negative Karma, he wanted neither.
You couldn't sever Karma by overdoing it, or else that would defeat the purpose. If you did that, you would end up forming new Karmic ties that you would then have to do cruel things to reach balance.
But if he forced himself to do cruel things to his descendent just to balance Karma properly, it would affect his Dao Heart. After all, he refused to act against the weak. That was his martial way.
At the same time, though, this wasn't something that you could do by a half measure.
Or was it?
Primus looked into the skies thoughtfully.
"Actually, what's most important is my mentality, now isn't it?"
A confident and almost menacing grin spread across Primus' face as he vanished.