Grand Ancestral Bloodlines

1940  Within

Ailsa opened her mouth to say something several times, but before she could even decide what she would say, she sensed the familiar aura of Ryu sinking into a state of meditation.

His face was peaceful and focused, unmoved by all things. It seemed that his Dao Heart had reached a state of peace… or maybe it was that he had managed to temper any waves that were hidden within.

Calm, unaffected, unmoved. It was like he had an inability to sense that she was still there at all.

There were some things in life that simply couldn't be taken back easily. It was likely that even if she went to an extreme, it would be hard to change Ryu's mind.

She had thought about it, considered what she might do to change things. But she also realized after having decades to calm down that it was all meaningless.

The reason words couldn't be taken back so easily was because having said them already, it meant you had the capacity, the thought, and the feeling to back them.

Saying things out of rage, helplessness, or any other excuse of an emotion could only go so far. Saying that you didn't mean them afterward, or that you were muddle headed, wouldn't erase what had happened.

This was doubly so for cultivators who had a speed of thought that completely overshadowed their usual talking speed. In the time a cultivator could speak out a single sentence, they could analyze it from thousands of angles all at the same time.

The only way to take something like that back was to go to an extreme… Ailsa had thought of many ways, most of which boiled down to announcing that Ryu was her husband.

Unfortunately, she knew Ryu too well. If she actually did such a thing, he might truly never speak with her again.

Setting aside the fact that it would seem like she was pitying him, there was a deeper reason.

It would be like she was doing what she had done before.

There was no doubt that revealing Ryu to be her husband would harm her. Hope's Fate was tied to Ryu's own, but Ailsa, though his Life Partner, had her own Fate to manage.

Going off on her own and doing such a thing would be harming herself for the sake of elevating Ryu, and by extension it was no different from her saying that she was save Little Gem and Nemesis on her own… worse than even apologizing to her husband.

Ryu had made himself clear through his reaction. Ailsa's pity infuriated him, her unilateral decision making as though she was the only one capable of holding burdens anymore was even more infuriating.

Taking such a step wouldn't fix anything. If anything, it would only make things worse and Ryu might truly choose to take the most vicious step possible.

Then there was the first point… pity. If she did it, she wouldn't be doing it because her mind had truly been changed, she would be doing it because of her own guilt, because she had harmed her husband with her words, because… she felt bad for him.

Would her own arrogance have changed? Would her own thoughts, deep down in the depths of her soul have changed?

She knew the answer to that was no.

She would be acting because the Heavens decided that they were Life Partners, because in the past they had had an excellent relationship, one they had curated through seas of hardship…

Not because of anything she could feel right now.

The more she looked at Ryu's meditating figure, the steadier her shaken heart became.

"I'm not so easy to surpass…" she said softly.

Ryu reacted as though he hadn't heard a single thing, but it was the very kind of "reply" that Ailsa expected.

Ryu wasn't a man who liked to speak. In his first life, he had learned to sharpen his tongue because it was the only weapon he had. But he never preferred such an approach.

When his second life started, and he finally had the power to cultivate, he never spoke when he could use his fists. He had already lost count of the number of people he had killed just for saying things that were of the slightest annoyance to him.

If there was one part of him, a foundational part of him, that he could pin down and say: This is the real Ryu… then it was this.

It wasn't his arrogance or confidence, not his hypocrisy or careless disregard for moral standards outside of his own, it wasn't even the willingness to swim through fire and run through needles to reach the pinnacle of martial arts…

It was that he would prefer to let his actions speak louder than his words.

He had already said everything he needed to, and he didn't have any intention of saying anything more.

No matter how sure she was, Ailsa's pupils still couldn't help but tremble when she saw Ryu's reaction. His state of mind didn't waver, as though she was a mountain to climb rather than his wife.

And maybe that was her fault from the very beginning. But what was

 done was done.

Her clone stood slowly and then vanished.

Ryu didn't lose his focus a single time, the cadence of his breathing remaining even. He had already been focused on consolidating his understanding.

The hours ticked by and everything was perfectly arranged in his mind. Now, he had already turned his attention toward how to raise his Qi Realm to the Omniscient Realm as quickly as possible.

He needed to breakthrough his Dao comprehension first, and for that he needed more experience and understanding.

The reason he had managed to raise his Dao so fast was because of all the accumulated knowledge in Ailsa's library. But making it further, especially while maintaining this current level of his Dao, would be extremely difficult.

The best way was to gather Holy World, use his Realm Heart to perfect them, and then incorporate those insights into himself.

The same day he succeeded in completing his Body Realm Cultivation method was the same day he would enter the Omniscient Sky God Realm.

'Within ten years…' Ryu thought to himself.