Ryuu walked. He didn't know where, he just walked. All he wanted was to clear his mind of everything. Before he knew it he was at the library.
As he looked up at the building in front of him, his eyes flashed, and he thought to himself, ` Of course! The library! If I want to become stronger, I need to search in here´.
Upon entering the library, he merely took a quick glance at the first floor before heading up to the second floor. As a genius he didn't need permission to enter the first floor of the library, so he had long since read all of the books on there.
These books included a map of the area, the 3 elementary tactics (Stacked Speed Tactic, Body Double Tactic, and Cloaking Tactic), as well as a lot of random information.
It was on the second floor that you would find all of the interesting books, namely the advanced tactics. Advanced Tactics were more powerful, yet more difficult to learn than elementary tactics. Out of the multiple advanced Tactics on the second floor, the only one that Ryuu Sasaki had learned was the Ocean Lock Tactic.
This was a Tactic that let out your Qi to form an oppressive aura around you, which would weaken your enemies. It was known as one of the strongest advanced Tactics because of its ability to suppress several enemies at the same time.
On this floor, there were significantly fewer books than on the first floor, with only about 10 books in total. Ryuu Sasaki took a book and held it in his hand. Only moments after this, the book was sucked into a ring on Sasaki's index finger. This ring was a unique treasure - a Spatial Ring. This ring was his grandfather's most valuable possession and could hold up to a cubic meter of space.
He had taken it from his grandfather while burying him. This ring was already filled with numerous bank notes, each one being worth 1,000 teals of silver, and, after a quick walk around the second floor of the library, it also contained 10 advanced Tactics.
After having "Pillaged" the second floor, Ryuu Sasaki nervously looked towards a flight of stairs. The library had a total of 3 floors. He was allowed on the first floor whenever he wanted, he was allowed on the second floor as long as he had a token, but as for the third floor, he had never been there before. Rumour has it that only the clan head was allowed on the third floor.
"Should I?"
Although he said this, he had already made up his mind. For the sake of revenge, he had to get stronger, even if it meant going against family traditions.
With this in mind, he calmed his restlessly beating heart and walked towards the stairs. As he walked up the stairs he started fantasizing about what kind of amazing books would be up there. Maybe it was a treasure map? Or maybe an extremely powerful Tactic, but, whatever it was, Ryuu Sasaki was certain he could handle it.
After what seemed like an eternity, he reached the end of the stairs. as he walked on the third floor all he saw was a table with one single book laying on it.
He trod silently towards the book. As he did so he could feel the beating of his heart becoming faster. He was nervous, after all, this book might be the decider of whether he could get his revenge or not.
He picked up the book and looked at the cover. It was a plain brown cover with the word Notes written on the front. Inwardly surprised, Ryuu Sasaki read the first page.
At first, he was shocked, but then a thoughtful expression appeared on his face, he seemed enlightened. When he had finished reading the book, he gave out a sigh and sat down on the floor in a lotus position.
The book contained notes written long ago by the Ryuu clan ancestor. The notes were split up into two parts, the first was about the ancestor's experiences of cultivating, and the second was about the origin of the Ryuu clan. According to this book, the Ryuu clan was originally not from the Purple Forest region, but rather from the Black Desert region.
This was actually not very shocking to Ryuu Sasaki, seeing as the Purple Forest region is a mortal region. In order for a cultivation method to exist there, it would naturally have had to come from somewhere else, and that other place could very easily have been the Black Desert region. Although not the apex of cultivation, it wasn't too shabby.
What was shocking though, was that Ninjutsu wasn't actually an orthodox way of cultivating, but was in truth a method that the ancestor had invented himself due to his lack of talent for orthodox Cultivation.
At first, this was an enormous blow to Ryuu Sasaki, but he soon calmed down. Just because it wasn't orthodox did not mean it was not good, in fact, according to the ancestor, it was easier to cultivate and also much more powerful than orthodox cultivation. The reason this wasn't the "true" cultivation method was that it had 2 major flaws.
The first flaw was that it had a limit. Although cultivating also had a limit, it was much higher than that of Ninjutsu. Cultivating goes in levels, these levels are Qi Condensation, Foundation Establishment, Core Formation, Nascent Soul, Soul Seeding, Soul Fruits, True Dao and Immortal Ascension. A Black Mask Shinobi can only match up to an early stage Nascent Soul Cultivator.
The second flaw was longevity. In Ninjutsu, every Mask will add about 7 years to your life, so even a Black Mask Shinobi can only live for about 150 years. In cultivation, however, every stage will add a magnitude of longevity to the point that reaching the end can give you proper immortality.
After Reading this book, Ryuu Sasaki suddenly had an idea. If he went to the Black Desert region, a place where Cultivation is everywhere, could he then become strong enough to get revenge for his clan?