On the third floor of the library, a young boy sat on the ground in a lotus position. Needless to say, this was Ryuu Sasaki. He had already finished reading the book an hour ago.
He wore a thoughtful expression, but every now and then his face would suddenly scrunch up into a grimace, before slowly being returned to the thoughtful expression.
He was thinking. Thinking about whether he should go to the Black Desert region or not. In fact, his decision should have been easy. The best path should have been to stay in the Purple Forest region and cultivate his Ninjutsu until he became a Black Mask Shinobi, at which point he would track down his opponent and eliminate him.
Unfortunately, there was a single point holding him back from doing this. He didn't have the Cultivation method for Ninjutsu. He didn't know where he could find it either.
In the entire clan only the Clan head knew where to find the methods to advance your Mask, so he would soon hit a roadblock that he would be unable to overcome.
Luckily for him, he had already been given a copy of the cultivation technique for the Green Mask, but after that, he would reach his end, and this was completely unacceptable. But, even though he knew that, he still didn't want to leave the Ryuu clan. He had, after all, spent 14 years here and had never left before in his life.
*Slam!*
Ryuu Sasaki slammed the floor with all of his strength and jumped up to his feet, and said to himself,
"To Black Desert region it is then."
But despite saying this he knew it was impossible for him to leave at that very moment. He first had to prepare himself properly first,
"So I've decided to leave, but first I need to make some preparations. I'll need to search for anything that may be useful, then decide on a route to the Black Desert region. Although it's not too far away, it certainly isn't nearby either."
===
In a palace far away, an arrogant looking middle-aged man was sitting on a throne. Surrounding him were 7 seductive women, their jadelike skin only partially covered by their raven black hair. Out of a shadow in the room, a younger man suddenly appeared. Shockingly, this didn't surprise the arrogant man at all, and all he said in response was,
"What was the point of that?"
The young man sneered, clearly unimpressed with the question, and replied,
"Gee, I don't know. Why not take a guess?"
"Of course I know why you did it but was that technique really that unique? It had a limit of Nascent Soul anyways."
"Maybe so, but it was an uncanny way of cultivating, so, who knows, I may get some inspiration from it. At our stage, it's at least worth a try."
Their conversation didn't at all distract the 7 women, who were working hard at pleasing the arrogant looking man. Yet although he was being serviced by 7 lovely women, it didn't seem as though he even noticed them at all.
The arrogant man stretched out his hand, clearly expecting the young man to hand something over. After glancing at the outstretched hand, he merely sighed and placed jade on it.
The arrogant man pinched the jade softly with his thumb and index finger and brought it over to his forehead. The moment he placed the jade on his forehead, a stream of information flowed out of the jade and into his head, and the information was Ninjutsu. Not just the principle of it, but a detailed instruction of how to reach all of the Masks, all of them, from White to Black.
After all of the information had finished flowing, his eyes flashed as he slowly said,
"I see what you mean, this Cultivation technique really is weird."
The young man merely rolled his eyes and stared at the arrogant looking man. After a moment of silence, the arrogant looking man spoke again,
"So, you took this from a clan did you?"
"Yeah, but I remembered to wipe out all of the members, and even if I didn't, they can only cultivate up to Nascent Soul stage, or Black Mask as they call it, so they would have been no threat regardless."
"True, but you can never be too careful."
Yes, this young man was the perpetrator of Ryuu Sasaki's clan's slaughter, the man that Ryuu Sasaki had sworn he would get his revenge on. Although he looked young, he and the middle-aged man were both very powerful cultivators and had lived for more than hundreds of years.
Unfortunately, Ryuu Sasaki didn't know this, but even if he did, he still wouldn't give up. He had sworn on everything he had left that he would get revenge and he fully intended to stay true to his word.
===
It had been 3 weeks since the annihilation of the Ryuu clan. During those 3 weeks, Ryuu Sasaki tried everything he could to find the Ninjutsu Cultivation method above Green Mask, but to no avail.
However, despite not finding the Ninjutsu Cultivation method, he had accomplished many other things. He had stocked up on everything he needed and was ready to leave for the Black Desert region.
Ryuu Sasaki's idea was to enter the nearest town that he knew of and decided to join someone's carriage. It would be very easy since he was so powerful, he only needed to pretend to be a bodyguard and people were willing to allow him to accompany them. As Ryuu Sasaki entered the town, he whispered to himself,
"Black Desert region, here I come!"