Asura Ryuu and Asura Tenka spent the rest of the day learning about different types of Spirit Fruits and their use. They tried at least one of each type and felt the effects the fruits had on them.
Some fruits had special types of effects that appeared even on the two monsters.
An example is a golden-colored fruit called Bone Essence Golden Cherry.
It's size wasn't something to boast with - as the name says. It was only a size of a cherry. However, the fruit doesn't need to be particularly big for it to have good effects.
There were no rankings for these things but Xiao Lan told them that the Bone Essence Golden Cherry is a very interesting type of fruit that dissolves inside one's blood and over time gets absorbed into the bones, strengthening the connections between the joints and the very core where the blood is produced - the marrow.
Naturally, eating too much isn't good and won't have any additional effect after a few fruits.
That was one of the fruits that had an effect even at the two monsters with a very powerful blood.
Now one has to understand what 'powerful blood' means in order to understand the deeper meaning behind those words.
The blood itself has some specific properties, and every being has a different type of blood in this world. It is not like on Earth where some animals have similar blood as humans and where humans can share blood if their Blood Types match.
The blood in this world with special energy called Spirit Energy is fundamentally different because it's not only a 'transporter' of energy and microbes as it is the case on Earth.
The blood of beings born in the world with Spirit Energy is also a container that stores Spirit Energy as well as its conductor. If the entire bloodstream is saturated with Spirit Energy, then the being doesn't really need any external type of energy to survive, like food for example.
Some beings also don't require water because their Spirit Emblems are water-attributed.
Some even get energy from sun, moon and other sources that don't usually supply enough energy for survival according to Earth's rules.
Although the sun does give energy on Earth, it's nowhere near the amount needed for internal operation of one's body. If humans could absorb the energy from the sun like plants, then that'd be the entirely different story.
That entirely different story is precisely this story - the world where energy constantly changes forms, owners and sources.
Some species can eat rocks and survive.
Some species can eat bones and drink blood of other species to survive, and they make up the majority of Spirit Beasts.
The reason why they can survive by drinking blood, which would otherwise be impossible on the planet without Spirit Energy, is precisely because blood contains hidden energy within it.
Based on that, we now come to the question of bloodlines. What counts as a powerful bloodline?
There are several factors that determine how 'powerful' the bloodline is:
- How high compression can the blood endure.
The lowest level of bloodline is considered the one that can't endure any compressed type of Spirit Energy and can only absorb the original form. It is considered 'bad' because after reaching the limit their blood can bear, one can't advance any further by absorbing Spirit Energy because there's no place to store it - their blood is fully saturated by Spirit Energy after all.
There are many workarounds around this limitation that Spiritualists who didn't have any luck with being born with a strong enough bloodline and awakened with non-useful Spirit Emblem came up with. One of them included the usage of external capacitors for holding Spirit Energy like gems and weapons imbued with those types of gems.
That's why a good Blacksmith was a valued figure in the Spiritualists' world.
Another way would be when one had a vastly stronger Spirit Power than usual - they could control Spirit Energy in the air directly and compress it immediately without a need to absorb it into one's body.
However, all of those were merely workarounds because at the end of the day, the body still stays weak even though the usage of Spirit Energy is strong.
The reason why powerful Spiritualists who can control the natural phenomena appear is because they enhance themselves with Spirit Energy and forcefully push their bodies towards evolution.
That brings us to the second criteria:
- Potential.
Some bloodlines have distinct properties that allow them to decompose other types of energy and automatically compress them. The more types of energy they can decompose and turn into their own, the better the bloodline. This is called 'The Bloodline's potential.'
- Unique Ability
Some bloodlines have unique abilities that, under a certain condition, can generate a certain type of energy be it explosive energy, life energy, death energy or even turn the stored Spirit Energy into pure, raw strength. This is also one of the important criteria used to determine the level of bloodline.
The reason why True Dragon Bloodline is so valued is because it provides endless possibilities for compression. That means even if the Spirit Energy evolves several times into higher-tiered energy of which only Immortal Energy is currently known to this lower world, it wouldn't collapse and lose its properties. Asura Ryuu knew of one more type - the Divine Energy.
True Dragons are beings controlling water, thunder, flood, even elements or, in extreme cases, creation and chaos.
Phoenixes have a certain type of ability allowing for a special kind of flame that appears when using the bloodline's power.
True Phoenix has a Nirvana flame that slightly bends the rules of the world, which allows the one possessing that type of bloodline to undergo rebirth from their ashes. The exact event isn't understood even by True Phoenixes themselves.
Everyone believes that the Great Dao is responsible for that.
The Great Dao is not an entity - it is a set of rules according to which all creation operates.
Asura Ryuu understood it in his own way when combining the knowledge of The Realm of Gods and the experience from his several lives.
The Programming language used in Programs is the Great Dao for that Program.
The characteristic names and symbols used in programming are equivalent to what Runes represent in the Celestial Realms and the universe they are in.
DNA for living beings is the closest comparison for the laws of the Great Dao that we can get to besides comparing it to programming.
Knowing which DNA code to use and which of the four states to change can entirely change the outcome. The same applies for the Runes in this world.
Naturally, there are some things that are similar in both worlds.
Matter.
Celestial bodies and laws.
Majority of the laws of the universe are the same even in this world. There are exceptions, as Asura Ryuu has found out, where he found the ashen-white dragon in the middle of a Black Hole.
Could someone survive the Black Hole in his last world - the world where Earth is?
It depends on many things, but no living being without external aid could. There's absolutely no way that any living being can survive inside of it on its own as of now. Maybe with genetic engineering there will be one in the future, but for now there isn't. Even if humans could get inside somehow, they'd need to use their technology to resist the pressure of the vacuum, before everything else.
The Celestial Realms and the universe they are in is completely based on the universe in which Earth is.
If laws of Asura Ryuu's old world are zeroes and ones in machine language, then The Celestial Realms's universe is made up of more states than zeroes and ones.
The fundamental laws of Asura Ryuu's old world say everything is made of matter. Matter is a mysterious thing that humanity hasn't grasped yet. The world Asura Ryuu lived in was made of four basic states that could be found in atoms that were everywhere:
- Positive Spin
- Negative Spin
- Superposition
- No spin
The lowest level humanity has ever reached is called quanta. At first, visible things were quanta, then atoms became quanta. After humans found out that atoms comprised different things then those things became quanta called protons neutrons and electrons.
As technology advanced, humans' understanding advanced too which led to discovery of even smaller (lower level) existence than neutrons, electrons and protons - quarks. The humanity had various ideas about what was beyond that, but in the period Asura Ryuu lived in, they didn't yet observe the existence that quarks were made of.
As a scientist himself, Asura Ryuu always tries to understand the reasoning behind everything.
Why does the sun have a purple color?
Why are there nine suns?
Why is earth hard at time and soft at other?
Why is blood made of water?
If he didn't ask himself those questions, Asura Ryuu couldn't imagine his daily life.
The same applies to his current world.
Why is Bone Essence Golden Cherry able to strengthen the connections between bones magically? Is it because of the Great Dao?
Is it just because some kind of chemical reaction happens and that's it?
Asura Ryuu's ultimate goal is to understand and uncover new things. That was originally why he was so excited when he came to this new world. The world essentially different from his old one!
That is what makes him what he is...
Asura Ryuu is a scientist!
Once a scientist, always a scientist!