Ryker walked forward at a steady pace, much slower than when he started. But this wasn’t due to the pressure, though it was increasing exponentially. Instead, he was finding different mysteries in the Dao of Water… well, he was trying and mostly failing.

It seemed that the more he comprehended, the less there was to see. It might be that the others were too obscure and would take more time, or it was that the current environment wasn’t conducive to learning these secret aspects. He might have to go to a different body of water to try it out, or try to peek into the secret of the Stars again.

‘Hm… I wonder. What aspects of the Dao of Water would allow it to fuse with fire?’

Prometheus chaos Spirit Energy was fascinating, and obviously a rare occurrence. But there had to be some aspect of the Dao of Water that allowed it to happen, or else no matter how unique the environment, that step would never be taken.

Ryker felt that this question was quite profound, too profound, even.

It felt like the more he came to understand, the less he felt like he knew.

As they said, ignorance was bliss. And in this case, the more knowledge he gathered, the more he was burdened by his lack of exactly that.

‘Hm?’

Ryker’s steps stopped, and his eyes couldn’t help but narrow.

Before him, there was an enormous trench. There didn’t seem to be an easy way to go around it.

The fissure extended for hundreds of miles in both directions, and it was too dark to see how deep it was, or if it even had a depth at all. For all he knew, it extended to infinity.

Of course, logically, it wouldn’t be that exaggerated. But even probing with [Soul Ripple], and even trying to use aspects of his Dao of Water to see if he could feel out the bottom, he realized that it was at least over a kilometer deep.

‘Interesting…’

He was already so far below the surface, and yet something like this appeared.

If it was really so deep, he might run into soft, extremely hot water down below if there was some geo-thermal activity going on.

When Ryker had this thought, he jumped down with little hesitation.

Hadn’t he just been having thoughts about the fusion of water and fire? What could be more interesting than water that was heated past its boiling point, but under too much pressure to vaporize?

What kind of Dao of Water would he observe there?

Fascinated by the thought, Ryker descended.

It was easy. With the air bubble around him, he just had to control the water around him to move through the water below it. His descent was smooth, and he didn’t foresee any problems with returning while doing the reverse either.

However, when Ryker passed the kilometer mark, his eyes couldn’t help but become unprecedentedly serious.

The pressure was increasing exponentially faster than it should, and at the same time, the trench only seemed to be getting deeper.

It looked like there was still more than a kilometer below him even after he had already descended a kilometer.

This wasn’t some endless plane, he was on a planet with just about 13 000 kilometers in diameter. This was a lot, but it had to be considered that only a sliver of this was considered to be the surface.

The deepest part of the ocean shouldn’t be more than about 10 to 15 kilometers deep.

And by this point, Ryker was easily approaching the 10 kilometer mark, and this trench had just added another two to that…

Then three.

Ryker passed the second kilometer mark and he found himself struggling to maintain the barrier of water around him at this point. He was playing with fire.

This deep, even a Mythic would be crushed in an instant by the pressure. Although his foundation was far sturdier than any Ascended could compare to, he still had no intention of looking down on Mythics.

He knew exactly what would happen to him if he faltered here.

Was it worth continuing?

Just as Ryker had this thought, he spotted something.

It was subtle, but it was certainly there. It was a reddish glow that illuminated the surroundings just the slightest bit.

It obviously wasn’t too much, or else he would have noticed a long while ago, but it was definitely substantial enough for him to notice.

He took a breath and paused where he was sitting in meditation.

Feeling the relentless pressure of the water, he felt certain aspects being forced upon him.

He once again began to descend, but this time much more slowly than before and with the patience of a saint.

He slowly adjusted to the pressure, and three hours later, when he opened his eyes once more, the glow had become fierce in his eyes.

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‘As expected.’

It was a thermal vent. The water was being violently super-heated, causing it to rush upward. But by the time it approached the peak of the trench, it had cooled down enough to turn back around and right back down.

‘This cycle…’

Before he could even sense the heated water, Ryker felt a trembling inside him and he comprehended his 32nd Path.

It was obscure, and it truly felt that it hit on something far more profound.

The cyclic Path. He could almost see the journey of water, from droplets of rain to the raging currents of rivers, only to evaporate on a hot day and start all over again.

On a deeper level, it was like the cycle of life. On an even deeper level, it was like karma.

Realizing these things, Ryker felt like his Dao of Water had undergone a qualitative change, as though he had just come to understand a path that was highly important to its foundation.

Not only this, but the integration with the others was shockingly easy. There was no resistance at all this time as compared to last.

And inwardly, Ryker felt that he was close to a sort of perfection that was just barely out of his grasp. He just had to catch the last faint wisps.

Ryker opened his eyes and stared at the close-to-bubbling water below, feeling that it had precisely what he needed.

After the qualitative change to Dao of Water, the process became much easier. He pushed on ahead and soon, even through his barrier, he could feel the heat.

It was like the water was in a cage it couldn’t escape. It wanted to boil, but it couldn’t do so, the pressure was too high.

‘No… it’s not that it wants to boil, but it isn’t in a state where it can at all. Its properties have fundamentally changed…

‘Conversely, if the pressure was reversed and it was instead very low, wouldn’t that mean it would take even less energy for it boil? Its foundational principles would change again…’

Ryker’s eyes glowed with enlightenment, and just like that, he comprehended his 33rd Path.

At that moment, a shudder suddenly went through his body and he found his Dao of Water Circles thrumming with an undying vibrancy. It looked as though it had been a caged that was only now finally able to soar.

All of the pressure that Ryker was feeling vanished in the blink of an eye, and his blue eyes seemed to become several shades bluer and far deeper.

At the same time, all of the stamina he had used up to make it this far were replenished in an instant, almost as though the water around him was taking the initiative to coddle him and give him its energy.

The difference was like night and day. He didn’t even feel like he needed to communicate actively with the water at all. He just thought and it acted.

Then there came the change to his Circles…

They seemed to…

Expand?

Ryker was shocked for a moment.

The expansion wasn’t literally. Other than the gorgeous blue runes flickering around it, there wasn’t actually a change to the Circles. But in Ryker’s mind, they loomed far larger.

He felt like their talent had taken a fundamental shift, and if he was cultivating Water Type Spirit Energy now, he would have excellent speed even without a Spirit Beast.

That fact alone was shocking enough, but Ryker also realized that because of this change, these three Circles were just as good as his nine Circles.

That was when a shocking realization hit him.

Did that mean that… he could Contract a 9th Circle Spirit Beast with just three Circles now?

After some observation, Ryker shook his head.

‘It’s not quite that simple. If I want to use this method, my Dao needs to always stay ahead of the Spirit Beast. Right now, at this level, it can accommodate up to a First Ascended 9th Circle Spirit Beast. However, if I wanted this beast to become a Second Ascended, I would either need to upgrade my Dao to Tier 2, which will be much more difficult now. Or, allow the Spirit Beast to use more Circles… if not, the beast will break free of my contract…’

It was truly fascinating. He hadn’t expected such a change at all.

But then he couldn’t help but look at Phoenix resting in his dantian. What did it mean for Phoenix to have three chances at this?

Would it make Phoenix a… 27 Circle Talent? Or maybe it would just reverse their situation, where now it would be Ryker that helped boost Phoenix’s cultivation speed rather than the other way around? Or maybe it was a little bit of both?

And what about his Dao of Sealing and Dao of Time that already took up nine Circles? What if he also comprehended 33 Paths for them?

Phoenix was obviously a living, breathing creature, so changing their aspects and foundation was more difficult. But what about the Silver Mirror that was current tied to the Dao of Time?

If Ryker accomplished the same feat for it, would it cause the Silver Mirror to become this “27” Circle Talent? After all, the Talent of a Mystery Type Contract was based on the whims of the Mythical Master. Ryker, as a three year old, had chosen to give the Silver Mirror nine Circles. So technically speaking, it was the most talented Contract he had.

As these thoughts were whirring around in Ryker’s mind, he chose to continue descended.

No matter how hot it was, it was still water, and in his current state, this water didn’t seem capable of harming him.

This was ultimately an Iteration, and due to that, the world had aspects of the Dao, but wasn’t truly powered by it.

If this was in the outside world where the Dao was complete, merely having a Tier 1 Dao like Ryker’s wouldn’t be enough to act so carelessly.

But here, where the Dao was scarce to non-existent, these waters could not harm him unless there was an entity with powerful Spirit Energy controlling them.

And until now, he had not run into such a thing.

Eventually, the waters became so bright that rather than helping Ryker see like before, it became difficult to do so instead.

Ryker suddenly felt an odd fluctuation and his mind focused. He rushed off to the side, feeling a strong tug down. Just before he fell in, he managed to catch the side of the trench, using the water around him to form a hand and grab onto a rock.

‘What was that?’

It felt like the pressure he had been withstanding was suddenly released and trying to flow toward the area of least resistance, but it had also almost taken him out completely.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t see too much, and when he tried to probe with [Soul Ripple], he had to quickly pull back for fear of harming his soul. If not for his Pure Soul, he might have already been injured.

After some thought, Ryker went around the thermal activity and continued to descend, trying to see what was so special.

The trench was hundreds of kilometers long, and the activity range of the thermal geyser definitely wasn’t so great. So it wasn’t a problem for him to do this at all.

Yet, when he finally reached the very bottom of the trench and touched earth, he couldn’t help but be stunned.

He could finally see past the dense glow, and what he was looking at left him without words.

Was that a portal?

But even that was just the very beginning, because Ryker had a thought pulling on him with far more ferocity than that.

The more important question wasn’t if it was a portal, that was obvious enough. He could clearly feel the spatial fluctuations likely because he had studied the Dao of Space before although he hadn’t taken the steps to comprehend it.

What was far more important was what was on the other side?

There were only three possibilities as Ryker saw it.

The first was that it was to another region in this Iteration, and maybe even just to the core of this planet.

The second was that it was to another Iteration entirely. This was possible as well because the stabilizing force of the prison had been removed by Ryker, and even before that their jailers had made grave mistakes that resulted in Ryker succeeding in reaching Patience’s Iteration in the first place.

And the third was the most shocking, and one he certainly knew was likely just foolish hopes and dreams.

Was it a path outside this prison entirely?