Ryker walked into Patriarch Rivarius’ office with a huge grin on his face. The old man was already huffing and puffing, but Ryker didn’t seem to notice, plopping down on a chair and pulling Jaana into his lap.

“How’ve you been, old man?”

“How have I been?!”

The momentum of a God flooded forward, and for a moment it looked as though it would swallow Ryker up completely. However, just as it was about to touch Ryker, it dispersed on its own.

Patriarch Rivarius had been waiting to teach Ryker a lesson, but he had to hold back in the end, realizing that his granddaughter was being used as a shield.

“You little shit…”

Ryker held his hands up in mock surrender, and Jaana giggled.

It could be said that Ryker rarely gave her public displays of affection in the past… unless they were in the presence of her grandfather. This was probably the one place that she was quite used to receiving such a thing.

Ryker was neither as powerful as the old Patriarch, and though his tongue was sharp, the old man’s tongue was sharp as well. The only way for him to get a decisive victory was by using Jaana.

Jaana herself never minded and she quite looked forward to such times. It was the only moment where Ryker had truly treated her like a fiancée instead of trying to keep her out of arm’s reach.

She couldn’t help but smile when she realized that things would no longer be like this.

“What did I do this time, old man? I just came back. I can’t get a hug or something?”

The old Patriarch exhaled a mouthful.

“Brat, do you think that we wouldn’t find out? The corpses are still out there. You couldn’t have at least cleaned them up?”

“Cleaned them up? And get my robes dirty? How would I come to see my wife if I couldn’t look presentable?”

Irozan was speechless. It seemed that the kid had disappeared only to come back several times more shameless.

After a long while, Irozan sat back down and exhaled a breath.

“You’re playing with fire. You haven’t even finished dealing with your own internal issues, but you’re already declaring war. Don’t you think that that’s a bit too extreme?”

“There’s no time,” Ryker replied with a smile.

“What do you mean there’s no time?! You’re still young! There are literally centuries ahead of you, don’t throw your life away like this.”

Ryker chuckled. “Do you think that they’ll give me that much time?”

Irozan fell into silence.

In the end, Ryker stood. “Don’t worry about it, old man. Just keep my wife safe and I’ll handle everything else. It’s about time that I stretch my wings a bit, don’t you think?”

Ryker placed Jaana down and gave her a kiss on the forehead.

“You stay here. I’ll come and visit you again in three days.”

Jaana blinked, feeling that this was a bit sudden.

“Just take me with you.”

Ryker shook his head. “I’m not returning to the Valorian Clan just yet. Plus, I can’t steal you from your grandfather until I give you a wedding, no?”

Jaana blushed profusely but nodded shyly in the end.

Ryker felt a warm feeling bloom in his heart. These emotions… he could feel them far more clearly than he ever had before.

He had realized it already, but back when he first grasped the Dao of Time, the pressure his Temporal Weave had on his psyche dropped even further.

However, he also realized that this wasn’t a perfect solution. If he was too casual and didn’t improve, then in several more years, his temperament might revert to the old Ryker and he would have to face off against his “episodes” once again.

He was determined to not let that happen. No, he would certainly not let it happen.

“Don’t forget to come cheer me on in another week,” Ryker grinned before waving them goodbye and then vanished from the compound.

“Grandpa… I’m worried…” Jaana couldn’t help but say after a long while.

Irozan looked toward where Ryker had left and slowly shook his head.

He had withstood a great deal of pressure in order to keep the marriage alliance between Ryker and Jaana active. Of course, he was the family head, and she was his granddaughter, so his word was final no matter what.

Still, he had always known that this pressure wasn’t just due to Ryker’s lack of cultivation. Soon, those fruits would come to bear, and it seemed that Ryker was already aware of them all.

“We can only wait patiently,” he said in the end.

**

Ryker left the planet, not caring if others sensed him or not. In fact, he hoped they did; he hadn’t killed enough.

After coming across the portal to the other world, Ryker realized that there was likely more than one. And if he was correct, they were all in regions that were normally impossible to get to without at least great strength and some rudimentary understanding of Dao.

However, he didn’t have to wait until his cultivation reached the realm of Mythics or Godhood. He could do it right now.

His Dao of Water was at Tier 2, and he wanted to raise his others as quickly as possible.

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He didn’t know of a location where he could study for his Dao of Sealing or his Dao of Time. But what he did know were regions where he could certainly do so for his Dao of Fire, Wind, and Earth.

Ryker said three days because he planned on giving himself about a day or so to study each one of these regions.

Part of finding the portal was luck. Sure, he had descended into the deepest parts of the ocean, but the ocean was also incredibly vast. There was no way to guarantee that he would certainly find such a portal.

As for why he wasn’t giving himself more time, it was because he wanted to raise at least Phoenix and Prometheus to Ascended status before his challenge commenced.

Ryker was already confident in clearing the challenge right now. But what he wanted wasn’t a normal win, but a beautiful win. One where he crushed every enemy that came up to him swiftly and with prejudice.

In addition, he hadn’t forgotten his main goal. He was still trying to reach the God Realm within another five or so months. But the underpinning of that requirement was also to have his beasts do the same.

If he reached the God Realm alone, it was meaningless.

But now these portals to another world with Dao were a perfect trump card for him. That was because not only would they allow him to sense the Dao with much greater ease, but they would also allow the prison to be far more helpful to him.

‘Just have to get lucky, I guess…’

The first world Ryker went to was one known to have the largest volcano in the galaxy. It was known as Mount Destruction, and its volcano face took up an entire quarter of the planet. From above, it could be seen so very clearly, and it almost looked like the open maw of a lava beast.

If Planet Rivarius had one of the highest concentrations of Water Spirit Energy, then this location was undoubtedly one of the best for Fire Type Spirit Energy. But it could also give Ryker a different perspective on Earth Type Spirit Energy as well.

Ryker entered the volcano and immersed himself in the heat. Within a day, he had grasped all 33 Paths of the Dao of Fire and nine of the Dao of Earth.

After reaching perfection, his Dao of Fire improvement slowed to a crawl. He tried looking for a portal, heading deeper and deeper into the planet, but he couldn’t find one.

It was too vast.

He changed his strategy and began using his Dao of Fire as a net.

Unfortunately, his Dao of Earth was the bottleneck. The molten rock was difficult for Ryker to see through. So in the end, he ran into his one-day timer and left the region.

…

On the second day, Ryker went to a planet simply known as Storm World by its people.

It was a particularly peculiar world because it could be said that there was almost nowhere to live other than high elevations where the atmosphere was so thin that storms couldn’t properly form.

Due to this, this planet evolved to have trees that were hundreds of kilometers high, with canopies that peaked past the clouds and were practically in the dead of space.

It was upon these trees that its people lived.

The most powerful wind affinity Clans frequented this place, and it was likewise Ryker’s next destination.

This time, Ryker was even faster.

The two main Daos of this world were Wind and Water Type, with Wind being by far the most prominent. It was similar to how Mount Destruction had Fire and Earth, with Fire being the more prominent.

As such, this time, Ryker had far more luck. That was because he didn’t need to waste his time diverting his attention to the Dao of Water because he had already fully grasped it.

In just half a day, he had mastered all 33 Paths of the Dao of Wind and began using his Dao of Wind and Water in conjunction to scour large swaths of the planet.

The Dao gave him feedback that covered hundreds of kilometers at a time, and he was able to search the deepest depths of the planet with extraordinary swiftness.

However, to Ryker’s disappointment, even after searching every nook and cranny of the planet, he didn’t find a portal.

‘Odd…’ He thought to himself. ‘Was I overthinking things?’

Ryker’s eyes narrowed, but he shook his head in the end. No, he believed that he was right.

Maybe the portals

only appeared at certain times, or maybe there just wasn’t a portal in every location. Maybe they pick and choose which regions are more worthy than others, or maybe they had cycles.

Keeping portals open like that should require a great amount of energy. After all, it was practically teleportation between worlds.

‘I don’t remember seeing any sort of laid out formations, though… I wonder…’

…

Ryker’s one-day timer came to an end, and he went to his final destination.

This destination was known as a Geo Pulse World. It was a place where gravity was exceptionally erratic. Sometimes it was lighter than it would be on most moons, and at other times it felt like one just had a mountain crush them from above.

The Clans that lived here often had to predict the gravitational fields and migrate around the planet in order to avoid the worst storms.

This time, the planet was pure Earth Type. Ryker didn’t have to worry about anything else and just focused the whole of his attention on comprehending the Dao of Earth.

He was even faster.

It took him just four hours to complete his Dao of Earth, reaching 33 Paths.

The moment he did, he felt Phoenix tremble in his dantian, and the big guy actually broke through, entering the 9th Enlightenment Realm.

It could only be said that the big guy’s improvement was speedy, and Ryker’s comprehension of the Dao was only making them faster.

‘Good. I’ll see if I can give them a final little boost soon…’

Each time Ryker reached 33 Paths in a Dao, there was a change to the Circles. He had already seen that if he perfected a Dao, he could use just three Circles to bind a 9th Circle Talent. This was what he had for Queen as well.

But now, Circles that could have contracted three separate 9th Circle Talents were all concentrated on Phoenix, and it seemed that the changes that were occurring weren’t just as simple as a cultivation breakthrough. It felt like Phoenix’s talents were breaking through one after another without the slightest intention of pausing.

Phoenix wasn’t the only one improving with blinding speed, either.

While in these last two worlds, Prometheus had leapt forward to the 8th Enlightenment Realm already. Unlike the others, Ryker didn’t need to worry about their bodies or bottlenecks with Prometheus. So long as there was enough guidance and enough Water and Fire, it could skyrocket.

By comparison, Ryker was taking things much slower with Queen because she was not only the youngest, but she had a body of flesh and blood unlike Prometheus. He couldn’t rush things with her. The best thing to do was to help her solidify her foundation and grow.

And yet, even while keeping things slow, Queen had already entered the 2nd Enlightenment Realm in just three days.

Using this boost, Ryker began to spend the rest of the day looking for another portal. He had only used up four hours until now, so he had another 20 to linger around.

He chose to wait to see if there really was some sort of cycle.

He moved around the world, sensing and feeling the Dao of Earth with a patience he never had before. It truly felt like the foundation of all things, but it was also the Spirit Type that was maybe the most overlooked. Or, maybe it was the one that was the most easily pushed into a box.

Earth was known best for defense and nothing else. But water could be used for defense, area control, and recovery. Wind could be used for speed, reconnaissance, and attacks. Fire was maybe the only one of the simple elements with explosive attack power capable of combating against the rarer elements.

In the shuffle, Earth Types often got lost, used as nothing more than vanguards.

That was why Phoenix’s talent was so special. Of their skills, Earth Reborn was probably the most useful of the lot. But how rare was it for a Spirit Beast to have such a talent?

As Ryker was lost in thought, he actually ended up stumbling onto the very thing that he was looking for this entire time.

‘Here? I passed through this region at least five times already… interesting…’

Ryker’s figure flashed and vanished, appearing before the portal.

This time, he observed it with a far keener eye and noticed something.

‘Interesting… interesting… the portal only appears when there’s an intersection of enough Dao Paths in one region.

‘This world doesn’t have the Dao, but it does have the semblance of Dao in some regions. The ocean portal is probably far more stable because there are fewer currents the lower you go. I was so deep in the trenches that the water hardly moved at all, so it was easy for Dao Paths to congregate and stay together for long periods of time.

‘But by extension, that means that if the ocean portal disappears, it will likely take just as long to appear again… fascinating…’

The reason Ryker was so shocked by this was because of the hidden implication. Somehow, Dao Paths, even of completely different Daos… were able to impact the Dao of Space to this degree?

A sudden bout of enlightenment hit Ryker, and he stared blankly out into space for a long while.

His Circles shuddered, and the Dao of Space slowly took shape for the first time.