Ryu didn't blink at the obscene price that represented the near sum earnings of Valor City in a year, he simply went about the business of handing what he owed over. He didn't plan on making this sort of large purchase again, anyway. After all, he had the Incubator. The only reason he bought so much to begin with was so that he'd have a sustained flow until the Incubator could provide him a continuous stream of resources.

The Incubator, after being improved by the Origin Essence of Ryu's final Rite could accelerate growth by a thousand times. If this was stacked with Ailsa's abilities, it was the equivalent of a ten thousand times increase in speed. This meant that Ryu's Spirit Seeking Lilies would only take one year to reach maturity instead of his previous ten-year estimate.

However, the Black Grade herbs Ryu had just bought wouldn't take nearly as long. Mental Realm herbs worked on a bit of a different system, but in terms of qi and body herbs, the incubation times went up by increments of ten times. Common Grade Herbs needed about a year to at most ten years to reach maturity, while Black Grade Herbs needed ten to a hundred years and Earth Grade Herbs required anywhere from a hundred to a thousand, and so on.

By this logic, Ailsa wouldn't need to do much of anything. It would only take a month for the Incubator to create an entire farm of Black Grade Herbs. With Ailsa's help, it would only take three days.

Normally, an herb on the level of the Spirit Seeking Lilies would take several hundred thousand if not millions of years to reach maturity. That said, because the Spirit Seeking Lilies split their maturation into two stages, the preparation stage, and the Spiritual Qi absorption stage, it was able to have a flexible growth period dependent on the concentration of Spiritual Qi around it. Since Ryu had an entire lake of Spiritual Qi, it made the second phase negligible and thus shortened the time frame needed.

All Mental Realm type herbs functioned in this way, including the Mind Calming Leaf. So, for Ryu's purposes, they'd only take a day to be prepared as opposed to the three days of the other herbs.

Ryu left the Association, ignoring the eyes that followed him out. His next destination was the Valor Auction House where he would buy himself some appropriate ores.

**

"Ah, young master Ryu, your order was a bit stringent, but I think we did it justice." A youth covered by a layer of soot grinned when Ryu stepped into the small blacksmith.

The young man scurried behind a loose, raggedy curtain only to lug back three large rectangular boxes of solid black. The strength of the youth was clear here. Ryu estimated that the total weight of these three boxes was almost ten thousand jin. Ryu wouldn't be able to lift such a heavy weight unless he circulated his qi, but this young man did it with nothing but his body.

"These should be some of my father's proudest works." The young man's smile almost shone a light of its own. "Thank you for giving him the opportunity to work with such high-quality materials. My father is resting right now, but he wanted me to give you these for free."

Ryu went to refute but the young man stopped him. "My father broke into the Earth Grade because of you. Trust me, the value of such a thing to him far surpasses a few gold coins. Thank you."

Though Ryu felt conflicted, it seemed like the young man wouldn't take no for answer. Just three days prior, after Ryu finished his business with the Valor Auction House, he began his search for a blacksmith. In the end, he settled on this small shop because Ailsa pointed it out to him.

Since he and Ailsa formed their cold link with one another, she hadn't spoken to him. She only completed the tasks she knew he wanted her to complete by reading his mind and intentions. In fact, she hadn't even spoken when she pointed toward the blacksmith. She only sat silently on his shoulder and lifted her arm. In the end, Ryu simply decided to follow her suggestion.

The owner of the blacksmith was from a small branch family of the Ember Clan. This young man's father wasn't incredibly skilled by any stretch of the imagination, but Ryu understood why Ailsa pointed him out quickly. His grade wasn't high, but he resonated with the true nature of the materials to an incredible degree, bringing out their full potential. But, this wasn't due to his own skill, but rather the special yang qi of the Ember Clan.

According to what Ryu could gather from the thoughts Ailsa didn't speak, the Ember Clan used a special branch of sealing cultivation known simply as 'Restrictions'. The fiercer the Restriction, the stronger their yang qi.

This young man's father, Blacksmith Ember, restricted himself from ever using his yang qi outside of these walls. As if that wasn't enough, he also swore to only use it for forging weapons, and as if even that wasn't enough, he swore to only make weapons for those whom the ores accepted.

The trouble was that this man was incredibly untalented in the field of blacksmithing. Even with his yang qi specifically tailormade for it, he was mediocre at best. Luckily for Ryu, his Ember Clan's special yang qi, known as Ember Qi, overcompensated for his lack of skill to a great extent.

After interacting with the family, Ryu only had two words for them: too stubborn.

Ryu was shocked to find out that Blacksmith Ember was actually a Divine Vessel Realm expert only a step away from the Connecting Heaven Realm. At the same time, his son, Vio, was older than Ryu, but was a mere Pulse Opening Realm expert. The sad part? Vio's blacksmithing talent was one Ailsa felt could become otherworldly with proper mentoring, this was her vision as a Cultus Faerie. Likewise, Blacksmith Ember, was a cultivation talent the likes of which rarely appeared in the world.

Yet, the father wanted to be a blacksmith, while the son wanted to be a cultivator

Ryu almost felt that the visit to this blacksmith shop had little to do with the Ember Clan's Ember Qi and everything to do with Ailsa making a silent, but fierce point. Sometimes, no matter how much you will it, you won't be able to accomplish what you set out to do.

This so-called 'fighting Fate' that Ryu was so proud of himself for doing was really just him working within the confines of a lane Fate allowed him. He was just luckier than others Maybe this was why he hadn't dared to read his Fate Star even after his Spiritual Foundation awoke

When Ryu took the three black boxes into his arms, he felt that their weight suddenly carried something outside of normal heaviness. The level of resolve this Ember Clan father and son pair had, did he have it? 'If my cultivation never awoke, would I still have had the perseverance to seek out revenge for Granny Miriam? Would I still dare to work toward saving my family? Would I dare to search for my wife?'