The completion of Ryven's acupoint activation had triggered something unprecedented within his Ancestral Chaos bloodline. As he settled into his first Chaos Tempering session, waves of inherited knowledge flooded his consciousness—not just simple techniques or cultivation methods, but something far more profound and ancient.
Primordial techniques.
These weren't martial arts created by some long-dead master or cultivation methods developed through centuries of refinement. According to the inherited memories, these techniques had emerged spontaneously with the birth of the multiverse itself, crystallizing from the fundamental forces that governed reality before conscious beings existed to observe them.
The Void Step Movement Art allowed instantaneous travel through folded space-time, bypassing the normal limitations of distance and physical barriers. The Chaos Shroud Concealment Method could hide practitioners from any form of detection by temporarily removing them from causality itself. The Primordial Sword Forms contained seventeen distinct attack patterns that operated on principles predating conventional physics.
"Well, this is either the most incredible inheritance in cultivation history, or my bloodline is playing elaborate practical jokes on me," Ryven muttered, examining the technique specifications flooding his mind. "Though given that I can barely understand one percent of these instructions, I'm inclined toward the former."
The complexity was staggering. Where normal techniques could be learned through practice and repetition, primordial methods required practitioners to comprehend fundamental aspects of existence itself before they could even attempt basic applications. The movement art demanded understanding of how space-time curvature created the illusion of distance. The concealment method required mastery of causal relationships and temporal mechanics. The sword forms operated on principles that his enhanced intelligence could barely grasp, let alone implement effectively.
But even his limited comprehension was producing results that defied belief. His first attempt at the Void Step technique only achieved about three percent implementation—barely enough to enhance his normal movement speed—yet the effect rivaled divine-grade techniques that cultivation sects would kill to obtain. If he could eventually master even ten percent of these primordial methods, he would possess capabilities that transcended conventional power scaling entirely.
"Right, so I have access to techniques that were literally born with the universe, but I'm too stupid to use them properly," Ryven observed, practicing a sword form that his limited understanding rendered as only slightly better than perfection. "That's... actually par for the course with my recent advancement pattern, now that I think about it."
The irony wasn't lost on him. His rapid cultivation progress had consistently outpaced his theoretical understanding, creating a pattern where he possessed incredible power but lacked the wisdom to apply it optimally. The primordial techniques represented the ultimate expression of this problem—methods so advanced that comprehending them fully might require centuries of dedicated study.
Still, even partial mastery was proving incredibly useful for practical applications. His three-percent implementation of the Chaos Shroud made him effectively invisible to any detection method he could imagine, while his minimal grasp of the Void Step allowed movement that seemed to ignore conventional limitations like terrain and distance.
Testing these abilities, Ryven discovered that his enhanced foundation made learning primordial techniques significantly easier than the inherited knowledge suggested it should be. His intent-infused acupoints provided conceptual frameworks that helped bridge the gap between theoretical understanding and practical application, while his chaos intent mastery offered insight into the fundamental randomness that connected all phenomena.
"Maybe I'm not as hopeless at this as I initially thought," he mused, successfully combining a primordial sword form with his Seven Pillars Chaos Formation to create an attack that carved reality itself rather than simply cutting through physical matter. "Though 'less hopeless than expected' is probably not the most confidence-inspiring self-assessment."
As he continued practicing, Ryven became aware that his training area was attracting unwanted attention. Several Spirit Beasts had wandered into what they apparently considered his territory, drawn by the residual energy signatures from his technique experimentation. Their timing was actually convenient—he needed practice targets to develop his combat applications, and they provided opportunities to test primordial methods under realistic conditions.
The first intruder was a Crystal Horn Rhinoceros that had apparently decided his crater represented prime real estate worth claiming through violence. The creature's spiritual signature indicated peak Spirit Beast capability, making it roughly equivalent to a late Fusion Realm cultivator with enhanced physical advantages.
"Perfect timing," Ryven said, drawing the Void Eclipse Sword and preparing to test his primordial sword forms against a living opponent. "Let's see how universal techniques handle practical combat applications."
The battle that followed would have been impossible to predict using conventional combat analysis. Ryven's partial mastery of primordial techniques created effects that operated outside normal cause-and-effect relationships, making his attacks appear to strike before his sword moved while his defensive techniques seemed to prevent attacks that hadn't been launched yet.
The rhinoceros, despite its enhanced intelligence, had no framework for understanding what was happening to it. Its charge attacks met empty air that somehow contained sword strokes, while its defensive techniques failed to block attacks that approached from temporal angles rather than spatial directions.
"This is either incredibly sophisticated combat methodology, or I'm accidentally cheating at physics," Ryven observed, landing killing blows through techniques that bypassed the normal sequence of cause and effect. "Possibly both, which would explain why these methods feel so fundamentally wrong from a theoretical perspective."
The second intruder proved more challenging—a Shadow Fang Leopard whose natural stealth capabilities should have made it nearly impossible to detect or target effectively. But Ryven's Chaos Shroud concealment allowed him to exist partially outside normal space-time, making conventional stealth irrelevant when both combatants were operating on similar conceptual levels.
The battle became a surreal dance between predators who could both exist in multiple states simultaneously. The leopard's attacks phased through space to strike from impossible angles, while Ryven's counterstrikes occurred in temporal frames that preceded the leopard's defensive responses.
"Right, so apparently primordial technique combat looks like a fever dream directed by someone who failed basic physics," Ryven muttered, executing a sword combination that existed in seventeen different timeline variations simultaneously. "Though I have to admit, the results are undeniably effective."
By the time he'd dealt with the fifth intruder—a Thunder Wing Eagle that had made the mistake of attacking from an aerial approach—Ryven's understanding of primordial techniques had improved noticeably. His implementation percentages were still pathetically low by absolute standards, but his combat effectiveness had increased exponentially.
More importantly, he was beginning to understand how primordial methods integrated with his other capabilities. His chaos intent provided conceptual bridges that made partial technique mastery more effective, while his enhanced foundation supplied the power base necessary to fuel methods that operated outside normal energy conservation laws.
"The real question," Ryven mused, storing beast cores and preparing for his next Chaos Tempering session, "is whether these capabilities will scale appropriately against Soul Realm opponents, or if I'm developing elaborate solutions to problems that don't actually matter at higher power levels."
That question would require practical testing against genuinely dangerous opponents, but for now, he was content to continue developing his foundation while gradually expanding his comprehension of techniques that predated conscious existence. His cultivation journey had already exceeded every expectation he'd held, and the primordial inheritance suggested that he was only beginning to explore what was possible.
The alien landscape of Tianxing provided perfect isolation for such ambitious projects, while the constant presence of spiritual energy ensured that even his rest periods contributed to ongoing advancement. Whether he was approaching transcendence or courting disaster remained to be determined, but either outcome promised to redefine what human cultivation could achieve.
As he settled into systematic technique practice, Ryven couldn't shake the feeling that his real challenges lay ahead rather than behind him. The power he was developing would eventually attract attention from forces that viewed exceptional cultivators as either valuable assets or existential threats, and his partial mastery of primordial techniques would make hiding his capabilities increasingly difficult.
But those were concerns for future versions of himself to address. Right now, surrounded by the remains of overconfident Spirit Beasts and bathed in the light of an alien world, he had techniques older than civilizations to master and a foundation unlike anything in recorded history to perfect.