Grand Ancestral Bloodlines

Ryu had come to realize that the puzzle existed for a reason.

With how unorthodox the formation had been, why shouldn't the rest of this Ruin be just as unorthodox? In addition, whoever had left behind this formation wanted the person who claimed their inheritance to understand this unorthodoxy. If they couldn't, then how could they allow such a person to enter their holy grounds?

That was when Ryu came to realization that using symmetry to try and understand asymmetry was foolish. First he had to shift the foundation of his Matrix to better match this environment, and only then would it have the ability to calculate properly.

Almost immediately, the last calculation that Ryu had commanded the Matrix to finish, the very one that had almost overloaded it, finished in the blink of an eye.

Ryu's expression flickered as he quickly stepping forward. He began to move with a great amount of speed again, suddenly feeling that there probably wasn't the danger here that he thought there would be. The wraiths outside were probably just an inevitable consequence of this Ruin, but if Ryu was correct, they probably weren't the attention of the individual who had left this Ruin behind.

Several minutes later, Ryu came to another stop, but this time, he stood right outside of cave entrance.

To call it a cave probably wasn't the most accurate. It felt more like the entrance to an immortal abode, but for whatever reason, the entrance was opened wide and didn't have any protection whatsoever if the fog itself was ignored.

Ryu narrowed his eyes and checked the surroundings for a moment. This should still be the outer region of the Sect or Clan, nowhere near the core region, but the Matrix pointed out this location for him to enter.

Although it wasn't 100% of the time, the core location of the Ruin was almost always the place where the treasures were. It could only be said that this Ruin was truly out of the ordinary.

Ryu took a step forward and entered, his body primed and ready.

His vision blurred for a moment, and when it cleared, he no longer found himself at the entrance of a normal cave abode, but was rather standing in a grand hall. All around him, balls of gold hung about, looking like light fixtures that hung just a bit too low in the extraordinarily grand hall.

Ryu didn't move for a long while, just allowing his senses to spread through the region. There wasn't any reward here, so that meant that he had yet to come to the end of this Ruin, and whatever these floating golden balls were, they were likely to be part of the test.

After a brief sweep, Ryu realized that the space was once again perfectly symmetrical. You could split a line right down the middle and reflect it onto the other half perfectly.

At the very center of the room, there was exactly one light source. But this one light source bounced off the golden balls with almost perfect reflection, brightening up the entire grand hall despite the fact the light itself wasn't very bold or concentrated.

It took a while, but Ryu felt that he came to understand what was happening here.

It wasn't just the balls that were symmetrical, but the lights as well. With the way they rebounded, there was a perfect distribution of photons across the entirely room, leaving every inch illuminated, including the three doors.

There was one doorway ahead, and another two, one to the left and the other to the right. There was a fourth that was right behind Ryu, but he ignored it on account of the fact that he should have just come from it even though it didn't feel that way.

If Ryu was correct, he needed to concentrate these light sources onto one of these doors by changing the orientation of the golden balls, and the correct pathway to take would be dependent on the arrangement of said golden balls.

Without even calculating it all, Ryu had a good guess. It was likely that two of these three doorways would have symmetrical patterns while one would have an asymmetrical pattern, the one with asymmetry would obviously be the correct door to choose.

Having realized this, Ryu began his calculations once again, but as he continued, his brow only continued to furrow further and further.

The orientation for the left door was… asymmetrical.

The orientation for the right door was… asymmetrical.

The orientation for the back door was… asymmetrical.

All three doors could have light shone upon them with asymmetrical patterns. This left Ryu in a bit of a bind. If all three fit the criteria, then which door should he choose?

With a flicker of his irises, Ryu chose to test the door right behind him as well, but to his surprise, the door behind him required an arrangement pattern that was perfectly symmetrical.

'My understanding of this is too superficial, there has to be something beyond just symmetry here, something deeper and more meaningful. It can't be that they're choosing this unorthodox path without reason, there has to be some sort of advantage.'

Despite the fact it seemed logical to just take the door behind him as it seemed he had been wrong about it, Ryu felt that his initial premise was wrong to begin with. The greatest taboo of a Ruin Master was to be stuck in their ways. Solving puzzles and riddles, especially difficult ones, couldn't be done without an ability to step outside of your box and way of thinking. Being stuck with one school of thought was an easy way to fast track yourself to death.

The Matrix in Ryu's palm flickered and danced as he thought in silence.

'Asymmetry… Asymmetry… Light up all three doors but the one behind me…'

Ryu's Matrix flickered once again.

The calculation for this one was far more complex, but even so, just thinking of it was the large majority of the problem. Now that he had, nothing would stop him.

Several minutes later, Ryu flicked his finger, causing a strand of qi to zip outward and collide with a golden ball.

One by one, they began to shift, the menacing eye of an unorthodox formation beginning to take shape.