Just in Time
All things considered, the man was not only innovative, but he was quite powerful, albeit a fool. Though he had never broken into the World Sea Realm, it was said that he had been capable of fighting experts of that caliber before the day of his death.
These Visualized Spiritual Foundations were exactly what Ryu wanted to home in on, because if he was correct, he believed that Elena's method of doing so would far supersede what the man of the past was capable of.
In order to form a Visualization of his Spiritual Foundation, the man essentially corrupted his Qi Realm path. Because, at the time, Mental Realm cultivation was banned, he didn't see a problem with what he did, flooding his dantian with large amounts of Spiritual Qi and diluting his normal qi.