Restricting it to their own Clan members was the most frequent kind. Only the one truly had no worthy descendants or recourse would they take a path like the Heavenly Path and hope to bolster their odds of a successful breakthrough in this life, or a smoother path in a next one.
Even then, these inheritances were most often restricted by Race. Who would want to help out another Race potentially suppress your own in the future? This was unacceptable.
There was clearly something else going on here, because even these nine had been arguing about whether they should give it to him or not.
In the end, they didn't get the choice at all because Ryu took it for himself.