The Martial Unity

Chapter 3144: Changing People

Rui watched as Kane departed from the mountain, returning to the Town of Hajin with a solemn expression.

From this day forth, their friendship will have fundamentally changed.

Kane’s decision to cease his relentless pursuit of Rui came as a shock to the latter as a shock. To a certain extent, he had expected that Kane would keep up with him to some extent forever. He had taken Kane’s company with him across higher and higher Realms of power for granted, and now that reality had proven to be different, he found himself already missing the bond they had.

And yet, at the same time, he was happy for Kane.

He had known that he and Fae had had a special dynamic with each other from when they were in the Martial Academy. He knew that the two of them had had a close relationship for a long time. He was just happy for the two of them.

With his family as a new variable, there was no way that he would ever want to become a Transcendent Candidate. Of course, it wasn’t necessarily true that one needed to forsake family to become a Transcendent Candidate. Bodhisattva Maitreyi and Sage Jinryong Namgung both were big on family and had yet to arrive at the very cusp of Transcendence.

Rui shook his head, heaving a sigh.

The decision was made, and he had every intention of respecting Kane’s will.

The goal of ’keeping up with Rui’ was a slightly immature one compared to focusing on his family, which held true weight and importance. It appeared that he longed for more of a meaningful and real drive, one that he found in Fae and their unborn child.

Rui spent some more time on the mountain, as he processed everything that had happened, as he fell into deep thought. Kane’s decision to end the special bond that had characterized their friendship left Rui in an introspective mood.

It was a change that left him deeply pondering how much things changed.

How much people changed.

Even as he relentlessly pursued his drive down his Martial Path, the people around him changed in what drove them. He had seen it among family and friends, and he had even seen it among Martial Sages, many of whom had long achieved their original goals for power, especially after Enlightenment of Self.

Perhaps his father was the only exception.

A man who had spent now almost four hundred years pursuing his duty to the throne and to the Kandrian Empire as its Emperor. Rui knew that there was a point where he was genuinely considering giving up the throne, for how incompatible he was with the world around him, which had changed astronomically since he first took the throne almost four centuries ago.

However, the changes brought by the true world had forced him to remain, unable to possibly transition in such a sensitive period in their introduction to the true world, which had proven to be perilous.

He heaved a deep breath, before getting up, throwing one last deep gaze at the Town of Hajin, before shifting his gaze to the smaller satellite Quarrier Town that orbited the former.

He couldn’t help but double take at how much larger it had grown in the eleven years since he had departed from the place. It had evolved from a substantial village to a small town, completely changing in ways that Rui could have never expected.

The infrastructure was modern, based on sophisticated esoteric construction technology that had permeated human civilization despite the Beast Incursion. The town was teeming with multi-storey buildings and auto-carriages that drove up and down the streets.

The roads weren’t just limited to mud paths as they had been in the Quarrier Village; they were made from a special, flat tar that was spread across each and every street in the town.

Even from a distance, he could see the people of the town didn’t work simple and menial agrarian jobs or anything of the sort, but worked in companies and businesses that had set up shop across the entirety of the satellite town. Because of the fact that Quarrier Town was basically connected to the Town of Hajin, many people treated it as a partial extension of the thriving trade hub.

Despite it being nighttime, the town still had some activity within it with a myriad of lights still turned on and people walking the sidewalks, as well as automobiles traveling across the silent streets of the town, despite how late the time was.

”To think that the orphanage she created would grow into such a town one day.” A smile emerged on Rui’s face as he thought back to the Quarrier Orphanage. ”I wonder how everybody is doing.”

Although he felt the urge to rush to Amare immediately, he knew he needed to check on what little remaining family he had left. It was precisely because he didn’t check on them when he should have and didn’t spend time with them that he had a few regrets when they all passed away.

Human life was fragile.

It was yet another reminder to cherish the normal people in his life that he loved, or else they would be gone before he even realized.

”Then again, I think no ordinary person is left still.”

WHOOSH

In the blink of an eye, he surged towards Quarrier Town, activating misdirection to ensure that nobody in the town paid any mind to him as he descended upon the center of the town.

His eyes softened as he came across a statue in a circle around the outside of the mayoral office of the town. A statue of Lashara was made in honor of the woman who was the reason that the town existed. It was made of bronze, capturing her gentle warmth and softness with remarkable accuracy. In her arms was a little baby, one that was intended to be Rui, according to the little memorial.

Even if much of the immigration to Quarrier Village was due to the fact that it had been his childhood home, none of it would have ever existed if not for Lashara creating the orphanage in the first place.