The Martial Unity

Chapter 3169: Nature Path of Knowledge

Rui regarded the elderly woman before him with a curious gaze.

She was powerful.

He didn’t know how strong precisely.

But he could tell that she was extremely powerful, perhaps one of the higher-ups of the dark elven polity she came from.

Of course, in this environment, she was likely not able to bring out the very best of what she had to offer. In an environment barren of life, she might even be as harmless as the average human grandmother.

In which case, it was quite daring for someone of her importance to make a journey to a foreign, unknown continent in person. The same could be said for all of them, even though he knew that they had likely verified that the continent had plenty of flora thanks to seventeen years of esoterification during the Beast Incursion.

”Rui.”

His attention was drawn to the side as a Martial Sage emerged from several tents serving as a makeshift base for the human liaison for the dark elves. His expression grew strange as he spotted none other than the Harbinger herself, Sage Sera.

She looked well, having grown stronger than ever as the Beast Incursion had truly put her through the wringer for many years. Her greatest strengths were useless against the beasts and monsters of the Beast Domain because they didn’t understand human speech, were relatively unintelligent, and were already in a frenzy out of their control.

She had come close to death almost every day in the Central Highlands, barely surviving by the skin of her teeth.

However, overcoming those challenges had made her a fearsome Martial Artist even without her greatest strength. Her very presence contained an eerie, perilous edge to it as her purple eyes flashed with a faintly sinister vibe.

”My father sent you, of all people, to bond with the dark elves?”

She folded her arms with a ladylike grace, with an expression of amused mirth. ”My, how rude of you, my words are capable of bringing about harmony to the soul.”

”Hah,” Rui scoffed with an amused expression, before returning his gaze to the dark elves with a calm but friendly expression.

”My name is Rui. Rui Quarrier Silas Kandria. I have come here to speak with you and learn more about the six continents.”

The elderly dark elf at the very center looked hardly surprised at the request.

”Rie hol rayffsa su ugmayara sac muryi sac eaara hol rayffsa su lu xiyie csadie.”

We are willing to oblige as long as you are willing to do the same.

It appeared that they had gained a remarkably good understanding of Panamic.

”I accept those terms,” Rui remarked with a friendly smile.

It wasn’t long before he found himself seated opposite to the elderly woman in a particularly large treehouse belonging to the elderly dark elf. Behind her were younger dark elf women who folded their arms, gazing at Rui with apprehension or outright hostility.

The elderly dark elf woman reached for a pouch made up of little vines, extracting a little green seed and offering it to Rui.

Rui raised an eyebrow with a hint of interest as he accepted the offering.

He had heard about their convenient information transfer biotechnology.

CRUNCH

His sharp senses perceived what the little biotechnological system was doing.

The very moment he bit into it, he merely destroyed the shell, allowing the strange bionanites to emerge from within the seed, dispersing through his cells as it surged for his spinal cord.

He had to actively move the Gu away from the bionanites, lest it utterly devour them.

The very moment it reached his spinal cord, it latched onto the bundle of nerves, before sending a flux of electrical impulses through his nerves, straight into his brain.

He began hearing and seeing things that weren’t there.

It was pure knowledge.

On their language.

It was over in a second.

His pitch-black eyes widened with amazement. ”Ayrtpauaygmie.”

Truly incredible.

The dark elf smiled at his words as she spoke to him in clearly understandable words. ”The nature path of knowledge is one of the cornerstones of elven prosperity. It is one of our closely guarded secrets, and one we only share with fellow nature-oriented beings. However...”

Her expression grew more serious.

”I sense deep illness and death within you. You are no man of nature.”

Rui shrugged lightly.

”An illness that keeps death at bay is an elixir of life,” he remarked with a calm tone. ”But you are correct.”

His pitch-black eyes bore deep into the elderly elf’s emerald eyes.

”I am no man of nature.”

The elderly dark elf sharpened her eyes.

”And yet, you possess Authority of Alpha,” she remarked with a knowing tone. ”You have great sway over all flora and fauna of not just this continent, but across the entire world.”

Rui raised an eyebrow.

He had never heard of that term before, but he instantly understood what it was referring to. The fact that the six paths of the true world had codified the power he reverse-engineered from the eldritch chimera was quite fascinating and interesting.

”How does a human being who possesses no affinity with flora or fauna have Authority of Alpha?” she asked with a particularly heavy tone.

She did quite well to hide it in her body language, but Rui could see her SOUL.

The fact that Rui had the Authority of Alpha or whatever was of great alarm to the dark elves.

Just this alone gave Rui a lot of clues.

First, it was most likely that the Authority of Alpha was not exclusive to the paths, but likely something found in nature organically that their paths could tap into. That would explain why the eldritch chimera had Authority of Alpha despite not being an elf or therianthrope.

It also opened up the doors that it was possible for him to tap into the power of the six paths as long as he created the right technique systems and made the right adjustments to himself for it, just as he intended to with the evolutionaries.