The Martial Unity

Rui immediately got to work. He hit the mission commencement button on his mission tracker device as he traveled across town.

The town of Garten was a highly commercial location. However, unlike Hajin, commerce did not come from larger corporations conducting organized business. Most of the market was comprised of smaller-scale businesses and entrepreneurs of various kinds.

There were a lot of flea markets of various kinds and different areas for different kinds of goods. The population and energy were high, resulting in a lot of chaos.

(‘An ideal place to run an illegal drug distribution operation.’) Rui noted.

Illegal activities illicit less attention in chaotic circumstances. The fact that there was so much happening at all times was the perfect cover for an operation like the one Faraday Lowminer was engaging in. Isolated and shady hideouts were unreliable because they couldn’t do a good job hiding the base of operation of a certain drug distribution operation.

Martial Artists would sniff out the location of the base of operations in a heartbeat with no difficulty if the base of operations occurred in a distant but isolated and shady location.

On Earth, there were no sensory techniques, and although there was sensor technology that allowed investigators and law enforcement to pinpoint location to a surprisingly high degree, it wasn’t as effective as Rui’s sensory capabilities, for example.

Thus, a better solution than hiding was actually disguising. Hiding could be overcome in a straightforward and brute force fashion because they could be directly sniffed out, but disguising bypassed that because you didn’t where what you were looking for was actually amidst the things you were searching.

Considering how much of a wide area the chaotic nature of the small business and entrepreneur commercial part of the town spread, Rui could easily see why the Martial Union had had a little troubling it down any further.

He had already begun looking for Martial Apprentices within the area just as he had planned. Furthermore, he had already formed a system by which he either confirmed that a particular Martial Apprentice was or wasn’t a Lowminer.

If Faraday was as careful as Rui suspected him to be, then it was quite likely that each of the Martial Apprentices maintained a very low profile even when they were in traveling the commercial part of the town, especially when they were traveling outside their base of operations.

That meant it was unlikely that they would talk loudly or make noise, it was quite likely that they had something obstructing their appearance, and it was quite likely they would avoid picking fights or engaging in any kind of conflict.

This already was a pretty decent way to focus on the Martial Apprentices that were more likely to have a connection to the Lowminers. Of course, this was necessarily absolute, but there was quite a high probability that they would be instructed to minimize the amount of attention they drew. Of course, as a Martial Apprentice, the people immediately near them would be able to pick it up, but by minimizing his emotional expression, he was able to reduce the attention he drew.

Unlike Rui, of course. Even as a Martial Squire, he could only reduce his presence all the way down to an ordinary seventeen-year-old boy, he could even go further beyond and truly minimize the attention he drew. He had taken the initiative to do so.

It was especially ideal in a scenario where the chaos in the environment made it so that he was effectively invisible.

He had already dialed Primordial Instinct and Seismic Mapping to the absolute maximum. The former sense quickly gave him the threat level of each person even in his general area. An overwhelming majority of people gave him zero sense of danger.

The entire town could gang up on him and he would still feel unperturbed. Even as a Martial Apprentice, humans were entirely obsolete unless they were amped up on potions or were using some kind of technology.

Suddenly, his senses perked as he felt a greater, but ultimately still insignificant, amount of weight from one particular individual that entered his sensory range as he kept walking forward.

(‘Martial Apprentice.’) Rui rejoiced as he walked toward the source of the pressure subtly.

The man was drunk, causing a bit of a scene before everybody.

“You messing with me punk?” He slobbered, holding a young man up by his collar.

The Martial Apprentice had loud and ostentatious clothes, he had companions who looked more like servants than acquaintances or friends. The food and beer he had consumed were also not little, furthermore, they each had their own saddled horses.

(‘Rich kid who somehow managed to discover his Martial Path.’) He sighed. Partly because the probability that the Martial Apprentice was of the Lowminers was quite low. If the Lowminers were stupid enough to have someone this unreliable as a part of their drug operation then they would have long been caught.

Furthermore, Rui quickly deduced that he was most likely the heir of a wealthy and influential family. His garments were of much higher quality than what Rui had observed in the market, and the fact that he had servants and a horse was also indicative of his status, yet their light belongings and lack of other goods indicated short-distance traveling. That coupled with the fact that he was being an insufferable prick for no reason was also consistent with the profile that he would expect from someone with that background.

Rui made sure that there were no prying eyes that could be watching with Primordial Instinct and Seismic Mapping, before returning his attention to the drunk idiot before him.

Time slowed down in his perspective as he leaped forward with extreme speed.

WHOOSH

TAP

He simply jabbed lightly with a karate chop at the neck of the Martial Apprentice as he crossed to the other side.

THUD

The man collapsed like a puppet cut from its strings, earning the surprise of the crowd. Rui had moved so fast that even a crowd was far too slow to perceive him and catch an image of him.