The Martial Unity

He divided her crash courses into two simultaneous courses.

The first course would be to help her develop an accurate model of the atmosphere, air, wind, and sound. This included what they were, how they worked, what were the laws that governed their motion, and why these phenomena occurred.

It was important to develop a good foundation, even if not absolutely necessary. She would have no fathoming of what the ODA system was and, how and why it worked. She most likely would be able to use it well without a theoretical foundation for the technique.

The second course would be about the technicals. She would need to learn many mathematical concepts, as well as memorize the processing protocols of the ODA system. This would definitely be the harder of the two courses, and by a good degree as well.

What he needed to figure out was a way to get her to absorb the latter well enough. Unfortunately, there was little chance that she would be able to master the Mind Palace technique. He would need to grind it into her head by force.

He spent the entire day chalking up and fleshing out a course, before finally presenting it to Senior K’Mala the next day.

“What do you think?” He asked her with a perfectly normal expression, yet he was sweating inside.

Her eyes were wide open, yet not as wide as that of her open mouth. Her eyebrows were knitted and she stared at Rui with an incomprehensible expression.

“What is this?”

“Er… Well, like I said-!”

Her aura flared before flooding Rui with pressure that he struggled to bear. Thankfully, a friendly aura washed over him, shielding him from her.

“Watch it,” Senior Ceeran grumbled mildly.

He was also invested in mastering the technique, thus when he learned that Rui was creating a program for her to master it, he decided to join in and learn from Rui himself.

Senior K’Mala warily glanced at him before subsiding her pressure, leaving Rui relieved.

His mind was strong, far stronger than an eighteen-year-old Martial Squire ought to be, but she was still an entire Realm and a half above him.

“What. Is. This.” She demanded. “What is all of this? This isn’t a technique!”

She was so overwhelmed that she defaulted to elementary confusion where she couldn’t even ask pointed doubts.

(‘This is going to be rough,’) Rui sighed.

“This is the knowledge that you need,” Rui explained.

“Techniques don’t need knowledge! Techniques only need movements!”

“Well, first time for everything. If you want to master this technique, you will have to follow this.” Rui gave her a smug grin. “Didn’t you say that you could handle whatever I threw at you?”

She stiffened as she recalled those words.

“Well well well… I wonder what the Martial Tribes on Vilun Island will think when I inform them that the mighty K’Mala got bested by a Squire’s technique?”

She gritted her teeth. “Fine! I’ll master it!”

“That’s the spirit,” Rui grinned, receiving a note of approval from Senior Ceeran. “Let us begin with the basics. What is air?”

“Air is to be breathed to survive,” She replied.

“What is it made of?” Rui probed.

“Air is made up of something?” She frowned.

“…I see.”

The challenge was looking even tougher as seconds passed.

The first session lasted only three hours. A laughably small amount compared to how long students would generally study.

Yet, she was exhausted by the end of it. She had spent the entire session as Rui began explaining the composition of the atmosphere and its traits and principles.

Rui wished he had recorded her reaction when he told her about molecules and atoms. It appeared that the Martial Tribes of Vilun Island still believed in the continuous model of matter that believed that matter was not made up of individual particles but was continuous and singular.

She gaped in wonder as he gave her a brief breakdown of how sound worked.

It was odd, that despite now knowing what it was or how it worked, they were still able to leverage sound in their Martial Art techniques that allowed them to use it in their favor. Rui suspected that it was a highly instinctual process that they were able to execute because of extreme familiarity with the phenomenon intuitively after immense hard work and subjection of themselves to it.

This was also how the Martial Union trained its Martial Artists, to a certain degree, although it was also true that they were more objective as far as the quality of training went.

Rui was probably the first Martial Artist to be able to substitute passive skills such as accuracy and aim with a conscious and thought-driven system that cleanly substituted for the intrinsic capabilities and parameters such as aim.

And if she mastered it, she would be the second.

By the time the first lecture was done. Senior Ceeran looked wound up, but Senior K’Mala looked like her soul had been sucked out.

“Oh come now,” Rui tutted disapprovingly. “It wasn’t that bad. I made it as fun as I possibly could. There was no way you did not enjoy that.”

Both the Martial Seniors gave him a look of incredulity.

Rui felt offended, he had served as a teaching assistant at a university long ago, and he enjoyed organizing classes.

None of his students reacted this way to his teaching when they came to him for aid.

Then again, this was their first conventional class, so perhaps he ought to cut them some leeway.

He took two copies of certain pages before tossing them before them.

“What is this…?” Senior K’Mala had an ominous feeling.

“What is it?” Rui smiled. “It’s called… homework.”

They shouldn’t have known what it meant. Yet it was as though they were subconsciously able to sense all of the hatred all students had for homework all the way from Earth. Senior K’Mala threw a resentful look at him before defiantly picking it up and leaving without bidding him goodbye.

“Oh dear…”