The Martial Unity

Once Rui finished up his meeting with Kane, he quickly traveled around to meet up with his other friends and acquaintances. From Master Zentra to Headmaster Aronian in the Martial Academy.

Each of them was deeply busy.

In fact, it would be harder to find someone who wasn’t busy in the Master Realm.

The Sages and Masters were the core fighting forces of the Kandrian Empire and bore the entirety of the fate of the Kandrian Empire on their shoulders.

“I would love to train more, but unfortunately, I am burdened with dealing with the recent influx of Apprentices at our Academy,” Headmaster Aronian informed Rui with a troubled expression. “It is not a light issue, and the Kandrian Empire could potentially lose these new and young Martial Apprentices that you’ve broken through.”

Rui shrugged. “I understand you feel responsibility over them as the Headmaster, but the fact of the matter is that in war, your identity as Master is more important than your duty as headmaster. I would recommend delegating all your duties to another person for the duration of the war. We cannot afford to be rusty at this juncture in the Kandrian Empire’s future.”

“…I suppose that that is also true.” He grimaced lightly. “I have found myself to be more lacking than I had expected. All these years of a sedentary life have buried my instincts and intuition. I did not anticipate a war of this magnitude to occur, but I suppose life has always been unpredictable.”

Rui nodded. “Thankfully, you have the manifold. I would recommend you spend a few years in there just to get yourself to a point where you ensure that you won’t die and can keep your opponent engaged.”

Headmaster Aronian heaved a deep sigh. “Your words are that of the truth. I, too, recognize that. But, I am quite attached to my job as headmaster, you see. I had looked forward to guiding the booming youngest generation of new Apprentices, but I suppose I will have to concede that privilege to another.”

He looked genuinely aggrieved at that decision.

“You must really enjoy your position as headmaster.” A light remark escaped Rui.

“…Of course I do,” Headmaster Aronian replied with a profound tone. “It is a joy to oversee and guide the path of younglings brimming with potential. You were among them once. I had high expectations of you, and you have yet managed to far surpass them and everything I thought was impossible. One of my eventual hopes was to live long enough to see one of my students surpass me as a Martial Artist, and you have helped me realize that dream.”

His tone was one of affection, gratitude, and admiration.

“When you put it that way…” Rui stirred at his words. “I suppose that it is a fulfilling pursuit.”

It wasn’t as though Rui couldn’t relate.

He had inherited the memories of a man who was a teaching assistant early in his career. A good student was extremely satisfying to teach.

“Are you interested?” Headmaster Aronian asked with an intrigued expression. “You might have to inevitably undertake it when you set up your sect.”

“Ah…” Rui had almost forgotten about his sect. “…You’re right. Not to mention, enough time has passed since I passed on the voidlet techniques to the Martial Union. I have heard of many stories of how it has disseminated throughout the Kandrian Empire.”

Headmaster Aronian nodded. “You have the capital to create a sect. Adaptive evolution, once an unheard-of field of Martial Art in the Lower Realm, is indeed something that has spread.”

Rui nodded. He recalled how the Apprentices and Seniors had been the most to utilize his voidlet techniques. He also recalled how Sage Sayfeel told him that one of the new Masters credited him for her breakthrough.

Perhaps it was time to set up the Water Sect.

In the past, he only set it up in case he ever ran into a major bottleneck in the future and needed a source of inspiration or something fresh that expanded his understanding. Now, however, he saw it as another force that could help him reach the Sage Realm by helping him overcome the same bottlenecks that might keep him from reaching the necessary levels of power.

“…I’ll look into it as soon as I’m back from Vilun Island.”

He did like the idea of creating his own sect for many reasons. In addition to more selfish reasons, such as his progression to the Sage Realm, he also wouldn’t mind focusing on making the original Project Water come true.

Project Water, back on Earth, was a selfless project.

John Falken’s goal was to give everybody partaking in combat sports the power of adaptive evolution. It was a project that benefitted everybody but himself; it benefitted everybody who could fight and did fight, something he couldn’t do due to his poor health.

Rui was more selfish than John was.

His Project Water was for himself.

“Perhaps I can pay him homage by making his dream come true through the Water Sect.”

He would spread adaptive evolution far and wide once he created a formal organization that was dedicated just for the sake of disseminating adaptive evolution. It would only benefit as the speed of growth of fields was directly proportional to the number of people participating in the field. This was true for Martial and non-Martial fields.

Thus, if he wanted to ensure that he was able to gain the maximum amount of benefits from the sect when he truly needed it, he ought to ensure that adaptive evolution was spread far and wide across the entire Panama Continent.

He had added another solution to his problem to the Sage Realm.

Naturally, he still would progress by growing stronger and through individuality, but now he had one solution in the form of dying and another in the form of the Water Sect. Together, they were Rui’s charge into Sage Realm in the heights far above.

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