The Martial Unity

Once Rui dove into training, nothing could pull him out. Having finally completed his commitments to the task-force, he was completely unshackled and free to pursue his own training as much as he wanted.

And that was exactly what he did.

The only thing on his mind was Project Forge.

He continued grinding away as hard as he could to complete his foundational mastery in a variety of different fields and principles. This was certainly the most time-consuming part of his training, so a majority of his time went into developing proficiency and muscle memory.

Additionally, the remaining time he spent in training was dedicated towards creating the system of thought that would help him determine which permutation and combination of actions that created a possible technique was most optimal. This was an extremely complicated system of thought that had him simulate the outcome of every possible technique in combat and evaluate them on the probability of their victory. Only the techniques with the very highest probability of victory would be adopted in combat.

He only spent a fraction of his time working out the protocols of the system of thought for this was extremely complicated as opposed to necessarily time-consuming the way that the foundational mastery was.

It was arguably the most complicated system of thought since the VOID algorithm, even if it wasn’t the most data-intensive system of thought he had ever developed. That title still went to Angel of Laplace which was still very much the heaviest system of thought that had ever been developed.

However, he found the system of thought of Project Forge to be more complicated. This system of thought required him to simulate the future as opposed to the past, that too millions of times.  Additionally, he also needed to evaluate the probabilities in each hypothetical future accurately.

One of the biggest and largest hurdles he ran into was simulating higher principles accurately. These were extremely complex principles and he needed to make sure that his extrapolations of the future were sound and accurate, otherwise the entire system of thought was a bust.

As painstakingly difficult ensuring high accuracy and precision was, it was worth every ounce of time that he spent on it. However, it was the foundational mastery that truly tested his patience. Ieyasu had not been kidding when he said that he was a terrible teacher. Rui needed the SOUL System to understand what his intentions were because he was so poor at teaching. Having been born with a plethora of mirror neurons, he was simply unable to communicate with others who didn’t have this advantage due to simply having a radically different experience. With the SOUL System, Rui was able to identify what he meant and accounted for the difference in their experiences. Ultimately, Rui was able to smoothen the training instruction out and it turned out to be worth it. Getting an instructor for each individual field and principle would have been an impossibly inconvenient pipe dream. It was best to have all of them stuffed in a single person.

And in that regard, Ieyasu was perfect for he had mastered everything that Rui was interested in. On top of that, he was the one person who understood what was needed for Project Forge because his Martial Art was very similar to what Project Forge attempted to do. Thus, he knew exactly what kind of fundamentals needed to be sharpened in order to ensure that Rui was able to fulfill the vision of his project.

As time passed, the vision of the end outcome of Project Forge became increasingly clear to him. Being able to spontaneously create powerful techniques that were perfectly antithetical to his opponent was extremely powerful.

Compatibility was a highly important variable, and this project would make compatibility his greatest ally forever. He would be deploying his resources in the most effective manner possible for the best possible outcome. However even he knew that the techniques that he would be creating on the spot would not be inherently extraordinary.

It was not possible to create a technique as extraordinary as Yin-Yang Spear on the spot. This was one of the most powerful techniques that he had ever created, and creating something as extraordinary as it spontaneously  was something that simply could not be done.

The power of the techniques came purely from their antitheticality to his opponent. Perhaps in the future his mastery and proficiency would reach a level where he would be able to create grade ten techniques on the spot. However, for now he was entirely limited to high-grade techniques at the very best.

Still, this was more than a reasonable trade-off as far as he was concerned. By favoring adaptive evolution, he was going deeper down his own Martial Path and making more progress to the Sage Realm.

Additionally, it was also better for his combat because his compatibility with adaptive evolution was the absolute highest. It was his Martial Path for a reason, thus even a modest amount of adaptive evolution in his hand helped him more than greater amounts of other kinds of power.

In fact, he didn’t mind eventually distilling all his existing techniques into merely principles that he would then repurpose through Project Forge. Thus, his Martial Art would cease to have any techniques at all.

Everything would be free-flowing and changing.

Just like water.

The thought excited him.

And it sustained him through what was one of the longest and most grueling training projects that he had ever gone through in his entire life. It lasted longer and was more taxing than anything he had ever subjected himself to.

And just like that, nearly six years passed.

A mere blip in the life of a Martial Artist who had not only broken through at a young age but also consumed life-prolonging potions.

And while nearly six years had passed in the manifold, a mere five months had passed in the real world.

And yet, the world had already changed.

–