The Martial Unity

With each passing moment, Rui gained certainty of profound insights into the identity of the Scriptures of Terra. If his thinking was right, then he had probably figured out the truth of the scriptures.

“I need to go…” Rui murmured. “I’ll catch you later, Sage Kyria. Thank you for your teachings. Bye!”

Before she could even get in a word, Rui had already shot off, immediately commencing his tour across every square inch of the Nest of Terra, understanding every choice that an entire civilization had painstakingly made for nearly a thousand years. He recorded all the data he possibly could with his powerful senses, documenting all seismic and subterranean data as well as the choices made by the people of Terra from centuries ago who created these subterranean spaces. The decision to dig in a particular direction as opposed to any other was an agonizing decision that could potentially lead to the death of countless people if it was the wrong one.

In other words, all the places that they had successfully dug out were the right decisions. In order to protect themselves from the skyborne monsters that once tormented their skies, they needed to make the right decision each and every time.

Each decision to dig followed endless testing and endless confirmations of the most optimal path to ensure that they didn’t end up dying in a landslide, a collapsing ceiling, or a triggered earthquake.

He recorded all of it, gaining more and more data as he flew about the Nest of Terra. The amount of data that he was gaining within his Mind Palace rapidly began mounting up rapidly. This was data across every square inch of accessible real estate within the Nest of Terra, an entire rather large country with immense surface area across its hundred megacities and the countless spaces that existed within the labyrinth of tunnels in between cities.

He knew that even at full speed, this was going to take a while. Thankfully, ever since he consumed the Blood of Solaris, he simply didn’t get as tired as quickly compared to before. His stamina had increased greatly thanks to the national treasure of the Solaris Kingdom. It boosted his stamina far more than any ordinary stamina-enhancing potion possibly could. Without this, his whole mission of gathering data across the entirety of the Nest of Terra while doing what the Shield of Gaia did would have taken much longer due to how much rest he would have taken and how little his stamina was.

Of course, given that the light of the sky crystals that the Nest of Terra were a lesser replication of sunlight, he wasn’t nearly as brimming with stamina as he had been on the surface. And yet, it significantly cut down on the amount of time that he needed, for he was able to work continuously for a much longer period.

Time passed until, eventually, even he needed to take a break.

And even when he did, his mind was fixated on one and only one thing.

The Scriptures of Terra.

Nothing else, not even Amare, who had been missing for a while, gained any amount of consideration from his mind. The very moment he recovered, he set out again, continuing his task.

He continued until he grew exhausted again and continued after he replenished his stamina.

And again.

And again.

He did this over and over.

Not once he did stray away from the mission of gathering all the data that he needed to. If his insights into the Scriptures of Terra were accurate, then he had no time to waste. It was going to take a tremendous amount of work before he finally got what he needed.

And even after he got what he needed, he knew that it would take even greater effort to actually extract the Scriptures of Terra from within the enormous ocean of data that he was collecting from across the entirety of the Nest of Terra.

On top of that, he wasn’t sure if actually getting to the final prize required more than just the insights he had gained and the data that he had collected. It was possible that actually comprehending the Scriptures of Terra required a certain level of mastery of the Dance of Terra or earth-bending in general.

While he was confident in his earth-bending, he knew that it was significantly inferior to the earth-bending of the Nest of Terra. If that was a problem, then he would definitely have to spend some time in this nation honing his earth-bending or resort to more extreme solutions to compensate for that.

Regardless, he had already decided that he would complete what he had started on and get his hands on the Scriptures of Terra no matter what the price or requirement. He had already become so one-track-minded that he had forgotten the fact that he was on a five-year time limit, of which nearly two years had already passed.

And thus, he continued minding his own business, ignoring the world.

However, that didn’t mean that the world was willing to ignore him. The Nest of Terra was comprised of many power blocs, interest groups, and sub-factions who had hardly missed the arrival of one of the most important figures of the Era of Darkness.

They had also hardly missed his strange activities, scouring the entirety of the Nest of Terra, pouring over every square inch. They had also not missed that this activity was suspiciously identical to the activity that the Shield of Gaia had taken right before he had ended up finding the Scriptures of Terra and gaining Transcendence.

Not that he was the first person to try that, of course. But the many segments of the political landscape of the Nest of Terra knew that the Dawnbringer was not an ordinary man and was uniquely better suited to solving a mystery that had boggled the Nest of Terra for more than a century.

If he succeeded and shared his success with the Martial faction, it would have revolutionary consequences for the entire nation. And thus, the entire nation stirred as Rui continued his mission to find the Nest of Terra.

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