The Martial Unity

It was probably best that he hid from her the fact that he had effectively become King of Beasts; there was no telling what she would do if she learned of that. It was possible that her head would explode from how much she revered him.

“You have done well,” Rui’s tone was sincere and earnest. “I may have broken you through to the Apprentice Realm, but you have broken through to the subsequent Realms of your merit in a remarkable amount of time. You are worthy of the breakthrough I gave you.”

Her eyes began tearing up as she gained precious words of validation and acknowledgment from the one she harbored deep reverence for.

“Now, tell me more about your Martial Path as we go through the sect,” Rui remarked. “I intend to go through the collected contributions of Adaptive Evolution soon, but a Martial Master with Adaptive Evolution is more valuable to me.”

While the contributions from countless Apprentices, Squires, and Seniors from branches of the Water Sect throughout the entire continent were valuable, it was still at the end of the day contributions of Martial Artists from the Lower Realms. He would at most gain inspiration for more adaptive evolution from them, but he was unlikely to gain anything of direct value.

That same could not be said for an actual Martial Master of Adaptive Evolution; she undoubtedly had more to offer him than any Martial Artist of the Lower Realm.

“My Martial Path is Entropic Adaptation.”

Rui’s eyes lit up at those words. “…Entropic Adaptation?”

“Yes, my lord,” she spoke with an eager tone. “I seek to harness the entropy in my adaptive evolution, and I use the concept to change more appropriately in combat against my opponent.”

Rui gazed at her with a stunned and amazed expression. “You harness the power of entropy to adaptively evolve? How does that even work?”

Ever since his defeat against Ieyasu and most recently his battle with Anthea, Rui had grown more determined to learn more about the concept of chaos and not just learn how to adaptively evolve to it, but also harness this incredible power into his Martial Art.

Thus far, he hadn’t had even a single idea on how to go about it.

It wasn’t his fault, of course. As a person, he had a great affinity for order. His original adaptive evolution had been limited to thought. It had been limited to the VOID algorithm, a system of thought that measured the order of his opponents and used it to predict their moves.

It was only much later, after he went down his Martial Path, that he began tapping into the other phases of Adaptive Evolution, such as the Body Phase with the creation of the Metabody System.

But because of his great affinity for order, he didn’t even know how to begin tapping into chaos as a concept in his Martial Art. And now, he had run into a Martial Master in his own sect who appeared to have harnessed entropy for her adaptive evolution.

He had struck the lottery.

“Tell me more,” Rui’s eyes lit up with great desire. “Tell me everything.”

Master Minn was clearly honored and pleased by the appreciation that Rui was showing to her.

And yet, she fell into thought with a troubled expression.

“…It is a little difficult for me to explain, is it possible for me to demonstrate?”

“Of course,” Rui remarked eagerly. “In fact, let’s have a spar. I recall a powerful sparring battlefield being built in this sect. You can show me there.”

It wasn’t long before they ended up in a little insulated sparring combat arena built to withstand Martial Masters, isolated by a powerful energy field and seismic absorber systems in case a long-range attack was missed, striking the ground. However, because Martial Masters had almost absolute and perfect control over their power, there was no risk of them causing environmental damage outside of missed long-range attacks.

A crowd of spectators, comprising of Martial Artists, had arrived to spectate with excitement and vigor at the sparring battle between Master Minn and the Dawnbringer, eager to witness them go at it.

STEP

The two of them stood ten meters apart.

“Ready when you are,” Rui eagerly remarked as he lightly stirred on his feet.

“Understood, Your Sagehood.” She took a simply offensive stance, both palms poised for attack while her feet were pointed towards him, ready to propel her towards him at any point.

It was an aggressive offensive stance.

Rui smiled as he used one of the earliest forms of adaptive evolution, where he adapted his stance to his opponent’s. This was what he relied on when he was an Apprentice who had yet to have mastered the Mind Palace technique for the VOID algorithm.

It was nostalgic because he hadn’t used it in a long time.

Beasts and monsters didn’t take Martial stances and neither did the six pureblood species of the true world, after all.

It was where his journey of adaptive evolution as a Martial Artist had begun.

BADUMP!

Master Minn’s Martial Heart burst to life as respectably bright red streaks ran across her body. And then, her Martial Mind blazed with power as her very being shifted at its very foundation.

Rui’s eyes widened as her being became vapor.

Water vapor.

That was her Martial Embodiment.

She became the gaseous form of water that diffused through the air chaotically and unstably.

While Rui’s Martial Embodiment was liquid water that flowed with some degree of order and direction, and patterns, she spread through the world around him in a chaotic and unpredictable fashion as gases normally did.

“You must be a more chaotic person than you let on.” Rui realized.

A crooked smile emerged on her face. “It would be disgraceful to be chaotic before Lord Dawnbringer himself.”

Rui shook his head. “I don’t care for that. Show me who you truly are. Show me what your Martial Path really is.”

Her eyes sharpened.

“Very well!”

She surged forth with a blinding speed as her palm flew to his chest, threatening to blast him away with a heavy blow.