The Martial Unity

“You’re asking for much, Mother Alicia,” Rui shook his head. “We don’t not have some kind of magic that compensate for the shortcoming of experience and battle-testing. Our Martial Artists have been brutally and viscerally tested day in and day out for the past seventeen years, leaving them extraordinarily battle-hardened and far stronger than they used to be in the past.”

’So you don’t possess any means to battle-test your troops without a war?’ Mother Alicia asked with a disappointed tone.

“…Well, maybe we do,” Rui replied with a thoughtful tone. “We could try hypnosis.”

’…How do you intend to harness hypnosis to train our troops?’ Her tone was one of skepticism. ’Hypnosis cannot be used to create experience.’

Rui shook his head. “You guys have a poor understanding of what hypnosis is capable of. I have noticed that the forces of the true world are unaccustomed to hypnosis being weaponized and harnessed to the extent that we Martial Artists harness it.”

’I understood that well with that earlier phenomenon of water,’ Mother Alicia remarked with a hint of intrigue. ’I suppose that was a form of hypnosis, too? What does it achieve?’

“What I did earlier was not intentional.” Rui shook his head. “It’s called a Martial Embodiment. It is a passive hypnosis that occurs when you gaze at me while I’m using my Martial Mind. It misdirects the conscious mind away from the subconscious mind and implants information into the subconscious mind, which is interpreted in the form of Water in my case.”

’You mean that it is different in the case of other Martial Artists?’

“Other Martial Masters, yes. We each have a unique Martial Embodiment,” Rui replied. “But it generally has no value against equals. We have more active and conscious forms of hypnosis that are designed to achieve an actual effect that leads us closer to victory. However… hypnosis can be used outside of the battlefield with all manner of utility as well.”

’And you say that one such effect could be training our dark elves to become battle-tested and give them experience without an actual war?’ Mother Alicia asked with a hopeful tone. ’Is this actually possible?’

“Whatever is possible, it will always be inferior to testing your forces in an actual war,” Rui began with a clear confirmation. “You cannot possibly have something that perfectly replaces actual war, combat, and conflict. At most, you can have somewhat comparable replacements. Do keep that in mind.”

’We will take what we can get,’ Mother Alicia grew more eager to hear what Rui had to offer specifically.

“Well, alright. This is how I would work in theory,” Rui began. “We induce all the dark elves that you want to train into a state of deep hypnosis where they are completely open to suggestions and experience, to the point where we can simulate in their own minds the notion that they are partaking in a conflict. Then we can control the kind of scenario in which they find themselves by using some form of communication, nonverbal communication in the case of Martial Hypnosis. Hypnosis, in the first place, is the process of influencing one’s subconscious mind. It can be used to do all sorts of things, including making them genuinely experience scenarios and situations which are entirely imaginary.”

’That sounds perfect,’ Mother Alicia said, growing more enthusiastic about the solution that Rui proposed. ’How would we go about implementing this on us elves?’

“Well, in the case of you elves, I think you could actually replace our normal means of nonverbal communication with your nature communication,” Rui remarked with a hint of interest. Normally, the biggest constraint is the bandwidth of nonverbal communication, which can be somewhat restrictive. But in the case of you dark elves, you have your wireless communication with nature itself. That should be good enough to serve as a replacement and allow you to put all your dark elves in a trance within which they are effectively fighting a war.”

’That is a great idea,’ Mother Alicia remarked. ’Indeed, we can have nature itself cast hypnosis on our warriors and then control their war scenarios to give them experience of war inside a hypnosis.’

“Not just that,” Rui continued on with a knowing tone. “You can do a lot more than just have nature control their hypnosis. You can have them all be part of the same hypnotic scenario inside one giant matrix of an illusion that incorporates the actions of countless dark elves, recreating an enormous scenario spanning the entire continent. You can use the organic superintelligence of the Greater Genoran Flora Network to process a highly accurate simulation of war. This is probably the best thing you can do to compensate for the absence of experience short of actual war itself. You need to keep in mind, as I said, that this is not a replacement for actual experience, nothing is, but it should serve your needs.”

’Thank you for your aid, Prince Rui,” Mother Alicia’s tone was one of gratitude. ’We will keep this solution in mind as we begin taking steps towards implementing this solution. However… we do not have a foundation in hypnosis. It is not something that we use on a day-to-day basis. At most, we have a niche sector that uses it for certain mental purposes.’

“We can help with that,” Rui replied. “We have a rich foundation and a lot of experience with hypnosis and we can help you with developing a system of hypnosis for your own elven warriors. We even have a super genius when it comes to mental stuff, although he’s busy with something very important at the moment.”

The Psycher was currently digging into the mind of the captured tekvore and extracting strategically valuable intelligence on their enemies, identifying all their strengths and weaknesses and other details. It was more important to human civilization than helping the dark elves refine their training program.

“I can help you with creating the hypnotic training program that you hope to achieve, but…” Rui smiled expectantly. “It won’t be for free, I’m afraid.”