The Martial Unity

A month passed in the blink of an eye as Rui began building a deeper ’relationship’ with nature. It took immense trial and error with the Eye of Prophecy just to get his foot in the way and learn to begin manipulating nature. The biggest issue that he stumbled into was the fact that, despite abusing the technique for a month, he had only reached the basics.

On a bright morning in the Forest of War, he found himself seated on the ground, meditating in silence around dense vegetation.

Around him, the fabric of heaven and earth rippled as he manipulated them with his breath, activating the Flora Interfacer to commence his communication with nature.

RUMBLE…

Tremors passed through the ground as he exerted his power on the environment, using it to alter the brainwaves emerging from his mind, using heaven as a filter and a converter to alter the signals he sent to be within the range that elves had settled in to manipulate the heavens.

He conveyed his will to nature for the umpteenth time.

Yet, unlike most of his initial failures, his communication was able to achieve the results that he sought.

This time, he didn’t just simply put his desire into his communication, but instead began sending signals that triggered changes in the genome of nature, causing dormant genes to be triggered by the communicative stimulus.

This triggered rapid cell division and rapid cellular relocation, causing old cells of wood to shift in their location, in turn changing the shape of the vegetation that he was communicating with in the way that he desired it.

He could bend wood to his will.

This was a much more difficult process than it appeared to be on the surface, as he needed to modulate his communication with nature to bend it the way that he sought to.

CRACK CRACK CRACK

The wood of the trees began shifting slowly, coming to life in an animate fashion as he shifted the trees in an unnatural manner.

He didn’t even know trees were capable of such rapid changes.

Of course, he knew that part of it was likely that the trees of the Genora Continent had been biologically engineered to make such a thing possible. Although that likely could not be the sole reason that they were able to manipulate nature so efficiently.

After all, the dark elves had been able to manipulate the exotic vegetation on the Panama Continent.

Thus, it was also likely to be founded on a trait that existed in flora that he simply wasn’t aware of. Although he had no doubt that dark elves had enhanced this technology to a great extent.

Regardless, he found it impressive that even the weakest of dark elf warriors were able to exceed the efforts that he was making despite utilizing a tiny fraction of the effort that he was using to achieve the results that he was achieving.

Rui was using his Martial Heart, while dark elves didn’t have anything of the sort. It appeared that if they tapped into the hidden potential of the body, then it was only insofar as their communication with nature was direct, and those dark elves who were deeper into the Hymn of Mind and Soul were more compatible with nature.

’Truly remarkable.’ The voice of Mother Alicia popped into his head. ’You have managed to achieve what we thought would have been impossible. You have managed to tap into the power of the Nature Path despite not being an elf. You have widened the boundaries of what we thought was possible.’

Rui heaved a deep breath as he opened his eyes to take a good look at the results that he had achieved.

The trees were bent and shaped differently than they were when he had commenced.

“…It’s a good sign,” Rui remarked. “But it’s not enough. Such paltry manipulation of nature is not enough for me to make use of it in practice in battle. It can’t enhance my Martial Art at this stage. I need to improve greatly for this to be viable and practical.”

Mother Alicia heaved a sigh. ’You are deeply driven for power, I see.’

“Of course I am.”

’Do you not feel amazed that you have bonded with nature? Isn’t it a warm, surreal feeling of great fulfillment? Most elves do not derive joy from the destructive power of nature manipulation but from the fulfillment and joy that it brings us to bond with nature to such an extent.’

Rui shook his head.

“It’s nice, but I don’t care about that stuff. That isn’t why I chose to pursue the power of the elves. I seek to achieve mastery of Nature to enhance my adaptive evolution so that I can fulfill my ultimate ambition.”

’Your ultimate ambition?’ Mother Alicia raised an eyebrow of curiosity.

“Project Water,” Rui replied. “A project to create a Martial Art that allows me to adaptively evolve to any force in this world.”

’…That is an ambitious project. But it is also… devoid of soul,’ she replied with a thoughtful tone. ’Why do you want to create a Martial Art that allows you to adaptively evolve to any force in the world?’

“Martial Art is my life, it is the most important thing to me and the most that I have dedicated time and energy to. Project Water is the epitome of that,” Rui replied with a knowing tone. “It brings me great joy, satisfaction, meaning, and purpose.”

She appeared confused by his purpose of words.

’How does it bring you any meaning?’ she asked with earnest interest. ’It is so devoid of connection, of people, and of love, is it not? How do you feel so connected to something that is so detached from the people around you?’

Rui raised an eyebrow.

“Are you saying that goals without connection, people, and love are meaningless?”

’I wouldn’t go as far as to say they are meaningless,’ she replied. ’However, what sustains our hearts is our connection with people. Everything else will eventually be of no import. Connections are the ultimate source of meaning and purpose, without which everything loses its meaning and purpose.’