The Martial Unity

In the depths of the manifold later that day, Rui sat cross-legged with closed eyes, immersing himself within himself. He found himself standing on his Martial Path once more, gazing around at the environment around him.

No longer was it filled with darkness like it had been when he started training the technique. Over the past five months after he started Project Autocorpus, he had begun acclimating his eyes to the darkness of the information dimension, allowing him to see more than he previously could.

He could see the information.

The information defining his existence.

Instead of darkness, he was now surrounded in an ocean of information which his mind interpreted as one of his primary senses. He could see his elements of his body across the ocean of information, he could smell the chemical compounds comprising his biochemistry, he could hear his heart beating in real time, and hear blood coursing through his circulatory systems.

WHOOSH…

As he ‘swam’ through the ocean of information, he could see even more. He could see the information defining his brain and even his mind. The information defining his brain was like a web where information was highly integrated into an existence far greater than the sum of the parts.

‘He’, who was the brain-consciousness of Rui Quarrier, was gazing at ‘his’ brain. It was profoundly bizarre and uncomfortable realization, as if he had been show his own dissected corpse and his internal organs. He directed a sweeping gaze across all of this information, a deep sense of certainty grew within him.

This was indeed his existence in the information dimension.

If he altered it, he could alter his material body as well. He could theoretically replace all the carbon atoms in his body with silicon atoms instantaneously in a manner that defied causality with the right change to the information dimension. It would of course kill him, so he wouldn’t do something that stupid, but if he could change the information here, he would be able to adaptively evolve his body in a manner that astronomically surpassed even his Anthean half.

But it was beyond him.

He couldn’t so much as edit a single bit of data.

The information dimension was like read-only memory to him. He could detect it, he could acclimatize his ‘eyes’ to sense it in more detail, but it was locked away from his fingers. He could never ever make changes to it no matter how much he tried.

Only Transcendents could bend this dimension to their will, most likely by imposing the information of their Martial Embodiment upon this dimension, changing the very nature of reality into their Martial Art and turning what was an illusion into reality.

Until he gained all the enlightenments needed for him to access this feature, he would still remain a candidate. However, this time, he wasn’t interested in altering the information dimension the way that Martial Transcendents could.

No.

His goal was Project Autocorpus.

For that, he needed his body-consciousness.

He needed to find it within this ocean of information defining his body. However, the body-consciousness was integrated information, in accordance with the theory that the Psycher had shared with him, that meant that he wouldn’t be able to find the body-consciousness in specific spot.

No, it existed across the information integrated across his entire body.

In order to find his body-consciousness, he would need to zoom out of the information defining his body. His eyes sharpened as he ‘swam’ out of the ocean of his information, going away further and further.

It took what felt like an eternity.

An unfathomable amount of time passed, pushing his patience and even his sanity to the very limits.

That was the sheer amount of information defining his very existence.

But eventually, he managed to escape the ocean of information defining his body and look at it as a whole from afar.

His eyes widened at what he saw.

The ocean of information was shaped in his body.

But more shockingly, its posture was the same as his body’s posture in the real world; a cross-legged seated meditating posture.

It was a reflection of his body at all times.

It was only when he zoomed out of the ocean of information defining his body that he could finally sense the web of integrated information defining his body-consciousness.

A separate consciousness that existed within himself independently of his brain-mind. His mind interpreted that body-consciousness integrated information as a clone of himself in the distance.

One who was identical to his appearance in every way.

Its body was translucent and ethereal, representing the Anthean half that had been integrated into it through the metamorphosis. In hindsight, Rui realized that he had essentially butchered his body-consciousness in that process, merging it with another half. It created a frankenstein’s monster of a body-consciousness.

And yet, it was one that he deeply resonated and identified with.

“I guess I am a monster of my own creation.” He drew closer to the distant body-consciousness clone. “You…”

Rui’s eyes sharpened with certainty. “You are Rui Quarrier.”

The clone nodded softly, gazing at Rui with a calm and composed expression, never once uttering a word.

“But…” Rui gazed at his own hands, identical to that of his clone’s. “I am Rui Quarrier.”

The clone nodded once more with the same certainty.

Rui’s eyes lit up with realization. “We are Rui Quarrier.”

The clone smiled at him in a familiar manner, in a manner of certainty and confidence.

“…To think that there truly was another consciousness in my body all these decades and I never once knew about it,” Rui muttered with a hint of self-loathing. “I’m sorry, I would have been more careful if I had known that you were conscious. I always thought that my body was simply my vessel, my corpus. Something that belonged to me and of which I was the only sentient owner. Only now do I realize how arrogant that was.”

Rui did not own this body.

Or rather, the brain-consciousness of Rui did not own this body.