The Martial Unity

His advice bore on them heavily as the three of them considered his words. Indeed, the words of a Martial Transcendent, perhaps the most significant of them, were very credible to them. Rui didn’t think they were doing enough with their uniform phenomenology to further propagate it.

Bodhisattva Maitreyi had especially stagnated in uniforming her phenomenology around the concept of light. The woman was elderly, and while she certainly had the drive to protect her grandchild, that alone was not enough.

Rui had also suspected that the ten years that had passed by while Amare was in her mental prison had actually eroded some of her uniformity phenomenology. For she experienced a period of great psychological darkness and depression. If she had been in a healthy long-term trajectory towards Transcendence before, then that period may have completely derailed her progression, such that even Amare’s return failed to fix it.

However, perhaps her affection for her great-grandchild was restoring it. Ria was indeed the brightest light that could illuminate anybody’s life. In comparison, Amare and the Sage Jinryong Namgung were in a much healthier trajectory. Amare because her drive to grow stronger had been fueled ever since she gave birth to Ria. The Reverend of Reckoning had benefited from the Void Order Regime. Perhaps over the next ten or twenty years, one of them could feasibly become a Martial Transcendent.

Rui couldn’t help but feel that was a bit too long, however. Ideally, he would have liked multiple Transcendents right away if he could get them. His only other hope was, of course, Mother Maeria, of the elves who had managed to gain an epiphany from the insights he had helped her with.

She didn’t need his help; he was sure that she would be able to wind her way through to the Transcendent Realm, eventually. “What about Pathwalkers?” He had considered in the past what the Transcendent Realm would look like for the other paths. But now that he had a much deeper understanding of what Transcendence actually was, he could actually help other pathwalkers also eventually reach it. Since he had won the Race to Transcendence, he didn’t mind if the other paths got their own Transcendents as well. It would take some of the burden off him to protect Gaia with his power, and it would be healthy for human civilization to have multiple powerhouses that could balance him. It was worth investigating and pondering. He already had some ideas of what Transcendence for some of the other paths would look like. For instance, when he thought about the therianthropes, he could imagine that their phenomenological uniformity came in the form, not of elements but rather from the beasts that they tamed with their Authority of Alpha. Authority of Alpha was likely a very crucial step to be able to eventually harness a sort of bestial Noosphere to eventually break through to Transcendence.

With the tekvores, he didn’t have any expectation for them in the short term. They were a traumatized civilization and needed more time to psychologically recover. Even the strongest pathwalkers of their civilization, like Argenton, for instance, needed time to move on from the remnants of NOVA’s clutches.

When he thought about NOVA as a Martial Transcendent, he understood even more than he did before why she wasn’t even anywhere near Transcendence. She had no integrated information, the basis of consciousness, and thus no experience. Without conscious experience, she had no phenomenology. With no phenomenology, she couldn’t possibly achieve uniformity.

That was why she was doomed to stagnate beyond merely updating her technology. “However, the original NOVA likely had the right idea; she just messed up horribly in her pursuit of it.”

To transcend material limitations and to become information itself.

He suspected that this was the form that Transcendence in tekvores would take. Information technology was a universal requirement for each of them, no matter what path of technology they took. Information was also the universal constraint, for it limited how much technology they could commandeer. Of course, he wasn’t sure what form their uniform phenomenology would take. Perhaps they, too, would need to rely on technological products that are actually conscious, and rely on a large collective with tremendous amounts of uniform phenomenology to eventually break through to the Transcendent Realm, or something strange and bizarre like that. However, given that their civilization was much more individualistic than the elves’, as were their Paths, he also suspected that the condition for their Transcendence would definitely have an element of individuality to it.

Perhaps it would be an entirely different model to Transcendence than he knew.

Right now, the only two methods that he was aware of achieving the phenomenological uniformity needed for Transcendence were collective phenomenological uniformity, which was the Embodiment of the Noosphere that he had fought. And internal phenomenological uniformity, it was possible that there were other methods and other forms of Transcendence.

Seeing how different the other Realms were in other Paths, he didn’t want to be narrow-minded about what Transcendence would look like. “I’ll have to guide the other pathwalkers as well, nonetheless.”

It was another matter atop his already loaded schedule, but it was a welcome one. With his duties as Emperor, as Supreme Commander of the Panamic Alliance, and Chancellor of Gaia, his days became busy. Additionally, he needed to spend some time checking whether he could fulfill the greatest wish of the Laminar Civilization, whether he could help them obtain paths. He had experimented with Paths a little, shattering those of the criminals who had been convicted of the worst crimes against humanity.

But he had never experimented with lifeforms that didn’t have Paths to check whether they did have Paths or not. And he didn’t have any experience operating on lifeforms of entirely different trees of life. “That’s something that I will have to iron out sooner than later.”

If the Laminar Civilization felt like he was bullshitting them about helping them obtain paths, then they were less likely to be friendly with human civilization. The only thing that Gaia had that truly interested them was Paths.

Ideally, path creation could be a service he provided them in exchange for a security agreement where they agreed to help Gaia should their civilization be attacked. But regardless, they were in a position of power, even accounting for his Transcendent power. “I will have to get to the bottom of the creation of Paths.”

It was another important priority that he would set aside time for.