The Martial Unity

”Martial Art is about efficiency.”

This was a fact that remained true even in the Era of Expansion. Other Paths relied on simply increasing the raw inputs and ingredients of their power. But Martial Artists relied on taking what was available and making the most efficient use of it. Mastery was more important than quantity.

That was why when Rui learned of the higher dimensions, he actually felt a little offended. The existence of higher dimensions meant that he and every Martial Artist besides him were not being efficient with their movements at all, not in the grand scheme of the universe.

”The shortest path from me to my opponent that I thought I was taking was not the shortest path at all.”

There were quicker paths forward.

Paths through the higher dimensions.

He closed his eyes as he expanded his view into the higher dimensions. What was strange was that despite extending into the higher dimensions, he couldn’t entirely tell how many there were. It felt like the more he counted, the more his vision of how many there were grew blurry until he couldn’t distinguish which was which.

”This might be the limits of my cognition and consciousness.”

Even though his body was hyperdimensional, his consciousness was not. His consciousness was still rooted within his three-dimensional brain. Even his corporeal consciousness had not extended beyond his three-dimensional body.

Frankly, the thought of expanding his consciousness into the higher dimensions to gain a hyperdimensional consciousness was both extremely exciting and terrifying.

”If my consciousness spreads across the higher dimensions and then my access to the higher dimensions is revoked for some reason, then would my consciousness be destroyed?”

Most likely, yes. It would be like if his access to the third dimension was revoked and his brain was reduced to a two-dimensional cross-section slice of what it would otherwise be. His consciousness would instantly cease to exist.

That thought was terrifying.

For now, he put aside such extravagant ideas and focused on mastering the basics. He could think about hyperdimensional consciousness once he mastered the basics.

”Huff...” he exhaled before taking a step forward.

STEP

It was a normal step. The kind that any normal human being could take. All he did was measure the time it took both internally and in the chamber clocks. He just wanted a baseline.

Then, he took another step.

But this time, he didn’t just walk in that direction in three dimensions, but also stepped through the higher dimensions.

WHOOSH

For a moment, his existence became even more translucent and ethereal.

As if he was ’less’ real for a second.

STEP

Then his foot reached the destination, causing his existence to become more opaque and solid once more.

His ethereal eyes, which had never left the chamber clocks, noted the timing for the second step. As he expected, the time it took for the same step was a little less compared to the prior step.

He reached his destination just a little quicker with the same speed and effort.

He had done the equivalent of digging a straight tunnel to his destination rather than walking along a longer, curved path.

He accessed the feed that the cameras had captured, noting that his body became more transparent. Not just his flesh, which was already translucent because of Anthean physiology, but even his clothes became more translucent. Though that strangely didn’t compromise his modesty, his body underneath the transparent clothes was still not visible, as if still covered. It was more so that his existence itself had become scarce at a more fundamental level.

”By stepping into the higher dimensions, I’m becoming less present in the lower dimensions. Interesting.”

He recalled his battle with the three Divine Mothers in the Colton Star System in arakai territory. Back then, his existence had been glitchy. He glitched in and out of reality, appearing and disappearing.

”That was because my hyperdimensional access was very unstable.” He shook his head. ”Let alone law-altered Martial Bodies, I didn’t even know about the Calabi-Yau manifold back then. I was literally just forcing it with the sheer power of my Martialverse.”

He had taken great strides with hyperdimensional reality since then, not requiring to rely on such crude brute-force methods to get what he needed. He didn’t even need the Martialverse anymore. His law-altered Martial Bodies could access the higher dimensions permanently.

He clenched his hands into a fist before swinging a basic, straight punch.

WHOOSH!

As his fist rippled through the atmosphere, it briefly became translucent, reaching its destination almost instantly. Despite not activating his Realms, the speed he displayed was at least on par with if he had activated his Martial Mind.

All of which was basically free of cost in battle, unlike the Martial Mind.

He grinned. ”This is incredible. Just the most basic implications of higher dimensions are revolutionary!”

He began practicing basic movements. He had mastered these movements to unfathomably high levels, but now he almost needed to remaster them in order to integrate the principles of hyperdimensional motion into them.

This was the raw, grueling practice that he would need to do in order to gain a foundation. Of course, he could use Soul Retcon to master them instantly, but Soul Retcon sacrificed mastery of other things and was meant to be a temporary measure to adaptively evolve to his opponents.

It was better for him to build a core on strong foundations than to make painful sacrifices to speed up the process. He spent every single moment of the next seven months in the chamber simply practicing different movements, actions, and motions.

It had been a very long time since he did such extensive foundational honing. Of course, a part of this was something that he did every time he trained just to ensure that his sense, his muscle memory, and his fluidity never grew rusty, but this was different.

This was a deep foundation rigor that he hadn’t done in decades.

It was a euphoric feeling, honing his foundations. These days, he spent so much time on fancy, flashy miraculous techniques that he didn’t spend much time on his foundation. Now he had an opportunity to hone his foundation while also mastering a fancy, flashy miraculous technique.