The Martial Unity

Fae and Kane threw him an odd look.

“Hm? Do you disagree with what I said?” Rui raised an eyebrow to their reaction.

“No..” Kane mumbled.

“I agree with it, I think it’s a nuanced take, but it’s something I heard from my grandmother, it’s odd to hear that from someone with no formal training.” She stared at him with a hint of puzzlement

“It’s just weird because sometimes you seem clueless about basic Martial Art, but the next second turn into an expert.” Kane laughed awkwardly.

Rui shrugged. He, of course, knew the truth. He appeared clueless sometimes because he genuinely was clueless, Martial Art was greatly different from martial arts in many ways. Yet they shared many underlying traits on a broader scale for a large portion of his expertise to be relevant. Things that were completely alien to Earth such as techniques like Outer Convergence, he was ignorant about. But the general advantages and disadvantages of styles and the determinant variables that determined the outcome between two different styles and approaches did not change, here he was an unparalleled theoretical expert on these topics, the likes of which he doubted anybody but the most experiences Masters and Sages could rival.

Still, he didn’t let it get to his head. Fact of the matter was that he was ignorant, he had a lot of learning to do before he could hold himself as an expert on the field like he did in his previous life. And that would take a long time. Not that he minded, the journey was half the destination. Every time he entertained thought of his Martial Path, he would grow excited from the bottom of his heart

“Well, as long as you know.” Kane shrugged.

“For what it’s worth, I do think an all-rounder style would suit you more than a hyper-specialized style especially because of your resourceful and tactical approach. But that means you’ll have to become a jack of all trades, but a master of none.”

“I’m fine with that. The greater versatility and flexibility are worth the trade.” Rui replied. This he was sure of.

Rui often likened combat sports with artistry. There were several parallels between them. A good painting was born of three things; The necessary tools, the artist’s proficiency with those tools and the manner in which the artist applied his tools and proficiency to paint the vision he sought after. Another analogy that Rui had conceived was that of a surgery.

A perfect surgery most certainly needed the appropriate tools and instruments, as well as a surgeon who was proficient in using those tools and also; a surgeon who knew what operations needed to be performed in order to obtain the desired outcome.

Combat and Martial Art were no different, in a way. The tools of a fighter were that of his body, his limbs, his torso, his head and every cell in his body. The higher the quality of the tools, the more that could be accomplished with them. Obtaining high quality tools was the foundation of Martial Art. A powerful, capable body was fundamental to the framework of combat in both Gaea and Earth. Next; the proficiency of those tools was analogous to the techniques employed in combat.

These techniques were nothing more than means and ways to operate the body in order to efficiently and effectively accomplish a set of tasks and actions, this encompassed both accuracy and precision of movements

And finally, the application of the tools and techniques. Using the right move at the right time.

An extremely important aspect of combat. What did it matter if one possessed the body of a god, and the movements of a machine if one used the absolute worst move at any given time? It didn’t, such a person would lose to another with bad tools and techniques, but great application.

Currently, Rui was closer to the latter. A lifetime of research into mid-combat analysis and judgement, a lifetime of research into probability of success of tactics applied in various scenarios with carefully constrained and controlled variables.

This was something of immense utility in Gaea and Rui possessed it in spades.

This was why he was likely to pick an all-rounder Martial Art. They were more versatile and flexible compared to other Martial Art, their only downside was that they were very tactically intensive, meaning, of the three aspects of combat mentioned prior; tools, proficiency and application. All-rounder styles required much higher quality of application compared to other styles.

Thus, it was very suited to Rui, whose strongest advantage was his tactical application.

p The reasoning behind his decision was certainly a bizarre outlier. There was no way to train tactical application the same way one’s body and technique could be trained. Tactical application was something that usually came with a vast amount of experience, real experience. It required fighting, and more fighting, and even more fighting.

The quality of one’s application of techniques was mostly combination of intelligence and experience. This was why Rui was suited to it. His brain was still developing, and would continue to do so until the age of twenty-five, meaning his mind would be growing sharper and sharper for a second time. And although he lacked practical experience which would no doubt hinder him in the short run, his theoretical foundations and knowledge were simply out of this world.

Rui suspected that whatever his Martial Art would end up looking like, he would probably be unlike any other all-rounder in the world. Though he still wasn’t able to accurately extrapolate what this would look like, exactly.

“Rui.” Julian interrupted his train of thought while approaching the trio. He had distanced himself from them when they approached Rui, not wanting to awkwardly be part of a conversation he clearly had no place in. He’d instead given them space and taken the liberty to read up on the Academy information booklet the Admission Department had been providing to students and their guardians at free of cost. Ideally, he’d want to allow Rui to spent time with fellow students for as long as possible, but;

“You really ought to read up and clarify any doubts you have sooner than later Rui, you won’t get another chance until the Academic year begins.”