The Martial Unity

“So you’re telling me Nel provoked a guy into challenging him?” Kane asked curiously.

“Yeah, I was looking for the Apprentice dormitory and coincidentally ran into them.” Rui explained.

Soon after the commotion Nel caused, Rui had managed to find Kane in the Apprentice dormitory. He told Kane about duel he’d heard issued on his way.

“Do you know who the other guy was? What about the details?” Kane asked.

“Nah.” Rui shook his head. “They left before I could learn any of that.”

“Hm, well we can find out anyway.”

​ “How so?” Rui asked curiously.

“Official duels need to be registered at least one day prior. If they’ve already registered it, it will be added to the time table of the Apprentice sparring facility.” Kane explained.

“That’s convenient.” Rui nodded. As expected of the Academy expert. “Let’s look at it while we visit the sparring facility in our tour.”

“Sure thing.”

They bantered a bit, before setting out.

The Academy was truly vast. It was comparable to a small town. Rui and Kane could spend the whole day and would still not be able to tour it in its entirety. Still, they intended to cover as much ground as they could.

They set out with the information guidebooks the Academy had provided them in the investiture ceremony, mapping out a quick touring route.

The Academy grouped its facilities and other infrastructure in regards to their utility to the students. The outermost layer was dedicated to students in the Foundational and Exploration Stages of the academic curriculum. The inner layer was dedicated to Martial Apprentices.

Unfortunately, Rui discovered that students like him, colloquially referred to as novices were not allowed into a majority of the facilities of the inner section.

“They sure are harsh.” Rui sighed as a guard denied him access into a training facility in the inner section. Kane hadn’t been aware of this since the information wasn’t covered in the guidebook for some reason.

“They have a strong lockdown on information that doesn’t need to be disclosed.” Kane said. “I’m already a Martial Apprentice and I still don’t know the conditions needed to become a Martial Squire.”

“Shame. Well, let’s stick to exploring the outer section.” Rui resigned.

The outer section was much bigger than the inner section. After all, there a lot of novices like Ves, far more so than the number of Martial Apprentices. Thus, the resources and space dedicated to nurturing them was far greater than the those dedicated to Martial Apprentices.

Rui and Kane first ran into a physical training wing of the outer section. The physical training wing had a huge number of facilities dedicated to Martial body-building. The sheer variety in the training equipment, regimes and exercises was truly amazing. It surpassed even what Kane had access to when he was in the Foundational Stage.

“Woah…” Kane murmured as they inspected the area. “As expected of the Academy.”

Rui nodded. He wouldn’t be surprised if he was told that the facility was had targeted training for every single muscle and bone in the human body. In fact, that probably was the case.

The wing was partially populated with students working out. What Rui noticed quickly however, was that these students weren’t part of the freshmen batch that he was part of. They were their seniors who had joined at least a year prior, if not more.

They were engaged in various training regimes or exercises in various small groups. Furthermore, each group was monitored by a supervisor.

“They’re not Martial Artists though.” Kane noted, there presence was that of ordinary humans.

“The Academy would not bother wasting the time of Martial Squires on novices who haven’t even crossed the foundational stage.” Rui shook his head. It didn’t take a genius to figure that out. Martial Squires made the bulk of the Martial force of any nation. They were too precious to be wasted supervising a bunch of brats who hadn’t even mastered the basics of basics. Ultimately, this was a low-skilled, low-output occupation that was better done by less important personnel

“It’s quite likely the Apprentice training facilities will be overseen by Martial Squires and Martial Seniors.” Rui mused, a hint of envy colouring his tone.

Kane shrugged. He merely pointed a curiosity. He had been mentored by a retired Martial Master. Being mentored by Squires or Seniors wasn’t exciting.

On extremely rare occasions, his father had personally overlooked his training. But that wasn’t a pleasant memory for him, instead it was even the driving force for his desire to escape his home and join the Academy.

They shrugged and moved on to the performative training wing. Which was much bigger in comparison to the facility prior. It was also much more interesting to Rui. There were numerous sections dedicated to different performative attributes. A lot of them resembled things he’d see in Chinese martial arts movies.

“Interesting stuff.” Rui murmured as they took in a balance training facility. Even performative attributes like balance didn’t seem to have a single facility dedicated to it. Instead, there were multiple facilities dedicated to different aspects of balance.

“This one should be related to kinetic balance.” Rui mused to himself. There was a difference between maintaining balance during motion, and maintaining balance while still. Although correlated, these two were not the same. It was possible to have good static balance, while having bad dynamic and kinetic balance, and vice versa. Thus, it became necessary to treat balance as a multi-varied equation rather than a singular attribute where training and improvement was concerned.

Body-eye coordination training was even vaster than balance, though this was within Rui’s expectations. Atleast balance could be cleanly divided into only a handful different types. Body-eye coordination, however was much more complicated. In theory, every muscle’s coordination with the brain could be treated separately, creating a huge number of different subdivisions within body-eye coordination. This reflected in the sheer variety of training regimes and exercises that students were put through!

“Amazing!” Rui couldn’t contain his excitement. This was what he wanted! This was what he longed for! The sheer amount of resources and funds that the Academy would be investing in Rui far surpassed what he could do by himself. This was why he had joined the Academy.

“I can’t wait to begin training!” He exclaimed.