The Martial Unity

The suit was easily worn, thankfully. It slipped on Rui and the assistant staff members fastened it quickly.

“Woah,” Rui murmured. “It’s so light, it doesn’t even feel like I’m wearing a suit at all. Can this really impede my motions that much?”

“It’s made up of special esoteric substances that are capable of exerting a tremendous amount of force on your movements.” Squire Fernin explained. “Try getting up normally.”

Rui cautiously got up in a normal fashion. He was pleased to see that he didn’t over-exert and send himself flying. His motions were dulled by his suit just enough that he ended up exerting human-level force.

“Huh, this actually feels quite normal,” Rui said appreciatively.

“That’s to be expected.” Squire Fernin said. “The biggest problem with the rehabilitation is getting used to how little force you need to apply for daily mundane tasks.”

Rui nodded, this made sense. As a Martial Apprentice with a mostly normal human body, he normally applied a small, but a decent chunk of his strength when he performed mundane tasks like walking or eating. However, now he had to learn to apply the tiniest of motions for these same tasks. Consciously, this was possible to do, however, it wasn’t enough for this to become a conscious measure. This needed to become part of his subconscious tendencies and traits, it needed to become as natural as breathing. Such that he could be assured it would happen even if he wasn’t paying any attention to himself.

“Alright, get some rest for today in your room. You’ve spent three weeks in a horrifying procedure, after all.” Squire Fernin casually threw that out there.

Rui turned to him in shock. “Three weeks??”

“Yes.” Suire Fernin nodded. “Your procedure took a little longer than average due to the delicate nature of your brains.”

“I see…” Rui pondered deeply. Thankfully, he had already informed the Orphanage that he would be leaving for some time.

“The staff members will help you with your room and other matters.” He told Rui. “For now, get some rest. We’ll begin tomorrow. Goodbye.”

Rui bade him goodbye as he turned to the staff members for aid. Now that he had the body suit impeding his extra power immensely, he could more or less move around normally. He was quickly assigned a room in the facility.

“Ohhh mannnn…” Rui groaned in comfort as he crashed into a comfortable bed in his room. He reveled in its comfort, having been forced to deal with the torture and general discomfort of the Apotheosis chamber.

He retrieved his communicator from the bag filled with his belongings, sending a message to Julian, the only one in the Orphanage with a communicator. He also sent messages to each of his six friends, informing them of his breakthrough to the Squire Realm, before tossing his phone aside.

He was tired. Although the procedure had rejuvenated him with mental and physical rejuvenation potions, the former had long lost effectivity.

Furthermore, the exhaustion he felt was more psychological than anything else. He just wanted to rest a bit before he set out on the next phase of his Martial journey.

On the other hand, he was also excited about the fact that he was a Martial Squire. Having stepped into the Squire Realm, he had still not gotten over it. Generally, he was level-headed and calm regarding other matters, but when it came to Martial matters, he could be immature.

At this very moment, he was in a way no different from a child that had received the toy that they desired the most for Christmas.

(‘I wonder what the habilitation training will be like.’)

He suspected that it wouldn’t be too different from the physical and Martial foundations of the Martial Academy. These phases focused on the core of Martial Art. They focused on the most important and fundamental aspects of any physical conflict.

Things like accuracy, precision, timing, coordination, and balance were all aspects of his motion that would require training from scratch.

(‘In a way, this isn’t too different from the mismatched muscle memory between my body of Earth and the new body I got in Gaea.’) He realized.

He had taken truly a long time to overcome the incompatible muscle memory that he had retained from Earth. It had taken many years despite working hard. Thankfully, the Martial Union could speed up the process thanks to hypnotic mental manipulation techniques.

What otherwise took many years to fully overcome would hopefully take much lesser time thanks to the mental manipulation.

(‘This is just the beginning though.’) Rui noted. (“I still have the Squire-level equivalent of Apprentice-level techniques to master.’)

That wasn’t something he would be able to master any time soon. He had mastered thirty Apprentice-level techniques at this point, even if mastering the Squire-level equivalent took only a month per technique. That would still take two and a half years to complete in its totality.

(‘It’s like becoming a Martial Apprentice all over again.’) Rui couldn’t help but think so. He was starting off with effectively no techniques whatsoever, just like he did when he became a Martial Apprentice. It was almost a fresh start in many ways.

Of course, he didn’t plan on re-mastering all of his old techniques. Not all of them needed to be re-mastered, and some were simply no longer worth it.

Techniques like Stinger and Adamant Reforging were passive and did not disappear entirely due to the transition, however, techniques such as Blink were entirely obsolete at the Squire Realm. Lack of vision was a meaningless hindrance that accomplished absolutely nothing against a Martial Squire with superhuman senses that allowed them to map their environment with their remaining senses. Furthermore, most Martial Squires had at least one sensory technique.

Thus, his Martial Art was likely not going to be identical to what it was when he was a Martial Apprentice.

His attention wandered between many topics, yet eventually, exhaustion took over his excitement and he began to nod off, falling asleep.