The Martial Unity

“You’ve correctly identified one of the problems that plagued us the most.” Julian nodded, evidently impressed. “Sophistication of Martial Path is indeed a bit of a nebulous concept that is hard to measure. However, we have developed a measurement system centered around several parameters such as how narrow and specific their field is, the complexity of the Martial Path, and frequency of the Martial Path in the Martial Artist population among other things.”

“Interesting.” Rui nodded. “That isn’t necessarily in line with the conventional definition of ‘sophistication’ though, is it?”

“Perhaps not,” Julian admitted. “The conventional definition is a very broad ambiguous term that encompasses a lot of meanings in different contexts. When we use the term, we’re referring to how the word is used in the context of Martial Art.”

Rui nodded. Although he could argue that even in the context of Martial Art it wasn’t a very rigorously defined word, at that point, it was just pointless semantics. What mattered was what the data revealed.

“Anyways, to continue with what I was saying earlier. The studies we conducted revealed that the older the Martial Artist was when they discovered their Martial Path, the more sophisticated their Martial Path was. The prevailing hypothesis is that with age, comes experience, perspective, and maturity, allowing for the maturity of the Martial Path into something beyond a simplistic broad field.” Julian told Rui. “We haven’t verified this hypothesis yet, unfortunately.”

“Interesting.” Rui thought deeply. “The most straightforward way to verify this hypothesis would be to create a measurement system for maturity and measure it in a sample base of Martial Artists while controlling for all other factors except for the sophistication of Martial Path. This way you could isolate the correlation between maturity and sophistication.”

“Correct.” Julian smiled, impressed at Rui’s deep understanding of how empirical research functioned. “We’re having trouble verifying this hypothesis. After all, it isn’t particularly simple to measure the maturity of a Martial Artist. It’s hard to even define maturity objectively, and it’s even harder to measure it empirically.”

Rui nodded. Research in the field of psychology had developed extremely rigorous means of measuring temperament after decades of refining. He didn’t think the researchers of the Kandrian Empire were quite there yet, from what he could see.

“Furthermore, Martial Artist psychology cannot necessarily be treated the same as that of normal humans.” Rui also added.

“Exactly. Due to that and other reasons, further research has stalled.” Julian sighed with resignation.

“No matter. Tell me more about what your research has yielded.” Rui coaxed.

“Well, the next variable is actually sex,” Julian explained. “Sex does play a role in predicting certain parameters of the Martial Path of the Martial Artist. Firstly, female Martial Artists on average are likelier to have Martial Path revolving around more than one field, while male Martial Artists’ Martial Path is likelier to fixate on a single field.”

“Interesting…” Rui thought about his own personal experience and observations. “Doesn’t seem right, intuitively. A lot of my female Martial Artist friends have fixated on a single field, while several of my male Martial Artist friends focus on multiple fields.”

Fae, Milliana, Nel, and Hever were certainly examples of this. Rui was an example of this as well. Rui’s Martial Path was meant to encompass every field, theoretically.

“Of course, this is just a very broad trend, far from an absolute rule. There are plenty of male and female Martial Artists who no doubt stray away from the trend.” Julian explained.

Rui nodded, he was quite familiar with this concept.

“Several other discoveries we made are more niche things such as the frequency of sensory techniques is higher among female Martial Artists while male Martial Artists tend to have a higher trend towards offensive techniques. Women are also likelier to master and excel at techniques that demand fine motor skills, accuracy, and precision while men are likelier to master and excel at more physically strenuous techniques.”

“These make more sense, I guess.” Rui nodded. Men had a higher propensity for aggressing violence due to testosterone, while women demonstrated higher sensitivity towards stimuli. Men had greater physicality while women exhibited better hand-eye coordination and delicacy. Men and women had different strengths and affinities biologically which seemed to manifest in the demographics of their Martial Paths.

“A lot of our results were intuitively satisfying and predictable, though they are a bit more mundane,” Julian added. “One of our more fascinating findings is actually the correlation between exposure to a field throughout the years of development and the probability that their Martial Path will be relevant to said field.”

Rui raised an eyebrow at that, waiting for him to continue.

“One of the more fascinating case studies we conducted is actually the Garath Tribe in the Crimel Forest south of the Kandrian Empire.” Julian smiled. “This is a Martial Artist tribe that lives a very primitive lifestyle that characterized our species eons ago, barring the Martial Art part. What is most fascinating is that a huge proportion of the Martial Artists of this tribe have Martial Paths centered around weapons.”

“What?” Rui couldn’t help but be genuinely surprised at this revelation. “How much, exactly?”

“Around half.” Julian chuckled, enjoying Rui’s reaction. “Around half had Martial Paths centered around spears, bows, and arrows, elementary blades, etc.”

“Half? Half of them were weapon-wielding Martial Artists?”

“Indeed.”

“But how…?” Rui recalled his conversation with headmaster Aronian a few years ago. He had told Rui that the reason for the low occurrence of weapon-oriented Martial Paths was that weapons were inherently deviant from the natural application of the human body in combat.

(‘Was he wrong?’) Rui wondered for a moment, before shaking his head. (‘No, it makes sense. The reason for the Garath tribe having a higher frequency must be, as Julian said, due to the exposure.’)

“So, people’s experiences can cause drastically different Martial Paths,” Rui concluded.

“That does seem to be the case.”

“That raises a lot of questions.” Rui hesitantly said as he considered the ways this could be exploited to produce more desirable Martial Paths, as well as the ethics of doing such a thing.