The Martial Unity

Time passed as Rui compiled the information package. It was a project he spent most of his waking days on, not paying any attention to anything else.

One of the things that he had to wrestle with was whether he wanted to update the Yggdrasil System in the Garden of Salvation or not.

On one hand, the whole reason he wanted to learn everything that the Elder Tree knew about the biosphere of the Beast Domain was because he wanted to upgrade his Yggdrasil System to create adaptively evolved environments that were optimally antithetical to any beast or monster from the Beast Domain.

This was his solution to not being able to adapt to beasts and monsters as well as he could adapt to other Martial Artists.

“The Yggdrasil System is inherently better suited to counter monsters and beasts than the pattern recognition system is.” Rui cursed himself for not making this deduction earlier. “While the latter can still do a great job, the former is able to be fundamentally antithetical to beasts and monsters in a way that the latter cannot.”

Human beings did not have environmental specialization. What that meant was that human beings were not optimized for any specific environment, topography, or geology. This was a species that was able to adaptively evolve to its environment by virtue of its heightened intelligence and, relatively, heightened rationality.

The human species had adapted to burning hot and freezing cold and everything in between, morphing culture and tradition in response to environmental conditions.

Animals could not do that.

If one tossed a polar bear into the desert, its only fate was death.

Likewise, if one tossed a camel into the Antarctic, its fate, too, was death.

This was, to a certain degree, even more true for the monsters of the Beast Domain. They had often evolved to be hyper-optimal in certain environments and were absolutely doomed if the environment was inversed to become optimally antithetical to them.

That was why the Yggdrasil System, which altered the environment to become optimally antithetical to its target, was most suited, out of the entirety of the Flowing Void Style, to handle the Beast Domain.

“Tsk, I should have entered the Beast Domain sooner; I would have made this realization far earlier.”

Alas, the past was the past. It was best to make the best use of what he had so that he would have no more regrets for the future.

On the other hand, he was in a time crunch.

“Still… I should save the updates for the Yggdrasil System till my current voyage to find the Divine Doctor is completed.”

One of the biggest reasons he insisted on inheriting the knowledge of the Elder Tree now was because he most likely would not get another chance to do so in the future. The spatial warp was one that the Elder Tree conjured around the Garden of Salvation, leaving only its furtive rootlets deep within the earth that connected to countless flora intelligence networks that, in totality, spread across much of the Beast Domain.

In other words, the Elder Tree would not be able to recognize Rui outside of the Garden of Salvation. Rui would need to subject himself to life-threatening danger for an extremely low probability of re-entering the Garden of Salvation.

It was not something he was willing to do.

Updating the Yggdrasil System, however, was something that did not require the Elder Tree. Thus, he could do that in peace after returning to the Kandrian Empire.

That was why he decided to prioritize the Divine Doctor mission, which had a time limit.

An entire month passed as Rui sucked up every ounce of scientific information from within the depths of his memory, even obscure things that he thought he had forgotten, rigorously categorizing them as he formed a progressive information package that would allow anyone to, eventually, learn what he knew as long as they properly solved all the assignments that he prepared alongside each unit.

The best part was that as he processed and organized large amounts of information, the Elder Tree watched his mind and thoughts, gaining a thorough understanding of everything that it would have to do to learn all of his knowledge.

It could not help but marvel at Rui’s powerful Mind Palace.

What an incredible technique… I do not think that I can build such an enormous mental landscape to store and process vast amounts of data in such a systematic way. Is this the reason behind the confidence in your ability to withstand a high level of data influx?

“Partially,” Rui remarked. “However, I would not be nearly as confident if you didn’t have the ability to read my mind and coordinate your info dump into my head with my Mind Palace.”

…I see. However, even that can only partially mitigate the suffering and the pain that will come with an overflood of information. You will suffer. Perhaps enough to lose your sanity.

“Thanks for the pep talk,” Rui sarcastically replied. “I’ll be fine.”

You don’t know that.

“At the very least, I shall do my best not to lose my mind and become an invalid.”

Even if you succeed with that, you can still suffer psychological damage.

“It’s as I said.” Rui narrowed his eyes. “If that is the price of adaptive evolution, then so be it.”

You are insane. Do you not care about who you are?

“I am a man who pursued his dream to death and beyond,” Rui replied calmly. “That is the only part of me that I care about. Everything else is secondary.”

…Perhaps you won’t lose your sanity after all. It doesn’t seem to be like you ever had it in the first place.

Rui huffed lightly. “Sanity is overrated. More importantly, I have finally completed the information packet for you. I’m glad you can read my mind, so I don’t have to rely on hypnosis or non-verbal communication to pass it on to you.” I shall gladly indulge in priceless knowledge from another world. I will have you guide me through this course.

–