The Martial Unity

His considerations regarding the Gatekeeper’s blood flow manipulation technique helped him flesh out exactly what standards he wanted to hold the rest of the Water Sect’s offered techniques to.

It also helped him flesh out exactly the kind framework that he was working with and how all of it fit into the big picture of his new sect.

There was the sect’s field of focus, which was Adaptive Evolution. Then, there were sub-fields within Adaptive Evolution, which were fields that Rui had created in his time as a Martial Artist pursuing Adaptive Evolution.

And within those sub-fields, there were the core foundational principles or techniques upon which Martial Artists could build their individualized techniques and Martial Art on.

The Gatekeeper’s heart manipulation technique showed him that he had to ensure that there was a low barrier of entry to those very core foundational techniques in each sub-field. It needed to have not just a low barrier of entry but also high potential. The more potential it had, the more it could be individualized by Martial Artists who sought to build upon it.

“I’ll need to do the same for the other technique systems in my Martial Art,” he mused to himself. The Hypnomatrix, the Yggdrasil System, the Pathfinder, and his systems of thought.

With the Hypnomatrix, the techniques were the most standard and mainstream in principle, but in reality, some of his techniques were based on John’s memories with asthma, such as the Breathing Crucifix.

These were more difficult, but not impossible, as long as any given Martial Artist had the perseverance to suffer through induced breathing impediments over extended periods of time, they would be able to learn his Breathing Crucifix to a lesser degree.

“The issue is that this is still an extremely narrow path into hypnosis.”

The reason that he had chosen these techniques was because they were suited for his purposes as an all-rounder. However, it wasn’t the only way. “Hypnosis is versatile and diverse. Do I really want to funnel members of the Water Sect into these three narrow paths?”

Ideally, no.

Hypnosis was something that, ideally, would be explored by each Martial Artist for themselves as they developed something truly individualistic that would be truly compatible and synergetic with their Martial Art, Path, and who they were as people. For example, several of his hypnotic techniques were imagination-intensive. They required a powerful imagination and thus could be highly unsuited for Martial Artists who weren’t gifted with high imaginative capabilities.

Everyone had their strengths and weaknesses.

The more Rui thought about it, the more he felt dissatisfied with the prospects of forcing people into narrow paradigms. Not just because it was unfair to those who were unsuited for those particular paradigms but also because the goal of the Water Sect was to serve as the solution for a potential bottleneck and as a tool to aid his ascent to the Sage Realm.

“I need to think broader. I need to allow them to explore hypnosis in its entirety while also doing so from the perspective and objective of pursuing Adaptive Evolution within the field of hypnosis.”

This was much harder than it sounded.

The reason that Rui was able to jump into brand-new fields and apply them adaptive-evolutionarily without any hitch was because he possessed an extremely deep understanding of Adaptive Evolution as a concept and philosophy.

That was why, even if he dived into an unknown field, he was able to wind his way into creating brilliant applications in that field for Adaptive Evolution. “This is what they need in order to ensure that they apply hypnosis optimally for Adaptive Evolution in a manner that is highly compatible and synergistic with them,” Rui realized. “I need to instill in them a philosophical foundation surrounding Adaptive Evolution as a Martial Path.”

So long as he did that, they would be able to apply any new field to Adaptive Evolution without losing sight of the latter.

If he had just introduced them to hypnosis without this philosophical foundation, then they would have been lost and ended up creating techniques that had very little to do with Adaptive Evolution and more to do with hypnosis.

Thus, a philosophical foundation that would allow them to evaluate how to apply fields to Adaptive Evolution in a manner that they were most compatible with and synergetic with was necessary. “I’ll need to start working on that immediately.”

It was actually more important than the individual technique systems that he had been working on prior. He looked forward to imparting the philosophy of water that Bruce Lee had created to these Martial Artists.

He had no qualms about spreading the ideals of his idol from another world.

“I’ll also have to take the first classes myself to ensure that I pass on a proper canon for the philosophy,” he murmured. “Hell, I should just write a book. I’ll call it ‘Be Water.’”

It was a good way of paying homage to the man.

Ordinarily, this would be almost impossible to do during wartime, but he had the manifold, and he could get away with it.

“Fourteen months, that’s enough time to achieve everything I have set out to do.”

It wasn’t going to be an issue as long as he put his mind to it. “In addition to a philosophical foundation, there are things that I can impart to them,” he realized. “If I’m going to teach them philosophy, I might as well impart other methodologies.”

There was a lot that he had to offer. He could teach them the systematic method of technique development.

He could teach them how to approach systems of thought systematically.

The latter was something that he was seriously considering. If the voidlet techniques could have made an impact on the propensity for thought in the Master Realm, then he couldn’t help but grow quite excited about what kind of impact he would make if he imparted something that was aimed at a fundamental improvement when it came to creating systems of thought. He was excited to deep dive into all of it.

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