The Martial Unity

“And thus, my presentation has come to an end,” Rui declared with a tone of finality. “I hope you find my offered solution and auxiliary solutions and the caveats that come with them useful. I hope that they are  able to help humankind prevail. And with that, I call upon the next presenter, the Esoterist of Esocline Federation.”

Rui heaved a sigh of relief as the two of them received a resounding round of applause even as his projection zapped out of there, replaced by that of the Esoterist.

Meanwhile, he returned to the projected call with the Ecologer and the guildmaster of the Adventurer’s Guild. “A splendid solution indeed, young Master,” Guildmaster Vaughn earnestly complimented him.

“That was quite the remarkable solution that you have cooked up.” The Ecologer smiled at him with a greater hint of respect. “I did not expect you to have gained the enlightenment of the Tree of Life. I did not know that not only could Martial Artists attain it, but they could even weaponize it.”

“It was just a little something that I gained in the Beast Domain in pursuit of the Divine Doctor,” Rui replied nonchalantly. “More importantly…”

His gaze returned to that of the projection of the Esoterist.

“It all comes down to him.”

Because the Hellbringer was a portion of the Tree of Life model, Rui knew that his solution alone could never allow Martial Masters to single-handedly deal with Sage-level beasts and monsters.

Whatever solution the Esoterist had developed needed to not only be powerful, but also synergetic with his own. Otherwise human civilization was screwed.

“Have faith, Dawnbringer,” the Ecologer remarked even as her eyes remained fixed on the Esoterist. “He is one of the most brilliant minds that human civilization has ever produced. Why else do you think the Beggar Sage took notice of him? He will not fail us.”

In the conference hall, the Esoterist smiled as he directed a sweeping gaze at all the gathered leaders.

They all studied his bizarre appearance and attire with puzzled eyes. A series of glowing and parallel lines ran around the entirety of the one-piece attire.

It was unlike anything that any of them had ever seen.

“Leaders of humanity,” he began. “I am the Esoterist. Today, I intend to present you with numerous solutions, many of which I have worked on for years and even decades. I did not anticipate that I would ever be sharing them with all of you in this fashion, but the Beast Incursion has indeed allowed for the strangest of events to unfold, those that would have never occurred without it.”

Rui raised an eyebrow with interest.

The fact that the Esoterist had multiple solutions was a good sign.

The probability that they would be able to bridge the gap between Masters and Sage-level beasts was much higher with multiple solutions across multiple sub-fields.

“Esoteric technology has always been an important part of human civilization in the previous age and the new Beast Incursion epoch,” he continued. “Indeed, while it is not the equal of Martial Art as far as war potential goes, it is much more versatile and flexible and has entire dimensions of utility that Martial Art cannot even begin to compare with. So much so that even Martial Artists cannot do without esoteric technology!”

The Martial Artists in the conference hall narrowed their eyes.

They didn’t like to admit it, but his words were entirely on point.

Starting from the Squire evolution procedure which was entirely artificial and driven by esoteric technology, there was no way that Martial Artists above the Apprentice Realm could even exist without esoteric technology.

In addition, Martial training and growth resources were also driven by esoteric technology. Martial Artists would be much weaker if not for esoteric technology.

There was no denying that it was the second most powerful force in human civilization after Martial Art.

“Among the most impactful applications of esoteric technology are esoteric siege weapons.” He tapped his suit as it projected large three dimensional images of the fundamental structures of esoteric siege weapons. “These mighty weapons of mass destruction can inflict tremendous damage over massive amounts of area and are being actively used even as we speak by all developed nations in the world to fend off the Beast Domain.”

This was also true. Martial Artists would have suffered much greater losses without these weapons mowing down the beast tides that rabidly stampeded to overrun all of human civilization.

“And that is where the first solution I have to offer begins.” The Esoterist smiled. “There are extremely low-hanging fruits that can improve all siege weapons and their efficacy against beasts and monsters. That is what I plan to impart to all of you as part of my first solution. You see…”

He waved his hand, featuring many projections of different siege weapons in the air, many of which were recognized by many of the leaders of human civilization. These were the most common siege weapons present across all of human civilization. Sold, of course, by the Esocline Federation.

“The modern paradigms of siege weapons are designed to be effective against Martial Artists,  primarily,” he patiently explained. “Martial Artists are blindingly fast and as small as regular humans. Landing an accurate attack on them from kilometers away is impossible for automatic, semi-automatic, or manual siege weapons. Thus, the current paradigms partially solve this problem by increasing the scope of the energy output, allowing siege weapons to cover vast expanses such that Martial Artists cannot avoid them easily. Of course…”

He smiled. “The massive drawback is that the output becomes extremely diluted. This leads to only a fraction of the full power of siege weapons hitting Martial Artists. Still, this was better than nothing. Against beasts and monsters, however, this is not the optimal approach for a few reasons.”

He raised a finger. “First, the average beast is orders of magnitude larger than the average Martial Artist. This makes them easier to hit than Martial Artists who are slightly larger than the average human.”

–