The Martial Unity

President Amelia was having a good day.

While six trillion was truly a lot, it was still very much worth it to get her hands on dozens of Masters and thousands of Seniors. Statistically, by Gorteau’s breakthrough rate, she could expect that several of those additional Masters would go on to become Sages while hundreds of the Seniors would go on to become Masters.

With that consideration in mind, six trillion dollars was still very much tolerable. Considering how quickly her opponent and opposition relented to it, they, too, must have agreed with her.

It would be a long-term investment that slightly slowed down how quickly they fell behind the Kandrian Empire. With its own endless supply of breakthroughs and an extraordinary manifold that accelerated time, it was destined to vastly surpass the Republic of Gorteau and its peers in East Panama.

She could not stop them. It was something that she had long given up on before she had even won the elections. The Kandrian Empire was already the most powerful nation in the world by a significant margin, and the gap would only continue widening.

That was why her victory in the last presidential elections was important. It was necessary for a pacifistic leader like herself to take over that and ensure that the Republic of Gorteau didn’t provoke a fight with the Kandrian Empire.

Of course, the Kandrian Empire and its Emperor of Harmony were not known for their imperialistic or hawkish tendencies, so she wasn’t too worried about the power gap. However, the fact that the Kandrian Empire extracted a painful price from the Sekigahara Confederate as an apology meant that there was a price for making an enemy of it.

Gaining access to a one-time breakthrough from the Void Prince and then investing heavily in the Martial Artists that broke through should allow her to ensure that the Republic of Gorteau wouldn’t become entirely beholden to the Kandrian Empire, not during her presidency, at least.

“The best part is that we have managed to retain our Sages without losing the opportunity to gain his blessings,” she heaved a sigh of relief.

CLACK

Her secretary barged into her office with a grave expression.

“What’s the matt-?”

“Madam President! I just received an intelligence report from the Director of Intelligence!” the woman shrieked, slamming a document on the table.

President Amelia was hardly pleased by the conduct but instead reached for the document, skimming through it with a frown.

[Report on commission worth six trillion dollars officially accepted by the Martial Consortium]

The title shook her.

At that moment, her eyes widened with horror as her expression crumbled with reckoning as she finally understood everything that had happened. Her fists shook as she clenched them while her teeth ground against each other.

“That cunning bastard!”

She understood what had happened.

She also understood that she couldn’t change what had happened.

And thus, the Republic of Gorteau unwittingly joined the unified task force.

Just as Rui had planned.

STEP

He paused, turning as he glanced at the Republic of Gorteau in the great distance behind him.

“Tsk.” His tone was one of dissatisfaction. “It’s a shame I didn’t get to see the look on her face. But, oh well.”

He turned his back to the distant Republic of Gorteau, continuing his jog in the general direction of his next major destination.

“The Gen Temple.”

He didn’t know too much about this powerhouse, unfortunately. The same could be said for pretty much every other powerhouse across the rest of the Panama Continent. What he knew about the Gen Temple was that it was a polity that was theocratic, centered around the religion Genism.

He was aware that there were some who didn’t regard Genism as a religion but simply as a philosophy and a way of life to the enlightenment and to the supreme pinnacle of Martial Art. Regardless, it wasn’t merely a theocracy but also a Martialocracy, though it was not a Martial Supremacy.

He also knew that calling it a nation was questionable.

It was more like a really, really large temple.

The name Gen Temple was not merely a choice of words; it reflected the nature of the polity.

All in all, everything that Rui had ever heard of it gave him the general impression that it was a highly unique place. And it was no wonder that it was highly unique as a polity. After all, among the tens and perhaps even hundreds of thousands of officially known human polities at all scales, Gen Temple was one of the fourteen nations that have emerged on top as a Sage- level powerhouse.

If it was not unique, it would have never been able to grow as strong as it did and maintain its power as one of the fourteen hegemons of human civilization. He hadn’t forgotten that one of its strengths was not only generating low-difficulty grade-ten techniques like Yin-Yang Shield but also successfully keeping it a secret from the rest of the world. It was these advantages that allowed it to eventually outpace the rest of the world, attracting the best and most driven talents across the entire world to its fold.

One thing for certain was that this was the first Sage-level powerhouse that Rui was actually truly looking forward to. The Sekigahara Confederate, the Britannian Empire, and the Republic of Gorteau had all been absolute enemies of the Kandrian Empire.

Rui still found it unpleasant that he had to impart his gifts to nations that had tried to raze his home to the ground, but he gritted his teeth and got through the process.

However, there was no bad blood with the Gen Temple. The Kandrian Empire had maintained an extremely good relationship with the polity over the centuries and thus could finally heave a sigh of relief that he was going to a friendly powerhouse that didn’t have a history of doing everything in its power to kill him.

And thus continued a long journey to the west.

A journey for discovery and self-discovery.

A journey of salvation for the rest of the world.