The Martial Unity

Rui stared at her leaving figure in the distance with a stunned expression until she was no longer in view.

It had been a truly mind-bending expression.

To think he’d run into a woman who was scrubbing the grounds of the temple despite being a Martial Master.

A woman who turned out to be the Omni-Martial herself.

It was a first meeting that had exceeded his expectations and imagination.

And yet, he couldn’t help but find himself smiling earnestly at the memory.

“Everything is Martial Art, was it?”

He gazed at his hand with an immersed expression. This was a philosophy of Martial Art that he hadn’t contemplated before. It was very different from the conventional philosophy of Martial Art that regarded Martial Art to be entirely different from the movements that comprised one’s daily life.

And yet, he wasn’t averse to the core of Gen Martial philosophy. Partly because he was familiar with the inherent concept from another world, but it had never occurred to him that it could actually be true in this world.

Everything could be Martial Art.

Everything was Martial Art.

It all depended on how one harnessed it and applied it.

“Fascinating.”

A smile of exhilaration appeared on his face.

This was precisely one of the reasons that he had wanted to explore the length and breadth of the Panama Continent. He wanted to be exposed to the many Martial philosophies and points of view across the entirety of the supercontinent. While most nations largely subscribed to the standard model spread by the Panamic Martial Federation, there were plenty that had strong and powerful native and ethnic Martial cultures that were proudly maintained by their people.

The Gen Temple’s Martial philosophy was one such example.

It opened his eyes to what was possible.

It opened his eyes to avenues of power that had previously escaped his realization.

“Everything is Martial Art.”

If that was the case, then it meant that one could harness the sum totality of their life, every second that they had ever lived, and use all of it to empower their Martial Art. In other words, they will have effectively trained for every second of their life if they managed to execute it perfectly.

“The sheer amount of muscle memory they would generate would beggar the mind if they actually pulled this off,” Rui realized, engrossed in thought. “They would be able to build a monstrous amount of mastery in their Martial Art in just the fraction of time it would take non-Gen Temple.”

After all, nobody trained for literally every second of their life.

It was impossible.

Not even Rui could do that, and he was particularly diligent and obsessed with training compared to his other peers. However, if every single action one took, no matter the action, was Martial Art, then there was no difference between living your life normally and training. “Wait, there must be more,” Rui realized with a frown. “If just living your life was inherently training, then every single human being would be a powerful Martial Artist.”

Clearly, that wasn’t the case.

His eyes lit up as he recalled her words.

Martial Art is everywhere and everything. You merely need to harness it.

“That is the key,” Rui realized. “It isn’t just enough to live a life. You need to actively harness your life as a part of your Martial Art.”

Scientifically speaking, one needed to leverage the habits, the patterns, and the muscle memory created across the entirety of one’s life and weaponize them in combat. That, in and of itself, was undoubtedly an enormous challenge in and of itself.

Very few could possibly dedicate themselves to Gen Martial philosophy with absolute single- minded loyalty. Most likely, most Gen Martial Artists relied on Gen Martial philosophy while also secondarily adhering to the philosophy spread by the Panamic Martial Federation.

And was there anyone who had succeeded in harnessing the sum totality of their entire life? If there was one, it would be…

“The Omni-Martial,” Rui realized as he glanced in the direction that Amare had gone.

After all, he didn’t run into a single other Martial Master scrubbing the ground.

Most likely, no matter how loyal they were to Gen philosophy, they simply couldn’t bring themselves to believe that scrubbing the muddy grounds of the Gen Temple could possibly be

useful.

She was probably the only one in the entirety of the temple who lived and breathed Gen Martial philosophy and embedded its ideals in every cell of her body.

At that moment, a deep smile emerged on his face as his eyes lit up with battle lust.

He was itching to fight her.

He didn’t even give the slightest bit of a damn about the purification thing. He had already forgotten about it, and only one person consumed all his time.

Amare.

She was all he thought about for the rest of the day.

And night.

Her warmth and light.

Her innocent enthusiasm.

And her power.

He had felt it when she grasped his hand and pulled him about in their labor speedrun. He had certainly felt it when she struck him with her fist.

“She’s really, really strong.” His grin widened.

From then on until their battle, he couldn’t get her out of his mind.

He couldn’t stop thinking about her.

She had made a deep impression on him despite how light and trivial the time they had spent together was. He looked forward to deploying the sum totality of his Martial Art against her. He looked forward to adaptively evolving to her Martial Art and her Martial Path.

He looked forward to adaptively evolving to her entire life and everything in it. “Man, I’m so glad I left the Kandrian Empire in search of the unknown.”

He returned to his quarters after a long day of manual labor. He needed to be at his absolute peak if he wanted to be at his absolute peak when he faced off against her tomorrow, leaving absolutely no chance that he would bring anything less than his absolute best to the fight.