The Martial Unity

Rui’s journey in the past two months had been monotonous and uneventful.

He simply traveled and recorded.

Each step he took was accompanied by new seismic readings, temperature and pressure measurements, matter distributions, and other data parameters that he safely inputted in his Mind Palace.

With each step he took, he gained yet another reading of the optimal path of action in a given circumstance that had been found after years and years of trial and error by the people who had dug out the tunnel many years ago.

He came one step closer to finding the truth.

Over the span of two months, he had come to collect an enormous ocean of data, the size of which even exceeded that of the inheritance of the Elder Tree. And yet, thanks to his Martial Mind and Megamind, even this scale of information was within his capabilities.

It tested his patience and his grit tremendously.

After all, for a three-dimensional territory such as the Nest of Terra, the sheer amount of surface area he needed to cover was beyond anything that he had imagined. It far surpassed covering every inch even of a nation as enormous as the Kandrian Empire.

And yet, he persisted.

He continued on and on and on, winding about every ounce of public or governmental property of the Nest of Terra, singlemindedly dedicating himself to one and only one goal.

Gathering all the data that he needed.

And after two long months of recording every detail that he deemed even remotely relevant, he had finally completed his long and arduous task. He had finally completed his long and arduous journey at the very bottom-most tunnels of the Nest of Terra, far, far away from any civilization.

And thus, he rested.

He rested at the very bottommost territory of the Nest of Terra.

He rested to recuperate from the taxing and draining journey throughout every inch of the Nest of Terra.

He rested to rest his tired and weary mind.

He rested in the warm embrace of Gaia.

He rested.

And then, it was time.

BADUMP!

His pitch-black eyes flared with a blood-red glow to them while his Realms Surged with vigorous power, brimming with energy. He closed his mind, meditating deeply as his consciousness submerged within the depths of his colossal microcosm of a mind.

His titanic Mind Palace shined with tremendous cognitive weight, having grown as large as a tectonic plate.

In the past two months, not only had he collected a vast array of data with each step he took, but he also mapped the entirety of the Nest of Terra and added the whole subterranean nation and its territory to his Mind Palace, making it a permanent fixture of the mental structure.

What better way to store the immense data of every step of the Nest of Terra than to store it in the Nest of Terra itself?

This way, he didn’t need any complex mapping and address system to organize the data. He could simply store the data of a particular part of the Nest in that part of the Nest of Terra in his Mind Palace.

He closed his mind as the Mind Palace opened up.

It unleashed a tremendous onslaught of information on the various empirical data parameters and the corresponding tunnel path.

From there, he was going to extract the truth.

Each tunnel choice was chosen after careful, endlessly repeated trial and error to find the most stable path with the most optimal output.

Rui assumed, to a certain extent, that this choice was connected to the most optimal path of action.

He also assumed that the optimal path of action was determined exclusively from the physical parameters of the surroundings, i.e., the data that he collected.

Both of these were sound premises, even if he couldn’t prove it if he was asked to. More importantly, if this was true, then it meant that there must have been patterns in all the data that he had collected.

Patterns in the correlation between physical parameters and the optimal path of action.

Perhaps a high density of sediment would make the optimal path of action shorter.

Perhaps high temperatures would cause it to be less uniform.

These patterns hidden across the astronomically titanic ocean of data that he had collected in the past two months were the key.

He needed to extract them.

Thankfully, if there was one thing that Rui was confident he was the absolute best at, it was pattern recognition.

The VOID algorithm rumbled with power as it grew hungry.

It loved patterns.

Rui activated the pattern recognition system of the algorithm and began feeding it the tremendous amount of information that he had painstakingly collected in the past two months.

RUMBLE!!!

His mindscape shook as his mind exerted itself to the absolute limit, processing an astronomical amount of data with each passing data, passing it through the thought protocols of the pattern recognition system.

It consumed the data voraciously as it began constructing a predictive model that could identify the optimal path of action for earth-bending from the environmental data that he could collect with his powerful and sharp senses.

A tremendous amount of raw, empirical data was inputted into the VOID algorithm.

And a profound, dense, refined, and honed predictive model was birthed by the system of thought.

It took the shape of a planet in his mind.

It took the shape of Gaia herself.

Within the sphere was an intensive predictive model that could output the exact optimal line of action for any maneuver that involved earth-bending.

It showed him the way.

It showed him the way to obtain a level of transmission of power through earth-bending hitherto untouched by any other person, barring the Shield of Gaia himself.

This was the true nature of the Scriptures of Gaia.

A map that unlocked a path among an infinite number of paths within an endless labyrinth.

A map that unlocked the truth path.

A path of extraordinary power.

Extraordinary power that was now within Rui’s reach.

The infant system of thought birthed by the VOID algorithm took its place in his Martial Mind, brimming with tremendous power. The Scriptures of Gaia allowed him to reach an echelon of power that he didn’t even know was possible within the Master Realm.

RUMBLE!!!

The world shook under the weight of his being as though the very force of his mind could bend Gaia to his will through the optimal path of action.

In that moment, he felt omnipotent.

So much so that even when the Terrampager arrived before him moments later, he didn’t so much as flinch.

RUMBLE!!!!!

The powerful Martial Sage surged towards Rui with tremendous power, determined to capture him no matter what!

And yet, a single whisper escaped Rui.

“Come…” Unfathomable power radiated from within his voice. “Help me understand…”

Two red suns emerged in his eyes with blinding brightness.

“Help me understand how strong I have become.”

RUMBLE!!!!!!

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