The Martial Unity

Rui grew intrigued by the nature of this technique. A technique that he had truly waited a long time to learn.

Prediction was highly important and central to his system of adaptive evolution, allowing him to antithetically counter every decision that his opponent made with great accuracy and precision. In the past, there had been several Martial Artists who had managed to confound his thought-based predictions, like the VOID algorithm and the SOUL System, through various principles. This proved that thought alone could not serve as a fool-proof basis for predictions and that he needed to bolster it more.

“The Eye of Prophecy is a technique that relies on enhancing and training our subconscious mind’s ability to predict the future,” she informed him. “This is different from the Primordial Instinct, which is exclusively momentary and spontaneous reflexive processing of the information from your senses. Your mind has a more developed subconscious ability to predict events beyond the immediate future, potentially several seconds, minutes, and even more time into the future.”

Rui nodded with a faint hint of interest. In the past, he had conducted research on the subconscious mind’s ability to predict the future, known as predictive anticipatory neural activity. One of the many areas that ‘he’ as John Falken had explored was trying to train this subconscious predictive instinct, but unfortunately, this was even more difficult than getting MMA fighters to master the VOID algorithm.

“It is normally impossible to train or improve this subconscious instinct,” she told him with an authoritative tone. “That’s because your conscious mind has primacy in your evaluation of the future compared to your subconscious mind. Even with the Martial Soul, your subconscious mind is still a layer or two removed from your decision-making regarding the future compared to your conscious mind. It is difficult to tap into the subconscious mind’s predictive power and even more difficult to train it as long as the conscious mind has primacy over your movements.”

This was true, despite the fact that a vast majority of a person’s cognition was subconscious, conscious cognition had a disproportionately greater hold over one’s decision making compared to the former.

“With the Martial Soul, the barrier of entry is significantly lowered, however,” Rui realized as he closed his eyes, feeling his conscious mind expand and merge with his subconscious mind in a state of harmony. He could feel ‘himself’ beating his heart voluntarily, a function that used to be involuntary and out of his control.

He could feel ‘himself’ actively doing his metabolism, something that used to have happened beyond his awareness. And he could ‘think’ subconsciously. Thoughts that were beyond his awareness were now within his control.

“In the Sage Realm, the impossible becomes possible,” she clarified. “It becomes possible to draw out, train, and evolve the subconscious mind in the Sage Realm. That is what you must do. Through the power of the Martial Soul and self-hypnosis, you must reduce the primacy of your conscious mind and redirect bodily control and decision-making to your subconscious mind. You must become an entranced embodiment of your Martial Path.”

Rui’s eyes widened as a stunning realization dawned on him. “Entranced embodiment of my Martial Path, but that…”

That was very similar to the state of mind that he was in when he activated Gigabrain.

“You have noticed.” She nodded. “That technique partially replicates the training methodology for the Eye of Prophecy. However…”

Her eyes sharpened.

“That technique is too weak.”

Rui’s gazed at her with stunned eyes.

“You need more,” her tone was insistent. “You need to go further further. You need to completely curb conscious thought entirely so that your subconscious mind has an opportunity to train and grow its subconscious precognitive ability. This is only possible with the power of the extraordinary power of the Martial Soul, which is why the true Eye of Prophecy is a full-fledged Sage-level technique. It requires the power of the Martial Soul for not only the activation of the technique but also the training of the technique.”

He absorbed her words with a thoughtful expression. “No wonder the Eye of Prophecy is a forbidden technique at lower Realms. If even Gigabrain cannot allow me to reach the state of brain where I can train this technique, then Martial Artists of the Lower Realm will have to pay a great price to train and use this technique.”

Matriarch Nephi nodded with a knowing expression. “Precisely. To replicate the impossibilities that the Martial Soul makes possible, one’s lifespan is the price.”

Rui nodded with a serious expression. “However, what I don’t understand is how does one learn the Eye of Prophecy within a reasonable timeframe? Because the sheer amount of time it would take to train a complex, multi-layered subconscious phenomenon is not as low as the amount of time it took me to train Primordial Instinct.”

The Eye of Prophecy was an astronomically more difficult and advanced technique compared to his Primordial Instinct. Rui genuinely could not imagine how such a technique could be trained in span of even a single year. “You are correct,” Matriarch Nephi remarked. “Sage Silas himself took a hundred years to master the Eye of Prophecy after he conceptualized the technique. It takes a long, long time to expand the subconscious cognitive function of precognition under normal circumstances. This is because of the sheer volume of neurons and neuron connection combinations in the subconscious mind stretching across many portions of the brain.”

Rui’s expression grew grim. “A hundred years…? That’s longer than I have been alive.”

“Fortunately, there is an alternative,” Matriarch Nephi replied. “However, it may be even more difficult than simply the condition of a long training period.”

Rui’s eyes lit up with eagerness. He would much rather avoid spending a century mastering this technique.

“It’s simple,” her tone was stoic. “We cause people to enter a state of mind in which they are able to change faster and more than otherwise. We subject them to circumstances in which they become more malleable and ductile.”