The Martial Unity

2894  Soon

While humanity was desperately making the final preparations as days flew, Rui found himself buried in all the contributions of the Water Sect. He had spent a week mostly immersing himself in the technique library, pouring over every single contribution made by the members of the Water Sect, committing the ones that intrigued him and opened up a new possibility to his Mind Palace.

He found himself most intrigued by the possibility of a flexible multi-purpose weapon that could take different forms for different opponents. One of the reasons that he had rejected weapons was because they were too inflexible and demanded commitment. It didn’t make sense to a wield a sword without dedicating everything to it because the sword would take away everything else.

It obstructed Water, as he viewed it. This was especially a shame because he didn’t dislike the concept of weapons and didn’t disregard their advantages.

A human with a weapon had an advantage over one who didn’t. The same was true to a lesser extent for Martial Artists. It was why MECHA Martial Artists could bridge the gap between Realms to a shocking extent, perhaps almost as much as he could. However, Adaptive Evolution was more important to him than power. In most cases, they were synonymous, since he was the strongest because of his Adaptive evolution. But in this particular case, he was unwilling to sacrifice the capacity to change for a blade.

“It wouldn’t even work well since my affinity for the former is much greater than the latter,” Rui muttered as he studied the blueprint. “But with this… it might be possible to achieve the capacity to change and the advantages of a weapon.”

The possibility of having his cake and eat it too was extremely exciting for Rui. He loved when he shatter paradigms and get rid of all the disadvantages while retaining all the advantages of the old paradigms.

“It’s unfortunate that MECHAs are the very antithesis of change.”

Perhaps that would change in the future, but for now they were out of the question for him. Over the next ten days, he gained and understanding of where the members of the Water Sect were when it came to their comprehension of Water. By looking at the nature of their contributions, he could understand exactly what was wrong with their thought process.

“Too shallow,” he shook his head. “Individual techniques centered around adaptive evolution is good, but the capacity to change should not exist beyond just the technique level; it should exist at the technique system level and the strategic level.”

In his opinion, strategic adaptive evolution was just as important, if not more important, than technical Adaptive Evolution. The decisions that one made in the heat of the battle of how to pursue long-term victory were often more important, as well as having techniques that were perfectly antithetical to their opponent.

He often likened Martial Art to gaining the ability to travel.

However, the direction that one chose to walk was as important as the ability to walk. If one ran in the wrong direction in a race, they would lose even if they were the fastest.

Of course, he wasn’t discounting the power of antithetical techniques. The Forge of Creation was his most powerful system in the entirety of his Water Style.

“Ah well, I’m being too harsh on the kids,” Rui remarked; it has only been a few years. Eventually, they will mature as the base of existing techniques grows larger and larger.”

Even though he only found a handful of techniques that genuinely opened up his view of what was possible, albeit by a small degree, such as the Omni-Edge, he still found it to be worth the effort.

“If I can get ROI on the Water Sect just a few years into its existence, that means I will benefit from it a lot in the long run.”

In the meantime, he could potentially consider trying some of the new concepts he had been introduced to in the Beast Domain.

“I will also be busy training the Eye of Prophecy,” Rui remarked with a knowing expression. “I can just treat the Sage-level Siege into the heartland of the Kandrian Empire as a training ground with hands-on application.”

This was very dangerous, of course. But he didn’t even care about that at the moment.

“I just want to fight.”

He was itching to.

He wasn’t interested in spars with his fellow Sages, he wanted genuine all-out battles with his life on the line. The Sage-level Siege into the heart of the Beast Domain was everything that he needed at the moment.

And just like that, ten days passed.

Human civilization had completed every single preparation.

Every Martial Master had been thoroughly briefed and hurriedly trained on the new protocols, every Martial Sage had thoroughly poured over all available intelligence on the Central Highlands of the Beast Domain. Martial Artists of the Lower Realms had been informed and prepared for the sustained additional pressure that they would be facing.

Of course, they had already been in a state of Sage-level independence for a few months now. However, knowing that there were Martial Sages on standby in case things went south meant that they had to be even more careful of everything.

Civilians had been briefed on the plan as the announcement regarding the Solution of Harmony finally went public and governments around the world briefed their civilians on tightening security measures. The stasis chambers, the medical and supply inventory system, and other supplementary systems that had been developed in the past four years to allow Martial Sages to live in the Beast Domain for years to come until they eradicated every last quasi-Transcendent and killed the Beast at the very epicenter.

Every last preparation had been made by the Sage-level nations of humanity.

Everything since the Human Summit had built up to this day.

And now, it had finally arrived. “One hour until the Solution Harmony commences, Your Majesty,” the Royal Secretary informed the Emperor of Harmony with a solemn tone.

Emperor Rael opened his eyes with profound intensity.

“Soon, it begins.”

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