The Martial Unity

Amare had been brooding for an entire day in her quarters in the Kandrian Empire.

Her normally lively amber eyes lost their luster.

Her cheeriness had made way for gloominess.

She remained in a state of sullen sorrow.

Perhaps only the presence of her grandmother patting her head made her feel better. Having reunited with one of her favorite people after all those millennia was certainly a balm for the soul.

The same could be said for Bodhisattva Maitreyi, who had regained a tranquility in her heart after being reunited with her granddaughter. She was willing to take what she could get, and her granddaughter, along with the legacy of the Progenitor inside her, was still someone she found precious and loved.

It was not contingent on the identity of Amare.

She simply loved her.

Amare heaved a deep sigh.

“When are we leaving the Kandrian Empire?”

Bodhisattva Maitreyi continued brushing her long brown hair with a knowing expression. “Soon, my dear. Now that the Kandrian Empire’s monopoly over the World Bridge has been shattered, we no longer need to remain away from home. We can simply remain in the Gen Temple as we have for a long time.”

Amare’s expression grew wistful. “…I don’t wish to remain in the Gen Temple any longer. It’s too boring and does not offer me a path to more power. I need to spend time mastering more power and, particularly, higher power.”

She hadn’t forgotten what the supreme commander of the Evolutionary Army had told her about her weaknesses. She indeed had great mastery, but the quality of the things she had high mastery in was simply low.

While the Progenitor was indeed one of the most talented Martial Artists in human civilization, she ultimately had primitive technique in all the fields that she had pioneered.

She also had her memories as Amare, but even they did not inherently have any high principles in them. In that regard, her highest principle was like the Dance of Terra that she had gotten from the Shield of Gaia, and perhaps the Yin-Yang Shield from the Gen Temple.

“I need to learn higher principles,” her tone grew certain. “Without that, I cannot reach greater heights. I have a lot of untapped potential in that regard.”

High principles were considered high principles because they were more effective at making use of energy to create outcomes in combat, even though they also had a minimum energy threshold to be effective.

As someone with power equal to the Transcendent Candidates, she was strong enough to tap into every single high principle in existence.

However, there was a dilemma.

“If I start mastering new techniques, then I will not have the kind of extraordinary mastery over them that I do with my existing Martial Art.”

Amare rarely trained over a technique; she had simply spent her life working hard with a set pattern of motions her entire life, using the muscle memory she built with those in combat.

Every second, every action she had ever taken outside of combat allowed her to increase her combat muscle memory.

Because everything was Martial Art.

Bodhisattva Maitreyi smiled gently at Amare as she gently patted her troubled granddaughter.

“Do you still yearn to grow stronger?”

She kept implicit the ’now that he has rejected you’ part.

One of the reasons that Amare had sought to get stronger was so that no one would be able to separate her from him ever again.

To separate her from the people she loved.

And now the person she has loved the most had chosen to separate himself from her.

“…I still need to get stronger,” her tone was laced with determination as she turned towards her grandmother with clear amber eyes. “I will never go through that again. I will become strong enough to protect my bonds with all the people I love.”

Bodhisattva Maitreyi continued patting her granddaughter with a gentle expression.

“In Gen teachings, they say that the universe flows through each one of us,” Bodhisattva Maitreyi advised her. “They say the greatest of forces can be found within each of us in our daily lives. The frailest of old men and the youngest of infants can sunder heaven and earth should they harness the flow of the universe.”

Amare stirred at those words. “You mean to say… I have yet to harness the full potential of my mastery?”

“Maybe,” she replied. “Maybe not. But over your life, you have gained mastery over virtually all movements that the Martial Body can gain, have you not?”

Amare’s eyes lit up. “I have, but I have only applied them directly in combat as the movements themselves are.”

“It has worked out well for you,” her grandmother mused knowingly. “Everything is Martial Art, but your biggest shortcoming is that you don’t know everything that Martial Art is.”

Amare frowned at those words. “I don’t know everything Martial Art is? But I’m the Progenitor. I discovered Martial Art.”

“Indeed, but that is a gift you gave all of us. It is not one that you could benefit from yourself,” Bodhisattva Maitreyi smoothly treated her grandchild as the actual Progenitor herself. “Martial Art is the legacy of our species. It is more than the legacy of one person. If you want to grow stronger, you will have to discover the depths of Martial Art and everything it has to offer. You have reached the limit of how strong you can get from pure, raw mastery alone. You have millennia of mastery, spending more years on simply increasing that will produce diminishing returns, if any at all. Now what you need to do is understand the principles of Martial Art that have remained outside your reach and learn to harness your mastery to harness those principles.”

“…I have never done anything like that in either of my lives,” she murmured. “Things used to be a lot simpler when I could just repeat an action over and over, and simply get stronger by living an ordinary life.”

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