The Martial Unity

When he isolated himself in a training chamber in the manifold, he entered into a deep meditative state of concentration and focus.

“Now then… what is the path forward for my Martial Art?”

He had just completed a massive project roughly eight days ago. But so much had happened in the span of just eight days that it felt like months had passed since he completed Project EvoBody.

Now, he found himself itching for the path forward.

He had already reserved time slot for Master Minn of the Water Sect, whose Martial Path was Entropic Adaptation. However, he estimated that it wouldn’t be very long before he got his hands on her chaotic adaptive evolution. Even without Ieyasu’s mirror neurons, his ability to learn and assimilate had grown tremendously ever since he became half-anthean.

He was all but destined to learn her chaotic Martial Art very soon. But it had lost a bit of its luster ever since he inherited Anthea’s memories, allowing him to get his hands on the chaos that Anthea wielded against himself and the Reverend of Reckoning.

He had also sent an order for numerous samples of quasi-Transcendent and Transcendent esoteric substances, along with a full package detailing their properties so that he could acclimatize his body to them and use them in battle with his pluripotent exotic matter.

However, as far as Rui was concerned, these weren’t as transformative of his Martial Art as he would have liked. Of course, things like chaos, mirror neurons, and esoteric matter would make him stronger, and not everything needed to be as revolutionary as Project EvoBody or the Forge of Creation. But he still couldn’t help but find them lacking as a path forward.

“If I had to describe it, it’s sideways rather than forward,” he murmured to himself. “Perhaps diagonal progress. But it doesn’t bring me closer to a higher Realm of power.”

Enlightenments, which were spontaneous and spurious, were the only path forward to Transcendence, along with forcefully imposing your Martial Path on the world rather than discovering it through epiphanies. But what he was most interested in for new training paths was not Transcendence itself, but the source of power for the Transcendent Realm.

The information dimension.

If his suspicions were correct, then the information dimension was the reason that Martial Transcendents could impose their Martial Art upon reality itself. According to the Psycher, it could potentially even be its own fundamental force of nature, more fundamental than the physical forces like gravity or electromagnetism.

That was what he was interested in.

’Is it possible to harness the power of the information dimension without being a Transcendent?’

The most logical answer to that question was a resounding no.

It was common sense that Martial Artists could not harness Realms higher than their own without breaking through to that Realm. Martial Squires couldn’t unlock the full hidden potential of their body without breaking through to the Senior Realm. Seniors couldn’t unlock the full potential of their minds without breaking through to the Master Realm. Masters couldn’t tap into their subconscious minds and materia prima without breaking through to the Sage Realm.

“Except I did.” His ethereal eyes opened with a knowing determination. “I tapped into materia prima, even if just a spark of it, while I was a Martial Master.”

The Sun technique. It was what he killed Master Uma with, and what allowed him to fight Sage Himari in the Sekigahara Confederate as a Martial Sage.

In other words, the barrier between the Realms of power was not absolutely impregnable. It was possible to touch the power of a higher Realm even if you were unworthy of it.

A hint of hope emerged within him. ’…That means it might not be impossible for me to tangentially make use of just a tiny iota of the power of the information dimension.’

The very notion of this idea excited him.

“Yes, this is what training should be like. Not just doing the basics and reaching for low-hanging fruit. It should be ambitious and push beyond the trodden path. Beyond the limit.” A smile of anticipation emerged on his face. “But how can I possibly tap into even an iota of the power of the information dimension?”

This hypothesized invisible layer of reality or fundamental force of nature was beyond unfathomable. Unlike with materia prima, he didn’t have even the slightest theoretical framework.

He only had an unproven hypothesis and spurious speculation. However, he did have some contextual clues.

“I can assume that if I want to affect the information dimension or harness it, I would need to have access to it.” That was a very reasonable assumption, but who knew if it was even true? Something this metaphysical could entirely violate his intuitions.

But if that assumption were true, then he theoretically had access to the information dimension already.

“Consciousness is an information phenomenon according to my hypothesis,” Rui remembered. “Even the Psycher confirmed that, so it’s more likely to be true. Which means my conscious experience right now is in the information dimension that I seek to harness.”

He gazed at his hands. “Everything I think, feel, remember, and decide… all of these phenomena are occurring in the information dimension right now. Even this deduction right now is happening inside the information dimension. I already have access to it, theoretically.”

But that didn’t mean anything. Everybody was conscious, but that didn’t mean everybody could warp reality with their minds.

His eyes widened at that thought as it triggered an old memory.

A saying.

One from a Transcendent that he had heard from Zeamer many years ago when he was still a Martial Senior.

“’Even the feeblest of elders, even the frailest of babies may split heaven and earth asunder should their bodies, minds, and souls harmonize with the flow of the universe.’” Rui recalled as his eyes lit up. “Flow of the universe… is that how they contextualize the information dimension? Then again, Martial Transcendents suck at articulating their Realm.”

He recalled how nonsensical their answers to what the secret to the breakthrough to the Transcendent Realm was. More importantly, that statement from the Conqueror of Chaos implied that even babies and elders could bend reality to their will under the right circumstances, by harmonizing their existences with the flow of the universe.

Of course, no baby or elder had ever split heaven and earth asunder, so it was undoubtedly impossible for ordinary people, but what about a Transcendent Candidate as powerful and capable as himself?