The Martial Unity

A lot of the information dump that Rui had thrust on them was overwhelming. He offered them a complex worldview of what the true nature of reality was, and even though Martial Sages were capable of complex considerations, metaphysics was not their strong suit. It was difficult for them to fathom the invisible overlapping layer of reality that was abstract and immaterial, comprising the information that described reality itself. It was even more difficult for them to fathom that consciousness was integrated information, which was a whole other complex matter itself. On top of that, the condition to break through to the Transcendent Realm, the Enlightenment of Transcendence, was also difficult for them to wrap their head around. Phenomenological uniformity was indeed another complex matter of philosophy that they simply weren’t equipped to dissect.

While Martial Art was not devoid of philosophy, it was mutually exclusive with the fields of philosophy that explored the fundamental questions people had about the very nature of existence and being. Only when Rui came along with the prerequisite knowledge that allowed him to conceptualize Transcendence as elegantly as he did could a set of guidelines be created.

The Martial Transcendents before him were extremely vague and ambiguous. In fact, if Rui ever got to meet them again, he would scold them for misleading so many Martial Sages. How many more Transcendents could they have gotten their hands on if they possessed the framework that Rui had created for the Martial Sages?

However, he wasn’t sure how much he wanted to blame them for this; reality was that while Martial Transcendants had been far from ideal, they were also not equipped to be as clear about it as he had.

Martial Artists generally learned and understood the world intuitively and instinctively. That was simply a theme that was true across all of Martial Art at each step of the way. For instance, even in the Squire Realm, where Rui was calculating the trajectory of sound pulses with his Pathwalker technique, other Martial Artists would tend to master the accuracy of sonic attacks through their intuition and their muscle memory.

This made it difficult for them to translate their understanding of how sound worked into words. And this problem was only more and more exacerbated at higher and higher Realms, and by the time one reached something as ephemeral and esoteric as the nature of Transcendence, they were limited to simply offering their perspective on reality that led them to Transcendence rather than getting to the root of reality.

But with the framework that Rui had provided them, Martial Sages wouldn’t necessarily simply have to sit and wait for more and more enlightenments to hit them. They could begin exploring the essence of their Martial Art and master it so that they could easily recognize it more and more across the entire world.

“It’s not as easy as you might think,” Rui warned. “You have to find the essence of your Martial Art across your entire conceptualization of reality itself. That means your understanding of the depth of the essence of your Martial Art must be impeccable, and that generally entails extremely high mastery of your Martial Art.”

That was something that Rui had never had trouble. From a very long time ago, he had known that the essence of his Martial Art was Water, though early on, he used to focus on the VOID algorithm too much. Once he reached the Squire Realm, he realized that he needed to innovate with the Metabody System and began focusing on Water.

But for most Martial Artists, thinking about the ‘essence’ of their Martial Art at a conceptual level took time. And with the current era of Martial Sages being as hastened through breakthroughs as they were, they weren’t able to develop that level of awareness.

Rui decided to leave them with just that much for the time being, seeing how engrossed in thought they were about everything that he had just dumped on them. He would leave the matter of methodologies of getting to the Transcendent Realm aside for now.

“That was really good of you to share the truth of the Transcendent Realm that freely, you know?” Kane told him appreciatively after the group had dispersed to their home nations. “I think most people would try to gatekeep this knowledge and use it to buy loyalty and whatnot.”

Of course, Kane had already had an intuition of just what kind of psychology was needed to reach Transcendence, having seen the evolution of his father and Rui up close. He had long decided that he wanted nothing to do with the madness of Transcendence.

He also didn’t want to disappear and leave his family behind.

“How are you still here?” He turned towards Rui with a double take, as if just remembering that Rui was not supposed to exist in this moment of time. “I thought the price of Transcendence…”

Rui smirked at him. “I overcame it.”

Kane stared at him with pure disbelief, shaking his head. “You’re crazy, you know? Utterly crazy. Still…”

He turned towards Rui with a sincere smile. “It’s good to have you with us, buddy.”

Rui turned to take a good look at his friend. He looked markedly older than Rui did, who had tapped into immortality even before he became a Martial Transcendent. In comparison, Kane had grown more rugged, maintaining a light 5 o’clock shadow that made him look older and more mature.

And mature, he certainly had. Rui could even understand why, having had a daughter of his own for several years now. But for Kane, the transition had been even more meaningful.

It was why he was truly grateful to Rui for saving the world from the nebular tides on the very brink of destruction.

“I feel assured for the future with you still here,” Kane heaved a deep breath of relief. “I didn’t know what to do for a moment there when I thought that you had disappeared.”

“Don’t be too assured,” Rui warned him. “I cannot protect Gaia from every threat under the sun. We are dealing with forces beyond our wildest imagination, and that is why we need to be extremely careful and on guard. And most importantly, we need to get stronger.”

His ethereal eyes sharpened. “So that we can protect the things we care about from those who might seek to destroy them.”