The Martial Unity

The moment Rui returned to the Royal Office, he found his secretary waiting for him.

”Your Majesty, I just found this on my desk,” Secretary Claris said, showing him a dirty, crumpled piece of paper with something scribbled on it. ”It seems to have an address on it.”

[Hajin City, P-166, 15th cross, 17th main, District 89]

”District 89, that is one of the most impoverished districts at the edge of the City of Hajin, I believe. Who would—” Rui paused as he realized the answer.

”Your Majesty?”

”Nothing,” Rui plucked the slip of paper from his secretary’s hand. ”I just have an appointment, it seems. I should get going.”

Just before he teleported, he paused, turning towards his secretary with a serious expression. ”One more thing. Prepare a Royal Order on my behalf for Director Grenner of the Royal Intelligence Bureau to have the counterintelligence department commence a top-secret denial-and-deception operation surrounding Ria’s identity as the real head of EsoQuest Solutions, though don’t reveal the fact. Also prepare a list of all people and documents who are aware, as a matter of legal disclosure, about Ria’s identity. I will personally secure them myself.”

Secretary Claris’ expression grew more serious. ”Understood, Your Majesty.”

WHOOSH

Rui teleported away from the Royal Office and to the location of the address scribbled on the piece of paper that his secretary had found. He found himself in an environment that was very different from the Royal Palace.

While most of Gaia Prime had become highly technologized with renovations involving cutting-edge smart architecture and other high-tech solutions, there were parts of the world that hadn’t been completely engineered yet. There were parts of even the Kandrian Empire that had yet to be fully upgraded.

Some of the outskirts of the City of Hajin were such places. They lacked the integrated smart elven biotechnology that had been used to construct the eastern half of the country after it had been wrecked by the True World War. They lacked the massive skyscrapers, the maglev vehicular systems, the neural inlay-integrated infrastructure, mass teleportation services, and so on and so forth.

These districts weren’t necessarily shabby, by any means, but they reminded him of what the Kandrian Empire used to be like. Though the district he was in, District 89, was indeed quite shabby even by those standards. Decrepit olden housing styles before smart technology revolutionized it. Small, uneven, and un-engineered streets. It was the district with the lowest income per capita.

’I should have Danes fix this; the Kandrian Empire should be able to do better for its people.’

Of course, the Kandrian Empire had already done better for its people than virtually any other nation in the Panama Continent. Quality of life, opportunity, and numerous other indices were higher than they ever had been. It was the center of all immigration across the entirety of human civilization. But nothing was perfect, and everything had room for improvement.

As he scanned his environment, he found numerous homeless people huddled together on the sidewalks, throwing glances at him. They failed to recognize him because of his misdirection, merely glancing at him cursorily. They had begun preparing for the night that was soon to come with how dark the evening sky was getting, huddling up and into sleeping bags out on the street.

His Transcendent eyes fixated on one old beggar on the side of the street who was by himself. He approached the old beggar with a knowing expression.

”It’s been a while, Beggar Sage,” Rui spoke with a certain tone of voice.

The old beggar looked up at Rui with a contemptible expression. ”Hmph, the old whelp’s all grown up and can identify me with a single glance, can he?”

”You used to be inscrutable to me before I achieved Transcendence,” Rui remarked, kneeling down before the man to look at him with a leveled gaze. ”But now that I’m a Martial Transcendent, you are transparent. Even these esoterics your skull is made up of can no longer protect your mind from me.”

When Rui peered into the Beggar Sage’s mind, however, he found a massive mind palace that was larger than Gaia. It was easily the largest mind palace he had ever seen. Perusing it all would have been as difficult as extracting information from the mind of Divine Mother o-o-o-o.

Yet, when he tried to peer into the structure to try and pry the priceless intelligence of the most knowledgeable man in the world, he found that the mind palace was almost entirely empty.

The Beggar Sage grinned at him. ”What’s the matter? Not finding what you’re looking for?”

”…You emptied it out most of it before so that I wouldn’t be able to extract information from you,” Rui muttered with a hint of grudging respect. ”You came prepared.”

”Of course I did,” the Beggar Sage snorted. ”Only a fool would underestimate the Dawnbringer.”

Rui found it curious that the man referred to him by that name, given that it had fallen out of fashion as a moniker for Rui. He was now known as the Emperor of Water, and everybody referred to him as such.

The only people who used Dawnbringer were devotees of the Faith of Dawn. The adherents of the Virodhabhasa Theocracy called him Lord Virodhabhasa, of course.

Rui could have pushed if he really wanted. He could have dedicated time and effort to extract information nonetheless, but it was not worth the effort. Not to mention, it would sour his already damaged relationship with the Beggar Sage from whom he had stolen the immortal sages.

”What do you want?” Rui asked, heaving a sigh.

”The real question is what do you want?” the Beggar Sage asked in return.

”You were the one who called me here, remember?”

”You were the one who wanted to speak with me, remember?”

Rui did remember; he had asked his secretary to arrange a meeting with the Beggar Sage, he just didn’t want to be put in the position of the asker.

”Fine, then let me give it to you straight,” Rui spoke with a serious tone of voice. ”Do you know who is behind EsoQuest Solutions?”

The man grinned.

”One Ria Quarrier Silas Kandria, correct?”