The Martial Unity

Chapter 3167: Ticking Time

”Good fight,” Rui remarked as though nothing had happened. ”Your defensive and offensive application of entropic adaptation is quite good. Even though your arsenal is lackluster, it is understandable given that you have only recently entered the Master Realm. Make sure that you expand your Martial Art and make even greater gains in the field of Entropic Adaptation.”

Rui was very pleased at having discovered an untapped correlation between chaos and evolution, one that he hadn’t even considered before. He was sure to gain even more insights watching Minn develop as a Martial Master, and hopefully a Martial Sage.

”Excuse me...” Minn’s shocked tone drew his gaze.

”Hm?”

”...What did you just do? Why did my Martial Heart stop working?”

”Ah,” Rui lightly replied. ”I just used hypnosis to deactivate your Martial Heart.”

Her eyes widened with shock at those words. ”...What?”

She couldn’t even believe what he was saying.

The Martial Artists gathered in the spectator stands grew stunned at his words.

”...As expected of Lord Dawnbringer!”

”He is invincible!”

”No one can defeat him!”

The overzealous Martial Artists of the Water Sect managed to grow even more fervent than they already were about the supremacy of their sect leader.

”How is such a power possible?” she gazed at him with a stunned expression. ”Doesn’t that mean that no Martial Artist can ever defeat you?”

He shook his head, heaving a sigh. ”A sufficiently powerful Martial Artist can resist the hypnosis. At the Sage Realm, the deactivating mechanism is even harder to pull off because of the Martial Soul. It would only work on weaker Martial Sages, whom I can defeat pretty easily anyway. It’s more of a party trick than anything else.”

She staggered unsteadily at his words with a stunned expression. ”Party trick? That power is a party trick?”

Rui shrugged. ”Compared to the rest of my Martial Art, yes.”

She stared at him, utterly speechless.

”More importantly,” Rui continued. ”Would you mind sharing those techniques with me? I will compensate by sharing my VOID algorithm, what do you say? I think that’s a fair trade.”

”...I would be honored, Your Sagehood,” she bowed her head lightly. ”However, are you sure that my measly systems of thought are worth one of your oldest systems of thought?”

”Sure,” Rui remarked nonchalantly. ”Considering that you managed to keep up with it in this battle, I think it’s far from measly anyway. You’re quite strong for a new Martial Master. Keep developing your Martial Art, and you will be rewarded for your contributions.”

”Understood, Your Sagehood.”

Thanks to her Martial Art, he had discovered a way to integrate the concept of chaos into his adaptive evolution. While it was far from comprehensive, it was a good start and was something that he probably would not have stumbled into himself, knowing his inclinations.

”Alright then, keep me posted,” Rui remarked. ”I’ll get back to you after a while.”

”As you wish, Your Sagehood.”

Rui quickly departed from the combat arena and the sect, leaving the others utterly lost in the revelation of his abilities and power. Rui on the other hand, considered creating a new training project to focus on integrating chaos into his Martial Art and learning how to adaptively evolve.

”It would have to be a long-term project. I doubt I can get it done with in one shot.”

He already had a long-term project going on with Project PluriBody that had gained a new significance when he decided he simply couldn’t resist the power of evolutionaries.

”Project Chaos.”

A simple project with two goals.

To learn how to adaptively evolve to chaos.

To learn how to integrate chaos into his adaptive evolution.

”They might even be one and the same.”

The two projects also gave him some clarity on what his journey in the true world would look like.

The true world was too large for him to just randomly start exploring it; it utterly dwarfed even the Panama Continent, spanning an extraordinary area. He needed to have a more concrete objective that he could hope to achieve, which would help him make decisions about where he wanted to go.

”I will also need to speak to the dark elves.”

They would be able to help him understand where he could find what he was looking for.

And with that, he would be able to iron out what his journey in the true world would look like.

Once he had a concrete vision for the future, then he could figure out how to adaptively evolve himself to Amare when he spent time with her in that future. One of the reasons that he didn’t want to approach her immediately was the fact that he had absolutely no idea how he was going to adaptively evolve his emotions for a person.

Thus, the second she asked him ’how,’ he would have no answer to give her.

It would make him seem like he was just trying to console her out of pity and guilt.

Something that she had explicitly stated that she didn’t want.

Thus, until he had clarity on how he was going alter his emotions for her while ensuring that he was entirely perfect about tracking them, lest he lose his Enlightenment of Self.

He had constantly been thinking about the matter ever since Kane had given him an epiphany about it in their conversation, trying to figure out how he could change himself to fall in love with the Esil side of her.

His conversations with Master Minn and her entropic Martial Art had given him some ideas on how he could go about it, but he had yet to flesh them out. He left his Realms of power slightly open as he focused on the Forge of Creation, trying to create a new technique for altering his own emotions, or at least come up with some principle to eventually allow him to fall in love with her.

He needed to hurry before she made a resolution about her own future, lest he lose her forever. Simultaneously, he departed from the Kandrian Empire, heading all the way to South Panama to meet up with the dark elves to learn more about the true world.

Each second he delayed his reunion with Amare brought him closer and closer to the edge of no return.

And yet, he had no intention of crossing that edge.