The Martial Unity

Chapter 3486: Different Manifestations of the Enlightenment of Self

The air within the hollow tusk-like megastructure was silent, save for the echoes of Lord Vakratunda and him munching on yummy sweets. Rui raised an eyebrow as he studied the leader of the Gajanan Clan with a hint of vague intrigue. ”When Mother Vyia told me about you, I must admit that I was expecting something different.”

Those words brought about a serene smile of amusement on Lord Vakratunda’s face. ”Am I a disappointment?”

”Hard to say,” Rui huffed. ”I haven’t fought you yet. I’m told that you’re one of the most powerful beings in Kiriket, second only to Shenlong.”

”Mmm...” Lord Vakratunda popped another sweet in his mouth. ”Well, I expected you to be different as well. It is very rare to meet someone with your power who also possesses little to no ego. With power comes pride and arrogance, yet you are not the most humble and cautious man. Any arrogance you might have comes from your desire to push yourself to the very limit. Very fascinating indeed.”

His gaze shifted to Rui with a curious expression. ”This is my first time meeting a Martial Artist. You two are so different from anything that I’m familiar with that I’m having difficulty judging how divergent from the norm you are. Are all Martial Artists like you, or are you an exception?”

”Amare and I are... very special,” Rui admitted. ”There is no Martial Artist out there like us.”

”Fascinating, then, your enlightenment of self is that which separates you from other ’Martial Sages’?”

”No, actually.” Rui shook his head. ”That’s actually what we have in common. We have gained a profound sense of who we are, and that helps unlock an extraordinary state of mind that makes use of every ounce of potential within our brains.”

”Fascinating...” Lord Vakratunda’s expression lit up. ”Enlightenment of Self unlocking power within one’s brain, I have never quite heard of anything like that.”

”Does the Beast Path not have something similar?”

”It does, actually, but it serves the purpose of ensuring that we retain ourselves when we merge with our beasts at the Convergence of Beasthood,” Lord Vakratunda remarked. ”It does not directly give us power.”

Rui stirred. ”It does not give us direct power, either. More like... it allows us to access our subconscious mind and create a state of heightened neuroconductivity and cognitive harmony. But you can have Enlightenment of Self and not be a Martial Sage if you don’t have a Martial Mind.”

It reminded him of the one time that he broke a Martial Senior through to the Master Realm, who then broke through to the Sage Realm in rapid succession.

”Most fascinating,” Lord Vakratunda remarked with a hint of intrigue. ”It appears that an understanding of self is relevant and important in almost all Paths out there. It appears that while the Paths differ greatly in many ways, they share the same fundamentals of power.”

”Well... that is to be expected, is it not?” Rui raised an eyebrow. ”We may be different species, but we are fundamentally very similar to each other, all things considered. We are reproductively compatible with each other. It means that we share the same centers of potential and power that can be leveraged in different ways.”

”That is true,” Lord Vakratunda remarked, turning to Rui. ”I would imagine that returning to the world after all those eons to find six new Paths of power very different from your Martial Path must have been a shock.”

Rui nodded as his eyes grew immersed in thought. ”Many of us thought that the Martial Path was all that there was and all that there could be, even I. In hindsight, it was such a narrow-minded view that makes me laugh. Seeing all the paths of power out there makes me think that there are endless possible paths of power in this world.”

”I am inclined to agree,” Lord Vakratunda nodded. ”What I find to be rather curious, however, is the fact that ancestral human civilization didn’t appear to have a Path of power.”

Rui nodded. ”It is interesting that they didn’t appear to have one. And I think part of it is likely that their potentials were not aligned. That their evolution trajectory did not produce enough of a specialized outcome to create a Path of Power.”

Lord Vakratunda’s eyes lit up with a hint of intrigue. ”Fascinating hypothesis. You believe that in order for a species to develop a path, it must have a... theme?”

Rui nodded. ”It makes sense, doesn’t it? Potentials would need to be aligned together in a particular direction, like stones paving a path, in order for it to be a path. You can imagine if someone randomly threw those same stones in different directions and different places that were unconnected with each other. This would not constitute a path, would it? However...”

His hand swept across the air before him. ”If you place those same very stones one after another in one direction, then it becomes a path that people can traverse. I believe that this is the origin of Martial Paths and why an overwhelming majority of species didn’t have paths.”

This was a hypothesis that Rui had developed subconsciously and intuitively, rather than consciously or scientifically, something that was rather unusual for him. He loved the scientific method and every opportunity that he got to deploy it in the context of paths or the Martial Path.

However, in this case, he had never been in a position to conduct scientific analysis on all paths, for he was busy, consumed with more important matters since the Unfolding more than a year ago.

That was why his intuitions had taken over and developed a hypothesis about what Paths were and why they existed and how they came to be. He had to admit, though, that he found it to be quite convincing. There was a reason that most species didn’t develop Martial Paths, and he suspected that it was due to a combination of lacking too much potential for growth and also their potential not having a theme.