The Martial Unity

Chapter 3798: Immortalizing Blood

It wasn’t long before Rui held his first faction meeting in a quarter of a century in a secure conference room. He sat at the head of the table, with the royal secretary to his right and the Shepherd to his left.

”...And so, she agreed to conditionally serve me,” Rui explained everything that had happened to his secretary. ”Now she will help me as a royal advisor in my ambition to elevate Kandria and Panama to a higher level by enforcing law and order upon the Martial World.”

Creases appeared on the Royal Secretary’s forehead at those words as her expression grew a little complicated. Her gray eyes grew hazy with a hint of angst as she processed her liege’s declaration to tame the Martial World.

”You do not approve?” Rui raised an eyebrow.

”...I fear that your conviction to enforce law and order upon the Martial World will be deeply unpopular with Martial Artists, Your Highness.” She heaved a deep breath. ”Your father managed Martial Artists harmoniously, and I understand that this is not your strength, but to enforce law and order with force... I’m sure you can understand why a vast majority of Martial Artists are not going to be pleased that some of their privileges will be stripped away. They will view it as oppression.”

”They can view it as oppression all they want,” Rui huffed with a hint of disdain. ”All I’m asking them is not to murder people and destroy property. I don’t think that’s such an oppressive demand, but I suppose equality to the privileged is indistinguishable from oppression.”

”That is true, however, I do recommend that you pair your enforcement of law and order with some positive incentives,” the Shepherd remarked, leaning forward as she laced her fingers in a steeple. ”Just punishing them for violating those rules will earn you resentment and hatred, but if you add rewards for maintaining and perhaps even enforcing order, then you will be able to mitigate the negativity with positivity.”

”That is a reasonable suggestion, though I highly doubt it will be entirely effective,” Rui remarked. ”I am prepared to earn the hatred of a good proportion of Martial Artists. But I do have a strong core base of loyalists who will adore me no matter what. Either because of religion or because I helped them break through directly or indirectly. That is enough. I don’t aim to please everybody.”

”That is a reasonable state of affairs to aim to then,” Royal Secretary Claris heaved a small sigh of relief. ”Is this the vision that you intend to share with the world, Your Highness?”

Rui nodded. ”Partly, yes. It should be extremely pleasant to everybody except Martial Artists. I have ways of appealing to Martial Artists as well, including permanent immortality.”

”Can you really keep so many people immortal, Your Highness?” Claris raised an eyebrow with a hint of skepticism. ”I do not mean to question your abilities, of course. But I believe that your true immortality requires active periodic intervention, does it not?”

Rui smiled with a hint of enthusiasm. ”It used to, but ever since I got an existential upgrade with Anthean physiology, I no longer need to actively intervene anymore.”

He turned towards Royal Secretary Claris with a pointed gaze. ”Allow me to make a demonstration. Open your mouth.”

Both the Shepherd and the Royal Secretary furrowed their eyebrows at the request, but the older woman adhered to his command nonetheless.

SLIT

Rui made a light cut on his finger with a nail, suppressing his healing factor, before allowing a drop of his blood to fall into her mouth, much to the shock of the Shepherd and Claris. It took the latter great effort not to allow her alarm to appear on her expression.

”Calm down, it’s harmless, so swallow it.”

She nodded slowly before ingesting the blood, clicking her tongue a few times with a strange expression.

”Now, you are immortal,” Rui smirked.

Claris’s gray eyes widened with shock as her perfunctory expression crumbled. ”...What?”

The Shepherd stared at Rui like he was a creature out of myth. ”Your blood makes me people immortal?!”

”When I program it to, yeah.” He nodded. ”It will travel into her body and can survive the process of digestion. Then it will allow itself to be absorbed into her body and then enter her bloodstream, where it will rely on something called CRISPR technology to continuously edit her cells to keep her functionally immortal. Of course, she can still be killed, so it’s just longevity, not exactly immortality. She can also turn it off whenever she wants.”

The two women stared at each him like he was an alien.

”Give me!” The Shepherd lunged at his cut thumb with greed in her auburn eyes, before plopping it into her mouth and sucking on it like a pacifier.

”You...” Rui stiffened at the eccentric immortal sage’s antics. ”What was that about not being attached to life?”

”Hehehe...”

Rui heaved an exasperated sigh as the young woman continued sucking on his thumb. ”Enough.”

WHOOSH

He teleported her back to her seat and turned back to his secretary.

”More importantly, I have fleshed out at least part of my vision for the Kandrian Empire and the Panama Continent,” Rui remarked. ”There is also my vision of giving the Kandrian Empire the ability to adaptively evolve to any impediment or hurdle that it encounters. I have gained a deeper understanding of how to achieve that with a brief talk with the Shepherd here. These are still not highly detailed, but they are just defined enough for me to be able to compel the various stakeholders and segments of our society to put their trust and support in me as Emperor. I will show them a vision of the Kandrian Empire that embraces change in the face of changing circumstances and a vision of law and order that not even Martial Artists are above. These will be the core of the political campaign once the Royal Funeral is over.”

His expression grew more pointed. ”I believe these should be satisfactory, should it not?”