The Martial Unity

The banquet soon came to an end.

The time for ceremonies and formalities was over. 

The Martial Contest was to commence soon. The schedule had been adjusted such that the first three rounds would occur that day itself, and the remaining final tournament would occur on the last day.

Rui wished that they could have spaced out the entire contest over a longer period, but alas, the Martial Festival did not last an entire month. The Martial Contest was an event that was meant to be held during the Martial Festival. That meant that it needed to end within the remaining three days.

"The three rounds will each be overseen by a senior bishop Master of the Theocracy," Master Deivon explained. "Their power and influence are far greater than a bishop Master like me or my peers that have also patroned contestants. They do not play such games and are powerful enough to be entirely above it, which is why they are chosen as organizers of the rounds of the Martial Contest since they can be trusted to be as unbiased as can be. If bishops with a vested interest in the outcome were chosen, then we could make the contest be extremely favorable to any particular contestant."

"Hmmm…" Rui nodded. "That makes sense. Have the contests for each round been announced yet?"

"No," Master Deivon shook his head. "However, we do know the identity of the bishop Master that will be responsible for the first contest. Master Carian Fara is one of the eldest bishops of the Theocracy and joined the Theocracy one hundred and forty-two years ago. He is an extraordinarily powerful Martia Master, both in terms of his Martial Art prowess, as well as his authority and influence within the religion."

Rui raised an eyebrow with an impressed expression. 

"His Martial Art, the Psychic Calamity Style, is a powerful offensive mind-oriented Martial Art that seeks to destabilize or even cripple his opponent psychologically and mentally, as well as neurologically in the middle of battle. Many Martial Artists have fallen to him," Master Deivon informed Rui with a hint of admiration.

"Mind-oriented Martial Art… eh?" Rui narrowed his eyes.

He had certainly not forgotten about his own affinity for mind-oriented techniques. 

However, it was unfortunate that it was difficult for him to find the right time to delve into this powerful field. For a good portion of his career as a Martial Squire, he had been rounding out his Martial Art. Because he essentially needed to start from scratch again, it meant that he had a lot of work to do. Furthermore, this task had become much more difficult than in the Apprentice Realm, because of the need for individuality-based compatibility for the techniques.

Thus began a long journey of coming up with original and unique techniques for all primary fields of combat to round himself out. 

Perhaps he had a brief opportunity to develop mental techniques once he settled down on the Floating Sect, however, he had ultimately committed to Project Metabody which took a little under two years to complete the first iteration of from that point.

However, now that was also out of the way. His foundations were solid, and he had successfully managed to implement a major upgrade to the VOID algorithm with the Metabody System addition.

It meant that his training itinerary was actually completely free.

('I suppose it's time then,') Rui mused. ('It is logically the most apt next step now that I have solidified offense, defense, maneuvering, and other primary and secondary aspects of combat. It is time to expand outwards towards other fields.')

Mind-oriented techniques were something he was quite interested in, and also a little wary about. Mind-oriented Martial Art techniques were not something that existed back on Earth, furthermore, his foundations in physics were not particularly applicable. He did not know too much about the brain or the mind.

Still, it would be criminal not to enter this field. His mind benefited from the rapid growth to adulthood twice. He had always been very bright in his previous life, and the second round of growth had elevated his mind to genius-level territory.

His propensity for mastering techniques that required the power of mind was incredibly high. This could be reflected in how powerful his Mind Mask technique was. While ordinary Martial Squires could only make themselves appear stronger by several degrees of grades, Rui could express the appearance of the power of a Martial Senior with the same technique not because of how powerful the technique was, but because of how powerful his mind was.

The same could be said for the Mind Palace technique, it was originally the most elementary method to remember several facts about the mission for Martial Artists who weren't all that bright. But Rui had elevated it from that to what was effectively a grade-ten technique that functioned as a databank capable of storing massive amounts of sensory data and organizing them through a dozen different parameters, he had even developed a tagging system that allowed him to scour through his Mind Palace the way a search engine did. He also had developed ROM and RAM within it!

It was the same as how a skinny lightweight Martial Squire using Outer Convergence simply could not compete with a muscular heavyweight Martial Squire using the same technique. The foundation of what the technique relies on is of an entirely different level in the latter compared to the former.

('Well, I'll think about it later,') Rui shook his head. ('Time to win the Martial Contest and heal Senior Xanarn first.')

He exhaled deeply, spending the rest of his time focusing himself away from all the distracting thoughts he had been having.

He didn't know what the first round was going to be, but it was going to commence soon. The organizers were anxious about finishing the first three rounds today so that the tournament featuring the final eight could be held tomorrow and the post-contest banquet could be held on the last day of the festival.