The Martial Unity

"Master Ceeran, can you tell me about the Kandrian Martial Master of domain techniques?" Rui asked.

"Hm? Ah, Master Gurren," Ceeran nodded. "I don't know too much about him, personally. I do know that he lives in South-West Kandria on a mountain in the Great Jravian mountain range, though it is said that he keeps moving around the vast mountain range to keep people from approaching him. If you're interested in speaking to him, you will have to find him yourself."

"Oof," Rui winced. "That's rough."

The Great Jravian mountain range was called 'great' because of its enormous vast expanse extending thousands of kilometers across any direction. If Rui was going to have to find a single Martial Master across this expanse of mountains, he was going to have to scour every ounce of the entire region with his senses.

Also, if the Martial Master did not want to meet him, then Rui highly doubted he would be able to find him.

"I'll have to get it a shot nonetheless," Rui heaved a sigh.

"Are you interested in domain techniques?" Master Ceeran asked, curious. "That's a little unexpected, domain techniques aren't known to be the most flexible techniques, which I thought would not gel well with your Martial Path."

Rui shook his head. "Domain techniques give me the opportunity to adapt another element of combat to my opponent. The environment. The environment is just as important in a fight as the fighters themselves. If I can adapt the environment to my opponent, then I will have achieved a higher level of adaptive evolution than was previously possible."

Master Ceeran's eyebrows rose. "I see, that is truly ambitious. I foresee an enormous growth in your power should you succeed, you may even reach the fourteenth grade as a Martial Senior!"

"Er, I'm pretty sure I'm already in the fourteenth grade," Rui remarked with perplexity. "The Roaring Dragon Blood Potion has given me a considerable boost in power."

Senior Ceeran smirked, amused. "I'm afraid not, young man."

"…Why not?"

Senior Ceeran turned forward, facing ahead. "Did you know that I never managed to reach the fourteenth grade as a Martial Senior?"

"What?!" Rui's eyes furrowed with surprise. "You broke through as a grade-thirteen Martial Senior?"

"Indeed," Master Ceeran nodded. "The average grade to break through to the Master Realm is at grade thirteen."

"That is substantially distant from the peak of the Senior Realm," Rui replied, flummoxed. "You're telling me most Martial Masters were only as strong as I currently am while they were Martial Seniors?"

"Correct," Senior Ceeran replied. "I don't fully understand it myself and probably couldn't explain it as well as a scholar would. But the reason for this is that there is a greater variance of power at the highest echelons of the Senior Realm despite the lower population. The low population means that we do not wish to add another grade just to host a single Martial Senior in it, yet at the same time we cannot simply update the entire grade system as a whole since this isn't a universal increase in power due to expected generational growth over time. Thus rather than having to add more grades for very few Martial Artists and deviate from fifteen grades, simply distribute all the extra variance of the upper echelons amongst the last three grades, making them wider than the other grades."

"Damn…So this is class-interval inflation due to higher mean deviation of the upper-class datasets," Rui murmured, instantly understanding the statistics of the issue.

"Yes. That thingy. That sounds like what the scholars said when I inquired why my grade as a Martial Senior was not going up despite getting much stronger," Master Ceeran replied, heaving a sigh. "Regardless, I did get it intuitively. Did you know that there are only twelve grade-fifteen Martial Seniors in the Kandrian Empire?"

"Wow," Rui murmured, impressed. "Only twelve out of a thousand five hundred or so? That's crazy."

It showed how scarce the power of the Upper Realms was.

"That's right," Master Ceeran sighed. "If we made the grades normal sized and added extra grades, then we would have to have six in grade fifteen, another five in grade sixteen, and one in grade seventeen. But nobody wants to create an extra grade just for one Martial Senior, or for five out of one thousand five hundred, so we stuff them all in grade fifteen and just make the higher grades wider."

"So no wonder I would not be considered grade fourteen just for having grain a substantial boost to my breathing," Rui murmured. "Indeed," Master Ceeran replied. "It's also a testament to the sheer size of the Senior Realm."

Rui nodded, the Senior Realm utterly dwarfed the Squire Realm in width. The gap between the peak and bottom of the respective Realms was not even remotely equal in any way.

"I have a long way to go before I reach the peak of the Senior Realm," Rui murmured. "The difficulty is so high that most Martial Seniors can only dream about being in the most powerful class of Martial Seniors."

"Just so," Master Ceeran smiled. "However, I believe that you specifically shouldn't even bother dreaming about achieving it."

That sounded sharply negative.

"Why not?" Rui furrowed his eyebrows. "Because I believe with all my heart that you will not only reach it but go far beyond it," Master Ceeran smiled. "If you're going to dream about something, it should be far beyond something that is this trivial for the likes of you."

Rui smiled. "I'll bear that in mind."

"Good luck in your pursuit of Master Gurren," Master Ceeran remarked. "Frankly, I highly doubt that you will be able to gain his tutelage. He is known to religiously avoid engaging even with the local Martial community, let alone the international Martial community. He hasn't once accepted a student, so I highly doubt that he will aid you in any way. Still, it's worth a try. Just know that he isn't the sole domain-oriented Martial Artist in this world."