The Martial Unity

The moment Rui found a solid clue as to where the Divine Doctor had gone after the Valley of Prisms, he no longer had any need to remain in the region.

"Goodbye, Valley of Prisms," Rui muttered. Goodbye catoblepas.

The latter didn't seem to quite understand what Rui conveyed; they simply scurried away from him in fear.

"Are you seriously bidding goodbye to a valley and a monster species?" Kane raised an eyebrow with an amused grin.

"Of course." Rui nodded seriously. "Had it not been for them, I would not only have not created the SOUL System, but I also would not have found clues to the Divine Doctor. So I am quite grateful to them."

"Uh huh, can we leave now?"

"Sure." Rui turned without a second glance. "Let's get going."

Rui took the lead as he plotted the way to the Forest of Fear based on the map of the Beast Domain he had memorized.

"The Forest of Fear is a Squire-level danger zone, right?"

"Yep." Rui nodded. "It's deeper in the Beast Domain, so it is much harder to survive in."

The Forest of Fear, unlike the Valley of Prisms, was not going to be a smooth sailing region for them.

"Our combat prowess is in the Senior Realm. However, that does not mean that we can afford to relax in the Valley of Prisms. The fact of the matter is that Martial Artists, more than anything else, rely on efficient and effective use of physicality to fight much stronger opponents than their physicality would normally allow," Rui explained.

It was the reason that Martial Apprentices were able to shatter boulders even though their bodies were that of normal human beings.

"That said, that cannot help us withstand the neurological fear-induction of the flora of the region," Rui replied. "After all, efficient and effective application of physical power is not going to increase your neurological fortitude."

"We have our Martial Hearts," Kane reminded him.

"That's true, but the Martial Hearts cannot be active round the clock." Rui shook his head. "In fact, even if it could, it's not worth it to waste such an energy-consumptive state on simply increasing neurological fortitude."

"So what are you suggesting?" Kane raised an eyebrow.

"I'm saying we need to withstand the fear-induction effect of the Forest of Fear without letting it affect our actions too much," Rui replied calmly.

"That sounds incredibly stressful, dude," Kane tiredly retorted.

"Did you expect the Beast Domain to be a stressless cakewalk?" Rui snorted.

The two of them shut up as they grew increasingly alert and aware of their surroundings and environment. The Valley of Prisms was a relatively harmless place. In some ways, it was a test. If Rui couldn't find information about the Divine Doctor in a harmless place, then he certainly wouldn't be able to do so in a more dangerous region.

The Forest of Fear was filled with Squire-level creatures and a few Senior-level creatures here and there.

That was enough to put the two of them on high alert. The Senior-level creatures were definitely capable of taking their lives.

Rui constantly needed to remind himself that the Beast Domain was not a tournament where the strongest individual would win. The Beast Domain was a marathon. One needed to last for extraordinarily long periods in a region that had grown extremely hostile to all life.

"The only way to win a fight is to avoid it."

In that regard, he and Kane had not been particularly good at winning. On top of that, the SOUL System made him far stronger than he had ever been, but it also came with the weakness that the VOID algorithm used to have before the Angel of Laplace.

It required time and information.

Unfortunately, the Angel of Laplace could not mitigate that shortcoming for the SOUL System the way it had for the pattern recognition system of the VOID algorithm. That was because the information that the SOUL System worked with could only come after the trance hypnosis that Rui put his opponent under. Thus, looking into the past, even if he could read non-verbal communication through the Angel of Laplace, was not going to help.

Fortunately, he had long grown used to the shortcoming of needing time for a system of thought to manifest fully. It was nothing new, and he was able to adjust to the shortcomings of the SOUL System pretty thoroughly.

Days passed as the two of them traveled at a remarkably high pace from the Valley of Prisms to the Forest of Fear. They cautiously passed through a variety of regions, each more bizarre and fantastical than the one before it.

They ran into regions where all matter had an extremely low Young's Modulus, a constant that decided how elastic a substance was. This made the land, every solid object, and every solid lifeform extremely elastic and bouncy.

Rui and Kane would be lying if they said they didn't have fun in this region, even if they were on the edge due to being in a Squire-level zone.

BOOM!

"Woah!" The two of them launched themselves nearly a hundred kilometers into the sky with a single jump as the entire region acted as a trampoline.

"I could do this all day!" Kane laughed.

Rui, on the other hand, kept a sharp eye out on their surroundings. There were plenty of bouncing living organisms that had evolved to live in this bouncy environment and were better at fighting than they were.

"Let's activate our stealth," Rui told Kane once he spotted a bunch of living balls that had mean looks in their eyes. "This isn't going to be easy."

WHOOSH

They disappeared into thin air as Rui activated the Greater Phantomind Void while Kane activated Void Step. The two misdirection-based stealth techniques fooled the creatures quite well as they quickly sky-walked away, eventually leaving the region.

"Crazy that such a place exists," Kane turned around once they returned to hard, solid ground.

"Anything is possible in the Beast Domain."

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