The Martial Unity

Rui heaved a deep breath, staring at Master Gurren.

Frankly, three months were far longer than he had hoped, even if Master Gurren claimed otherwise. But it could not be helped. Even with his growth, it was extremely difficult to master it any sooner.

"Still, I suppose three months isn't too bad," Rui replied.

"Hmph, arrogant brat."

"How long does mastering the foundations of heaven and earth to this level normally take?" Rui asked.

"A year," Master Gurren replied.

"…Ordinary Martial Artists sure have it rough."

"You truly are arrogant through and through," Master Gurren snorted.

"I was jesting. Partially."

"Hmph. It is time to fulfill your end of the bargain," Master Gurren remarked with eager eyes. "Now then, create the technique that will allow me to peer into the depths of the cosmos!"

Rui smiled, activating his Martial Heart, before turning up to the night sky and breathing out in a specific manner. His hands stretched out in front of him, forming a symmetric hand sign that altered the shape and density of the wind currents his breath generated.

It created several hemispherical layers of high-pressure high-density air at specific distances from Rui that he constantly maintained with the force of his breathing and his hands redirecting the vectors of his breath.

The altered density of the air needed to be just perfect, altering the optical density of the air pockets in just the right manner so that they would refract light, in the same way, a convex lens made up of glass would.

It was his first time trying this, so it took quite some time, but eventually he succeeded.

What followed shook Master Gurren.

"This…!!" He gasped at the sky itself warped, zooming in straight up as he saw the ocean of tiny twinkling stars becoming more distinct.

It was as though Rui's technique had bent the entire universe.

"Incredible…!" He witnessed stars enlarging into not-so-small spots of fire. He saw strange, vast oceans of clouds that he had never seen before. He saw the vague figure of a glowing spiral in the backdrop of the enlarged image that Rui conjured. "What are those?!"

"That is a galaxy," Rui replied calmly. "It's a collection of stars. That is a nebula; it appears that there is one of both very nearby in our interstellar neighborhood; otherwise, even this powerful telescopic domain would not be enough to spot one."

Rui used words that sounded alien and unlike anything he had ever heard.

"'Nebula'…?" He uttered them aloud.

Rui nodded. "Where do you think stars come from? They are born from nebulae. That strange cloud is made up of a gas known as Hydrogen. Eventually, gravity will cause the hydrogen gas to coalesce into giant balls, causing an immense amount of pressure to well up at the core of the ball of gas, triggering nuclear fusion, which causes it to enormous heat and light, resulting in the birth of a new sun."

Master Gurren stared at Rui with pure shock and amazement. He didn't understand the words that Rui uttered, but they sounded fascinating, unlike anything that he had ever heard of.

"The birth of a sun?" He incredulously whispered. "And…'galaxy'…

was it? What are those?"

"They're just rotating collections of stars and dark matter," Rui calmly replied. "Each contains hundreds of billions of stars, just like the Sun. And considering how similar this cosmology is to what I am familiar with, I would venture to say there are probably trillions of galaxies out there, bare minimum."

"WHAT?!" The Master bellowed.

Rui smiled, amused at the Master's exaggerated reaction.

"How can you possibly know all of this?" The Master asked. "Is all of that true?! I must know!"

Rui smirked. "If you want to know whether or not it's true, then you'll have to find out yourself. After all, I just created the tool that allows you to explore the universe with your own power. Explore the universe and find out for yourself."

Rui's smile deepened. "Find out if what I told you is the truth or not."

He stared at Rui with a bewildered expression before turning back to the enlarged image that Rui's domain demonstrated. "Incredible."

"We can probably see even more if we take to the heavens," Rui informed him. "Less air scattering of light."

The two of them shot up into the sky, eventually enhancing the image further and providing greater details.

"Incredible!!" Master Gurren remarked.

Suddenly, Rui dispelled the domain, heaving a sigh.

"Hey!" The Master protested.

"I'll teach you the technique; you can do it yourself," Rui waved him off, placating him with the excitement of mastering such a wonderful technique.

"To think that we are so small," Master Gurren remarked, his eyes swimming around as he experienced a cosmic existential crisis at how utterly insignificant even his mighty power was before the grand magnificence of the heavens beyond earth.

Rui smiled knowingly, turning around as he gestured to the world below them.

His voice took on a sagely luster.

"if you look at it, it's no more than a dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species there…"

Rui smirked softly.

"…on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam."

Master Gurren stared at him with amazement. "…I have never heard a more profound thing uttered by any other human being in my life."

He gained a deep amount of respect for Rui as his demeanor shifted.

Rui, on the other hand, was laughing inwardly. One of the benefits of reincarnating in a new world was that he got to plagiarize all the great quotes he had heard back on Earth!

This particular quote was one from the great astronomer Carl Sagan when he beheld the first distant image taken by Voyager II. Rui thanked the late astronomer for his wisdom as he partook in the profoundness of his words.