The Martial Unity

1939 Otherworldly Knowledge

Very few things would have been able to draw their attention away from the fantastical Garden of Salvation.

The revelation that Rui was a being from another world who had been reborn in this world was, in fact, one of them.

Once Kane calmed down, his curiosity revved into top gear.

"Does dying hurt?"

"What did you guys have if not Martial Art?"

"How old were you when you died?"

"Did you guys look like how we do?"

"Was the esoteric stuff of your world different from ours?"

Rui patiently answered each and every single one of them, hoping he would run out of questions as soon as possible. But alas, he didn't. He patiently absorbed all of Rui's answers, deeply pondering them.

"What do you mean you didn't have esoterics?" Kane tilted his head in confusion.

"My old world didn't have magical substances capable of magical feats," Rui replied. "We have to make do with regular old materials and substances."

Kane's eyes widened with shock. "What?! Man, you guys had it rough, huh? I can't imagine how much life sucked."

Rui winced at his reaction. "Well, while there are many, many things that can be accomplished via esoterics, you would be shocked by how much can be accomplished with normal stuff just by gaining a deeper understanding of their properties and the laws that govern them."

Kane raised an eyebrow. "Oh yeah? Like what?"

Rui smirked. "Like sending people to the moon without esoterics or Martial Art."

Kane scoffed in skepticism.

"I'm not kidding."

Kane, too, realized that. "…Seriously?"

Rui nodded. "It's why I am not as optimistic as other Martial Artists that Martial Art will forever remain the dominant force in this world. The power of science and technology combined with the magic of esoteric phenomena will yield a combination that is probably more powerful than anything we can ever imagine."

Sometimes, Rui contemplated that possibility deeply. What if someone in this world eventually came up with Newton's Theory of Gravity, Maxwell's Theory of Electromagnetism, and, more importantly, Einstein's Theory of Relativity that led to the discovery of the equivalence between matter and energy?

The world would gain access to enormous destructive power on top of what they already had. Yet, as bad as that was, what made Rui nervous as a Martial Artist was IT, information technology. It was one of the few avenues where modern Earth was vastly superior to human civilization on the Panama Continent.

The cost of production of IT in this world was high due to the reliance on expensive, magical, and esoteric substances that were not available widely. That same limitation made it such that only the top one percent could have access to reliable information or communication technology.

If they reached even a fraction of what Earth had been capable of in the twenty-first century, then he had strong reason to believe that the dominance of Martial Artists could be under grave threat.

Powerful computer systems could be used to engage in the processing of information needed for weapons to keep up with Martial Artists to even a minor degree. The inability of the esoteric weaponry and artillery, wielded by humans, to keep up with Martial Artists was the primary reason that Martial Artists were the most powerful weapon in the Age of Martial Art.

Even if the former possessed far more raw destructive power, being able to effectively target and take down Martial Artists before they moved at extraordinary speeds and dismantled any artillery or siege establishment was impossible.

"Wait, doesn't that mean you could damage Martial Art a lot if you spread that knowledge?" Kane asked nonchalantly.

He had touched on a sensitive topic.

Rui was not a physicist or an engineer, but he did have a degree in physics and had developed a foundation in a lot of fields that were relevant to combat sports research in some way or the other.

He had a lot of knowledge that could change the world. He had been… limited in his spreading of the knowledge because he feared the changes it could bring about to the broader society around them. Especially the negative changes that harmed Martial Art.

That was the reason that his divulging of knowledge from Earth was done only for the sake of Martial Art and never without it. He didn't mind releasing such knowledge as long as it benefitted Martial Art.

However, he believed that eventually, the human domain of the Panama continent would progress and reach Earth's understanding of non-esoteric reality. The human civilization in this world was identically intelligent to that of his previous life. Thus, there was no cognitive barrier to making the progress he had known in his previous life.

The only reason that they had yet to do so was because most research was directed towards esoteric sciences that studied more fascinating and fantastical manifestations of reality. Thus, if Rui truly wanted to adaptively evolve to any and everything, then it was something that could not be avoided.

"I could damage Martial Art if I spread it hazardously," Rui answered his question promptly. "But I believe that Martial Artists can benefit from it just as much as they can be hurt by it. Ultimately, I will strive to do what is best for Martial Art. Not just for the sake of Martial Art, but also for my own personal ambitions. It will be much better for me if Martial Arts as a whole can deal with what is to come because I intend to become the strongest of them all."

"Hmmm…" Kane grew absorbed in thought. "Do you have a plan for how you're going to do that?"

"…No," Rui admitted. "It's not something that I plan out. I do not care to take the effort of planning out something as extravagant as the integration of knowledge from my previous world into the human civilization of Gaia. What little I have already done came about naturally from sharing my techniques with the Martial Union."

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