The Martial Unity

Kane heaved a sigh, trying to relax.

Unfortunately, he was hoping for too much.

"AAAARGHHRGRJAHAHAHAGAAHARAHAGRHAHAGRRGAGRG!!!"

His eyebrows furrowed with irritation as Rui's scream-laugh fusions disturbed the serenity and harmony of the Garden of Salvation.

It had been a few months since the Elder Tree had transmitted all his knowledge on life in Gaia to Rui. In totality, the two of them had been in the Garden of Salvation for nine months now.

Only a year remained till the Emperor of Harmony died.

"ARRRGHAGAGHHRGRJAHAHAHAGAAHARAHAGRRGHAGGRRGAGRG!!!"

Kane could not help but wonder if they were doomed from the very start.

They might have had a chance if Rui didn't have a fatal flaw with being extraordinarily driven towards adaptive evolution, even if it came at the cost of healing his father. Yet, because Rui had gotten seduced by the Elder Tree, Kane had to wait until the two of them were done with their little mind orgy.

"Tough life…" Kane remarked as he relaxed in an identical replica of his living quarters in the Kandrian Empire.

"AAAARGHHRGRJAHAHAHAGAAHARAHAGRHAHAGRRGAGRG!!!"

Of course, Kane didn't strictly mind it if Rui's dad died.

After all, it wasn't like it was his dad, though he wouldn't mind his own asshole of a father dying either. He also knew that Rui didn't have much, if any at all, of an emotional attachment to his father. The biggest reason he was searching for the Divine Doctor was that he didn't want to ascend to the throne as the Third Emperor of the Kandrian Empire.

"AAAARGHHRAAAAHGRJAHAHAHAGAAHARAHAGRHAHAGRRGAGRG!!!"

Even though Kane didn't mind Rui's dad dying, he didn't want to see Rui become Emperor because it would become impossible to hang out with his best friend and the source of his Martial Drive.

He also knew that it wasn't what Rui wanted.

"Ah, well." He shrugged. "It is what it is."

"AAAARGHHRGRJAHAHAHAGAAHARAHAGRHAHAGRRGAGRG!!!"

While Rui spent the last three months discovering that he was a masochist, Kane had taken some time to work on his Martial Art. He strengthened his fundamentals and foundations more than anything since these were much more important than techniques in the Beast Domain.

He had been working on improving his passive reaction time and awareness, trying to use his affinity for lightning to see if he could upgrade the Primordial Instinct. His goal was to try and use the lightning that he upgraded Godspeed with to form Fulminata, to heighten his awareness and instincts by constantly stimulating them to the very maximum.

"AAAARGHHRGRJAHAHAHAGAAHARAHAGRHAHAGRRGAGRG!!!"

Thankfully, his efforts had yielded success. He had reached an extraordinary level of alertness and awareness through this method, and it worked extremely well. He had managed to extensively test his new technique with the help of the Elder Tree, which had created domains that severely hampered his senses.

What he was especially proud of was the fact that he had taken his first step in forming a nascent system of thought.

Currently, he possessed two 'modes' of fighting, if one could call it that. One where he relied more on stealth and deception and another where he relied more on speed, agility, and, more importantly, evasive maneuvering.

These were, to some extent, mutually exclusive. At the very least, he could not use Void Step and Fulminata Godspeed simultaneously, and each of those techniques was the strongest of the two modes of combat he engaged in.

One of the issues that he had was that he often had a hard time of choosing which mode to begin with against which opponent. Normally, he just went with his gut, but there were plenty of times where he made the wrong choice.

This was not an acceptable arrangement.

Especially in the Beast Domain, where the wrong choice meant death.

In fact, they would have died several times by now if not for his grandmother's prophecies.

The need to choose correctly became stronger.

His choices could no longer be driven by guesswork; they needed to be thoughtful. He came to the realization that in order to be thoughtful, he needed to have a system of thought that allowed him to evaluate his circumstances and make thoughtful choices.

Thus, nearly a year ago, in the Garden of Salvation, he had begun endeavoring to create his very first system of thought. He spent many hours thinking about how he would employ thought to make the right choice each time.

Unfortunately, he hadn't even come close to success even after a whole year of dedicated thought.

"Rui makes it look so easy." He cursed.

The way Rui created powerful and potent systems of thought had created a false illusion within Kane's mind that he could do it pretty well if he wanted to, but the sheer astronomical difficulty of creating an effective and viable system of thought was far, far more difficult than creating Martial Art techniques.

It was such unfamiliar territory for Kane that he had absolutely no idea how to even get started.

How did one begin?

How did one progress?

How in the world did one test and improve systems of thought?

His respect and admiration for Rui for creating the VOID algorithm, the Angel of Laplace, the ODA System, and the SOUL System only heightened. Only after trying to create his own system of thought did he realize how absurdly impressive the ones Rui created were.

His thoughts were interrupted when a stark silence suddenly replaced the screams.

"Done?" Kane asked out loud.

Yes. The session for today is over.

"Is he…?"

Thus far, arguably, he has probably retained his mind and sanity.

"Arguably?" Kane narrowed his eyes. "Probably?"

I am not a mental health expert. Certainly not for Martial Artists. I am unable to comment on his mental health at the moment. What I can say is that he is responsive and conscious and has successfully processed and stored all the information I have supplied him.

Kane heaved a sigh. "Is he awake?"

He has already fallen asleep.

"Well, alright, I suppose I'll just have to catch him when he wakes up."

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