The Martial Unity

Rui gritted his teeth day in and day out as he continuously experienced starvation and torture. He had underestimated the sheer mental fortitude required to master the Mind Switch that he had aimed to master.

The technique was grade-three as far as the difficulty of mastery went, the problem was that it was rated as a technique with low difficulty of mastery because most applications of the technique were to be able to trigger calmness and composure in the Martial Artist aspiring to master the technique. The best part about the technique, when applied this way, was the fact that it was relatively straightforward and didn't need any severe exertion from the Martial Apprentice.

However, Rui had gone far off the normal path and used it to try to trigger the neurological phenomena associated with hunger with pain.

This was something Squire Juvier still found absurd and stupid.

"What do you hope to accomplish?" Squire Juvier asked one day, unable to contain his curiosity any longer. "Why subject yourself to this madness? Why do you want to trigger hunger in the middle of battle? That will only get you killed, take it from someone with extensive experience in the Martial World."

"That's not how it works." Rui sighed. "Hunger is a physical sensation primarily. The Mind Switch technique cannot trigger physical sensations, it can only trigger mental phenomena."

It wasn't that Squire Juvier didn't understand how the technique worked, he just didn't have as thorough an understanding of the difference between sensations and mental phenomena as Rui had, thanks to his background.

"If hunger cannot be triggered, then isn't this even more pointless? Why chase after hunger?" Squire Juvier sighed exasperatedly.

"What I desire are the neurological phenomena associated with hunger," Rui informed him.

"But why?" Squire Juvier asked, curiously.

"Because they'll help me obtain a more powerful Martial body when I become a Martial Squire," Rui replied to him.

"There's no way of that possibly being true." Squire Juvier shook his head, sighing. "The Martial Union would definitely know of such a thing and they would have made it part of the standard procedure if this was worth it. They absolutely would have told me about it, someone who mastered the Mind Switch technique when I was a Squire Candidate."

Rui simply shook his head but kept quiet. There was no need for him to debate with the Martial Squire, it didn't matter one bit whatsoever whether the Martial Squire approved or disapproved of his idea. All he needed was his guidance and help.

And Squire Juvier had obliged dutifully.

In merely a little over a month, Rui had mastered the Mind Switch technique. Even if he had made it more difficult due to his crazy modifications, it was, at its core, a straightforward technique that required zero talent. Furthermore, Rui had a strong affinity for mental techniques due to his enhanced mind.

"Time for a test." He murmured.

There was a straightforward way to verify the degree of success, if any at all, of the technique in achieving the objective with which he had mastered it. If the technique did in fact trigger maximized autophagy that naturally increased the energy and nutrients available to the body, then his stamina would rise tremendously.

All he had to do was test his stamina.

He turned to Squire Juvier with a smile that gave the former a headache. "What is it now? You've mastered the technique, go away!"

"I need you to do the whipping part to me again," Rui informed him

"But why?" Squire Juvier cajoled him.

"To verify whether the technique does in fact function like I want it to," Rui replied.

After some back and forth, Rui finally managed to convince him to heed his words.

"The things I do for Martial Apprentices in the name of guidance." He sighed.

"Alright, begin," Rui instructed him.

And so began a long session of pain infliction. Rui knew his body quite well, he knew how much stamina he normally had. Thus, he would be able to detect any improvements to his stamina sharply. He engaged in physically strenuous exercise amidst the infliction of pain, using Outer Convergence and Flame Breathing to consume vast amounts of power.

At the end of a few hours, the answer became clear.

"Amazing!" Rui's eyes flashed in excitement.

He had retained his energy levels remarkably well. He knew himself, he knew that without Helical Breathing, a technique that aided in preserving stamina, he would not be able to last this long and this well, yet his current condition was better than it would have been had he used Helical Breathing!

"This is beyond my expectations," Rui murmured. The effects of the Mind Switch were the equivalent of consuming multiple physical rejuvenation potions!

This was a luxury because every martial Apprentice knew they could not afford to have it. Consuming a potion could not be done immediately. It took a deep, slow inhalation and then some extra time for the aerosolized potion to be completely diffused into the blood in the lungs. It usually took around ten seconds for a single potion to be consumed.

This was not something that could be done in the middle of physical conflict, especially so since Martial Apprentices experienced time far slower than normal humans. What were ten seconds to normal humans was over a hundred seconds to Martial Apprentices!

Was there any enemy that was patiently willing to wait a hundred seconds for their opponent to rejuvenate themselves? The answer was clearly no. This was even more true for Martial Artists of higher Realms. It was simply too impractical.

That was why Rui was thrilled to discover the sheer effectiveness of maximized autophagy. All his old, dying, and dead cells and other organic components within his body were being broken down and turned into fuel and nutrients for new cells. It was an incredibly efficient and conservative process that truly made the best of everything the human body had.

"Now then..." Rui murmured. "Time to break through to a higher Realm."