The Martial Unity

Rui realized that the Floating Sect was probably the most elite group of Martial Squires for their size anywhere on the continent. The Shionel Dungeon had attracted a lot of powerful Martial Squires, but too many of them weren't high-grade.

Here, however, just reaching here required fighting off multiple Martial Squires.

Furthermore, those who were actually members of the Floating Sect had challenged and killed high-grade Martial Squires. Furthermore, they also killed all those who challenged them without even a single failure.

They were elites among elite Martial Artists with consistent formidability.

It reflected over the next few days as they witnessed challenges between initiates and guardians.

Not a single initiate won.

Rui was quite surprised. He expected that at least a few would be able to succeed. Yet each guardian stood their ground, gaining victory one way or another.

It made sense, of course. In order to stay as a guardian for long, it required surviving challenge after challenge for extended periods of time.

It required being unable to be taken down by most people who came to challenge a Martial Squire.

It wasn't until Rui's eight-day that he finally saw an initiate succeed. A swift offensive maneuvering Martial Artist took down a defensive Martial Artist, claiming her nine hundred and ninety-second chamber for himself.

('A formidable grade-eight Martial Artist was the eighth weakest Martial Artist in the entirety of the island,') Rui sighed, impressed.

The population distribution of the ten grades of the Squire Realm was a sharp and exponentially declining curve. Most Martial Squires were low-grade, some Martial Squires mid-grade, and very few Martial Squires were high-grade.

The reason for that was that simply mastering existing techniques did not make Martial Squires too much stronger.

Affinities between the technique and the Martial Art, Path, and the Martial body were the three most important variables to the power that a Martial Art technique gave a Martial Squire in combat.

An overwhelming majority of Squire-level techniques were overwhelmingly lacking in having an affinity with all three due to the Martial body's spec configuration being unique and different from the normal human body. It was the difference in comfort and aesthetics between a custom-tailored suit versus an ordinary suit that wasn't even the same size or for the same gender as the person in question. The latter was far inferior to the former.

Fewer and fewer Martial Squires possessed the drive and the brilliance to come up with techniques that were both individualistic and compatible with their Martial Art, Path, and body.

It was why very few Martial Squires that came to the Floating Sect were even qualified to challenge guardians, and even fewer possessed the power to take one down.

However, Rui hadn't just spent all those days watching entertaining fights. He had been taking notes on the various guardians that he witnessed fighting. Although he abstained from employing the VOID algorithm's pattern recognition, he still made sure to thoroughly analyze the strengths and weaknesses of their style.

Much to his dismay, there were very few weaknesses. Martial Artists of this caliber were simply strong all around even if there were specialists.

The few extreme specialists that did have shortcomings were so incredibly strong in their chosen field that their strength outshined their weaknesses!

"Alright," Kane told him one day. "I've made my decision. I'm going to fight him."

Kane gestured to a guardian who had just won a challenge.

Squire Heviluo.

The man was a hyper-offensive long-range Martial Squire that sniped his opponent from a distance, his only shortcoming was that he was lacking close range.

"Don't underestimate him," Rui warned him. "His long-range offense truly is amazing, and I know he hasn't shown everything he can do in this fight."

"Yeah, I'll keep that in mind."

Rui was understandably concerned. The man had displayed long-range offensive prowess that significantly surpassed Rui, he had a wider range, and his normal offensive power was as good as Rui's tier-four Transverse Resonance.

That was quite surprising to Rui, it also meant that he could probably kill Kane with a single attack, and that was why he was concerned about Kane.

However, he didn't think Kane's confidence was unfounded, or that his decision was foolish, which is why he didn't stop him either. He knew how strong Kane had gotten recently, and it was certainly not something he could dismiss. He had the capital to challenge Squire Heviluo.

"Have you made up your mind yet?" Kane asked.

"…Not yet, but I have narrowed it down," Rui remarked.

There were several guardians who he found easier to adapt to than others, and he was definitely going to pick his pick among them. He had no intention of pointlessly giving his opponent an advantage in a death match.

There were several things that made adaptation to a style easier than others, and one of them was whether a particular style had a distinct disadvantage or shortcoming or not. All-rounders were much harder to be able to adapt to because their weaknesses weren't obvious, and Rui needed to pay attention to their capabilities and pick the best way to handle each one individually.

That was why his list of potential guardians to challenge were people whose weaknesses and shortcomings were self-evident. He would be able to adapt to them much quicker than normal, allowing him to put up a dominant display.

He also wanted a battle that wouldn't last very long, it was simply not in his interests to get into a prolonged battle that would allow all the challengers watching to get a good grasp of his techniques and his movements.

Though it was inevitable, he was not looking forward to contending with people who had more information on him than he had on them. That was why another condition was an opponent against whom he would need to use a minimal amount of techniques.

With these conditions, he had narrowed it down to just a handful of Martial Artists, after that, it was just a matter of refining his plan.