The Martial Unity

Rui gained a more thorough understanding of the Virodhabhasa Faith the more he studied it. The religion was actually a lot simpler than the religions he knew of back on Earth. Those religions were much older and had a far greater expanse of mythologies and religious stories and texts.

Many religions had pantheons that were infested with countless gods each with their own set of mythological stories.

Even religions with a single deity encompassed an ocean of stories, doctrines, and other information relevant to the religion.

The Virodhabhasa Faith was a lot simpler in that regard. Its holy book mostly contained the absurdly lengthy divine revelation that recounted many details that Rui considered to be extra fluff to spice up the myth of the Virodhabhasa Faith. There were chapters filled with metaphorical hyperbole adding more details to embellish the existence of the Virodhabhasa.

Yet even as Rui grew bored reading them, there were some excerpts that drew his attention.

Encompassing Creation and Destruction, the universe bows before their splendor.

With a wave of their hand, Martial Paths may rise above or fall under.

Rui couldn't help but wonder what that alluded to, but he felt strange about this particular small excerpt. The strange parallels that ran between his Martial Path, and what he hoped his Martial Path to be and the Martial Art of the Virodhabhasa.

Of course, that did not mean he was convinced that he had any relation to this religion or the deity of the religion, he just found the parallels to be eerie.

However, he accomplished what he had set out to do, he gained a good understanding of their beliefs, principles, and customs.

They revered Martial Artists as beings blessed by the Virodhabhasa. Beings that came to rise only because the Virodhabhasa created Martial Art, and aided them in the discovery of their Martial Path.

This was a view that probably did not sit well with Martial Artists who weren't indoctrinated into the religion prior to becoming Martial Artists.

After all, every Martial Artist, no matter how humble and modest, took pride in being a Martial Artist. It was difficult to be a Martial Artist, and there was usually nothing that truly stopped one from being a Martial Artist except one's self.

Regardless, he wasn't concerned by that at the moment. He was reassured that it was not likely that he would be ill-treated by the Virodhabhasa Faith. The reverence of the Virodhabhasa Faith meant that it took extreme circumstances with which they could antagonize and persecute Martial Artists.

Still, there were some taboos that not even Martial Artists could get away with.

Defiling or ruining artwork that contained any depiction of Virodhabhasa was strictly criminalized within the town and was considered a sin.

Assaulting a religious leader would be punishable by death, no matter the Realm of the offender Martial Artist.

There were a number of strict laws and lesser strict guidelines that Rui made sure to absorb without any complaint.

As long as he followed suit, he would not be in any trouble.

One thing he was glad about was that the Virodhabhasa Faith was a religion that stringently pursued open-mindedness and acceptance. It was a sin to employ force or unwelcome coercion to force or manipulate someone to join the Virodhabhasa Faith.

This was another thing about the religion that relieved him. He would be very troubled if it came to light that the religion forcefully converted everybody who tried to enter the town. However, that was something that the Virodhabhasa Religion strictly refused.

Rui suspected the reason for this was to ensure the religion did not clash with more secular states or states with their own ethnically dominant religions.

Gaining the reputation of an evil cult was something that wasn't worth employing coercion.

The religion never used the stick to gain more followers, instead, it was extremely proficient in applying the carrot to gain more followers. Especially Martial Artist followers. It applied the massive earnings from brokering commissions and receiving donations from across the continent to create facilities and resources for training, growth, and the development of Martial Artists across a remarkable number of Realms, thereby attracting flocks of Martial Artists their way.

In that regard, Rui couldn't help but admire the religion, because it was so dedicated to its religious cause, that it funneled an overwhelming majority of its profits into the expansion of the faith allowing it to fulfill its religious cause with even greater effectiveness.

Seeing all this capital being expended ultimately for its religious cause made Rui curious about it. The Virodhabhasa Faith sought to find the Virodhabhasa in order to have him protect them from a calamity in the distant future.

Did they really think they could find one person on this continent?

The Panama Continent was gigantic. It's surface area far exceeded the surface area of the planet of Earth, and correspondingly the population of humanity occupying the continent was also far greater than the population of Earth during his time.

Searching for one individual, that too with such vague and unspecific qualifiers, was far harder than searching for a needle in a haystack.

Still, it appeared that the Virodhabhasa Faith was rather determined to succeed nonetheless.

Regardless, now that he had gained a better understanding of the Virodhabhasa Faith, he could now avoid pissing off the religious folks of the town, and make it out just fine.

He ventured out of his little inn, taking a stroll across the town once more. He had yet to take off his mask in public, and he didn't intend to do so. It was ultimately better that he kept his identity, even his false one, a secret one.

He walked slowly, taking in the town, yet he wasn't aimless.

He was heading to the central church of the Seonmun Church Town. It was the church that connected all seven hundred and eight churches built across the entire town as the center of a gigantic web and was also the headquarters of the entire town.